Welcome back to Resilient Entrepreneurs, the podcast that showcases inspiring stories of individuals who have overcome obstacles and turn their business dreams into reality.
Piers Carr is the founder of Current Vehicles, Bermuda’s first rental car company and shared mobility platform. Piers started his career in reinsurance actually but after about 10 years he realised that he wanted to pursue something that he was truly passionate about. He saw an opportunity to improve Bermuda’s tourism product by addressing the limited transportation that's offered to visitors on the island and the idea for Current Vehicles was born.
Today, Current Vehicles provide visitors with an easy and convenient way to get around the island and it changes the way locals think about transportation; we're looking forward to talking about that too. Pier's vision and determination have paved the way for a more sustainable and accessible future for Bermuda.
This is Resilient Entrepreneurs, we're your hosts Vicki and Laura with another great episode. Welcome, Piers!
Thank you for having me. Great to be here.
You're quite visionary and we're really looking forward to digging into what makes you tick and how you came about succeeding in a number of things. So let's start at the beginning. How did you launch Current Vehicles? And what was the thinking behind it?
Well, I was still in reinsurance, I was based in New York at the time and I think at that point, I'd been in the industry for about eight years and it had been great. I'd met a lot of great people, I learned a lot about business but I think I realised at that point that I wanted to do something that I was really passionate about and coming from Bermuda, love the island, love tourism had worked jobs in tourism throughout a few summers, and just thought that we could do stuff slightly differently, as far as transportation. Help tourists get around and it sort of coincided with the introduction of new technology, so electric vehicles were just starting to emerge and there were some options out there. And I thought I would see them on my travels and go, This would be perfect for Bermuda. I was in Spain where my dad lives one summer, and saw this. I had plans to bring in a different electric vehicle and then saw this Twizzy come out in front of me on the road there and I said, What is that thing? This is going to be perfect for Bermuda. So I did a bit of research, went straight down to the dealership, learned all I could about it and then started the process. This was 2012 and it was a five year journey from when we first approached the government and the Tourism Authority to when we actually put our first vehicles on the road. So it was a very drawn out process and actually we can talk about this in a bit more detail if you'd like, but it was really being quite fortuitous with the America’s America's Cup coming to Bermuda, I think sort of paved the way for the legislation to be passed.
That’s phenomenal, five years! I mean so many people would just give up before the five years was done.
Yeah I continued working in what I called my day job, but was working on the side, business plans, trying to get as much support as I could for this idea. So typically that would be with the Tourism Authority, trying to get letters, working closely with Belco (Electricity Utility) who were going to help us with the the charging infrastructure, and trying to get the support of the hoteliers because obviously they have to deal with their guests trying to get around the island and the limited options that were available to them. So it was really about building as much support as we could and then just being very persistent with government and the Transport Control Department to try and get the legislation passed. So it was, it was definitely, there were certainly times when I thought this was never going to see the light of day but something just told me told me to keep going.
Yeah, it was definitely a revolutionary new thing for this island who previously only.. for those who don't know, aren't in Bermuda, we only ever had scooters for tourists to ride around on. And with cars, ownership is limited in Bermuda too so it even affects locals. But I'd love to know, so you launched with the America's Cup at the same time. So tell us about that a little bit, what happened there?
Yeah, it's kind of coincidental but I think it was the fact that the world's eyes were going to be on Bermuda for a little bit and we were going to attract visitor numbers higher than we had seen in decades, I think. And I think it was time to showcase the best of Bermuda and to try to be able to meet the demand. We needed more vehicles but also something that was going to not leave people with road rash or worse. And so that I think, was the catalyst to get that passed. But it was great for us, being our first vehicles were French made by Renault. We thought, wouldn't it be cool if we could somehow partner with Team France and so we worked a deal between Renault and Team France, where they would sponsor vehicles for a month or so and Team France got essentially free transportation in Renault’s little cool electric vehicles, which they would zip around the island in. So it was very visible for us and it was a great partnership, lots of good photo opportunities and it seems like it was 15 or 20 years ago, but it was a great way for us to get going, it really was, lucky.
