My business partner, and friend Diego Alonso van Camp brought me to Mauritius in November 2010. Despite of my sceptical position - we launched the project, and in 6 months time - we had already most popular website in Mauritius for selling & buying used cars.

1,300,000 of Mauritian population at that time for 3,000 unique visitors a day - was making our project really successful, however uniqueness of Mauritian dealerships such as small quantity of used cars and very small range of vehicles - was making our business a bit complicated.

Lets say we connected 5 used car dealers online, and we had the following vehicle range online:

1. 10 Honda Fit (2006-2010)

2. 10 Toyota Vitz (2006-2010)

Then we connected 50 used car dealers online, and we had the following vehicle range online:

1. 120 Honda Fit (2006-2010)

2. 150 Toyota Vitz (2006-2010)

3. 100 - Nissan March (2006-2010)

4. 100 - All other used cars models.

And now imagine to come to the website and see 120 Honda Fit with more or less same mileage, price range and year. What you do? How do you choose your car online?

Exactly! Our business has come to a standstill, where everything comes down to a personal relations of the seller and the customer, rather than a successful online advertising. Virtually the same scenario as Botswana, only because of the lack of a large range of cars on the market of Mauritius.

Therefore, “a piece of cake” which we had - was not enough for everybody, and worked only for a small part of the market. It was dramatically limiting our market capacity and we found the solution to recover our lost by launching “Private deal” service, where we were providing a brokerage service to private individuals, who were selling their cars and paying us some commissions for getting customers for them.

Having some car dealers + Private deal - the project began to generate some revenue, enough to feel financial independence, but not enough to make a decision to stay in the country permanently. And any attempt to employ a local person to run and maintain it - ended in failure, until the banal theft of clients' money and the disappearance of the employee later.

Since then, the project has been left online as a pilot, ie for the collection of statistics and in the hope of Lightstone in the future.

Andriy Bondar

When I was going to Botswana, I expected something like “wow” because according to Wikipedia, Botswana was very developed and rich country in Africa.

The niceties of Botswana, I started to feel on the way from Windhoek to Gaborone. By driving in the night with car speed about 140 kilometres per hour - I hit a donkey.

The car was fine, and myself was shocked, but donkey flew through the car, then rose up and walked away. I am not sure how far, because I did not see the animal since that time, but my shocking experience left the memory for the rest of my life. It turns that government in Botswana refuses to put a fencing across the roads like in Namibia, and running around wild animals on the road - this is a quite normal thing for Botswana.

When I arrived, I could not understand why with more or less the same population as Windhoek - Gaborone is full of traffic jams, while Windhoek is clear?! Security guards in supermarkets are checking your bags and comparing it with the receipt from the cashier, and one company named Universal Builders are owners of almost all property in Gaborone.

One thing was for sure - it is not even close to Namibian economy despite of Wiki statements.

The first important difference was that 90 % of owners of vehicle sales industry were from Asian countries such as India, Sri-lanka, Pakistan, China. The other 10 % locals & South African. Which was giving me more problems due the lack of understanding of Asian mentally and how to deal with it.

The second important difference was that Botswana allowed to import vehicles older than 5 years, and thousand of really cheap used cars from Singapore and Japan was standing at the area called Mogoditshane. And the market for cheap used cars has been so great that the market for so-called “local cars” - looked ten times less. And it was the biggest problem which I faced in Botswana during the launching of our project:

Advertising of cheap used cars, from couple of dealers, on the same street with 100’s of other similar dealers - its a total waste of money. Because when it comes to buying, and potential buyer is coming to view the car - he sees at the same time thousands of other similar cars nearby. And eventually the buys a car from a dealer who managed to build with a customer a better relationships, regardless his first choice, which is always very weak and more depending on human factor. What can’t be said about the more expensive car, when the buyer knows exactly that he/she wants only this specific car, and not the other one.

It was a complete failure of the project in Botswana with dealers who were selling imported cars, but a big success with “local dealers” who sells “local”, more expensive cars for a middle class and a luxury segment of the market.

And in the end, the project began to generate a modest income, serving the few dozen dealers that could not be called a failure, but nevertheless the Namibian success we have not received.

