$3k a Month Renting Out Mobility Scooters Part-Time (Greatest Hits)

Summary

The Side Hustle Show – Greatest Hits: $3k a Month Renting Out Mobility Scooters Part-Time
Host: Nick Loper | Guest: Lenny Tim (LAMobilityScooterRentals.com)
Date: August 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this Greatest Hits episode, Nick Loper interviews Lenny Tim—serial side hustler and creator of LA Mobility Scooter Rentals—about his unexpected, low-risk journey to building a $3,000/month side business renting mobility scooters to travelers, tourists, and industry professionals in Los Angeles. With a background in e-commerce and YouTube (The Struggling Entrepreneur), Lenny shares how he validated demand before purchasing inventory, optimized for local SEO with minimal effort, and crafted a high-ROI operation that fits neatly alongside his day-to-day life. The conversation is packed with actionable tactics for aspiring side hustlers interested in unconventional rental businesses.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Idea Validation Before Investment

[02:47] Lenny’s Demand-First Approach

• Lenny started by building a simple website to test demand, before purchasing any scooters or equipment.
• Used an exact match domain name: LAMobilityScooterRentals.com.
  • “My first thing was to just build a website just to see if there's a demand. I didn't go out to buy any equipment.” – Lenny [02:47]
• Waited until he received consistent inquiries before buying inventory.

[11:53] Demand Threshold

• Set a personal threshold: wanted “several” requests per day to ensure his investment and effort would be worthwhile.
  • “I wanted it to be where it was worth... the daily rate was good, and I was going to get several consistent, like, rentals all the time.” – Lenny [11:59]

2. SEO, Website, & Customer Acquisition

[04:07] Simple SEO, Google My Business, and Branding

• Chose a search-friendly domain (“LA Mobility Scooter Rentals”).
• Filled in backend SEO on GoDaddy website builder; opened Google My Business and Yelp pages.
• Did minimal backlinking, dabbled with Fiverr (with caution).

[06:07 & 07:46] Understanding the Market

• Most customers are travelers and hotel guests, with additional demand from movie productions and locals.
• The idea was partially inspired by his girlfriend’s mom having rented a scooter years prior.

[26:49] Local SEO & Reviews

• Focused on collecting Google reviews (from customers, friends, and family at first), which outperformed older, less-optimized competitors.
  • “I definitely did solicit some reviews from my first customer, some friends, family, and I think that's important. I definitely, you know, focused on that and I think that definitely helped get my business out there.” – Lenny [26:49]
• Emphasized the importance of a modern, well-made site—most competitors had outdated sites.

3. Business Model & Operations

[13:26] Pricing Strategy

• Researched competitors; ultimately decided to command the highest prices in the market.
  • $75/day, with a three-day minimum.
  • Delivery/pickup fee: $75 (local, within 5 miles), $150 for farther distances.
  • Weekly: $249 + delivery; Monthly: $500 + delivery.
  • “I almost always try to do at least three days minimum. … Usually I try to go into a week.” – Lenny [14:09]

[15:45] Inventory & ROI

• Scooters (Pride brand) cost $1,500 new, but Lenny buys used on Facebook Marketplace for ~$500 each.
• Recoups investment within 1–3 rentals.
  • “I pretty much count my money back within 1, 2, 3 rentals.” – Lenny [15:45]
• Grows fleet conservatively (currently 7 scooters as a side hustle).
• Uses apartment storage units for inventory.

[17:18] Delivery Logistics

• Delivers with personal SUV or car (fits 2 per SUV comfortably).
• Drops units at hotel front desks with name tags for guests.

4. Processes, Technical Tools & Customer Experience

[20:58] Day-to-Day Workflow

• Communication via phone/email.
• Uses PDF rental agreement, sent and returned via email.
• Invoices and payments processed through Square (shifted from PayPal).
• Everything handled upfront before delivery.

[29:24] Phone & Contact Systems

• Uses Talkroute (VOIP app) for business calls, voicemail conveniently accessible via email.

[23:42] Maintenance & Liability

• Rare technical issues—only once or twice did a scooter fail, resolved quickly with swaps.
  • “Luckily, that’s just mostly in my mind... That doesn’t usually happen.” – Lenny [23:42]
• Holds general liability policy; relies on clear rental agreements to reinforce responsibility.