Yeah! It does feel like it was all that time ago, 2017. And it was a very sexy kind of launch, I was lucky enough to be at your launch at the French base because I was the local director of communications for America's Cup in Bermuda. And it was, everything just seemed to line up so well from the outside anyway, where you had the chic, sexy little Twizzy that was so new to Bermuda and to Bermudians, right? Unless people had spent a lot of time in Europe, even if they’d travelled a lot, they may not have seen this, because it's very not American is it? So it was all there, a lot of all the right ingredients for a launch. There was the mystique and the sassiness and the unique appeal. And then you've got these French speaking or French accented people being really the ambassador's of them.
No, it was a great time.I think as an island the whole event opened our eyes to lots of great stuff and the potential that Bermuda has as a destination. And I think it was executed, certainly from the outside, the whole event was executed so well and just goes to show what we are capable of doing and what we can pull off. And I hope that we start to see more of that stuff in the future.
I love that there was a legacy piece to this in that it allowed you and other businesses to do something different for the island because that was a time when politicians and tourism officials and the public really were called on to think differently and to think more openly and to open up to new ideas, which of course is exactly where entrepreneurs want us to be all the time. So that was very good. Tell us how the public perception was with the French. I think there's a story in there.
Yeah, in their nature, the sailors love racing. And so we were well aware that there was, before we launched, negative press around not necessarily our business, but the idea of bringing anything other than scooters to Bermuda. And so be it small electric cars, whatever, we don't like change here, we tend to.. we don't embrace change as an island, and therefore we were very nervous about how the launch would go. And obviously we had this great partnership with Team France we were really excited about but 35 kilometres an hour being the speed limit here was not something they were gonna ever stick to. So reports of these sailors flying down to Dockyard in the morning and flying back was something that we had to have a few conversations with them to see if they could slow it down. I think it fell on deaf ears but thankfully no accident and we got out of there okay.
That's hilarious. And I can just also visualise the boats that they're flying around on whilst they're in training and racing, so you could certainly see there's a speed demon in each of them. You're about to launch a new part of your business or another model.
During COVID, we obviously as tourism business, had a really tough time through that. And we decided to roll out a shared mobility platform. So we went from being a web-based booking platform, I want a car for one day, I want to pick up at this location, someone will meet you there, give you keys, off you go, to an app, which is, you've got it in most countries now, you open the app on your phone, you find a vehicle near to you, you unlock it, and you only pay for the time you use. And so we started going. This is going to work really well, we're hoping it’ll work really well, but we knew at that time we needed to introduce new models of vehicles. Twizzy has been the workhorse of our fleet, it's done really well but we know it's not everyone's cup of tea, we know it has its shortcomings. It's one passenger behind the other, the battery range isn't as much as we would love it to be and there are new manufacturers coming out with other cars. And we waited for something that we thought was really cool and brought in a car called the XEV YOYO about six months ago and started testing it. It's brand new, it's only in maybe one other country or two others now. But this was side-by-side seating, a range of about 150 kilometres, air conditioning, a bit of trunk space and the coolest part of it, it has swappable batteries. So you're no longer tied to having to wait for your vehicle to charge. The idea that we're going to roll out is, turn up to a gas station, turn up to one of our facilities and have your battery switched out in minutes for a small fee, and back on the road again. So those should be arriving mid-May, hopefully in time for when we start to get really busy.
That's super cool. Who's your target market for them? Is that mostly for visitors? Or are you thinking locals are gonna take advantage?
We've seen massive adoption of our app through the local market. And what's nice is that you can now pick up a vehicle in St George's or Dockyard or the hospital and drive it one way and leave it wherever you're going in one of our homes. So it's the introduction of what we hope will be that fourth pillar of transportation in Bermuda and Twizzys have been popular but again, we know that if we're really going to entice Bermudians to sign up, we need that side-by-side fully enclosed car and that's what our visitors have also been asking for, for a while now. Twizzy is great for those that go, I want a unique experience while I'm here on holiday but after a week, maybe some will say after a couple of days, they're like, I've done this, I want to try something else. And so yeah, we’re trying to appease both locals and visitors alike.
