This article first appeared in Enterprise, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 31, 2018 - January 6, 2019

If your car battery dies on the highway, never fear. Get in touch with Carput and a new battery will be on its way. Carput is a free app that connects drivers with roadside assistance professionals to help get their cars back on the road safely and quickly.

“We aim to reach you in about 30 minutes. If we take longer, we will call you to explain why. We want to provide clients with good service and that comes with proper communication,” says Eugene Tan, founder of The Battery Shop Sdn Bhd, which owns Carput.

Carput has recently branched out from car batteries. Now, it also replaces flat tyres and provides towing services.

Tan says the company has been profitable since its first day of operation and has doubled its revenue each year since 2013. “The market is huge and we are just scratching the surface,” he adds.

He started the company because his car broke down and the unapologetic mechanic took a long time to arrive.Tan, who had been working in Australia, was fuming. He figured that if this was the level of service in Malaysia, he could do a better job himself.

It was only a matter of time before he turned his frustration into a business idea and built The Battery Shop, which spawned the Carput app. “What differentiates us from traditional mom-and-pop shops is that we see it as a service instead of a trading business that aims to earn from selling car batteries,” says Tan.

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