Shahin Sir, 1,768 test drives, and the story of Version-3.
Many of you may know Shahin Sir. He is the owner of Palki's first commercial passenger car, the Cityboy Version-2. For the last 11 months he has been driving Version-2 — on average 3,500 km every month.
Shahin Sir used to drive a three-wheeler CNG auto-rickshaw. The first time he bought the car, he called me two days later.
Shahin Sir: Momin bhai, what kind of car did you give me? In two days my 10,000 taka is gone.
(I thought, oh no. So much money spent in two days — Allah knows what happened to the car. I said, Sir, what happened?)
He said: Before, I drove three wheels. Now I drive four wheels. In AC. Wherever I go, everyone stops me. They take me for tea and snacks. Buying everyone tea and snacks, my money is almost gone.
This story gives me strength, gives me courage, in the middle of so much hardship.
Our first investor, Tanveer Ali bhai, told us to catch one customer segment, and give it 100%.
That is what we did. We caught Shahin Sir. We never delayed any request of his. When he called, I ran. I sent my team. If there was any problem, we fixed it at once. My target was — if I can satisfy Shahin Sir with the product, we will never have to look back.
Shahin Sir had saved money to go abroad. He trusted me and bought the car instead. If I can keep his trust, I will get millions of customers like Shahin Sir. Because Shahin Sir bought the car, we survived that hard time. From his money, my team got their salary. With that money, we ate.
Many rich people frighten us. Many investors turn their faces away, saying big companies will come with a lot of money. If they start a car company, your Palki is finished.
I have only one defence. No company can care for people like Shahin Sir more than us. They cannot treat customers like family.
No company can give customer service like Palki. Because authentic love cannot be hired with money. The love of a founding team cannot be given by a distributor or an assembler. We count the company's profit by the customer's profit.
So Version-3 was built exactly on what people like Shahin Sir said — on the feedback of 1,768 test drives.
The drivers' hands hurt after 3 to 4 hours of driving, so I made the car 10 inches wider. They could not take airport passengers because there was no space for bags in the back, so I made the car 2 feet longer. The roads are sometimes bad, so I made the wheels 13 inches. More battery range was needed; the extra width fits more battery cells. Now three big people can sit comfortably in the back. Instead of three, they can take four passengers, so the drivers earn more. Like this, Version-3 has 54 of Sir's requests in it.
This is how we will keep developing the car — thinking of customers as kings. My customer profits, that means Palki profits, I profit.