We have learned a lot. We have learned how politic, mentality & law can change the level of success. A “copy/paste" idea from South African or Namibian project ,which we had in the mind before to come to Botswana was only an illusion. It does not work that way. And now we learned by ourselves why big international corporations are thriving in one country and failing in other.

Andriy Bondar

South Africa is a very big and unique market, with great opportunities and big challenges.
The car industry is so much developed, that vehicles become a stock market product, together with oil, gold, US dollar, so on. And the main reason for this its the law, which makes all vehicles bought via banks - property of banks, until the last payment for the loan has been made.

Because 90 % of cars bought on credit, and they are property of a bank - the price for all used cars are regulating artificially via books named “Car book value” issued monthly by TransUnion.

Due the lack of public transport as a concept, all South Africans who has attained the age of eighteen - need to have a car in order to survive. If you don’t have a car - your children don’t go to school & you can’t do any job.

Do not confuse South Africa with Europe or Asia, where you can sell a car, and start using the subway, trolleybus, tram or bus. There is nothing like this in South Africa, and "Asian solutions" such as scoters or motorbikes are not going to work because of very long distances are there. It's like a little USA. So verdict is that any single person over 18 y.o. must have a vehicle. Does not matter how much it cost : If you lucky with your job - you buy a better car, and if you lost your lucky job -you are selling a good car, but still buying a cheaper car. But you can’t sell a car and don’t buy any in return. This makes SA market extremely unique.

Imported vehicles are banned in South Africa. Not really banned, like banned but South African banks do not finance it due the lack of warranty, and insurance companies also do not want to deal with it. And cash market which is only 10 % of whole sales - can not provide conditions attractive enough for South African’s to buy it: no parts, no service, no cars older than 5 years, etc….

Attention to Japanese car dealers - forget about South Africa, and stop spamming them none-stop! They will not buy your vehicles.

South African car dealers are very conservative, and make them use something new, takes much more effort than even produce that service. They don’t want to listen anything new. But if you lucky enoght and finally get them - its a very stable and strong relationships and most of the time the business stands in the market thanks to a personal relationships rather than technology. And having only common sense - would not be enough to challenge South African market.

Vehicle Traders Limited Edition cc has an exclusive rights to represent our technology in South Africa after they bought 100 % of shares of South African business entry from AfricaUA (Pty) LTD in November 2013.

Since that time - we do not own South African business entry and providing only a contracted support and basic maintenance, which is very limiting our possibilities and ambitions.

Most of the time we are not agree with strategy & concept of new South African owners. And doing paid support and maintenance - we have no freedom of choice any longer as it was before, when we were shareholders and decision-makers of the business.

Andriy Bondar 

DEALER LOGIN NAMIBIA DOES NOT CUT ANY DEALER IF SUCH DEALER ADVERTISE IN OTHER WEBSITES OUTSIDE OF DEALER LOGIN NETWORK!

The false information which was spread by some of Exclusive Cars employees today in the meeting is simply not true. We don’t cut any dealer, and all dealers are currently online regardless they advertise somewhere else or not.

The only difference is that for such dealers who advertise on websites outside of Dealer Login network - we don’t show their phone numbers until the user sends the text message + we don’t provide a free website for such dealers.

THIS IS THE NORMAL WORLD-WIDE PRACTICE in any sector: automotive, real estate, accommodation, even goods and commodities.

its a normal reaction that we try to protect ourselves from dishonest competitors.

We don’t want to give any opportunity to our competitors to cheat on us & on you - thats all.

If we show phone numbers, competitors might say that its their website delivered the client, not ours. So how we can track the lead and not giving wrong credits to our competitors?

The only way do to it - its to display the phone number after the user submits the mail. Then we can clearly see which website gives more response. This is normal world-wide experience and commonly used in South Africa:

www.autodealer.co.za 

www.cars.co.za 

www.carfind.co.za

www.surf4cars.co.za

Australia:

www.carsales.com.au

www.drive.com.au

www.carpoint.com.au  

and many other countries.

We can only guess why Exclusive Cars employees are so aggressive with very unhealthy interest - its seems like they have some cut, share or any other interest other sites-competitors entry and such politic of Dealer Login makes their try very difficult (difficult to mislead and misinform car dealership owners).