I really see it as being such a useful thing, if someone's car is in the shop, or one parent needs to take kids somewhere on a day, I just see so much use for that and the swappable batteries is a really cool feature to add.
Yeah, it's been around on scooters, the electric scooters and electric bikes for a while but never really deployed in cars, so yeah, we're looking forward to seeing how that plays out. With everything that we do, we try and test as much as possible but until you're in a real world situation, you're never going to know, but that's the plan.
So how would you compare what you're planning for the launch of this new product with your first launch and knowing that it took you five years to get this thing off the ground. Clearly you've already paved the way for a lot of the regulatory issues, tell us a bit about that and maybe also, you said you'll flesh out a little bit about the five year journey.
Yeah, so the cars have been approved already. So it should be in theory and I know that I should never sort of rely on this, but it should be a fairly seamless introduction for the new vehicles. Charging remains pretty much the same, so our infrastructure, the plugs need to be changed but it really doesn't, that's easy to do. And there's going to be a bit of..we'll obviously market the vehicles but they do a lot of marketing for themselves, they're going to be mint green and they turn heads and just being out on the road, I think it's going to in itself, just really grab people's attention, and then through our website and obviously some digital marketing as well, we're going to try and launch it. But being that it's our busy time of year we want to get them out there as quickly as we possibly can.
We're heading right into tourism season, right, where it's really going to start to pick up. So what is that vision for this tourism season? What is your take on it? Do you think this year is picking up? What do you think so far? I'm curious as to your thoughts.
I think as entrepreneurs, you have to be an optimist, an eternal optimist, particularly when you're faced with adversity and the last year, I went into last year going, We’re back, this is going to be a great year. And it was a really difficult year for us. We did obviously pick up from the previous years but I think the arrival numbers, certainly airlift was down 50%, then we found ourselves with big supply chain issues, so trying to get the parts for our vehicles was difficult. So we had a large percentage of our fleet offline which wasn't good. This year, supply chain seems to be fixed so we will be able to put a full fleet out and by all accounts, the conversations I'm having with the hotels and our pre-bookings are looking really positive. I think the biggest difficulty we faced last year is if we start to get busy in a normal year, around April or May and by June we're in full swing, Last year it was a slow start, people were still trying to find their feet. Obviously, there was a lot of pent up demand for travel but we didn't really get busy until the end of June and then July was crazy, start of August crazy, and then it sort of fell off a cliff which was really weird for us. And that's okay, we stay busy and steady but often there is demand that massively outstretches what us as an industry can supply and I didn't feel that we had that sort of summer.
How do you balance that roller coaster, especially in the tourism industry, where it’s not so steady?
One of the ways that we do that is obviously recognising the importance of the local market. So tourism is obviously seasonal here in Bermuda, the local market 60,000 people all with varying degrees of transportation issues are here all year round and they should be our low hanging fruit. That's who we need to market to, and we've rolled out a subscription offering where you can sign up and you pay a monthly fee of $100 and then get 50% off all your rentals. So that pays back after one and a half days of renting. And what we're trying to do is build that recurring revenue that takes away some of that seasonality of what we're doing, and allows locals to benefit from 50% off their rentals.
And you've also built tech into your business model. I hear everything that you're saying it's relying on new technology and using it effectively. Can you elaborate a bit on the importance of tech for a business such as yours?
Yeah. Tech can be incredibly handy here in Bermuda for a number of reasons. It builds consistency. So it’s allowing people to depend on a platform to book vehicles and to know that what they book is going to be there and going to be delivered. It also allows us to really manage our overheads, because once you've deployed tech, we're not so dependent on that human resource, on that human element. So we built a really strong core team and we know that the tech handles the rest of that, allowing us to be a lot more efficient which is one of the reasons that we did it.
