Province
Name: Belle Allen
Business:
AutoLeaseBreakers .com,
Vancouver
Contact: same website
Number of employees: Two (me and my husband)
Time in business: Three years
What is your business? We have a website that helps people who are stuck in an auto lease connect with people who are looking for a lease. We provide an online marketplace tailored to Canada and the U.S. where people wanting to get out of their lease can find people looking to take over a lease for a short-term period.
How did you get started? A couple of years ago while I was in college, I had a couple friends who were trying to get out of car leases. They had tried ads, but couldn’t find anyone. You get to a certain age and you want to buy a nice car, but you can’t afford one so you lease. Then with the cost of rent and just living, you can’t afford the payments, but you can’t get out of the lease without it being really expensive. I talked to my husband and we came up with the idea of making it easy and affordable for people to get out of their leases while benefitting people who are interested in leasing. By taking over a lease, they don’t have to make a down payment on the vehicle and they have a shorter commitment term.
What do you like about your business? I’m a stay-at-home mom and I can manage the business while also being at home with my daughter. I also get to meet people all across North America every day.
What is the biggest challenge? Building a website that was fully functional with all the bells and whistles to separate my business from any competitors. When I first started, it took a while for the traffic to pick up, but I’ve had thousands of people register in the last year.
Where do your buyers and sellers come from? We have a lot of U.S. clients, but we have people registered from all different cities across North America — some of them places I’ve never even heard of, all across the continent.
Future plans? We’re definitely trying to grow the business. We try to focus on what people want and need, and try to make them happy. Right now we’re also working on using a similar website model (www.bamja.com) to bring buyers and sellers of Whistler accommodation together as we head toward 2010.