We're excited to be joined by a Bournemouth based founder in April to give us some insight into how to disrupt a crowded marketplace and challenge a market leader. Sebastien Duval of Wizzle and AUTOi had a long career in the automotive industry before deciding to go it alone in 2012. He and his co-founders launched AUTOi, an online vehicle appraisal system for dealerships across the UK and enjoyed fantastic success and growth which led them to realise that the system could also be used to help consumers, and Wizzle was born. The app went live on iOS in 2016 and naturally competes with the UK market leader, We Buy Any Car. Sebastien will talk us through the journey of Wizzle, the challenges of going head to head with an established market leader and how Wizzle has been able to succeed in such a crowded market.

In this interactive fireside chat, Andrew will be asking Sebastien about the following:

The value of deep knowledge of the vertical

Standing out in a busy marketplace

Raising investment

The importance of user experience and refinement as a process

About Sebastien

Sebastien has been involved in the automotive sector since 2002, first working in sales before progressing into sales management and then brand management, after gaining his Masters Degree in Strategic Automotive Dealership Management. In 2012 he decided to leave the dealership environment to go it alone and founded his first company AUTOi, which provided an industry first, online Vehicle Appraisal System. The system allowed automotive dealers to move away from pen and paper car appraisals to a fully digital system compatible with both iOS and Android devices. Following the success of AUTOi, Sebastien and his co-founders launched Wizzle in 2016, a consumer car buying service which gives dealers an opportunity to acquire vehicle stock from the general public at competitive prices while simultaneously giving consumers the chance to get a better price for their car than they would from traditional car buying companies, with a lot less hassle.