Brandon Donnelly

3 responses to “My first Turo experience”

1. 

   AM

   December 8, 2023

   I was an all-star host on Turo for a few years. It’s a great business model for guests for all the reasons mentioned above, but it’s really tough for the hosts to make money and the opportunity to learn comes at a high financial cost.

   I think it works greats for large scale hosts who can shoulder unforeseen expenses across many vehicles, but for me, I got under because of a lot of repairs all coming at once. It was a great learning experience but that cost me a lot of money.

   My experience as a guest was always great and all-star hosts go generally above and beyond service-wise.

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   1. 

      Brandon Graham Donnelly

      December 8, 2023

      Interesting feedback. Is it either you’re an individual looking for extra cash or you have scale? How much scale do you think you need?

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      1. 

         AM

         December 9, 2023

         For me it comes down to a few things that will be the difference between profit and loss (many of which I didn’t do or took a while to realize):

         – You have to buy the right cars, both in terms of demand and in terms of condition. Cars that don’t command a huge price but rent consistently are best in my opinion. 2 out of my 3 cars were big renters (Mazda 3s). If buying used cars, you have to REALLY know what you’re doing and be extra diligent in making sure that no big issues are lurking beneath. It’s nearly impossible because there can always be something invisible that blows up in your face, but diligence mitigates that greatly. I didn’t do enough due diligence on my third car and that cost me dearly (not to mention that the dealer I bought it from shouldn’t have sold it to me in that condition).
         – It’s infinitely better to buy the cars in cash. As such, the sweet spot seems to be cars that are 7-10 years old, i.e. fully depreciated but that are still reliable enough to provide years useful service without horrible maintenance costs.
         – Pricing. It took me two years to learn how to price my cars properly and dynamically. There are a few simple tricks that will increase utilization significantly but that are not necessarily obvious. Turo has coaching programs that are excellent, but you have to have been a an all-star host for a while before they offer it to you. I think they should make it available to anyone who wants it.

         To answer your question, I’m not sure the “individual looking for cash” model works because the money you’ll make will not cover your time + the extra maintenance costs due to the extra mileage. The extra cash might cover your payments and insurance but that’s at the expense of time spent managing the listing(s).

         I estimated that managing my account took roughly 100 to 150 hours a year for a gross revenu of about $16,000 in 2023. That’s less $$$ than I can charge hourly in my business. If I spent that time looking for work, I would make multiples of that and this was the main reason I decided to shut it down and not double down on the losses.

         I thin it starts to scale nicely at around 3-4 cars provided you know how to buy them, you pay cash and the pricing is on point.

         Some hosts make bank, but they operate it like a business and have dozens of cars. Like everything I suspect most hosts don’t make anything and 20% of them make 80% of the money.

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