But Namibia is a democratic country and this is our democratic right to balance our rules and policies for security purposes as much as we can, as long as its legal. And if Namibia is claiming to be democratic - we have those rights as much as in South Africa, Australia & other countries.

Please stop terrorising Dealer Login, by government officials with unhealthy interest to us. We are so tired of government officials with lack of education in IT sector, but aggressive behaviour and demands of attention, that makes us believe that corruption component is involved in all those audits. Which is bad sign for Namibia, because its a sign of third-world country.

We don’t mind about audits and questionings. All what we ask - is to be investigated by qualified people, who has at least a basic clue about internet and IT sector in generally, and not demanding from us to teach government representatives for hours, days, & years, before they understand the concept.

Dmitry Mazuryk

    (The stock excnahe screenshot was updated on 31/07/2016 for better understanding) 

“Internet is like a railroad. Every one knows that it works, but none knows when it ends.” – But what if the railroad is built on fake tracks and we have been given a false destination? Does the money from investors fund an empty dream, or worse yet somebody else’s pockets, and returns nothing more than air?

My name is Andriy Bondar and this is my insider account of what really is happening in the world of internet marketing, a world of fake heroes, fairytales, puppets, and empty promises.

Who am I?

Since 2006, I have created websites into businesses for vehicle advertising in Africa and Asia. I have done thousands of websites and this is without exaggeration. I have made millions of dollars for myself, my partners and business investors by focusing solely on the business of online vehicle advertising. For the first 5 years I was working for 16 hours a day, not moving outside of my house, and the few hours that I slept I dreamt of scripts & concepts for vehicle advertising solutions online.

Countless stories later, my current portfolio is visible on current website. This represents only a minute % of the work that has been done in since our establishment, the % that I live of. The other let’s say 80% is no longer in my hands or may not be presented here due our commercial obligation to restrict our relations to some of our projects.

What does it take to make money from online vehicle classifies?

First what you need to understand clearly is that for the developers or the website (business) owners to make money from online vehicle classified sites it is completely unnecessary to make a website popular. This may seem counter-intuitive as we all think that a website is only profitable when people use it and make transaction on it. Well, the truth is you just need to be good at selling the idea to the next person with more money than yourself who can then reach out to the next investor and so-on. Internet businesses can be easily (mis-)used in such a way, like an investment vehicle, building on the illusion for the next potential “victim” (investors).

One of my bosses who eventually became a partner once said to me:

“Internet is like a railroad. Every one knows that it works, but none knows when it ends.”

This stayed with me. It really explained the ephemeral nature of the business I am in. Some sort of empty “hug” to credulous investors, a virtual un-gentlemanly shake.

Comparing internet businesses with “the Gold Rush” might now seem cliché to most, and this would be OK if it didn’t come with such real and devastating repercussions to everybody who believes the hype.

Yes they are dressed in beautifully tailored blue suits, no tie to reflect the air of intrepidness, a tech-era visionary rhetoric that is so pleasing to the ear.

The scene is set. The actors are in place. The story promises “gold”. Now we need somebody to fund the production. New economies, emerging economies, unexplored worlds of opportunity where few rules apply... lots of “gold”.

What every one seems to be forgetting is that the tools that are purportedly used to extract that “gold” could sum much more than the actual value of the “gold” lying underground.

Here is the thing, those people in this business who promise “gold” – they are making money by “selling tools”; they do not really care if the gold will come. It does not mean that there is no “gold”, all what I say is that people who say so, and make the tools to extract it - do not care about it.

The story that led to this understanding

In September 2014, I launched the project in Uganda, Africa under the name www.cars.co.ug with a monthly marketing budget coupe of thousand US dollars per month. When I mentioned my budget to my local partner, David, he thought that I was joking with him. He could not believe that we can start such a venture with  and compete against African Media Group under the brand “Cheki Africa” who boasted their $10,000,000 USD investment from some Australian investment group.

After some back and forth I somehow convinced him to jump into the venture. After just one year of operations, David reports that accoding to dealer's feedback our site is selling more cars for them. For the purpose of context, Checki Uganda had been running for years, reportedly invested huge sums of money and carry a huge media presence with ads all over Uganda: from build boards, to newspapers, TV & radio. 