5. Scaling, Marketing, & Growth Opportunities

[32:59] Strategic Partnerships

• Hasn’t actively pursued hotel partnerships, but recognizes growth potential.
  • “There's a lot of opportunity to reach out and to solicit business. And hotels is big... if I want to expand, which at some point I might, you can definitely do that.” – Lenny [33:26]
• Not focused on aggressive scaling (“pretty okay with how much business I have now”).

[29:48 & 30:17] Limited Upsells

• Tried to keep operation simple—no major upsells; accessories (like chargers or canopies) add complexity without significant return.

6. Lessons Learned & Top Advice

[38:26] Surprises & Low Stress

• Far fewer customer issues than feared; most concerns never materialized.
  • “It shouldn't be that stressful... I think the most surprising thing is there's no issues.” – Lenny [38:26]

[42:25] Biggest Takeaway for Side Hustlers

• Validate demand affordably—don’t buy inventory before proving interest.
  • “Start with a minimum viable product, throw up a website…but make sure it's good. Invest in that and then see if you get demand.” – Lenny [42:25]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Buy something once, get paid for it over and over again. It's a cool model.” – Nick Loper [01:20]
• “I just rent them the scooter and I get the most money for that and I keep it very simple for me.” – Lenny [30:17]
• “This ROI pencils out a lot faster than a traditional rental house where it's like...I can break even on my entire purchase cost within just a couple rentals and I'm off to the races.” – Nick Loper [17:44]
• “You don't have to invest money up front...Start with a minimum viable product.” – Lenny [42:25]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Demand Validation & Research: [02:47] – [07:46]
• Competitor Analysis & Pricing: [13:26] – [15:45]
• Fleet Management & Logistics: [16:29] – [17:44]
• Technical Tools & Customer Acquisition: [22:15] – [26:49]
• Customer Experience & Reviews: [29:48] – [32:40]
• Strategic Growth & Partnerships: [32:59] – [34:34]
• Operational Hours & Side Hustle Fit: [37:07] – [38:20]
• Lessons & Advice: [42:25] – [42:57]

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Flow & Tone

Lenny and Nick keep the conversation open, candid, and highly actionable. They repeatedly circle back to the importance of stress-testing ideas with low upfront risk, maximizing ROI via local SEO, and running a business that fits your chosen lifestyle—rather than letting it take over. Every step is explained with real numbers, relatable anecdotes, and an easygoing, no-nonsense approach to side hustle success.

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Useful Links Referenced

• LAMobilityScooterRentals.com
• The Struggling Entrepreneur (Lenny’s YouTube Channel)
• Bonus resource: 25 other unconventional rental ideas (sidehustlenation.com/lenny)

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For side hustlers seeking a low-cost, high-ROI business that leverages simple tech and honest customer service, this episode is packed with step-by-step insights and encouragement.

Transcript

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[Nick Loper]

Three grand a month renting out scooters part time. What's up? What's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the side Hustle Show. It's the business podcast you can actually apply. I love me a good rental business. Buy something once, get paid for it over and over again. It's a cool model and my guest today has a really creative approach to it in the mobility scooter niche, building it to three grand a month in his spare time from LA mobility scooter rentals.com and there's an exact match domain. Lenny Tim, welcome to the side Hustle Show.

[Lenny Tim]

Thank you so much Nick. Very happy to be here.

[Nick Loper]

You bet. So Lenny's a serial side hustler, serial entrepreneur involved in the E. Comm space, involved in the YouTube space. You can check out his channel over there. It's the Struggling Entrepreneur. We'll link it up in the show notes, but stick around in this episode to learn how Lenny discovered his niche, how he found his first customers, and how he's grown and expanded his fleet of scooters and the operations surrounding that. If you like this model, I've got a listener only bonus for you this week. It's my list of 25 other unconventional rental ideas. These are other products people are renting out for a profit. You can download that for free at the show Notes for this [e-mail] Lenny or, or just follow the show notes link in the episode description. Lenny I want to start with the kind of demand validation phase because you went about it in an interesting way. It wasn't like, hey, I've got these things sitting in my garage, let's see if anybody would rent them. It was like, no, let's see if anybody wants to rent these things first and then go out and find the actual inventory for it. Can you talk me through that process a little bit?

[Lenny Tim]

When I came up with the idea, it was back in 2019. My first thing was to just build a website just to see if there's a demand. I wanted to see if there's a demand for these scooter rentals. I didn't go out to buy any equipment. I didn't do anything like that. So that's pretty much how I started just to build out a really nice website just to see if I'm getting customers, if people are going to call, if people are going to make any requests before I actually go out and buy anything or commit to the business.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, so you put this thing up, send it out into the abyss of the Internet. Does anything start to come back or at what point do you start to get inquiries for them?

