Real Life Planning Podcast EP 39: Getting Started with Semi-Passive Income Through Turo

In Episode 39, Vekevia Tillman-Jones shares her journey into semi-passive income through Turo, a peer-to-peer car-sharing platform, and how it became a flexible addition to her family's financial strategy. She explains the practical steps, low barriers to entry, and key considerations for anyone looking to start a similar venture while balancing a busy lifestyle.

"We felt like the barriers to entry were pretty low, at least from the standard when you compare it to other business ventures that we might have gone after." - Vekevia Tillman-Jones

This week on Real Life Planning Podcast:

Takeaway Quotes:

"...the flexibility to even pause your business for just a moment. It's not shutting down your app and shutting the doors to your business, because this business lives on.” - Vekevia Tillman-Jones

"I think that working with a financial planner, you can decide on what amount of money you need to be making and what's going to work for your household and your goals and your future, then you fit this passive income into that strategy.” - Vekevia Tillman-Jones

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About the Real Life Planning Podcast

Hosts Cynthia Meyer and Vekevia Tillman-Jones explore practical steps for real estate investors to build financial freedom and make working for someone else optional.

TRANSCRIPT for Episode 39

[00:00:11] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Do you want to build a business? Have you already started a business and you need help bringing all the things together to make it grow in the way that you desire? Does the idea of multiple streams of income excite you? Then you're in the right place.

[00:00:25] Hello, my name is Vekevia Tillman-Jones. I'm a multipreneur. I'm a real estate investor, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®, professional by trade, and a business coach and life coach at heart. I have worked 17 years in the financial services industry. I work with young professionals and experienced professionals, in particular, women and couples who have either already started or are ready to embark on a journey to create a life that they dream of as CEO of their own life.

[00:00:53] I help them experiment with growing their business and developing different sources of income so that they can live life on their terms. Now, some of these individuals and couples are looking to build a portfolio of real estate or maybe just other semi passive streams of income. And I help them do just that.

[00:01:11] I offer them guidance to help them make it a reality. So if that's something that is important to you, and it sounds like something you'd be interested in, stick around and get some tips on how to do just that.

[00:01:22] You want to start a business or at least create some separate maybe passive or semi passive stream of income, but that's easier to say than to do because sometimes you're wondering exactly how much money should I put into this? What will it be? What should I go with? Do I even have the time?

[00:01:41] A lot of people actually are interested in starting their own business, but a lot of times is the barriers to it. It's like, how do you get started? And they get stuck in that place and they're wondering, okay, do I have time really? 

[00:01:54] It boils down to maybe three things like time commitment.

[00:01:57] Do I have time for this and how much time is this actually going to take out of my already busy schedule to make this thing working? To make it worthwhile. 

[00:02:08] Then there's a money commitment. How much is this going to cost me? Do I think this is the best way to spend my money? I have all these competing priorities. Is spending money on this endeavor that I'm not sure is going to work in my favor worth it? 

[00:02:22] You wonder, how is it going to fit into my lifestyle? The life that I'm already living is busy. Maybe you have children, you're married, just getting married, whatever it is.

[00:02:31] Maybe you are very busy with a job, a 9 to 5, and you're wondering how in the world are you going to even fit this into your current lifestyle? Is there a lot of information that you still need to go and learn in order to even make this something that you can make successful?

[00:02:46] So I do think it's very important to think about those things and be honest with yourself. Do you have the time? Do you have the money? Do you want to change up your budget to even be able to afford this? And then what if it doesn't work? Have you put yourself in a worse financial situation? Do you have a plan on how to come back from that? I think all of those things are really important.

[00:03:04] I wouldn't say we always knew we wanted to do peer to peer car sharing and get involved in, doing this that we're doing right now. My husband and I have always been thinking about what type of business could we start or what could we do just to bring an extra income?

[00:03:19] We love the idea of multiple sources of income. We have the rental property and we were looking at what else could we do? Actually, when my husband was traveling for work, we ended up renting a car off of the Turo platform, and that's when we were first introduced to it. It was very simple. It was actually less expensive because he would be traveling for a while and we found that for the amount of time that he would need the vehicle, it was actually less expensive. At that time, it was Arizona. We went to Arizona, the car was in good shape. There were no issues. It's a very simple process. Because the family and I went up there with him, and one day, we were like, you know what? This make sense. And I think some of my financial planning, like when it comes to investments, even though this is not that, they're not one and the same, but some of my- things that I learned from there is keep it simple. Invest in the things that you understand.

[00:04:07] And then if you're working with a financial planner, that things that they can help you understand to the degree and level that you need to make informed decisions. I just felt like Turo for us was like a, keep it simple type of idea. From there, we started looking into it more and ultimately decided to move forward with it.

[00:04:23] I think some of the initial aspects of doing business, this car peer to peer car sharing business was just the idea that I felt like it was low risk or lower risk than maybe some other opportunities, I would say. We just needed to buy a car and then worry about things like the initial maintenance to get it going, decide on what mileage would be something that was allowed on a platform- both allowed on the platform and the maximum amount of mileage that we would be willing to take on because cars start to need certain types of maintenance after certain mileage.

