Ep 175 Allon Bloch, the CEO of Vroom, the largest online car retailer in the U.S. Listen as Nathan and Allon talk about how Vroom grew to an almost billion dollar business in a span of only three years.
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3 Key Points:

Vroom acquired a business (Tiger Direct Auto) that had a lot of technological and software related innovations in the field that allowed them to be even more efficient.
Being an entrepreneur is an exciting challenge – one has to be able to think on their feet, make important decisions, and surround oneself with forward thinking peers.
Vroom’s model relies on flipping low-mileage used cars for a fast profit – in order to do so they needed to hire professionals who knew cars very well.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:00 – Nathan’s introduction to today’s show
01:37 – Allon joins the show.
01:46 – Vroom made about 900 million in revenue in 2015.
02:01 – Vroom is an online car retailer. They sell, buy, and appraise cars in a haggle-free environment.
04:06 – In December, Vroom sold about 5K vehicles. Often they sell low-mileage, well-kept vehicles, which brings their average price point to 30K per automobile. (150,000,000$ total)
05:11 – Allon talks about the acquisition of Texas Auto Direct by Vroom which allowed the company to more effectively refurbish cars at the top level.
07:31 – Vroom was founded only 3 years ago. It has about 500 employees.
08:50 – Allon attributes Vroom’s success to being able to hire people who understand cars very well so they can be fixed and turned quickly.
09:26 – They also grew by acquiring a company that’d been in the same field since 2003.
10:30 – Allon wanted to get into Wix as an investor – it went public about 7 years after being founded. He left the board before the company went public.
12:11 – Being an entrepreneur is challenging as one has to be able to think on their feet, make decisions, and surround oneself with forward-thinking peers.
13:42 – Vroom relied on its high volume model in order to be a viable business like Amazon or Walmart.
14:27 – Allon talks about equity and relying on your board.
15:30 – Allon invested his own personal money to build Vroom’s capital when it first started.
18:21 – Famous Five

Resources Mentioned:

Edgar – Nathan uses Edgar instead of other scheduling tools for Twitter because Edgar cycles through content over and over (buffer/others you have to re-input content over and over – time consuming). In the last several months, Edgar has driven Nathan over 3728 clicks that he didn’t have to work or pay for. Here isNathan’s Edgar Content Calendar:

 

Vroom – Allon’s business
@allonbloch – Allon’s Twitter
CrunchBase – Allon’s CrunchBase
LinkedIn – Allon’s LinkedIn
Spotify – Allon’s favorite online tool
Graham and Dodd Investing – Allon’s favorite business book
Mark Zuckerberg – CEO Allon follows

Bio Allon Bloch is CEO of Vroom, the largest online car retailer in the U.S. He previously served as Co-CEO of Wix, the world’s leading website publishing platform, and CEO of mySupermarket, a digital platform that empowers consumers to find the best prices for their groceries. Allon is also a former venture capitalist, serving as a Venture Partner with Greylock's Europe/Israel fund and a General Partner at JVP. He holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and is based in New York. 
Famous 5

Favorite Book?— Graham and Dodd Investing
What CEO do you follow?— Mark Zu