[Lenny Tim]

I started getting requests pretty quickly. Within a few months, maybe within six months, people started calling. I started getting emails for requests. And I think that I just didn't have that much competition and I think I built a pretty good website. So I looked at my competitors and I just tried to do it better and I think I just ranked, I ranked pretty quickly. And yeah, it started taking off fairly fast.

[Nick Loper]

Did you do anything specifically on the SEO front to build backlinks, to build the Google business profile, to do anything other than just having like the exact, you know, what somebody might be searching for in the URL and then in the content on the site itself?

[Lenny Tim]

Well, first of all, the name LA Mobility Scooter Rental. So I tried to get a domain that's gonna, you know, match, I guess, search pretty, pretty good. I didn't really do anything special. I don't know much about SEO. I just built a website. I did as much backend SEO as I could. Whatever they asked me to fill out, I filled it all in. Mobility scooter rentals, mobility scooters, all that kind of stuff. Put some good pictures, put up as much info as I could. I'm pretty sure I opened up a Google my business page right away and I may have did the Yelp as well at the same time. But that's pretty much it. That's everything. That's all I did from the beginning. I may have gotten into, to be honest, into some Fiverr gigs. I'm gonna be honest here. I think I tried to maybe get some backlinks from there. I don't know if it works. I hear mostly bad things about it and I don't know if it made things better or worse, but I probably did a little bit of that and that's pretty much it.

[Nick Loper]

What'd you build the site in?

[Lenny Tim]

GoDaddy. So it was GoDaddy website builder and they had that SEO optimization thing. So I just kind of. And for me it was very easy to use, like super intuitive.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. So I like this idea of, well, I'm going to put it out there, see what kind of reaction it gets and then kind of crickets for a few months. Like, I'm going to follow all the best practices and totally with you on the Fiverr backlink, like, definitely tread carefully over there because you wouldn't want a bunch of people pointing, you know, low quality or spam links back to your site. Even if they promised me a thousand backlinks for $5. Like, you know, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, but it didn't seem necessarily to hurt you in this case. So a few months go by and you start to get phone calls, like people who are filling out the contact form. It's primarily for travelers and tourists coming to LA and say, hi, I need this while I'm in town for the week. That's kind of the target customer base.

[Lenny Tim]

So I would say, yeah, I would say it's mostly travelers, tourists that come in and they want to get a scooter for whatever they're doing. Because most of the, most of my rentals are two hotels. I would say, yeah, that would be the majority of people that are just traveling, coming in. Maybe they're a little older, they're sightseeing, stuff like that. But there's also a lot of other customers, a lot of industry people. There's movie productions, they rent scooters. What else is there? There's just all sorts of things, I think, honestly.

[Nick Loper]

So the hotels will have a guest coming in and then they'll. The guest will request the thing and they're like, well, we don't have that. Let's see if anybody nearby would rent us one. And then they reach out to you?

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah, usually the guest would reach out to me beforehand. They would book it. They're like, we're coming into the hotel on so and so date. We'd like a scooter.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. So the hotel isn't necessarily the customer. That's kind of where you're delivering it.

[Lenny Tim]

Exactly. I'm just delivering it to the hotel. Sometimes they probably ask the hotel to call, because sometimes hotels do call, but usually it's for a customer, but otherwise the customer, the person calls themselves and books it.

[Nick Loper]

Gotcha. And there were a few other people doing this when he started in 2019, building out the site, so there was some level of demand validation already out there. Some other people are doing this as a business, but what a random niche. I think it's a great example of just the things like, okay, it's kind of a high ticket item. It's really big and bulky to try and travel with. So it checks a lot of boxes from that standpoint. But did you have a family member who needed one? I'm curious what your research process was like.

