How Turo helped this former business owner launch a new career 

by Neya Abdi

posted on November 10, 2023

If there’s one thing you need to know about Tina M., it’s that nothing gets her down.  “I enjoy the game,” she tells us. “It’s fun.” 

From 13 to 23, she worked three jobs while going to school. At 23, she got married, opened a bakery, had two kids, and spent the next couple of decades opening several businesses in the hospitality industry. But then life happened.

During the pandemic, she faced the prospect of losing her business, TAS Café, a restaurant in Montreal focused on providing quick, healthy food options. Despite almost 30 years of hustling to ensure she’d have a solid financial foundation, she found herself worried about how she’d support her family, pay her mortgage, and make her car payments. 

“It was insane. I tried to do everything right. I’m not complaining, but sh*t happens.”

Not one to give up, she started plotting her next move while trying to keep her restaurant afloat. As luck would have it, an old friend reached out. He was sharing his cars on Turo and had been leaving coffee gift cards for his guests as a nice gesture, but they rarely used them. After learning it was because they had more refined coffee tastes than the fast food brands he was offering, he reached out to Tina and bought $1,000 worth of TAS gift cards. Not only was Tina grateful, she was also curious to learn more about Turo. 

“I had a BMW. I couldn’t pay for it, and I love my car. So I put it on Turo and then I had the pleasant problem of never having my car, so I had to buy another car, and then that one was gone and I was like, ‘Wait a minute. This is fun. What’s happening?’”

What started out as a way to maintain her car turned into a lucrative business opportunity with built-in flexibility— which she grew with the help of her son and daughter to a portfolio of six. 

This was back in 2022. At the time, she credited Turo with giving her the financial freedom to focus on her family, pay her bills, and maintain the life she’d work hard to build. Since then, Tina has been using Turo for way more than just a safety net. She’s started using it as a trampoline to launch her into the next chapter of her life. 

“2020 taught everybody that it’s not about the money. It’s about the flexibility and the freedom. It’s about the simple things.” 

After selling her cafe, she started reflecting on the kind of life she wanted. Not super eager to jump back into the hospitality business, she took a year off and got clear about the kind of work she wanted. She knew she was a hard worker who loved sales and helping people, but she also knew that she wanted to make up for all the times she’d missed with her kids as an entrepreneur.

“Turo allowed me to do that. When my year was coming to an end, I started to look at job fairs. I was literally not on the market for the past 25, 30 years. I didn’t know my worth. I didn’t know how all of my businesses could calculate for someone else. I knew I didn’t want to work nights. I didn’t want to work evenings. There was no way I could go back to having two weeks off. I said, ‘I want a hybrid at minimum. I want to be able to walk my dog. I want to be able to be home if my kids need me. I want to be able to drive them anywhere to compensate for all of the years that I wasn’t there.’

After narrowing things down, she decided to launch a new career as a financial advisor, where she gets to make her own hours and the amount of reward she gets is equal to the amount of work she puts in. She credits Turo with giving her the financial flexibility to take the courses necessary to enter this line of work. 

Right now, her kids are taking on more of the responsibility with the Turo business while she focuses on the financial advising business. It’s something that both she and they are happy about since they get to learn valuable skills while also driving nice cars. 

Tina says while she’s definitely taking a more leisurely, grateful approach to life these days, she’s still got that go-getter spirit in her, and has her sights set on more courses. 

She’s still playing the game, but the game is a little more fun these days.

Book a car from Tina

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