How we helped German startup FINN expand and become the leading car subscription platform in the U.S. using low‑code development
From just 10 cars on the road to over 7,000, FINN is hyperscaling in the USA.
FINN, a German-based car company, is rethinking car ownership with a revolutionary idea. What if your car lease was a short-term subscription bundle instead of a years-long commitment?
FINN offers unique, all-inclusive car subscriptions to drivers. Your car is delivered right to your door, with insurance and regular maintenance included in your subscription.
Plus, with more flexibility than traditional leases, you can get behind the wheel of a new car every six to twelve months.
With help from Cheesecake Labs, FINN expanded their unique car subscription model into 12 states and rapidly grew their US subscriber base.
Outcomes achieved.
Over 1,200 individuals in the US are currently subscribed to FINN's service.
The internal tools built by Cheesecake Labs have seen significant usage, with +6,000 page views per month.
An innovative solution with behind‑the‑scenes challenges.
FINN's offering is cutting-edge, but behind the scenes, the startup faced several challenges, including a need for more organization, structure, and automation.
FINN leaned on older technologies like manual spreadsheets and emails. For the initial launch and a small fleet, this worked fine — they launched in the USA with just ten cars on the road. But it was clear that something had to change to achieve the hyper-scale growth they needed.
Let's discuss your project
Growing FINN's operations with scale and speed.
That's why FINN reached out to Cheesecake Labs. Embedding a dedicated development team approach meant Cheesecake Labs helped FINN’s existing engineering team automate their processes and remove spreadsheets from their workflow. And Cheesecake Labs’ nearshore model made communication and collaboration seamless and simple throughout the project.
Transforming FINN's backend and internal tools was essential. Cheesecake Labs built FINN's customer care and operational tooling as well as some key features for their customer portal, allowing users and team members to easily and efficiently perform tasks like ordering or making account changes.
Low‑code solutions were key to success.
Low-code solutions were critical in helping FINN scale rapidly, with tools such as Make and Retool simplifying the development of maintainable and automated workflows. Cheesecake Labs utilized these no-code/low-code apps to quickly deliver an initial solution customized to FINN's needs, followed by additional features.
FINN's guiding principle, "Do it, repeat it, automate it," was realized with the low-code approach, enabling the automation of every aspect of the company's operations. Cheesecake Labs also created customized solutions, modifying existing tools for the US market, including a sophisticated inventory system, HubSpot partner management tools, car overview pages, an offer and bid system, and a framework for managing partner orders.
Using Node.js, Typescript, and a PostgreSQL database, Cheesecake Labs automated FINN's US operations, bringing together external tools like BigQuery, Airtable, S3, and HubSpot.
Talk to us about your projectWe wouldn't be able to operate as efficiently as we do without Cheesecake Labs. From a business perspective, one of our metrics is transactions processed per full-time equivalent (FTE), which refers to headcount per transaction. Thanks to Cheesecake Labs, we're scaling our team much more efficiently in the US than in our Germany office. Additionally, the customer care tooling they've built enables our customer care team to do their job more efficiently.
Martin P. Rufo
VP of Operations