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah, I'd love to tell the story, actually. Well, the way I came across this business in 2019, me and a friend of mine, he was getting into another equipment rental business, and I think he was just starting out, and he's like, hey, let's try to find some other stuff, some other equipment that we can, you know, do another business, maybe another business. And I'm a very big researcher. I love finding new things and, like, seeing what's out there. And I came up with a big list, and one of them was mobility scooters. I thought, wow, this is cool. You know, probably not very common. You know, not a lot of people think about it. So I'm like, maybe there's not that much competition. You know, I put it on the list. I thought you could get pretty good rental rate out of it. It wasn't like, very low money there. Like, pretty good money, not difficult to manage. They're not huge, they're not tiny, they're not very expensive. So the investment is fairly low. So I thought it was a great idea, something to definitely look into. And we kind of discussed it. And then actually, before this, I think, why? Maybe it came into my mind. My girlfriend's mom actually came into town, and this was probably even a couple of years before I came up with the idea she rented a scooter. But at that time, I didn't think anything of it. But I think when I was thinking of ideas, I remembered, hey, she rented a scooter when she came into town. We were going places. I was putting it in the back of the car. And maybe that's why I thought of it all, you know. So that's how I came up with the idea. And me and my friend were just like talking about it and I'm like, let me just start a website. I think it's a pretty good idea. I knew exactly how I was going to do it. It was just very simple for me. It was very obvious. There weren't a lot of variables there. I'm like, I can build this website in like an hour. Very easy to understand the scope and the business. And I just went ahead and built the website and to try to see if there's demand.

[Nick Loper]

Do you remember from that initial potential niche list any other products that you

[Lenny Tim]

considered going into construction equipment was a big one. For example, I think scissor lifts, maybe forklifts. Right. Things like that. Maybe party equipment, tables and chairs. Just specific niche stuff like that.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, a friend rented a nacho cheese fountain for their wedding. It was like, well, hey, this is a random one off type of thing. But yeah, the party supply niche. We had a guy on the show years ago who was doing inflatables for kids birthday parties and stuff. We had another guest, Steve Nedremia, who was doing portable hot tub rentals. Like one of the most creative businesses that I came across. I thought that was really cool. There was a company I think babyquip is called. It was specifically in the baby strollers and pack and plays and other stuff that parents might need when they're traveling, maybe even car seats. There's probably some liability around that, but there's a few different niches, especially catering to travelers. What's going to be a pain to bring with you that you might want to get at your destination? And even in the sporting niche, like, well, if I want to rent a bike while I'm there or I want to rent skis while I'm there. And then forklifts would be. Just thinking about the storage logistics on that. I mean United Rentals is huge. And I remember having to go and rent this giant 40 foot ladder to get up to the third story of some house we were painting in college. And they put it on my truck with a forklift and I'm like, that's cool, but how are we going to get it off when we get to the job site? And it's like this massive fiberglass thing. It weighed a ton. But yeah, lots of different niches there. And then going into the website building process, you have no scooter at this point, but now you're starting to get people messaging you about renting it when they come into town.

[Lenny Tim]

Exactly. You know, I just had the website. I was getting requests, and I was waiting until I felt comfortable, until there was enough demand for me to jump into the business. I'm like, I'll do it if there's good consistent demand once I get there, once I get those kinds of requests, I'll go out and get some scooters and I'll start doing it.

[Nick Loper]

Did you have a metric in mind? Well, if I get five requests a month, then I'm doing it, or something like that.

[Lenny Tim]

Probably more than that. Yeah. I definitely had something in mind where I would want to make decent money. And it would probably have to be several requests a day. I think that's where. Yeah, an average. That's probably what I was looking for at the time. Where it's worth it, because I wanted it to be worth it for me. You know what I mean? Based on, like, the certain things that you mentioned earlier, like certain equipment, some of it is a low price, and I'm like, is it really worth it to, you know, go out there and, you know, deliver something for $30 a day type of thing? So I was. I wanted it to be where it was worth. You know, the daily rate was good, and I was going to get several consistent, like, rentals all the time.

[Nick Loper]

And you would just tell these people, sorry, we're booked up or we don't have availability right now.

[Lenny Tim]

Exactly. Yeah. It's very simple. You just say, I'm sorry, we're booked on that date, or we don't service your area or we don't have the equipment that you need, and that's all you have to do.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, you got my gears turning on spinning up some pretty quick local websites around any number of different niches just to see, okay, what is going to stick and what starts to get inquiries and then going out and start to fulfill those needs. So a couple questions. Well, let's tackle the pricing question first. Is like, how do you figure out how much to charge for this thing?

[Lenny Tim]

Okay. So I looked at my competitors and they have. Usually it's a daily rate and then a weekly rate and then a monthly rate. So that's typically how they do it. I just looked at what they were charging, and I think I probably started. I listed those prices and I kind of estimated that that's what I was going to charge, but it wasn't that much. I was like, this is not that. It's not that enticing. So, long story short, I Basically charge, I would say, the highest prices out of my competition.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, because you've got the, I mean you've got the brand. You are the LA mobilityscooterrentals.com guy. You know, it's like, hey, you know, I'm going to command a premium price for that. What does that look like today in terms of the daily, weekly monthly price?