[00:05:00] So then year, make, model, all of those things came into play and then we also thought about the ongoing maintenance that was important to us. So we thought it was low risk. And the fact that you're just, you're purchasing a vehicle, which is something that all of us in some capacity, even on the personal side, at some point end up doing.

[00:05:17] We also felt like it was a lower initial time commitment. We didn't really have the capacity. It was so busy in our life and it still is and we don't really have the capacity to overthink or have something that it just requires too much in the beginning to get going. It doesn't fit well with us for where we are in this season, nor when we first started with Turo.

[00:05:36] The time commitment was this process. This program is already set up. The systems are set up. You just need to get familiar. They already have an app. We weren't building something from the ground up where we need it to essentially come up with the app and build it, which is great if that's something that someone has a time to do, or can hire out or raise funds, whatever they need to do to get that going.

[00:05:57] But for us, that was something that we really thought was helpful. We just had to take our time to become familiar with communicating with guests on the app and, um, really honing in on what was going to differentiate us from anyone else. Why would they even rent from us?

[00:06:14] We didn't know all of those answers yet. We just knew we need to have really great customer service and put something on here and get it going.

[00:06:22] It seemed pretty simple to us because you essentially had your car. Is it clean? We took our pictures. It worked. Is it insured? We bought seat covers for the vehicle just to take extra care of it. We figured, a lot of people would be renting the car and you don't really know how clean everyone might be with it.

[00:06:38] So we thought that was like, a nice way to make it look even nicer. Oh, we got some really nice leather type seat covers and then, also help keep and preserve the interior of the vehicle. So we had it professionally detail before we rented it out. You make sure you have your insurances and different things in place.

[00:06:56] We felt like the barriers to entry were pretty low, at least from the standard when you compare it to other business ventures that we might have gone after.

[00:07:03] We were sure to read over and understand as much as we could. So we read over to Turo's service agreement that their terms of service and the car sharing agreement is, I think what is called. We even looked at it like this with the rental and okay, if we move towards this, we have the plans for what if it succeeds, but then we also have the backup plan and it's not to be a Debbie Downer.

[00:07:25] But what is the plan if it's not working? And it doesn't mean the business isn't working, but if it's not working for our lifestyle and our family and our time, and we're miserable or something like that, how do we get out of it? And we felt like it was a pretty easy exit strategy. Essentially, you sell the vehicle, or maybe you keep the vehicle is what we said. We have another daily driver that the gas would be much less than my husband's truck. And so we saw multiple benefits to it. We like maybe we would donate it or bless someone with a car who was in need. So we felt like even in terms of just getting out of the business. It wasn't really that big of a deal and we would at least recoup some of that money from the sale of the vehicle if we decided to go that route. As we are making money monthly, as the car is rented. We thought all of those were signs to us- that was enough to support us with moving forward.

[00:08:17] Ultimately, this opportunity worked well for our family because we were able to maintain pretty much the same lifestyle. It's just a part of our life. The kids help wash the cars; not huge manual labor or anything like that. But they do help vacuum out the cars.

[00:08:33] At that time, I had already transitioned from working a regular nine to five and I was doing consulting different things on my own. I had the time to be able to organize the drop-offs and pickups for the vehicle and any maintenance requirements that it needed. So it just fit into our lives. It still does.

[00:08:51] We paused it for a while as my husband was have some different things going on and then he made a transition at work. So we paused it. And that's another thing about it, the flexibility to even pause your business for just a moment. It's not shutting down your app and shutting the doors to your business, because this business lives on.

[00:09:08] We are simply hosts that we get to make money from it. So that worked, as well. And we're getting ready to get things back up and running again. 

[00:09:18] At a bare minimum, we would like to have about 4 or 5 cars on the platform and see how that's going and then decide how much we want to grow.

[00:09:27] Are we still going to stay on this particular platform to grow? Is it something where we would want to grow it to have people manage it for us? I think time will tell on that, especially as we are busy with other endeavors. We might keep it as a- in addition to the income at a certain level that we've determined works for us as a family, as opposed to having grow into something much larger. Because you do need the time or the capacity to either do it yourself or hire out I think once it gets to a certain point.

[00:09:59] But for now, we're enjoying the journey. (How much time does this take?) The journey of multiple strings of income and I don't think that you have to be stuck with one type of income. Perhaps it'll change over time as your needs and your family change. But you still have financial goals that you're trying to put out, or you still have a part of you that is very entrepreneurial spirited.

[00:10:20] I would say is for my husband and I, that outlet allows you to essentially have the best of both worlds. So you don't have to quit your 9 to 5. My husband has a standard job. I don't and that works for our family and essentially a family can make the things work for them in the way that they need it to.

[00:10:37] So I think it's a great opportunity for the right person at the right time. I think that working with a financial planner, you can decide on what amount of money you need to be making and what's going to work for your household and your goals and your future, then you fit this passive income into that strategy.

[00:10:55] So yeah, good luck on your endeavors.

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