But also tech now allows us to never shut, you can pick up a vehicle any time of day or night, we do 15% to 20% of our rentals from 8pm onwards, people going to dinner, people finishing work, hospital workers leaving at three or four in the morning taking a Twizzy back to St George's or Somerset. And so that for us was really cool, that we never close and it allows us logistically to rent by the minute, or by the hour versus 24 hours, and do multiple rentals in a day. So for us, it made sense that was one of the key reasons we went that route.
And also once you've gone through the admin of registering an account, it's done. And that's a one-time thing and then you're on your own, you can pick up whenever you need to. It allows us to improve safety, so through QR codes, which was obviously a big thing that rolled out during COVID, we can now deliver tutorial videos or road safety videos, it just allows us to be better as a company and to deliver messages just at a time when most people are more accepting and more familiar with the the tech that’s out there, they’re a bit more comfortable going on to an app now. Not everyone, there are certainly those that prefer how it used to be but we know that demographic is shrinking.
COVID hurt businesses and helped businesses in that way, I think too in terms of how people have embraced it, even just being on Zoom like we are, to have conversations like this with people around the world, it's incredible that we can do this now because it's so normal. And we've been talking a lot about AI and embracing artificial intelligence in business and how we use it to enhance and improve. Are there any parts of your business where you're using AI now, have you incorporated it into any of your customer service or anything like that?
Not yet and that is an area that when we start to get busy overwhelms us, the calls, the emails, to a certain degree we have canned and automated responses to a series of questions that we get asked over and over again, just in the nature of what we do, we're going to get those same questions cropping up. And so we figured a way to lighten our load and to have semi personalised responses that deliver the message that we need to deliver, but at the same time to be able to have that AI supporting us on our phone calls and the emails would be massive.
Next step, next step.
Next step, yeah. It's a small team here and we're looking at embracing the tech that’s available to us, that we know will make us better.
We recently had a guest on whose philosophy was that if you're not growing, your business is really in trouble in the near future. Is that something that you subscribe to? Would you agree with that?
Well, Bermuda in its nature is a great incubator, if you can build a business that you can demonstrate has potential outside, then you can expand and continue to grow beyond our shores here. There are plenty of really successful businesses on this island that they managed to get to a point that they can't grow any more without acquiring other businesses. For us, one of our thoughts during COVID was to embrace the local market a little more. We opened up a different company called Current Works, which is a servicing and maintenance garage, mainly electric vehicles but we do everything. For us that was an area that we had already invested in the tooling and the equipment and the staff to service our own fleet, we had a great location close to town and we thought, Let's build out a commercial enterprise on the back of that. And so we're a year and a half in, almost two years into that business now and that allows us to grow, particularly while tourism is slow. So yeah, we want to keep growing, we've got a very, very long way to go before we've saturated this market. Competition is out there, competition is good but we know that during peak season, there's anywhere between 7500 arrivals a week and our industry at the moment is just north of 2000 vehicles. So we can only scratch the surface of what we're able to supply, we've got a long way to go before we really saturate what we're doing here.
Is there a regulation that limits how many vehicles you can have on the island for your company?
Yeah, as an industry right now, not necessarily set in stone, but 200 vehicles per livery. We're at, we will soon be at 150, so there's obviously, there's growth through the number of vehicles but introducing things like the app which allows multiple rentals a day allows us to cater to more than 150 customers in one day. So it's again, one of the reasons we went that route.
Yeah, that makes sense. So what is your definition of success? Entrepreneurs often have a hard time with this. But what is success to you? Are you there yet? Do you feel you're successful?
No, you've got to celebrate the milestones that you hit and each of those milestones is a win, is a success, because you have to face a lot of backlash, you've got to face really uncertain difficult times. And there are milestones, you have an idea, you'd like to see it rolled out and when you hit those, you should celebrate them. I feel lucky, and I feel successful that we've got to where we have got to. Our business was going up and up for the first couple of years and we've had now longer in COVID, or COVID-related or COVID-impacted than we had pre-COVID and it's been really, really difficult, it forces us to be creative. I believe that we have had success but we've got a long way to go before I would say that we built the vision that we set out to build. But yeah, I think it's a win for us. And a success has been to stay the course to continue to be resilient and to continue going when it's been really challenging and difficult. Yeah, I'd say that's a success. 100%
And I like what you just said there about it forces you to be creative. I think that's a good mindset. Is that your mindset around failure too, when you do have those major challenges you might consider failures?
