Augur

How we're building something bigger than just another car app

Your car is basically a computer on wheels

Think about it: your car knows everything. How you drive, where you go, when your engine's about to have a bad day, how much gas you're wasting in traffic. It's generating thousands of data points every single day, and most of that goldmine is just... sitting there.

Why the "walled garden" approach is broken

Most car tech companies are still doing the whole "we'll build everything ourselves" thing. And honestly? It's not working.

Here's why:

You can't think of everything. Even if you have the smartest team in the world (which, let's be real, we think we do at Augur 😉), you can't predict every cool use case someone might want to build.

You move too slow. While you're spending 18 months building Feature X, some developer could probably whip up a prototype in a weekend.

You miss entire markets. Maybe you're focused on consumer apps, but there's a fleet manager in Ohio who needs something totally different.

You get left behind. The companies winning today are the ones saying "hey, build whatever you want on our platform." The ones trying to control everything? They're becoming irrelevant.

The magic of network effects

Here's where it gets interesting. Every developer who builds something cool on Augur makes the whole platform better for everyone:

Car owners get:

- Way more apps to choose from

- Better integrations with stuff they already use

- Features that get built faster than we could ever manage

- Competition that keeps prices reasonable

Developers get:

- All this rich car data without having to build the infrastructure

- Thousands of potential customers already using Augur

- A platform that actually works (we've done the hard stuff already)

- A chance to make money in a market that's just getting started

We get:

- Innovation happening at a pace that would make our heads spin

- New revenue streams (obviously)

- Customers who can't leave because they love all the integrations

- Access to markets we never even thought about

Why this makes us basically unbeatable

The data gets better: More users means better data, which attracts more developers, which builds better apps, which attracts more users. It's a virtuous cycle that's really hard to break.

Developers get stuck (in a good way): Once someone builds their business on Augur, switching to a competitor means starting over from scratch. Their success becomes our success.

We innovate faster: While our competitors are trying to build everything themselves, our ecosystem is cranking out new features and use cases at warp speed.

Money comes from everywhere: Instead of just subscription fees, we're getting platform fees, premium API revenue, partnership deals. It's like having multiple revenue streams that all reinforce each other.

What about the competition?

Most car companies are still thinking like hardware companies. Even Tesla, which gets the software thing better than most, keeps everything locked down in their own ecosystem.

That's our opening. We're building the first truly open automotive data platform. While everyone else is trying to control everything, we're saying "come build whatever you want."

It's like being the first company to say "hey, let's put apps on phones" while everyone else is still making better calculators.

Why investors should care

Platform businesses are worth more. Just look at the valuations of companies with strong ecosystems versus those without. Network effects are real, and they compound.

Developers become our sales team. Every app built on Augur is basically a marketing channel we don't have to pay for. Our customer acquisition costs go down while our reach goes up.

Customers stick around. When someone has five apps they love that all work with Augur, they're not switching to a competitor anytime soon.

Basically, we're building a business that gets stronger and more valuable with every developer who joins.

The bottom line

We're not just building another car app. We're building the platform that other people build car apps on.

In five years, when every car is connected and every drive generates insights that make life better, we want Augur to be the foundation that made it all possible. The AWS of automotive data. The platform that turned car data from a locked-away resource into the fuel for thousands of innovations.

Before you know it, we've got an ecosystem that's bigger and more valuable than anything we could have built ourselves.

Want to know more about Augur?

OUR WEBSITE: https://getaugur.org

OUR INDIEGOGO: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/augur--3/reft/38725239/indiehackers

Source: 2023 American Trucks Survey

Mechanics and Auto Repair shops are able to take advantage of drivers across America due to their general lack of knowledge on what repairs their car needs. The issues solved by Augur cost the average victim about $1,071.

The truth is, your car has its own system to detect issues with different parts, which can be accessed through a standard port found in all cars built after 1996 in America. This port is the exact same port your mechanic uses to diagnose issues with your car.

By plugging in our device into this port, Augur enables to you to keep tabs on your vehicle's health and needs from anywhere, anytime. With our device, we aim to fix at least 2 of the most common issues found in the survey:

Upselling unnecessary repairs

While the mileage after which a certain car part should be replaced is not standard and varies based on factors like driving conditions, vehicle type, and maintenance habits; many car manufacturers recommend that certain items will need to be inspected, changed or replaced at different mileages. 

By tracking your overall car health, Augur is able to recommend when a certain part is to be serviced, preventing future costly repairs and avoiding ones that are not yet necessary at the time.

Falsely diagnosing problems

By keeping tabs on your car whenever you drive and looking into your car's diagnostics, Augur is able to find issues or failing parts in your vehicle and inform you of them when they occur. This feature allows you to pinpoint exactly what the problem is with your car, allowing you to avoid being charged for unnecessary repairs or to resolve the issue yourself.

Additional Features

Trips tracking & logging

Do you ever have to drive in your personal vehicle for work? Does your job reimburse these trips if you are able to provide them?

Augur automatically tracks and logs your trips for you to retrieve and explore later. You are then able to mark your trip as a business expense and then export it to a single file, which can then be sent to your employer in the necessary format. (ex: Expensify)

GPS tracking

Want to know where your car is right now? Augur can locate your vehicle anywhere thanks to built-in GPS, helping fight against car theft and keeping you informed.

Emissions tracking

Being originally built and standardized for emissions testing, the port allows Augur to read and give you detailed information about emissions compliance and issues causing damage to the planet. 

Plans & Pricing

This product is expected to cost around $200 at launch.
Due to operating costs, the Augur device is also expected to cost an additional $7 a month to be able to use or a yearly subscription of $72 a year (14% cheaper).

Progress

You can keep track of what happens to your pledge on our public Trello board, as we continue to work on making this product. 

We have already identified how we will build the device and have started work on the back-end, with syncing to the website and servers. As of launch of this project, we have built the ability to read car data and send it to the server, the ability to run firmware updates to the device remotely and a basic dashboard implementation to view said data.

More About The Product

Augur is a physical device and a SAAS software solution at the same time.

Augur interfaces with your car directly through the OBD2 port, standard in generally all cars sold in the United States after 1996. This makes Augur compatible with almost all cars on the road today. You can find the port in your car by looking it up. Augur is a plug-and-play device, only using a single cable connected to your car's cigarette lighter outlet.