Vijayan: Lack of OEM integrations causes automotive retail startup failures
Jay Vijayan · What made Elon Musk approach former Tesla CIO Jay Vijayan twice in 12 months? · Nov 17, 2020 · at 21:40
Jay Vijayan, founder and CEO of Tekion and former Tesla CIO, discusses why he prioritized automotive OEM venture arms as strategic investors.
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“For companies which had failed, I had seen that one of the biggest thing is not getting the OEM connection and integration and support on time.”
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More from Jay Vijayan
Tekion bought two live auto dealerships as an early-stage startup for R&D
“And that's what we ended up acquiring two automotive dealerships. It was a very high risk, high stakes. We had to do because Tekyon is a small company. We didn't have a lot of money.”
Tekion accepted a lower valuation to syndicate rival automotive OEM venture arms
“So in fact, we slightly settled on, not too much, slightly, very small, in grand scheme of things, I felt it settled on a slightly lower valuation to make sure that we bring both of them.”
Tekion co-founders took personal loans to buy dealership land for product R&D
“So personally, me and my co-founder, Guru, we took a loan to go buy the land of the dealership because I felt Techyan didn't have money to invest in the land. And then Techyan just invested in buying the dealership only because I felt if we buy the dealership …”
Vijayan: Dealerships save $15,000 to $65,000 per month moving to Tekion
“There are dealerships that save anywhere between 15,000 to, you know, 65,000 dollars a month by moving to our platform, ok?”
Vijayan: AI in auto retail will create more jobs than it eliminates
“I don't see that we can, it can reduce you know, the number of people needed because the end of the day, it will create more jobs in different areas because You know, today we are just adding friction. If you think about Amazon, people can say, you know, it ha…”
Vijayan: Elon Musk asked me to return to Tesla, but I declined
“I told this to Elon as well. And I said, I told him when I met him, he said Jay, what about, you know, potentially he was kind of indicating, can you kind of come back? But when I told him it is a bit boring for me. I said, I did what you wanted me to deliver.…”