In November 2014, I launched the project in Tanzania, under the name www.autohub.co.tz with a monthly marketing budget couple of housand US dollars per month, and local partner who similarly had doubts but was finally inclined to join me in this venture to try to compete with now two well known “giants” of the industry, Cheki Africa and Carmudi. In little time he reports that the car sales from our website exceed that from other sites mantioned above.

He is incredulous and does not understand how it is possible, as these guys have major investment behind them publicized specifically towards the purpose of increasing their operations, and well, he really thought that we have no chance to compete with “the big guys”.

Before Uganda & Tanzania – IcarAsia was trying to buy 50,1 % of www.philmotors.com - our business entry in the Philippines, but I considered their deal was not attractive enough and denied their offer.

Then Malaysian based Frontier contacted me with proposal to take my website concept with their investment to African countries where we were not represented yet. When I disclosed my business model and mentioned the amount of money I really needed and that I can offer over 50% of the business - they got confused:

a) They were not happy that I asked for too little money, because if so little money needed - there is no space for a later investor to make their own cut.

b) They could not understand why I am giving away such a large % of my business and not taking at least half, but when I said that investing in Africa is a big risk, that there are no guarantees, and because of their investment they deserve such a % - they refused to believe in my decency and started to suspect some “catch” from my side.

Eventually I got into an unsavory e-mail exchange with Mr. Shaun Di Gregorio (CEO of Frontier DV) who blamed me for not knowing how to run the business, with me blaming him for other things in return. It would make good reading, but it is not to the point now.
Even an Australian investment bank contacted me during this time before they made the deal with Media One (Cheki Africa), but eventually they did not come back as well as the rest of these potential investors.

This whole chain of events really got me thinking. Why is it that I have a proven business model, with clear income streams, and am not able to close a deal with these interested investors? Why are these investors choosing my competitors who from my well-educated point of view make a much lower offer technologically and conceptually from the technology which I offer in the market?

My arrogant behavior? Rude attitude? Limited knowledge of English? …

Or is it possible that the reason for all of the above is that my business model is not included kind of way of "cashing back"?

Let’s reflect on this a second:

If someone decides where to invest $25,000,000 USD and cares little about the result of such an investment, makes a huge deal in the market about their own investments as the little daughter of a public company somewhere… is it possible that those guys were not looking for a real business opportunity at all, but they were looking for "cash back" or shall we dare say, "money laundering"?

Hypothetically! It is logical or not? - You decide!

But,
The only explanation that comes to my mind, is that they only use the ‘idea’ of online vehicle advertising to sell it to the general public as a kind of commercial off-shoring of the stock market shares. Its attractive, sounds nice, and aligns well with the emerging market-global storylines and the all conquering nature of the internet. For the average investor this sounds just about how online vehicle advertising works, and all media news about the size and value of the investment and level of success reinforces their belief. Whether these messages come in paid blog posts, pre-releases, or filter through unassuming mainstream media.

Conclusion

When I see how much money Carmudi spends in the Philippines, according to their own PR spin - I am failing to understand the logic of their investment. We service the same clients, the car dealers in the Philippines, and the money is simply not there to support this investment. Not now, now in 10 years time. Unless of course the logic is not to make money at all, that is, to create a real revenue model to actually monetize the business, but only to spend more just for the one reason - to attract more investors.
Because during 5 years of our operation on the Philippines we have only spent  few hundred thousands USD and philmotors.com is already ranked on Google very well for top car sales keywords. Car dealers say Philmotors.com works best. Yes, we are still struggling to monetize the business, but at least the project pays for itself and does not take any more investment. That means that we can afford to offer all car dealers our service absolutely for free without loosing any value and money. But this can be understood ok with a few hundred thousands USD private investment but probably it will not be ok with $10m.

Why should we care?

What other people do with their money should not be much of my concern, or probably anybody else’s for that matter. However, maybe we should stop to think of two things.

1 is this a service or a de-service to the local economies, clients, and users who are used as puppets by being offered sub-standard services with zero value to their interests?

2 should we allow for this charade to continue, where so-called internet visionaries are praised for making false headlines after false promise. Should we be following the steps of the Maydoff’s of the internet for a couple of quick bucks, or worse yet for no bucks at all?

You decide.

Andriy Bondar