Looking for Advice/Input on Business Idea

[Bobo]

Ptiz - Like the idea, love your enthusiasm. My first concerns were mostly addressed earlier (Insure and maintain).

Another concern I have is the advertising and marketing costs. Unless you can get creative this is a real SOB. There are some tips and tricks there... I think many have been covered but remember as a general rule that the price is negotiable, on the afternoon something goes to press that $1000 ad space shrinks to $200-$500.

Here is a suggestion for you. You mention Dad and School so I am assuming you are young, eager, and don't have a lot of entanglements - kids, wives, mortgages????

So my suggestion to you is that Summer is coming, find a dozen or so of these companies and call them up, ask to talk to the owner. Tell them that you would like to run a business like this, outside their market, and you are willing to bust your a$$ for peanuts if they will give you a job and let you learn the business.

Most entrepreneurs wake up each morning and say a quick prayer that a sharp young man or woman will walk in and say "I want to learn to do what you do, I am smart, hardworking and willing to do every task that it takes to run this business because I want to be like you some day, give me a chance to learn and I'll make you glad you said yes!"

Seriously - Learn the business from someone, find out exactly what the upkeep is on these rides, find out where to lease them and how to structure that lease.

A few things can happen here:
You may find out you were right, this is the business for you and you'll know what to do. You'll have a much better business plan and some sage advice to work it with.

You may decide that this is not the business for you, and you'll get paid to find that out

Either way, if you are going right to the entrepreneur and begging to apprentice I'll bet you $20 toward your first Lambo repair that the knowledge you gain about running a business from that entrepreneur in one summer will exceed what you learn in 2 years of school and then some.

Just a thought, your greatest assets are your enthusiasm and your lack of encumbrances right now, work the hell out of them while you are young.

There is a business like this somewhere around Cannes. Jill had to stop and take pictures of the Lambos, Bentleys, Rolls, Ferrarris et al... Apprentice there if you can, may as well learn French and get a tan.

Edit: Forgot to say: Give'm hell and Jill and I will rent from you when we are in your neighborhood.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ptiz]

That is a great idea that I hadn't considered. I am working with someone now buying foreclosed houses to turn a profit with, which is another venture I am looking to get into, and I dont know why I didn't think to do the same "internship" arrangement with this. I know there are a few companies in LA that I wouldnt mind putting in some time learning the ropes. Thanks for the tip!

Ptiz - Like the idea, love your enthusiasm. My first concerns were mostly addressed earlier (Insure and maintain).

Another concern I have is the advertising and marketing costs. Unless you can get creative this is a real SOB. There are some tips and tricks there... I think many have been covered but remember as a general rule that the price is negotiable, on the afternoon something goes to press that $1000 ad space shrinks to $200-$500.

Here is a suggestion for you. You mention Dad and School so I am assuming you are young, eager, and don't have a lot of entanglements - kids, wives, mortgages????

So my suggestion to you is that Summer is coming, find a dozen or so of these companies and call them up, ask to talk to the owner. Tell them that you would like to run a business like this, outside their market, and you are willing to bust your a$$ for peanuts if they will give you a job and let you learn the business.

Most entrepreneurs wake up each morning and say a quick prayer that a sharp young man or woman will walk in and say "I want to learn to do what you do, I am smart, hardworking and willing to do every task that it takes to run this business because I want to be like you some day, give me a chance to learn and I'll make you glad you said yes!"

Seriously - Learn the business from someone, find out exactly what the upkeep is on these rides, find out where to lease them and how to structure that lease.

A few things can happen here:
You may find out you were right, this is the business for you and you'll know what to do. You'll have a much better business plan and some sage advice to work it with.

You may decide that this is not the business for you, and you'll get paid to find that out

Either way, if you are going right to the entrepreneur and begging to apprentice I'll bet you $20 toward your first Lambo repair that the knowledge you gain about running a business from that entrepreneur in one summer will exceed what you learn in 2 years of school and then some.

Just a thought, your greatest assets are your enthusiasm and your lack of encumbrances right now, work the hell out of them while you are young.

There is a business like this somewhere around Cannes. Jill had to stop and take pictures of the Lambos, Bentleys, Rolls, Ferrarris et al... Apprentice there if you can, may as well learn French and get a tan.

Edit: Forgot to say: Give'm hell and Jill and I will rent from you when we are in your neighborhood.

 

[Bobo]

Ptiz: Do you have a younger brother? My daughter is 13 and I need to start lining up acceptable potential suitors for when she turns 30 and is allowed to date.