[Lenny Tim]

Sure. So daily I typically estimate it's basically $75 a day. And I always add a delivery pickup fee. So I only do delivery and pickup where I bring it to them and I go pick it up from them. They don't come to me or anything like that. I don't have a storefront. I just do it straight up out of my car. And it's $75 a day and I charge at least $75 a day on top of that. No matter what. That's basically delivery. And that's when it's pretty close, pretty local, maybe within five miles and then I'll bump it up to 150 for delivery and pick up if it's maybe like over 10 miles somewhere around there. So but I generally I don't do one day rentals. I try to keep it like a three day minimum. So it would be three days would be what? 225 plus 75 bucks. If it's a local delivery and that's a three day rental, what is it? 300 bucks. Usually I try to go into a week which is four days to seven days. Four days to a week is basically the same price. It's 249 plus a delivery pickup fee. So it'll be 249 plus 75. Or if it's a little farther for me, I'll bump it up to 150. And all that is negotiable. You know what I mean? Like if I feel like it's a good customer or it's very easy for me or sometimes they ask for a discount, I can always work with them, but that's my base price and it's a 500 for the month plus delivery payout.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, gotcha. Well, how much did these things cost? And so you finally say, okay look, I've got a critical mass of demand asking me to rent these things. I'm finally going to go out and buy one. What do they cost?

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah. So a brand new scooter, the ones that I'm using and I'm using pride. So they're a really good brand, very good scooters. I would recommend them. A brand new one is about 1500 bucks right now. A little less, A little more. But I actually bought mine used and I look for about 500 bucks. I go on Facebook, Marketplace or any other local marketplace and I'm looking to get it for about 500 bucks. So as you can see, I pretty much count my money back within 1, 2, 3 rentals.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, I'm thinking if it's 250 a week plus 75 delivery a couple weeks later, I'm in the black on this unit. And how many, how many do you have at this point?

[Lenny Tim]

Right now I only have seven.

[Nick Loper]

So say only. I mean that's like, that's a pretty serious fleet.

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah, it's not bad. I have seven right now and I, you know, I make it work. I could definitely have a lot more, but I just, I don't, I keep it completely aside side business, you know.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. So, yeah, pretty bulky. So you have a storage unit or keep them in the garage. It's going to take up like a decent chunk of space.

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah, I actually have. Luckily I live in a, in an apartment building and we actually have storage units that we can use. So in the parking area I can rent out a storage unit and they're like five by five. So luckily I have it right there. It's like right next to my parking spot. And I keep, I have two storage units and I keep my scooters there and I could shove five of them in one and then I have a couple in the other.

[Nick Loper]

And does it fit in the back of an SUV or how do you deliver them?

[Lenny Tim]

So we have an suv, that's the car that we started with. And I can put two. I actually got three in there one time, but I don't recommend it. I don't. It's. I have to disassemble the scooters and kind of like shove them in there. But two is fine. I could put two in the back and then my other car, I just throw one in the trunk and that's how I do it. I just put in the trunk of my car and I just deliver it that way.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, that's the other consideration here. Remember our bounce house rental guest was. Well, I started out with my Civic or my Accord. Basically I had to get this little trailer attachment thing because it was a 400 pound inflatable and it was something to consider. And Steve the hot tub guy was like, yeah, just kind of stick it in the back of the truck. And that's how he had to make it work. But a bigger vehicle would be required to deliver some of this bigger items, but that's really cool. This ROI pencils out a lot faster than a traditional rental house where it's like, yeah, I can break even on my entire purchase cost within just a couple rentals and I'm off to the races. More with Lenny in just a moment, including how many hours a week it takes to run this business and some of the tools and tech he uses

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[Nick Loper]

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[Nick Loper]

a day in the life or a week in the life, if there is such a thing. Trying to manage the inventory flow and the pickups and the drop offs and I don't know, is there such a thing?

