Laura Narpaul President & Co-Founder of Mach1 Services, Best WomenLeaders of 2021 Profile

Laura Narpaul
President & Co-Founder of Mach1 Services


Laura Narpaul President & Co-Founder of Mach1 Services, Best WomenLeaders of 2021

“Cultivating Creative & Critical Thinking Skills”

Laura Narpaul has led Mach1 to grow through the COVID-19 pandemic. As a start-up, investor-funded company, she found creative ways not only survive but to thrive during this time. The company started with 34 markets across ten states in January 2020 and has continued to expand during the pandemic, becoming nationwide in February 2021. Laura oversees many areas of the business. One of the main areas of impact is the marketing and advertising efforts which have led to an 80% customer growth in 2021 over 2020, directly impacting the company's revenue stream. Another area of impact is with the company's software and technology development. Laura has led the development teams to achieve software improvements that directly affect the customer and provider bases. She has expanded the business from consumer growth and other business to business opportunities utilizing the software that is revolutionizing the roadside assistance industry. From marketing to development to overall operations, Laura's daily impact is taking this start-up investor-funded business to be known nationally by both companies and consumers.

Laura utilizes her role as Co-Founder and President of Mach1 Services to provide a platform for women entrepreneurs to collaborate and share their ideas towards joint initiatives. Be it for her employees, while participating as a panelist in women-led corporate events, or even just the values she instills in her daughters right at home, she presents opportunities for these women to fast-track their career development through cultivating creative and critical thinking skills. By gathering her collective experience gained from her roles in business to her title today, she grants young women the tools they need to take concrete, actionable steps to improve their working environments, especially in male-dominated fields. Her work ethic is deep-rooted in authenticity, illustrated in her constant availability to those with the same thirst for knowledge. Her advice is, “wherever you are at in your career or if you're on the fence of creating something new- don't be afraid to take the leap of faith, and most importantly, enjoy the ride!” Armed with this ideology, she is taking the company to new heights.

Mach1 started from an idea of transforming the roadside assistance industry with the use of technology. “My husband and I decided to take a leap of faith and quit our day jobs to see Mach1 through. We wanted to improve both the consumer roadside experience, and the provider experience. I think everyone can relate to the pain points of the traditional roadside assistance model,” Laura says. “You make a phone call and ultimately wait for hours, helpless and in the dark as to when someone will be there to help you. We’ve transformed the process in a way that brings transparency to the customer, where customers can see who is coming to help them, where they are and when they’ll arrive.” Users can even call and text in the app using burner numbers, so they never give their personal information. But that is not the only side of roadside assistance that needed change. In the traditional model, motor clubs will reach out to multiple providers, asking them to bid for the job. The motor clubs choose the lowest bid.

“Imagine you’re a provider and you accept a job from a motorclub, but then you get a cash calling customer, you’re going to help the cash calling customer first as you’ll make more money from that, which is one of the reasons the wait times are long,” explains Laura. “In our model, we only dispatch the closest provider to the customer. We show a price window that is based on fair market rates for those services and then the provider will set the final cost in the app.”

Mach1 will be adding mobile electric vehicle charging for the days to come, which is exciting considering how quickly the electric vehicle industry and the need for mobile charging are growing. “There are other services we plan to release next year as well. We’re also bringing value and discounts to our customers with different partnership programs.” IEWL


Company

Mach1 Services

Management

Laura Narpaul
President & Co-Founder of Mach1 Services

Description

Mach1 is the first on-demand phone app to truly automate and digitize the roadside assistance industry, with no membership fee. Customers can access the app for free and only pay for services when they need them. Our integrated platforms work in real time to dispatch the closest provider, allow providers & consumers to communicate, and harness GPS technology. We require safety training and background checks for our providers, making safety our first priority.


WomenLeaders Special Magazine