Startup Stars: Q&A with YourMechanic's Art Agrawal and Alexa Lee

If you've had problems with a car the cost of the repair can be daunting.

Add to this the hassle of towing, getting price quotes from different auto repair shops or even finding a good and reliable mechanic—that's enough to make you want to trade your car in for a bike.

However, the seven-member panel of judges at TechCrunch's Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield Competition felt that the work of Mountain View-based YourMechanics.com, a web service that offers to bring high quality auto repair to the workplace and home, deserved to win the battle's top honor and a cash prize of $50,000.

Mountain View Patch sat down with CEO Art Agrawal and Communications Director Alexa Lee to chat at their offices in the Old Mill Office Building, where they've been for four months after their graduation from this year's Y Combinator cycle. The 18-month old company has six employees, a dozen certified mechanics on board as independent contractors, and has already serviced more than 700 cars. The website and mechanic app launched Sept. 11, 2012 and Agrawal tells Patch that the consumer app will be available in the near future.

Mountain View Patch: Why are you based in Mountain View?

Agrawal: I think you need to see the real estate market in Palo Alto. There's nothing out there for finding an office. I looked for a long time. I live in Palo Alto and I was trying to find a place closer to home. And my God! It's hard to find an office space in Palo Alto unless you want to pay crazy amounts of money.

Patch: Well, welcome to Mountain View.

Agrawal: Mountain View is nice. Castro Street is down the road. Palo Alto is right next to here. 

Lee: Also, another reason is that because of we are used to the area...It's a good place for a small startup because you have everything that you need in terms of local facilities. There's a good startup community.

Agrawal: There are so many startups in Mountain View, it's amazing. Go on Castro and it's filled with startups. You have Y Combinator ...

Patch: , Hacker Dojo...

Agrawal: Speaking of , the first ten months of building this business we were at HackerDojo. They are such great people there. They are huge supporters of startups, the space is nice, it's open and they charge only $100 a month.

Patch: Where do you go for lunch?

Lee:

Patch: Well you are right behind the safeway...

Agrawal: Yes, we go to Safeway a lot.

Lee: and

Agrawal: Chili's a lot, yes. But I love Castro. I like walking. It's a little city street filled with pleasures and people all the time. So many places on Castro.

Patch: Favorite coffee shop when you need wifi?

Agrawal: I like to go to .

Lee: Yes, I would say that's a favorite.

Patch: Are you a Mac or a PC user? 

Lee: We are both actually.

Agrawal: She's Mac actually. She doesn't know how to operate a PC.

Lee: But they do (she points to the engineers, among them Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Dongyi Liao). We are a dual shop actually. The mechanics use an Android phone, but we'll have an iPhone app for consumers.

Agrawal: I'm Mac and PC.

 Patch: What type of phone do you have?

Agrawal: She's pure Apple and I'm Android

Patch: What's your favorite mobile app and why?

Agrawal: I'm too consumed with YourMechanic.

Lee: Voxer, it's a communication app that let's you do text and voice for free. You can call it a walkie-talkie app for your smartphone.

Patch: What's the longest time you've stayed awake working?

Lee: Three days in a row was the total in my life.

Agrawal: I sleep. I get my sleep. Even if it's a couple of hours, I definitely get my sleep.

Patch: What's you favorite place to go for a hike or to sit at a beach?

Lee: Montebello Preserve over off of Page Mill. I love pool (in Mountain View). across the street.

Agrawal: I'm still finding a place. I think I can take a week off now.

Patch: Are you a fan of Star Trek or Star Wars?

Agrawal: No.

Lee: No. We follow startups like football.

Patch: If you could have any superhero power, what would it be?

Agrawal: Does Mark Zuckerberg count as a superhero now?

Lee: Probably endurance. Go very far for a very long time. Farther then any founder I've ever met.

Patch: What has you favorite company outing or event been?

Lee: Well we are going to celebrate by eating steak and lobsters because part of the presentation [at Disrupt] the mechanic [Michael Renteria] references that he's worked for people who can feed their families steak and lobsters, while he has to feed his kids pork and beans. So to celebrate our win, we are going to have steak and lobsters somewhere on Castro Street.

Editor's Notes: Stay tuned for a profile on YourMechanic on Patch! 

PATCH NOTES:

Company: YourMechanic.com

Launched: September 11, 2012

Founders: Art Agrawal, chief executive officer, and Dongyi Liao, chief technology officer

Location: 201 San Antonio Circle (in the Old Mill Office Building) #140, Mountain View, CA 94040

What's YourMechanic anyways?: Gives car owners the ability to shop for a mechanic online and receive services at their home or workplace.

Target audience: Peer-to-peer, so car owner directly to mechanic

Funded by: Y Combinator, SoftTechVC, Andreesen Horowitz, Ashton Kutcher, SV Angel, CrunchFund, Yuri Milner, Leerer Ventures, Launch Capital and others.

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