[Lenny Tim]

Well, I keep it very simple, to be honest. It's not that demanding. Some weeks are busier than others. I have more rentals. So a customer, they call or they email, they're like, hey, I need a scooter, I'm coming in. And so, and so I'm going to stay at this hotel and I'm like, okay, delivery day, delivery time, location, I have the scooter, boom. They book it and you know, I have them sign a rental agreement. Just, you know, has a bunch of information like their responsibilities, mine and a little bit of that, like, you know, liability language. And they sign the rental agreement and that's pretty much it. The time comes, you know, I grab the scooter, throw it in my trunk, I drive it over it. Usually it's a hotel, I leave it with front desk. I'll put a little tag with the, with the guest's name with the customer's name on it. Okay, Just in case, and I just drop it off with front desk. They always take it. They put it like where they put the luggage and that's it. I just drop it there and let's say a week later and I tell the customer, I'm like, hey, just drop it off with them when you're done. And a week later I go pick it up. So it's pretty simple. People call me, they email me, I book the rental, rental agreement, payment request.

[Nick Loper]

And the rental agreement is like an online checkbox or Docusign or something.

[Lenny Tim]

It's a PDF. I send them a PDF that they could sign. So they just put their name, billing address and a signature basically and they send it back to me.

[Nick Loper]

Okay, how are you processing the payments?

[Lenny Tim]

So I was doing it through PayPal honestly for a little while. When I started, that was finding my first rental. I'm like, I had to do it quickly and I actually did my personal PayPal account, but I use Square now.

[Nick Loper]

Okay.

[Lenny Tim]

I just create an invoice and I send them a payment request and I charge up front and that's it.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. So that's done kind of in advance of delivering the thing, like both the agreement and then the payment. I guess it's similar to rental car. I'M going to reserve the rental car. Okay.

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah, I charge them up front.

[Nick Loper]

And what's cool about this, because we talked about people doing the Turo business, too. It's like, I got to go. Somebody wants to rent my car. They're coming into the airport. So I go take the car to the airport. And now I got to take an Uber home because I gave them my car at the airport. It's like, no, I could still take my car home because I just dropped off the scooter instead. So that's a little bit more attractive to me or, like, fewer moving parts in that sense. So that's cool. On the liability insurance side of things, I guess, dealing with people with mobility issues, like, if the scooter breaks down, I don't know how common that would be, but is that a factor here?

[Lenny Tim]

So that was definitely my thought, getting into this business so that I'm, I guess, a naturally anxious person. And that's exactly what I think about sometimes. So there are pros and cons. With every business, every piece of equipment I do think about, I worry about them giving me a call in the middle of the night, hey, my scooter broke down or something's wrong. Come and fix it. Come and take care of it. But luckily, that's. That's just mostly in my. In my mind, that doesn't usually happen. I mean, it's happened once or twice where the battery is. Was kind of faulty and the scooter wasn't running that well. But I was able to, you know, take care of it. Nobody was upset. Nobody was stuck anywhere. They gave me a call. I brought him a new scooter. I swapped it out.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Host]

Yeah.

[Lenny Tim]

I mean, luckily, there's really not that much. Not that much issue that that goes on. These are really good scooters. There's not that much that can go wrong. Like I said, I definitely was thinking about these things, like, hey, what if something goes wrong? Right? These people are out riding in the middle of, you know, who knows where.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. They're going. They're going down Hollywood Boulevard, or they go to the Walk of Fame or something.

[Lenny Tim]

What if it fails in the middle of the thing? You know? But a lot of times, people, they don't really necessarily go far. They go with family, they go in a car, they go with somebody else, and they go, you know, maybe. They don't necessarily, you know, venture out on their own, like, really far or anything like that. So usually I think every. It works out. There's really. No. Haven't really had any Issues like that. I have thought about the liability of the, of the business, and there's always that question. You know, these are maybe older people, right. They might have mobility issues and you're renting them a mobility scooter. But again, it's like you overthink it. There's mobility scooter rental companies that have existed forever and they're doing just fine. And that's kind of how I look at it. All these businesses that you think, well, what about the liability? Because you always want to think about that. But there's a ton of companies that have been doing it forever, and they're okay.

[Nick Loper]

I've always been surprised how inexpensive a general liability policy would be, or I don't know if it would be like a product liability policy in this case, but something like that. Is that something that you carry for the business?

[Lenny Tim]

I have, yeah, business insurance is general liability, but I don't have anything beyond that. I have a, like I said, a rental agreement. And again, I know that that's not necessarily. That doesn't necessarily mean much legally, but it's just, it lets the customer know that, you know, this is serious. At least you know, they take responsibility also for the scooter.

[Nick Loper]

Okay. Like a general liability policy. That makes sense. Protect yourself. Put that rental agreement up front. Like, just, you know, treat it seriously. Make it look, make it look legit. Because it is legit. I was going to ask. So most people are finding you through Googling, you know, la mobility scooter rental, and you're like, hey, you know, it pops up there. Did you do anything specific with the Google business listing or with Yelp either, you know, posting updates there or soliciting reviews or adding images or add, like the whole world of local SEO. It's quite fascinating, all of the different little tweaks and levers that you can pull.

