Helping friend buy a car led to new business
ADEVON man set up his first business venture at the age of 17, and it all began in an ICT lesson.
George Howell was always into cars. It was his dream as a young boy to work with them, and he had big plans to become a car salesman.
Knowing how into vehicles he was, at the age of 17 in the middle of a class, a friend of George’s asked him some advice on buying his first car.
He looked at the Gumtree ad for his friend, gave him some tips on what was good and not so good about the car, and also went along to the viewing with him to check it out.
George, although nervous, haggled money off of the VW Polo and got his mate a good deal with his first ever motor. For the help, George’s friend gave him £20 to say thanks.
And that’s where Ideal First Car began.
George has since excelled in the business world - his life has trans
formed in a few short years from pitching his business plan in college to a group of 10 students to standing on a national stage in front of 800 business people to explain how he had managed to take the reigns and create a business at such a young age.
Now 20, George has been on quite the ride to get to where he is with his app.
Ideal First Car is a service built for 17-25-year-olds wanting to buy their first car without being ripped off.
The app uses a database of assured, trusted car retailers, giving users access to over 20,000 second hand approved vehicles. You set a budget and the app finds you cars within your spend that you can have confidence in purchasing.
All it takes is for 10 questions to be answered on the app about your car requirements (such as colour and incar features you’d like). Then a list of matching cars will come up, along with all of the information about them in an easy to digest format. You can then contact the seller to buy.
George, from Exeter, said: “The whole thing stemmed from my passion for cars. When I was in single digits cars were my obsession - Top Gear, fast cars - it didn’t matter to me, if it had four wheels and steering wheel I was interested.
“At 17, every opportunity I had related to cars I took. I used to walk around Marsh Barton auto-trading estate and go into dealers to ask if I could do some voluntary work experience. To be a car salesman was my overall goal. I was good with people and loved cars, it was always the dream to work with a high-end brand like Porsche or Ferrari.
“I learnt about the trade, what makes a good car, what makes a bad car and got an idea of what it takes to sell a car. The maths behind it is far more complex than people think.”
George then went on to an Enterprise Academy course at Exeter College, where students were taught to run their own business. George figured that if his friend wanted to pay him to scope out a decent car, then maybe others would.
He began offering his services through the college, and soon that £20 grew to £40, £60, £80 and so on.
George was developing documents for car buyers about his assessment of the vehicle, critiquing it from the adverts and data checks online before giving the car an overall score.
Whilst still working at a stationery store, George was developing a business plan which would soon change his future.
Over the next couple of years he developed the business, but couldn’t afford to host a domain for a website. At the end of his second year of college, the students got to pitch their business ideas to to local business figures.
In those five minutes, the teen captured the attention of the businessmen, and things began to take off.
George won a place Prince’s Trust online mentoring scheme and became the youngest person to be given a place, a mentor – and £5,000.