Custodian club

[Podie]

Anyone else seen adverts for https://www.custodian.club/ ?

Seems to be some attempt to digitise your "car journey" - anyone signed up and using it?

[DolphinCode37]

So its for disorganised people? Or people with a bad memory?

[Podie]

Disorganised, or as they put it Digitise your ownership experience and keep all of your car’s important documents, photos, and reminders at your fingertips

[smithyithy]

I set up an account not too long ago and added my Cayman to it, I've done a photo gallery but still need to upload service history etc.

I really like the idea behind it and digitising all the service history, receipts and invoices for your car. For a daily driver it might not make sense but for something you're keeping for a while, or something that already has a big history, I think digitising is a cool idea..

I like the idea of being able to quickly login and check things rather than sifting through dozens of pieces of paper in a folder, but also it can be really useful if you're selling a car, I assume you can put a link to the car's 'profile' in an advert so people can look and verify any servicing and work that has been done before they view the car..

[rscott]

My first thought is how is the service paid for? If it's free to the end user, are they then selling your data or something else...

[smithyithy]

rscott said:

My first thought is how is the service paid for? If it's free to the end user, are they then selling your data or something else...

They do state:

"Custodian takes data privacy extremely seriously. All data entered into Custodian is encrypted both in transit and at rest where it is securely stored on servers located in Europe. Our platform has been built to comply with GDPR and our systems ensure that no third party can access or use your data without your prior consent. If you decide to stop using Custodian and delete your account, all related data will be irretrievably deleted."

A lot of the site is in beta currently and a few features are missing, I've just been on and checked a few things, and features like sharing your car's profile (eg. when selling the car), uploading actual documents etc are still features to be added..

Possibly they're keeping it free currently to build up enough interest before rolling out the 'full' version which will presumably have costs attached..

[mentioum]

Hi All!

Just dropping in (one of the founders from Custodian here - Jeremy).

• First up I just wanted to say thank you for giving Custodian a try, we really appreciate you giving us a look and look forward to continue building out the platform for everyone.

• Secondly I want to be completely transparent about how we plan on monetising given the very justified question above (especially given how other tech platforms have behaved over the last decade)

So to be completely clear:

Your data is yours to do with as you please and will forever be yours and yours alone. We don’t even have any advertising within our platform or with our sister publication and podcast the Apex as working with advertising requires data sharing which we as founders and a company are not comfortable with.

Custodian will make money by offering services of convenience and quality which make looking after your cars easier. Our users can choose to use those services or not. The general management features and tooling will remain free indefinitely (that includes all our history file functionality and all the stuff you'd be used to on services like Fuelly(aCar) etc). Our goal is to offer lots of helpful tooling to our users and the community completely free and then offer premium services for looking after your car (insurance, logistics, storage, maintenance etc). Those services will need to be good enough to stand up on their own.

I hope that clears things up and of course if anyone has any other questions they are welcome to ask here or directly

Edited by mentioum on Monday 25th April 10:36

Edited by mentioum on Monday 25th April 10:37

[roykinch]

That sounds fair Jeremy, I see that the IOS app is now also released.
For myself having about 15 cars/vans this will be a perfect tool.
Thank you for inventing something that can be really useful.

[SimonTheSailor]

Why not keep it on your own compooter .... and keep it to yourself ?
That way you digitalised it ?

[Andy665]

Been using it for a while - good way of keeping history of car, primarily use it as a PC tool

[cashmax]

Reviving an old thread - From the adverts I have been seeing, which must be costing a fortune, I was under the impression that Custodian were able to provide insurance for modified / collectable cars. Having just added a modified Elise to a few other cars I own, I thought I'd give them a try.

Words fail me - Digital garage required, details of other cars, daily road car etc. I wasted an hour of my life uploading the info and just wanted a bloody insurance quote. Eventually, after providing a huge amount of info - they agreed they would "review" my application and let me know if I was successful in being "allowed" to have a quote.

It's like the ultimate portal if you want to get frustrated, clearly they are not trying to provide insurance.

That was a couple of days ago, I have since made a phone call to another company and got the car insured for peanuts in about 10 mins.

I assumed their platform is about gathering marketing data, rather than actually providing services. Has anyone else had a better experience than me?