Yeah I think speaking to any successful entrepreneur or listening to any successful entrepreneur, they'd tell you they learn and it's almost become cliche, but you learn way more from the failures than you do from the successes. I think COVID has taught us a huge amount. Just me personally how to manage a business a bit better. We've had times where we've had serious financial difficulties, how do we cut back? In the good times we could continue to hire, we could try things out that we wanted to try out on a whim to see whether they worked, and you've really got to tighten the belt during those difficult times and be creative with the revenue that's coming in and the ideas, the marketing ideas. One of the first things we did when COVID hit was to roll out a program for essential workers, where we partnered with the business community and we got them to sponsor Twizzys so that created some cash flow for us, for essential workers and every vehicle that was sponsored we would then donate another one. And I think it really helped those in need at the time that couldn't get around, those particularly those working in healthcare, and for us it generated some revenue which we needed at that time and some goodwill as well. So it was a win-win for us, but it's constantly having to think like that and go, What can we do next to keep things ticking over?
I take my hat off to you for your marketing prowess and genius, Current Vehicles and Twizzys have always in my opinion, been very creative in the way you market, in particular covering each of them with very pretty designs, very eye catching designs, partnerships with people like Flora Duffy, Bermuda’s only Olympic gold medal winner, really fascinating partnerships that you're coming up with. Can you talk into the power of partnerships?
Yeah, I think partnerships are massively valuable particularly in a small place like Bermuda. So there was a time when I wanted to be very closed with working with others, because we were very focused on what we were doing and then realised that there are so many great supporters out there and people that can expand our brand. And there's cross branding opportunities out there and we work closely with school kids, as well as Flora Duffy, to design Twizzys and it’s something that we really wanted to continue to expand but it infringed on some of the laws that are out there about the colours of vehicles, I think you're only allowed two colours per vehicle. It was something that we successfully rolled out with Dellwood, we did it with JetBlue And we did it with the Bermuda Tourism Authority and then we were told to put the brakes on. But it's something that's in the works again, we're trying to try to get it over the line. It's cool to have a unique vehicle and those that come down rent it for a week and have a slightly somewhat personalised Twizzy and they have a cool experience with that vehicle.
And it's a perfect selfie subject, isn't it?
I was going to say the same thing.
Why wouldn’t you want to try a different one each time?
100%. So, yeah, there's a lot of potential for the branding and the marketing there if we can get that over the line.
So what goes on in an entrepreneur's head when you're ticking along with this fabulous idea and it’s winning, and then the authorities come along and say, Close the door!
I think, again, there's not a lot you can do about it. We’re persistent obviously, and it's trying not to take things personally, you get very frustrated and disappointed, not just with the authorities, but just roadblocks that do crop up in any entrepreneur, in any small business or big business. And I do take it to heart because it's preventing us from reaching that goal, that mission, but it taught me patience and I had to be really, really patient and not get angry or upset and just understand that it is part of the process. And often it'll either change the direction you go and sometimes that works out for the best and in others it eventually happens for you. So just stay the course.
Entrepreneurship really is about personal development, isn't it? You have to learn and grow and expand yourself in your mind. Is there anything you currently do to help you along that path on your personal development? We love to dig into what people's morning routines are, if they have somebody that they're inspired by and follow, books, podcasts, what's your routine? What do you do to keep your mind and everything straight?
I do listen to podcasts while I'm driving. I’ve got two boys so I'm constantly driving and picking them up and it's a good time to listen. I love sport, play a lot of cricket and squash, which is a good stress reliever and I got back into my painting again, so a bit of artwork, love that, that for me is like meditation, a bit of time to focus on something other than the day-to-day grind.
That's cool. Who are you listening to? What podcast do you currently like?
