Turo Guru

Airbnb Vs. Turo – Who will win?

Kinda (Blogger) — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 12:55:54 +0000

Turo is often misinterpreted as the ‘Airbnb of cars’. Although both Airbnb and Turo being sharing economy startups, it is important to look past their common similarities and how they compare to each other. Let’s start off with the basic knowledge about the two companies, about how they operate, and what services they provide.

On face value, Turo and Airbnb operate very similar. Turo is a car-sharing marketplace company, connecting private owners to share out their vehicles in order to earn money, whereas Airbnb is an online marketplace where you are offered to rent a place, both suffer the same seasonality associated with the tourism industry and both portray as a lifestyle brand.

In this piece, I will be examining Airbnb and Turo from a Host perspective on the basis of startup costs, management, and the overall appeal and future both the startups seem to be headed towards to.

Start-up Costs

Investing in one of the two side-gigs has a big-difference financially. Of course, buying a car and then putting it up on Turo to be rented by someone will cost very less, especially due to easy loan policies and low interest rates. In comparison, taking a mortgage for investing in a real estate property to be put up on Airbnb is way more complex than the former scenario. In short, the barriers to entry are way higher on Airbnb than Turo.

Exit strategy:

Investing in a real estate business requires a larger amount of seed investment, and higher transaction costs leading to a higher gamble on your money. Whereas spending a down-payment on a car will be a lesser risk considering the low starting costs and easier exit strategy.

Revenue

Revenue wise, Airbnb is a the ultimate cash-cow, but Turo has a better asset turnover ratio (dollar amount of sales or revenues to its total assets). Additionally, it offers you a sense of control over where you can travel on your vacation all by yourself.

Turo Vs. Airbnb Yearly Revenue Generation

Management

When you think of comparing the two companies on managing their respective services, I think that operating an Airbnb is much easier to manage than operating a service of Turo. Car management puts a whole lot of hassle to the task than managing a house. A car is always on the move. Whereas, the apartment or house is always there. Statistically there is just fewer unknowns. Therefore, it’s easy to automate and setup systems and procedures with a car. For example, merely setting up a house-keeping service to clean your rental house is way simpler and less annoying than taking out your car for tuning, oil changing, car washing, etc. You know the works. Hence, there is an extra effort in dealing with operating and managing a Turo car. Having said that, with the quick-rise in the auto sharing industry there has been an improvement in the ecosystem. You can now order oil changes on demand that comes to you, car-washes, there are now car-wash cards that guests can use to have the car washed themselves and therefor pushing the burden and time out to the guest, messaging can also be automated with bots and template responses by third party services (I go over more automation and system techniques in my course ____).

Appeal

Appeal, AKA, the cool-factor. You want to drive a nice car, everyone does, who doesn’t. The envy is just out there, you can be banking on Airbnb but the fact that you can show off your Porsche, Tesla car to anyone is just a better flex. Comparatively for Airbnb hosts, even a nice Airbnb place is not going to be available all that much. A cool car collection that you change and alternate between, on the other hand, is another level of cool. It means that you can show off without having to take everyone to the place where you are staying. It gives an edge to Turo over Airbnb. The cool-factor of Turo is downplayed, but showing off a different car everyday is way over the top lifestyle.

Fun fact: All jokes aside, Andre Haddad, Turo’s CEO, had his own car collection on Turo.

Conclusion

Airbnb, by providing you a house also provides you with peace of mind of an unmovable, appreciating asset (nothing beats real-estate). Turo, on the other hand, gives you a higher status especially if you, or your career requires a network. Turo is an easier shot at a side-gig investment with way easier startup costs. Revenue wise, Airbnb is a the ultimate cash-cow, but Turo has a better asset turnover ratio. Although investing in Turo is easier and more reliable, but it is only a short-term investment. If you really want to make money from one of these side-gigs, you should take a bigger leap and invest in a good real estate property with a good view and a great location. Better if keep a car or two on Turo, I think that is the sweet spot of the sharing economy.. Hence, attracting tourists and families in order to enjoy the peace of mind by living in a calm and relaxed places on their vacations. Airbnb provides you with a better long-term investment opportunity as a buyer but it comes with more risks, and a higher saturation level than Turo. All in all, both can be done, and an Airbnb guest can always be upsold to rent a Turo car (you can read more about this in my article…)

My Guests Paid Off my Porsche

Osama — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 16:35:12 +0000

2013 Porsche released the all-new Cayman, I fell in love with that car, at first sight, every single curve.

So much so I put it as my phone screen wallpaper on my -now-retired- iPhone 4S. I made myself a promise that I was going to own that exact model even if I had to work until I am 50. 3 years later, 2016, luckily, Turo had collapsed the timeline of car ownership so I bought it at 22 years old, on a loan. It has been my best investment yet.