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah, I'm definitely fascinated with SEO and I'm always looking for ways to improve things, but the Google, my business page, I think that's probably the main thing. I filled out as much as I could. I put up some pictures, some great descriptions, filled out everything that I could on the profile. And yes, I definitely did solicit some reviews from my first customer, some friends, family, and I think that's important. I definitely, you know, focused on that, and I think that definitely helped get my business out there. So that's. I think that's very important. Yup. I just, I wouldn't say that's a big factor for me, but it's still there and I still get some requests for there, but I'm not focused that much on it. I would say Google my business and just I was able to rank, I want to say hopefully because I did a pretty good website. The current competitors, they're a little bit old school and they don't have, they did not invest so much in their online presence. So the websites are a little bit older. I don't think they're as optimized. So I think with me building a pretty nice new modern website, I was able to just outrank them pretty easily.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, it's a good looking site and this kind of echoes what Nick Huber has said, like, well, who do you want to compete with? Do you want to compete against the, you know, brick and mortar, blue collar service based businesses that are operating with websites that look like they're 20 years old? Or you want to compete against Silicon Valley engineers who are using AI to produce this stuff? Like I'm going to go for the lower competition business model every time and same thing. Johnny Robinson was doing the window washing business in college and had built it to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. It's like super go getter. And what he mentioned was once you have that online presence nailed down, so much of the branding happens online. It's your website, it's your reviews, it's your photos that as long as you show up and provide a good service, people are already impressed with you. Like they felt that they were making a savvy decision because they went with the customer with a company that looked good on their digital presence. And that's kind of the box that you're checking here. So that makes a lot of sense. As you see, you have different tabs about your scooters. You have the Explore LA tab, just some content that says it's about the scooters, but it's also about LA trying to cross pollinate. This is what we are, this is where we do it. Trying to say here it is. And then the number that's on the site is this Google Voice. Is this just ring your personal cell? What happens if somebody calls this number?

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah, that number goes through. I have a, I think it's talk route. So it's like a phone number service and it does, it's an app and it goes basically directly to my phone and it also has a voicemail box and I think the voicemail also pops up into the email. So basically, you know there's like a transcript. So I just, I use that app for the phone number. Yeah. And it goes to My phone.

[Nick Loper]

Are there any upsell opportunities for somebody coming into town who needs this thing? Like when you go to rent a car, they're like, do you want the collision and damage waiver? Like do you want, do you want a car seat? Do you want like, you know, the other things that come with it? Do you want the, you know, toll tracker? Like just trying to increase that customer value as somebody comes through. Just trying to think of other ways to increase the average ticket here.

[Lenny Tim]

I try to keep it simple and I try to not get into things that don't necessarily make a lot of, a lot of money. Do you know what I mean? You can definitely do maybe small upgrades, I don't know, like a charger, right? You can let them charge their phone or you can add like a canopy or something like that, things like that. But those would be maybe 10, 15 bucks, 20 bucks. And I think it's a lot more work for you, right, to manage those things and to offer those things. And some people want them and some people don't. So I keep it simple. It's kind of like an 8020 rule. I just rent them the scooter and I get the most money for that and I keep it very simple for me. I don't have to worry about accessories or any kind of additional add ons because you just, I don't think it would add that much value, that much money to the rental. I don't think there's really anything you can offer with a mobility scooter that would make it much more lucrative.

[Nick Loper]

I was trying to check the Google Google reviews for it, but it's defaulting to Seattle area for me. Oh, there's a few people. This guy in Tacoma has got 43 reviews for the mobility equipment supplier. Yeah, check it out. The local competition here. Oh, this guy's only 3.9 stars. Here we go. There's opportunity to come in and provide five star service on the review front. We've heard that prioritizing the Google reviews over the Yelp reviews because Yelp, unless that customer is a habitual Yelp reviewer, it's probably not going to get shown. It's like, oh yes, it's my first review and it's five stars to try to game our system. But Google will take almost all comers it sounds like. Is there a process in place after that rental is complete and after the customer is back home? It's like a follow up email to say hey, hopefully it was a positive experience. If you wouldn't mind dropping in a review. Curious if There's a process around that.

