From the top ranks of Ford and General Motors to launching one of the world’s fastest-growing car brands, Alain Visser has seen the auto industry from every possible angle. With nearly four decades of experience, including leadership roles at Opel and Volvo, Alain grew increasingly frustrated with the industry's lack of real change. That frustration became the fuel for something bold. In 2015, he founded Lynk & Co—a brand built not just to sell cars, but to rethink what car ownership should be altogether. With a belief that consumers no longer need to own cars full-time, Alain set out to build a business model that prioritises usage, flexibility, and sustainability over outdated dealership models and marketing fluff.
In this refreshingly honest conversation, Alain doesn’t hold back. He breaks down the entrenched habits of an industry stuck in its ways and explains why true innovation rarely comes from the big players. If you’ve ever wondered why all car ads look the same or why new car brands struggle to stand out, Alain’s perspective is a must-hear. He also lifts the curtain on what it really took to build a new kind of brand—and why he thinks the future of mobility looks very different from what most of us imagine.
“In an industry where the difficulty to differentiate is the greatest, the effort to do so is the lowest.” — Alain Visser
In this episode, you will:
- Discover why Alain believes most car marketing is lazy—and how budget size can kill creativity.
- Learn how Lynk & Co flipped the traditional car sales model by embracing subscriptions, peer-to-peer sharing, and club-style showrooms.
- Understand why owning a car might soon be as outdated as owning a CD player.
- Find out what Alain really thinks about Tesla’s rise and why he sees it as a product revolution, not a business model shift.
- Explore how brands like Volvo have managed to maintain a unique identity—and why most new entrants fail to do the same.
Listen to this episode to hear why Alain thinks the car industry needs to think less like engineers and more like service designers—and why the most disruptive ideas might come from outside the automotive world altogether.
Connect with Alain:
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Connect with Matt:
- LinkedIn
- Curious Customer Website
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