“Competition is the fuel that ignites innovation.”

That is a quote that a lot of us should live by, but unfortunately many do not.

The publication you read today took root in 2013. Three friends got together and saw a void in the industry.

While there were many automotive platforms that focused on cars and motorcycles, there were none that focused solely on motorcycles.

Before moving further, I should acknowledge some of our industry peers such as Roda Roda, a publication I grew up reading.

Then there were others like Cycle World, which was a great magazine but unfortunately did not evolve into a website quickly enough and soon had to leave the Malaysian market.

There was also Fast Bikes magazines, of which I was the editor of for a while. It too did not embrace the www fast enough and had to close shop.

There was also Bike Trader, which was a great source for local motorcycle buyers, and it innovated fast enough. I led the team for Bike Trader for a while and am quite proud of what we achieved.

But unfortunately, the parent company had to fold and leave Malaysia. The brand unfortunately met an early death. I often wonder how the brand would have shaped the local motorcycling industry had it been given a chance to continue.

I am sure there are other publications as well, my due respect to them as well.

There is no doubt that the fate of these brands is rather sad, and I tip my hat to teams that ran them as well as my former colleagues, but these brands laid the foundations for what was to come.

The three of us from BikesRepublic.com, though I am the only one who remains and sometimes miss my former partners, saw an opportunity and grabbed it. Before long, we were the biggest motorcycling platform in the country and perhaps even the region for a while.

Then came iMotorbike, not to be mistaken with iMoto. They are two very different platforms led by individuals who cannot be more different.

Though it came along a little later than us; iMotorbike was our competitor. It delivered news just as we did. It reviewed motorcycles just as we did. And it did everything we did. So, it was a genuine competitor. But the cake was big enough, so we did not pay much attention.

In fact, we regarded MotoMalaya as a closer competitor, so we bought them out and merged that into BikesRepublic.com, but that’s an entirely different story.

iMotorbike though is led by Gill Carmo, a tall Portuguese bloke that sometimes looked out of place at events.

Local motorcycle events always featured the same mix of Malaysians, we had the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians. It was always the typical Malaysian rojak mix.

So, a Portuguese dude stuck out like a loud siren. But Gill was quiet, never one to mingle. The iMotorbike team kept to themselves and still do.

In an industry where everyone are friends, everyone just assumed that Gill and iMotorbike would come and go rather quickly, just like some of the upstart bloggers and influencers often do.

I often like to say that this industry is a marathon and not a race. Time (and the accountants) will tell who sticks around.

Then I stopped seeing Gill around. I saw some iMotorbike t-shirts at events but never recognized the individuals so didn’t think much of it.

Then came the mic drop moment.

A little over a year ago I read that iMotorbike had successfully secured RM12 million in a series A funding.

The platform that once used to compete with us for news had evolved and was now moving into trading pre-owned motorcycles. Whoa!

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” – Albert Einstein

While BikesRepublic.com struggled through the pandemic with a failed bid at launching an e-commerce platform for bikers to buy and sell their accessories, as well as a failed motorcycle dealership decimated by Covid as well, iMotorbike had evolved aggressively.

In awe, I accepted a pitch by iMotorbike’s agency to interview Gill Carmo. Why not I though? What better way to learn than to learn from someone smarter than you, I thought to myself.

So, we met up at iMotorbike’s head office in Glenmarie where Gill took me on a tour of the impressive facility.

True to everything you see in iMotorbike’s marketing materials, the showroom offers every single motorcycle you can think of. You can find everything from cheap Chinese “do-it-alls” to legends from BMW, Ducati and even Moto Guzzi.

The tour started at the lower ground where iMotorbike’s technical team assesses new motorcycles, values them and deals with customers who wants to trade them in.

There is also a workshop area that repairs and rebuilds where necessary. They also have their own little studio where they shoot marketing material.

The ground and all upper levels are dedicated to the display areas. This is where buyers can shop around in comfort and do find what they like. It is impossible not to find something that will suit your style here.

So what made the Gill do it? What made him pivot from a news portal to build what iMotorbike is today?

“We wanted to be the Mudah of motorcycles,” he said, referring to one of Malaysia’s most popular classified websites, Mudah.my.

“At one point, we had a huge number of dealers using us, and obviously we didn’t have the leverage that Mudah had in terms of audience, but they saw the value, especially those that used it every day. The consumers too, they knew we were more than a news portal, and they kept using us. But we were not making money out of it.”

“We tried really hard; it didn’t matter how good the product or how much money we threw at it or how smart the people we hired were. It was just really, really difficult,” he continued.

“Then we thought enough is enough. We have never ventured into something before and it is just buying and selling, and we didn’t see the problem with something like that. Until we actually started buying and selling motorcycles by ourselves, and then we understood the number of problems people face when buying used bikes. It was really, really bad.”

“And these are not people buying fancy superbikes, they are buying the day-to-day bikes like the EX5’s and the Y15’s which they use for work and to send their kids to school.”

“They had no assurance or warranties, and neither did they know how the paperwork was done. So this is something we saw, we saw the pain after we traded a little bit.”

So how does iMotorbike ease the problem then?

Like all good businesses, they ensure whatever bike they’re taking in as their inventory is as good as the seller says it is. They inspect 170 different points of the motorcycle, which is one of the most detailed inspections in the industry.

The inspector that carries out the inspection has to use a mobile application, so he has to sign off on it at the end of it, ensuring that if anything untoward were to happen, the management knows exactly who carried out the initial inspection.

But at the risk of sounding like overbearing management, Gill says that the management team understands that the inspectors are all human, “and that is why we have a back fall, we have the mechanics to look after the bikes we buy in case anything needs to be fixed later.”

“Besides just ensuring the bike is in good condition, they also ensure the VIN number is the same, chassis number is the same, we want to ensure that it is not a stolen bike.”

“We also partnered with Allianz to ensure the bike is not flawed or one that has been involved in an accident,” he continued.

So, what is next for iMotorbike?

“We want to be more accessible. We have outlets at about 10 Shell stations with our boots there to carry out inspections. We are in Kelantan, we are opening Penang, Johor, and we have multiple locations that are coming up.”

“We also work quickly. We carry out the 170 point inspection, and if everything is okay we carry out the thumbprint on the spot, anywhere that you go. We do the name transfer on the spot and wire the money to you within 72 hours, but sometimes within two to three hours as well, the maximum is 72 hours.”

“We also give your money back if you are not happy with the bike you bought. Of course we have certain limitations, and even the number of kilometers you can ride the bike before returning it, but we do accept returns even if you think that the bike is crap.”

iMotorbike ultimately wants to be everywhere the consumer need is. So we are looking at all of South East Asia and eventually all emerging markets.

We at BikesRepublic.com wish them the best.