Today I paid the bank my last car payment, so it’s really REALLY mine. Now I decided I am never going to sell my Cay, I will still want to ride it when I am 50 (+ its a recurring source of income) What are we if we’re not moved by dreams that get bigger and more challenging as we grow-up.

I’d just love to drive a Porsche young. If there is that one car you’ve been dreaming to own, reach out to me and let me hook you up with your dream car and put it on Turo for everyone to experience, you can learn it by yourself on my Turo University 100, or schedule mentorship so you can get 0 to 100 real quick – no pun intended.

Uber or Turo? The Trade-off of the Sharing Economy

Osama — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 16:32:53 +0000

Summer of 2016 I was driving full-time for Uber, which was a great way to make supplemental income for a student. Think about it, $23/hr on average, flexible work time, so you can fit in a few shifts before or after an exam session, and most importantly the flexibility that a youngster really needs. One thing was missing though, Uber, like any other job, trades my hours of work for a dollar amount, how much I pocket at the end of the day equates to how many hours I put in. This was the worst thing about Uber, and therefore, I knew it was a matter of time before I had to jump the ship as nobody has got rich trading their hours for cash. On those long night drives, I was thinking at the back of my mind, what if this car can drive people by itself and I can sit at home to do more productive things, after all, I am only here to take move people to their “more productive things” and then it hit me. Well, what if I just rent out my car, it’s an old concept, car rentals have existed for years, but how would I find people to rent my car, let me check YouTube for some inspiration. Let me google “make money from your car without driving it” and BAM there you go, a company called Turo, that lets people rent their every-day cars.

If you consider the basics, Turo, is a car-rental platform where you can rent out one or more cars to make money. It’s a fairly new rebranded platform, previously RelayRides, a bit different from the older Uber. It is so that you are not driving the car, only renting it to travelers. Here’s a comparison between the two platforms, Uber and Turo, so that you can make an informed decision as to which platform to pick as your side-gig or full-time gig.

Resources

A fleet of Turo cars belonging to a Host on Turo

For both Uber and Turo, you need to have a car. What’s different between the two platforms is that for Uber, you also need to invest your time as well as the car. For Turo, on the other hand, you are investing your asset, as is the case with Airbnb, rather than your time, although arguably they all need time. And since you aren’t behind the steering wheel yourself, it works as the perfect side-gig rather than another employment. The best thing about it? You can add as many cars to your fleet, but you can only drive only one Uber-car at any given time.

Profit

With Uber, the maximum that you can put in is 24 hours, and in turn your profits are limited. Now compare it with Turo, where you are not limited by the number of hours since you aren’t investing your time. While renting out a single car on Turo may not be as profitable as driving for Uber, you can rent out as many cars on Turo as you like; the profits aren’t limited.

Protection

Protection could have been the concern with renting with Turo had it not been for the coverage offered by the premium packages. Since you are the one driving your car on Uber, protection isn’t a problem at all. You do, however, have to make an intelligent bargain between coverage and earnings by choosing an appropriate package for yourself.

With the premium package, you can earn 65% of the trip price and will be compensated for any damage to your vehicle in addition to a replacement vehicle if need be. If you choose to earn more, you could go for the basic package which gives you 85% of the trip price but includes a deductible of up to $3k and offers no replacement vehicle or compensation for damages. There’s a standard package as well with coverage that’s less than that of the premium package but more than that of the basic package; it gives you 75% of the trip price.

Location

Location isn’t a major concern if you choose to drive for Uber since it has steady bookings in plenty of areas. For Turo, in contrast, the guest will need to pick up the vehicle and drop it off at the same location, if you don’t want to do “deliveries” and pick it up from another drop off location. If you’re considering renting your car on Turo, it will help if you live close to an airport or can deliver your car there since the majority of the bookings will be from there.

By comparing all the factors in a systematic way, you can choose the best side-income for yourself.

If You Wear a Suit You Can Talk to Anyone

Osama — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 09:29:49 +0000

“If you wear a suit you can talk to anybody”

This year during my internship time at Turo, I was responsible for establishing the Commercial Host program in Canada from scratch, and this meant making a lot of phone calls to get dealerships and rental agencies onboard on the platform, promising to give them thousands of dollars worth of business..a lot would say no though! I was shocked! My close rate was lower than 20%

Then we changed strategy to IPVs! Whenever I got a rejection, I’d wear my suit and crash into their facility without an appointment and pitch them Turo.

I flew everywhere Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, even as far as Edmonton crashing in to their businesses in my suit, no appointment and pitching them Turo face-to-face, my close rate went up to 85% adding 100s of cars on Turo including Porsche’s Lamborghinis, Mclarens, and even the first-ever Lamborghini Urus in Canada.

Today we have over 100 rental agencies and dealerships on-boarded on Turo. I still believe in many cases it was the suit that made them say yes!

It’s easy saying no to the telemarketer over the phone trying to sell you, it’s much harder to say no to a guy in front of you promising you recurring money, in a suit.