 

[hatterasguy]

If you do get this off the ground I'll rent one from you if my travels take me to your area of CA.


I think a Ferrari F430 spyder would be a great way to enjoy the CA weather!:fastlane:

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ptiz]

Ptiz: Do you have a younger brother? My daughter is 13 and I need to start lining up acceptable potential suitors for when she turns 30 and is allowed to date.

Oh thats great, I appreciate the compliment; although my two 18 year old brothers do not have the same aspirations as me. They are from this new generation of kids that want everything handed to them, they dont want to work for it. So while I worked and went to school full time since I was 16, bought my own car, and paid for everything, they sat at home and got a brand new car and still do not have a job and ask for money every week.

I kind of feel like the male version of Cinderella, haha. I think I am a better person for it.

 

[ptiz]

If you do get this off the ground I'll rent one from you if my travels take me to your area of CA.


I think a Ferrari F430 spyder would be a great way to enjoy the CA weather!:fastlane:

I will be sure to let you know when I pick one up

 

[CommonCents]

Look into buying some replica cars. They are professionally done especially for film/TV. There are many talented builders that build all types of exotics that can be finished to be nearly identical to factory originals. Your upfront cost and ongoing costs (insurance/repairs) will be much less. The average renter will still get the thrill.

You should network w/ your local media. They love these type of business stories and would love to ride in an exotic car during your interview.

Also, promotions w/ local businesses and photo shoots are low risk ways to monetize your cars rather than let some yahoo thrash your car.

Other risk management ideas are to put governors on the cars and rev limiters. That can probably be programmed by a car tech in the car's computer.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Brootal]

ptiz-

I am calling you out! haha

How is this going for you? Please give us all an update!

I came across this article a while back and thought of your thread:

TRANSUMERS | Consumers driven by experiences (read about 1/3 the way down to the part about luxury car sharing)

I have contacted a few of these place to see how the whole system works and it is quite interesting. I have been toying around with way too many ideas lately (need to re-read the one trick pony thread), but this would certainly be one of my top 5 businesses to be in.

 

[TaxGuy]

Thanks for bumping this thread, I have been thinking a bit about this myself, I know I posted above about how one of the first such businesses in the US is in my town(woot!) and as a t-shirt I had as a kid once said "Life is full of difficult decisions" and on the back it had about 10 different exotics :smxB:

I dunno if it is the horror stories of losing interest after owning a prized exotic, the insane costs of actually owning one or multiple or just the fact that I fell in love with the SL 63 after I drove one and decided that there's just too many exotics out there that I want and there's still plenty I haven't even heard of yet to just say that a Carrera GT is my "dream" car when all I know of it is what I've read and the handful that I have seen in person, but have yet to so much as sit in the driver's seat of one.

Not to mention I am starting to feel that actually owning multiple exotics and never actually driving all of them is one of the biggest wastes of money and beautiful works of art and engineering that are meant to be driven(preferably on a track) and not just sit in a museum like a painting or sculpture.

So with that I'd almost rather rent multiple exotics and drive them on a track or country road and just stick to owning a practical car(more so than my current poor man's "exotic" 3000gt), yea it wouldn't be practical as renting a Murci, for example, would run about $8k-$15k/wk vs leasing/owning one for probably $4-5k/mo, but renting is much more attractive than being bound by a lease agreement and any time not spent driving the car such as winter months or bad weather is just a waste :nonod:

This is actually something I am planning on pursuing in the 30 day challenge as well as it is a sublet of one of the 11 ideas I came up with and would be worth it for anyone else here interested to get on the 30DC and use the tools within to check the market size and demand for such a business(a la MJ's example of Kung Fu Steve and finding the demand before creating the business )

 

[TaxGuy]

FYI, here a cost page for a local exotic car rental place:

Exotic and Luxury Car Rentals - Chicago Exotic Car Rentals, IL

And after a quick search, here's an exotic car financing company:

WOODSIDE CREDIT | Collector Car Financing | Apply Now! | Payment Calculator

So here's an example using the Ferrari F430, MSRP of $186k, but let's just round up to $200k to be safe. With 20% down(the standard for Woodside) you have an upfront investment of $40k for just the first car, not including marketing, employees, maintenance, overhead, vacancy(days the car goes un-rented) etc. Add to that taxes, although a lot of the previously mentioned items can all be written off to lower this number a little.

