Portland entrepreneur Chris Bright is a car person. His daily driver is a 1974 Alpha Romero Giulia Super. It’s not a car that was widely imported from Italy, so it draws puzzled looks, he jokes.
Bright, who co-founded legal software maker Zapproved, is combining his love of collector cars with his taste for entrepreneurship and launching an online marketplace where auto enthusiasts can buy and sell parts.
Bright is partnering on the Collector Part Exchange with former Zapproved head of product Aaron Laliberte.
“It’s hard to get parts and supplies for classic cars,” Bright said. “It’s a frustration in the community and in the hobby.”
Bright wants the site to do for small parts suppliers what Etsy has done for makers; that is, make it easier for sellers and buyers in a highly fragmented space to find each other. Both markets are driven by word of mouth and dispersed festivals, swap meets and other in-person events.
“Etsy transformed the whole space so that it’s democratized and everyone can get in there and sell and buy,” he said. “It creates access and now new people have opportunities to pursue it.”
Bright said collector car parts are bought and sold on Ebay, but it's not built for the collector community. He noted creating an avenue for buyers and sellers to communicate easily — to ensure a part really will work with a specific car, for example — is key.
“You can’t buy a part like this with one click,” he said. A conversation is usually necessary.
So far, Bright and Laliberte are bootstrapping the company. They have 30 parts suppliers on the platform and about 20 more on the way. The site has about $4 million of inventory loaded.
The first sale through the site was international, Bright said: A buyer in Denmark found what they needed from a seller in Seattle.
The site focuses on cars made pre-1989, but its sweet spot is cars from the 1950s to 1970s from Italian, British and German automakers. Bright said the duo specifically named the company "collector" instead of "classic" so that eventually it could include parts for exotic cars or after-market cars.
They are also open to taking the site in different directions based on customer feedback after launch. Bright noted that in the early days Zapproved didn't concentrate on legal hold software, yet that's the market that presented itself and the founding team embraced it.
The Collector Part Exchange is free to use for buyers, as well as for parts suppliers and sellers to upload for-sale items. The company will generate revenue through a commission on sales, as Bright doesn't want ads or other promotions on the site.
"I hope to build something in service to this community. Suppliers are the backbone of the collector car community. Without them, these cars can't be maintained," he said. "People have accumulated parts, hard to find and unique parts. I want to connect people to sell these things with a low barrier to entry."
So what's Bright's dream ride? It’s an Alpha Romeo Tipo 33. So far, he has a matchbox version to tide him over.
