Mota — Executive Summary¶
Product: Mota (mota = "car" in Shona)
One-line thesis: The service history, reminder, and parts-pricing layer for Zimbabwe's 1.52 million vehicles — free for owners, paid for by garages who want repeat customers.
Status: Blueprint complete. Pre-build. Stage Gate 0 decision pending.
Author: Solo founder / 1–2 builders
Date: 2026-11-10
The problem, in one paragraph¶
Zimbabwe's vehicle fleet grew 44.7% between 2020 and 2025 to 1.52 million vehicles, adding 10,000–11,000 new registrations every month. Almost all of them are used Japanese imports, and most are automatic or CVT — gearboxes that fail catastrophically and expensively when their fluid is neglected. Owners have no record of what was done, when, or by whom. The service book is a paper booklet that gets lost, the mechanic's advice is unverifiable, and the parts price quoted has no reference point. The result is predictable: owners skip maintenance until something breaks, then pay 5–10× more than the service would have cost, and have no way to tell a fair quote from a predatory one. Meanwhile the 155 repair businesses in Harare (94% of them single-owner) have no customer records at all, and no mechanism to bring a customer back in eight months when their next service is due.
The product¶
A consumer Android app that does four things, in order of importance:
- Tracks deadlines you cannot afford to miss. ZINARA licence, insurance, and service intervals computed from your actual odometer — with escalating reminders, not one notification.
- Keeps a real service history. Log a fill-up or service in under 20 seconds. Get fuel consumption (km/l), cost per km, and a shareable PDF service record that raises resale value.
- Tells you what a job should cost. A parts-and-labour price index built from garage listings, so "CVT NS-3 fluid = US$X at this shop" replaces guesswork.
- Connects you to a garage that will actually do the work. High-intent lead handoff at the exact moment the reminder fires.
A companion web console for garages: see your customers' upcoming service dates, capture them as leads, and manage your listing.
Why this wins¶
| Signal | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Fleet is large and compounding | 1.52M vehicles, +44.7% in 5 years, 120k+ added annually |
| Recurring, externally-enforced pain | ZINARA, insurance, and service intervals are date-driven and legally required |
| Supply side is fragmented and unsoftwareed | 94% of Harare repair businesses are single-owner operations |
| No local competitor | Only global generic trackers exist; none know what ZINARA is |
| The model is validated by analogue | ZWPRICE runs a supplier-paid, buyer-free RFQ marketplace across 26 Zimbabwean supplier brands |
| Founder owns the problem | A Nissan Note with a CVT — the exact failure mode the product prevents |
| Natural monetisation moment | "Your CVT service is due" → "here are 3 garages" → garage pays per lead |
Business model¶
Consumers never pay. This is deliberate — the Zimbabwean consumer app market has low willingness to pay and free global alternatives. Charging consumers caps growth at the moment we most need it.
Revenue comes from the supply side:
| Stream | Mechanics | Target (month 12) |
|---|---|---|
| Lead fee | Garage pays US$2–5 per booked service | US$300–500/mo |
| Garage subscription | US$25–50/mo for the customer console + listing priority | US$250–400/mo |
| Sponsored placement | Parts supplier banner in the price index | US$100–150/mo |
| Later: data reports | Anonymised fleet maintenance trends | Deferred to 5,000+ users |
Target: US$600–1,000 MRR by month 12. Not a venture-scale number. It is a proof number — proof that the supply side pays, which is the only thing that justifies building further.
Success metrics — the only four that matter¶
| # | Metric | Target @ 90 days | Target @ 12 months | Kill threshold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M1 | Activated users (logged 1 vehicle + 1 event) | 300 | 2,000 | < 100 @ 90d |
| M2 | 30-day retention (returned to log or check) | 25% | 35% | < 15% @ 90d |
| M3 | Partner garages actively listing | 8 | 25 | < 3 @ 90d |
| M4 | Monthly recurring revenue | — | US$600 | < US$150 @ 9mo |
Kill criteria are real. If M1 < 100 at 90 days, the white space means nobody cares, and we stop rather than build a nicer version of something nobody wanted. See 08-delivery-plan.md §4.
Scope boundary — v1¶
In: vehicle profile, deadline engine (ZINARA/insurance/service), fuel log with km/l, service log, reminders, PDF service history export, garage directory with lead handoff, parts price index (garage-supplied).
Out of v1: OBD/hardware integration, real-time tracking, marketplace checkout, in-app payments for consumers, iOS, mechanic-side job cards, insurance quotes, fleet management. Each is deferred with a written reason in 04-requirements-specification.md §6.
Top three risks¶
| Risk | Severity | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Nobody installs it. Distribution is the binding constraint, not code. | Critical | Launch inside existing WhatsApp car groups and ZINARA-adjacent moments; the PDF service record is a shareable artefact that markets itself |
| Garages won't pay. They're micro-businesses with thin margins. | Critical | Prove value before charging — founding garages get 6 months free, and we measure booked jobs they attribute to us, not signups |
| ZWPRICE adds automotive. It already routes supplier quotes and its examples include service requests ("a plumber in Chinhoyi"). | High | Compete on the record, not the lead. Accelerate the PDF and timeline so history is worth having before a competitor can route a quote |
Full register with owners and triggers: 12-risk-register.md.
The strategic line to defend¶
The lead is the revenue. The record is the moat.
ZWPRICE captures transactions. Mota captures relationships. A quote marketplace has no reason for a buyer to return in eight months; a service record does. Every design decision should be judged against whether it strengthens the record — because that is the only thing a competitor cannot copy in a weekend.
What we're building first — the 6-week proof¶
Before the full v1, we build one thing and test it: the service deadline engine plus a shareable PDF.
It is the smallest possible slice that delivers the core value (never miss a service) and produces the marketing artefact (a service record worth showing a buyer). If 300 people will not use that, no amount of garage console will save the business.
Decisions required before Stage Gate 0 in 13-open-questions.md.