This comes out to $1644/mo to own. Versus the weekly rate for the same car of $7795 or $31,180/mo. Therefore the other costs involved must be quite substantial, otherwise someone is making a really nice profit, I mean even if everything totals to $15-20k month factoring in major costs of vacancy and labor/maintenance taking that $31k down a notch it's still $10-15k month in your pocket from just one car :coolgleamA:

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MJ DeMarco]

Yes any updates? Its been a few months and some will argue that the economy is turning.

 

[ptiz]

Hey thanks for bumping the thread. I'll update you guys with what I've got. I will be graduating this spring and then will be ready to pull the trigger, provided the economy improves.

I decided to change my approach slightly. I want to capitalize on the green movement and add a line of green super cars,
fisker, tesla roadster , ronn scorpion etc to the list of usual suspects Ferrari, lambo, Aston , Porsche etc.

I also want to focus primarily on a members program where for x amount per year ($150,000 to $250,000) per year members get unlimited Access to each vehicle in my fleet. I would still need to work out the details but I want to limit the program at first to maybe 5 members. This should drive up the
demand as it gives that exclusive feel that the upper class here strives for.

So keeping the members happy would be priority one and then renting to all the people flying into the airport would be a close second.

Financing is my main hurdle. I have decided not to go with the line of credit I was informed of because it seemed like too much. I also feel bank financing will not be possible due to no collateral, I don't want to burden my parents with any loan requests so I believe angel financing is the way to go.

I'm sure I can find someone willing to help an eager entreprenuer grow my business plan into a legitmate operation.

Thanks again for the bump and I look forward to everyones opinions.

 

[hatterasguy]

FYI, here a cost page for a local exotic car rental place:

Exotic and Luxury Car Rentals - Chicago Exotic Car Rentals, IL

And after a quick search, here's an exotic car financing company:

WOODSIDE CREDIT | Collector Car Financing | Apply Now! | Payment Calculator

So here's an example using the Ferrari F430, MSRP of $186k, but let's just round up to $200k to be safe. With 20% down(the standard for Woodside) you have an upfront investment of $40k for just the first car, not including marketing, employees, maintenance, overhead, vacancy(days the car goes un-rented) etc. Add to that taxes, although a lot of the previously mentioned items can all be written off to lower this number a little.

This comes out to $1644/mo to own. Versus the weekly rate for the same car of $7795 or $31,180/mo. Therefore the other costs involved must be quite substantial, otherwise someone is making a really nice profit, I mean even if everything totals to $15-20k month factoring in major costs of vacancy and labor/maintenance taking that $31k down a notch it's still $10-15k month in your pocket from just one car :coolgleamA:

If your financing a car like that you cannot afford it. Don't forget the $10k+ bills from your mechanic to fix it.

The trick with Ferrari's(if you can afford to) is you have to order a new one each year, than when you take delivery drive it for a year and sell it for a nice profit. Although these days I don't know if you can still do that. Back when the economy was good I know someone who did this with a string of 360's and made between $10k-$20k on each one, after driving them for almost a year. He also really drove them to, in all weather and even off road... one had 30k miles put on it. I have a picture of him he took a few years ago of a nice buck he shot thats sitting on the hood of his red 360. He took that car hunting and fishing all the time. They are surprisingly durable when put to hard use, and provided the road is flat and not muddy fairly good on dirt roads.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ptiz]

I don't plan on financing the cars, more like just the business. I want to get the loan like a line of credit and buy cars cash and I wouldn't mind letting the angel hold the titles as some sort of collateral. I do not want to make payments to several places. I want to make one large one to my investor. I also hope to sell memberships quickly, which would go straight back to the investor so I can quickly pay offthe loan, but keep the available credit open for new cars or other expenses. I can see the entire line of credit being paid off in a matter of 3 to 5 years with this model with my own line of credit, aka my business account haha.

 

[ptiz]

And for anyone who thinks the membership price is too steep, remember this. Where I will be operating there are many wealthy people who have their own fleet of exotics. There are so many headaches they would not have to encounter with my model. Depreciation is none of their concern, neither is maintainence, no property tax, no registration, etc. I will offer mobile car washing so they do not have to pay a detailer to clean it for them. Not to mention in monterey, carmel, pebble beach, it's commonplace to spend well over $1000 on a casual shirt so I do not forsee them having too difficult of a time accepting my prices

 

[TaxGuy]

The club idea is brilliant- you hit the nail on the head, the wealthy will pay a premium for comfort and convenience :smxB:

Not to mention it appeals to someone like me, who aims for a decent seven to eight figure net-worth and wants to get the most out of it(see post above- I'd rather have part-time ownership of MANY exotics, than full-time of just one).

