Solo founder. No funding. 8 years in automotive. Here's what building Loop has looked like.
I spent 8 years working across Nissan, Ford, Volkswagen, Rivian, Lucid, and KIA doing quality inspections, pre-delivery inspections, and production support. Across every single one I kept seeing the same problems. Missed inspections. Untracked parts. Technicians doing great work with zero documentation. Paper logs getting lost. Gaps in accountability that eventually turn into recalls.
24 million vehicles were recalled in 2025. Most started with something small that nobody tracked.
So I started building Loop.
Where it started:
Originally Loop was a B2B traceability platform for manufacturing plants and shops. Track every part, every step, every person. I built it because I lived the problem firsthand on real factory floors.
Where it pivoted:
While building the B2B side I realized the same problems exist for everyday car owners. Nobody has one clean place to manage their vehicles. People are using notes apps for mod lists, spreadsheets for service history, group chats for their car crew, and their memory for when the next oil change is due. Everything is scattered.
So I built Garage, the consumer side of Loop. It's now a full automotive lifestyle platform.
What's inside Garage:
Your vehicles with full history and photos. Service timeline and mileage-based reminders. Safety ratings and real driver complaints about your car. Plain language recall alerts tied to your VIN. Document storage for registration, insurance, and receipts. A parts wishlist. Car crew features. Local event discovery for meets and shows. A marketplace powered by eBay. An AI assistant called Opie. A dream car feature for the build you don't own yet. And more.
Full feature breakdown: loop.opaius.com/features
What the journey has been like:
I'm doing this completely solo. No co-founder. No funding. No team. I write all the code, do all the design, handle all the marketing. Some days it feels like I'm making real progress. Other days I wonder if anyone will ever use this thing.
The hardest part hasn't been building. It's been marketing. I know how to code. I know the automotive industry inside out. But getting strangers to care about something they've never heard of is a completely different skill that nobody prepares you for.
What I've learned so far:
Build for a real problem you've personally experienced. If you haven't lived it, you're guessing. Your product isn't your marketing. Having a great tool means nothing if nobody knows it exists. Stop trying to be on every platform. I recently purged almost all my personal social media and now focus only on the brand accounts. One real user giving you honest feedback teaches you more than 10,000 followers who never sign up.
Where I'm at right now:
Loop is live. The B2B side serves manufacturing plants and shops. The consumer side (Garage) just launched. First car is free. Unlimited garage is $12/month. I'm actively looking for early users who want to try it and tell me what's broken, what's missing, and what they'd actually pay for.
Would love feedback from other builders. What would you change about the positioning? The pricing? The features? Roast it if you need to. I'd rather hear the hard truth now than find out later.
Tech stack if anyone's curious: Next.js, Supabase, Stripe, Vercel.