I love listening to ‘How I Built This’ by Guy Raz, just interviewing successful entrepreneurs about their journey, because you know it's certainly inspiring but to listen, to know that everybody has got to a certain point, has faced adversity, has never been easy, there’s always been pivots throughout and it’s reassuring I guess. So I listen to that. This Week in Startups and I listen to The Daily, I listen to Sam Harris.
Nice. I always love good recommendations. I'm currently into ‘Diary of a CEO’. That’s a good one. You’ll like that one! Check it out.
I’ll definitely check that out. And obviously Resilient Entrepreneurs now, it's going to be on my list.
Yay, alright. Well that's why we built this platform, is exactly to do that, to give people that window into entrepreneurship life and what makes us resilient and keep going, because when we started this, and started a marketing company together, Vicki and I, we did a lot of research on the stats and how difficult it is for startups to survive, and the percentages that don't make it, it's kind of depressing. So we said, What can we do? How can we be optimistic, being that eternal optimistic entrepreneur and help people and give something back. And that's what this we believe, that talking to people like you does, you do need to hear the struggles, what you've gone through, how you've gotten through it, it's really important to have these conversations.
Of course we are Resilient Entrepreneurs, we have to ask what does resilience mean to you?
It's staying the course. It's finding that passion. I think if you're not passionate it's incredibly hard, if not impossible to be successful in your vision. You have to love what you do because you are gonna get knocked down a lot and whether that's here in Bermuda, whether it's outside in a city where the competition's stronger, you've just got to, you've got to keep going. And you've got to love what you're doing so that you can get to that point. It was five years yeah for me, just before we rented our first car and there were a lot of no’s. And there continue to be a lot of no's. But actually, I used to hate Sunday night and now I look forward to it because I'm going to work the next day, not that I ever really switch off, but I can get really excited about what I'm doing, even when it's tough.
What for you is the best part about being an entrepreneur Piers?
The best part is that vision that we set out at the start, which has changed shape a few times but it's our North Star, it is seeing that start to form, start to come together. So an idea that we came up with in 2012 and just starting to see that take shape has been brilliant. And knowing that that was something that we came up with together, and that we’re on that journey to make it happen and it's meaningful, and it gives me purpose.
So what is that vision statement for you?
It is just to be, I know this sounds super simplified but to be the best business we possibly can be. So knowing that we've done everything we can to deliver great customer service, and the user experience through our app is as good as possible and knowing that we can't keep everybody happy, that's impossible but doing our best to create a really great business is my mission.
Well I don't have any doubt that it will be accomplished, I think it already has been accomplished, I think it's just going to keep getting better. And you're gonna go on this continued growth journey because as entrepreneurs, that's what we do, right? It doesn't end, we just keep building and growing and scaling and bringing something new and pivoting as we need to with changing times, and you're a really good inspiration for others who are starting the journey, or anywhere along the journey.
I have been part of Ignite, sometimes more present than others only because I've got to focus on my own mission, but those that are at the very beginning of the journey, it is just knowing that it isn't going to be easy, and knowing the reality that a lot of businesses will fail. But if you've got a good idea and you really believe in it, just to keep pushing. I love talking to other entrepreneurs, particularly those that have gone through difficult times because there's a lot of common ground there.
I think that community is really important and one thing Ignite does, is bringing a community of entrepreneurs together and help everybody go forward. And that's what it's about and we are from a small community so we really should support each other. Come on Bermuda, let's get behind this new concept, I'm really excited, can't wait to see those lime green vehicles on the road.
And the nice thing about Bermuda with business, small businesses, is you see the impact much quicker, so you're not lost in a massive population. You set something up and our goal as entrepreneurs is just to start making this island a better place and we do that through our businesses.
Yeah we certainly do. Well, thank you so much, we really appreciate your time and really appreciate you joining us on Resilient Entrepreneurs. Thanks so much Piers.
Loved it. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
—--
Thanks for joining us on Resilient Entrepreneurs, we're Laura and Vicki from Two Four One. We love supporting entrepreneurs, especially with mindset, marketing and motivation which is why we’ve built an incredible community of business founders who meet weekly in the Level-Up League. If you'd like to know more about it, look us up at www.twofouronebranding.com