As far as financing- if you're talkin about the 30k millionaires, yes, those are the ones who cannot afford them, but as for starting a business, in order to get angel investment you have to show some proof of concept, usually in the form of signed purchase agreements. Even the angel who spoke at B&P mentioned that ideas, market size, 5yr revenue projcections, etc are worthless without some proof of the concept.

Otherwise you have to take the risk and take a loan, remember there's good debt and bad debt, bad debt is usually in the form of both a depreciating asset(aka a "liability") or in the case of a personal residence, something where the interest usually outweighs the appreciation, which being a roomsharer myself, it boggles my mind why people will buy a house with rooms that lay vacant and then complain when they can't afford their mortgage... I know most people buy houses(or exotic cars) out of vanity and that they want it all to themselves and more so with houses b/c of privacy and security concerns, but hey, didn't we all learn at a young age that "sharing is caring" and why not share and make money or just have someone else pay for your digs, basically having your cake and eating it too :coolgleamA:

Good debt, however, is debt taken on with the intention of building cashflow or total value that outweighs expenditures or total costs

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ptiz]

Thanks Vr4 I appreciate your thoughts. I have been really studying Gotham Dream Cars website and I am very impressed with how they run their business. From reading their site, I see they are very cool, laid back, but straight forward guys. The website makes me feel like they are being very upfront and not trying to overwhelm me with legal terms etc. I really like their model and would like to do something similar to theirs. They have quite a bit of media coverage posted on the website and I feel like the President, Noah, would be an excellent mentor for me. We seem to have a similar mindset. From what I have seen, he started his business with 1 car when he was about 27(ish) and he has grown an empire. He has a business in New York as well as Miami and has done an excellent job expanding.

As far as the recession he stated he has only seen a 10% decline in business in 2008, which was remedied by trimming 4 of the 22 cars he owned.

Another way he has been able to offset some of the expenses maintaining the fleet is to have a mechanic who has been trained to work on these cars employed, rather than taking the cars to dealerships. This must save a tremendous amount of money.

I would love the opportunity to intern for him and really learn the business inside and out.

 

[Brootal]

any update?

 

[ptiz]

Not much to update at the moment. Just focusing on finishing up school. I am planning on renting a Lambo at the end of the month in LA for "business research". I want to see how they run their business, if its profitable, and I get a copy of their documents.

Other than that there isn't much to update. I still am looking for an investor willing to take a chance on me. I have good credit but I dont think too many people are looking to loan that kind of money to someone my age. I'm hoping I can find an angel investor who can help me.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ptiz]

I still am very interested to hear peoples thoughts and suggestions. I see alot of views but not too many resonses. I really would like to know what everyone thinks

 

[Brootal]

I personally think the idea is great. After doing a few google searches I can only find a handful of these around the country (companies that rent TRUE exotic cars. I see some list an Infiniti G35 as an exotic haha). So a few of the major cities are still open.

I read about this in Maxium Magazine about a year ago and thought for a few months about trying it here in Virginia Beach but was just finishing college and never moved past the "that would be cool" point. I also thought about buying a used Ford Excursion limo, putting a 12 inch lift on it with big mud tires, and offering a "lifted limo" service as well. We have a lot of truck enthusiasts here in Virginia.

Have you written any type of business paln for this yet? There are a lot of free online tools that can help with the process.

For example Small Business Administration - Small Business Planner

Even if it is not an extremely in depth plan, at least going through the exercises will help you get a better feel on your business.

Its too bad I dont live out in Cali, I'd say we could sit down and go through the plan together as I would be very interested to see what the outcome was.

Keep us posted. I for sure am rooting for you.

 

[ptiz]

Hey everyone! Its been a long time since I've gotten on here, I don't know why, I get my inspiration from this website. Considering the economy is crap, I have not pursued the business idea any further, but rather have been focusing on other small projects to keep me going. I still want to eventually get this business going, but no one has money to rent these cars now!

So I am attempting to continue capitalizing on the situation by using others misfortunes to prosper. My stack of papers to serve continues to grow, its sad but it helps pay my bills. I also am looking forward to going to a couple storage auctions next month, see if I can pick up some cool things to resell.

School doesn't start for a few weeks and I'm bored so I am thinking up projects like the auction one to keep me going. Maybe next year the economy will improve and I may be able to pick up a few of these cars.

Always love to hear from you guys!

-pat

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ptiz]

Bump for replies

 

[EntreViews]

I don't know if there is a business similar to this in your area but if so this could be a good relationship to nurture.... Experience Genie