In 2021, Matthew Thomassin worked as a mechanic in a workshop and earned a net income of around $30,000 per year. Almost two years later, he owns 25 cars, which he rents through the car-sharing app Turo, giving him more than enough to live on. He tells us how he changed his professional situation so quickly.
“I knew I didn’t want to settle for one job, but I also didn’t know how to start a business,” recalls the 28-year-old when it comes to describing the path that led him to entrepreneurship .
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While searching the internet for ways to make money, he discovered Turo. The concept of the platform is simple: people who own one or more cars can rent them out to other people while they are not using them.
While many people simply use Turo to supplement their income by renting out a few times from time to time, Matthew immediately saw the greater potential. He wanted to use it to set up a lucrative car rental business.
To test the app, he first bought a 2015 Hyundai Sonata, repaired it and displayed it in the app, a little skeptical that it would work. “I had no reviews. On my profile there was just a photo of my girlfriend and me and my Hyundai,” he remembers.
Within the first week he had a rental request. “The guy came, he took the keys… I was so scared! The feeling of giving someone the keys is pretty annoying. But he brought the car back. And in that moment I said to myself: This is what I want to do.”
Photo Camille Dauphinais-Pelletier
One thing led to another: Matthew expanded his vehicle fleet by reinvesting almost exclusively the money he earned from rentals into buying other cars. At the end of September 2023, he had 25 cars on the platform, divided into two parking lots for which he has parking contracts – one in Pointe-Claire, the West Island city where he lives, and one in Laval, near Highway 440 .
Who does his clientele consist of? Mainly tourists visiting the country and wishing to do so by car (the Pointe-Claire car park is a 5-minute taxi ride from the airport). There are also Quebecers, especially families, who swap their car for a van during the holidays, or even… people who have ordered a car but have to wait before getting it and who are on the edge of their seats condition. water for a few weeks.
But be careful, renting a car, even through an application, is not possible on your own. They must communicate with customers, hand them the keys when they pick up the vehicle (or hand them over to them at an agreed meeting point), inspect the vehicle upon return, take photos of the damage, and file claims if necessary.
At first, Matthew did all of these tasks on his own, as well as maintaining vehicles, repairing them, and purchasing cars to expand the fleet. But with three or four rentals a day at random times, he spent his time driving back and forth between the cars and the garage he rented in Saint-Eustache – where he repairs other people’s cars. Turo hosts.
Since it was too much for one man, he hired an employee to handle the logistics of rentals and hired an accountant to manage the finances. Matthew takes care of expanding the fleet and maintaining the vehicles.
He would like to hire another mechanic to help him, but that labor is particularly hard to find. “That’s the hardest thing! “People who are young and ambitious usually go to university and give up skilled trades,” he complains.
Photo Camille Dauphinais-Pelletier
$140,000 on Turo
In 2022, Matthew made $140,000 in gross income from Turo despite only renting vehicles from May to November. He now rents them out year-round and estimates he can generate a gross annual income of $250,000 from his fleet of 25 cars. His business model, based on his craft skills, allows him to keep 60 to 50% of that money after operating costs, he says.
The fleet is expected to be expanded to 60 vehicles by next summer.
Matthew’s income has exploded since 2021, but that’s not the only variable that makes him happy. “I used to wake up on Sunday in a bad mood because I knew Monday was coming and I had to go to work, that my boss would be watching me if I showed up at 8:05 a.m. instead of the 8:05 a.m. I would be hunted. There I’m my own boss, I do what I have to do, it’s much more rewarding,” he says.
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