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah, in the beginning, if I had a good interaction, if I made a connection with a customer, I may follow up with an email after. I'm like, hey, thank you so much. Usually I'm very nice. It's all about customer service. And I may ask them, hey, if you want to, you know, if you want to help out or something like that, you can leave a review here on Google or Yelp. And that's how I did it. But I don't do that anymore. I think I have enough at this point where I don't really follow up or anything like that. But I did a little bit in the beginning.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, I've got your. I was able to get away from the, you know, Seattle location tagging here and yeah, 25 star reviews here on Google. So yeah, that's fewer quantity than the competition, but greater quality. And so, yeah, it shows up as the top result. So that's great.

[Lenny Tim]

Yeah, no, exactly.

[Nick Loper]

I was going to ask if there is a strategic partnership plan with the hotels. Like if people don't book this in advance, can you leave your card with the front desk and say, hey, if any of your guests ever need this service, I'm here to help. It's there, like, because we talk about the strategy of going towards those lead fountains who are going to be the steady stream of customers over and over again versus trying to find one off customers on the Internet.

[Lenny Tim]

There's a lot of opportunity to reach out and to solicit business. And hotels is big. I thought about it again, I don't necessarily am I focused on growing and expanding the business that much. I kind of like where it is now, but there's definitely so much opportunity for going out to hotels, approaching hotels, you know, letting them know, hey, if you have a guest that is looking for a scooter, give us a call. Here's a little flyer or maybe even put a little flyer on your, you know, on the front desk for people to see or anything like that. There's definitely a lot of opportunity. I did not really get into that because, like I said, I am pretty okay with how much business I have now. But if I do want to expand, which at some point I might, if I want to take it to the next level, you can definitely do that. You can get in touch with all these things. Hotels is great, but there's a lot of other customers. It's not just people traveling. We're in middle of LA here. And productions, you know, movie productions, they rent scooters and they probably rent them also for props and different reasons, different customers all the time.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, that's such a cool. I just am fascinated by things that you can buy relatively inexpensively and still command a high, you know, rental rate on a weekly basis. I think it's really cool.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Host]

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[Nick Loper]

Do you have an estimate of the average hours per week that you're putting into it right now?

[Lenny Tim]

It varies. I think the majority of the work is just driving, you know, delivering and picking up and it's up and down, you know what I mean? Some weeks are more than others. But I would say I have one delivery or pick up a day, maybe two once in a while and it'll be maybe a few days. It won't be every day. So I would say five hours, six hours, seven hours for the week. Just because I try not to go that far. So I keep it as local as possible. That's the job, that's the request that I like to take.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. So if somebody comes in like, hey, we're coming for Disneyland or something, you're like, oh, I'm not going down to Orange County.

[Lenny Tim]

I don't do that. There's a lot of Disneyland guys down there. Rentals, and that's far from me. And I try to stay away from those one day rentals. It's just not worth it for me. So I try to go at least a three, four day. That's my sweet spot. I like those four days to a week because you can get the most. But they're not taking your scooter for that long of a time. So you get the best amount of ROI there, rental rate there and yeah, so that's what I try to do.

[Nick Loper]

That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. What surprised you the most over the last couple years of running this thing?

[Lenny Tim]

To be honest, I don't know. I think that it's not that it shouldn't be that stressful. Like I said earlier, I think I'm kind of a stressful person. I think, oh, they're going to call me, something's wrong. But they don't. People usually don't have issues. They don't call me and I'm like, they're going to call me in the middle of the night. And no, like these people don't hang out in the middle of the night, you know what I mean? So I shouldn't worry about that. Nobody's going out in the middle of the night on their scooter. So it's been pretty smooth. I think the most surprising thing is there's no issues. And the customers, you get different types of customers. It's not just somebody with a mobility Issue that's traveling. It's different types of customers.

[Nick Loper]

I love that we build up the fear in our heads, like, oh, all of the worst case scenarios that could happen. And then when you're actually doing it, you're like, oh, okay, another rental down. Everybody was happy. Okay. Phew. Along those lines, have there been any horror stories, so to speak, or just, you know, mistakes, things you would have done differently?

[Lenny Tim]

No. I mean, I had maybe a couple of times people calling me saying, something's wrong with the battery, it's cutting out or it's not going uphill very nicely. I think we need a new scooter. And they were very nice because I approached them. Very nice customer service. I'm very patient, very, you know, I don't know, kind with them. And I. People are not gonna, I think because of that, people are not gonna call, screaming or anything or upset. They're like, hey, something to the scooter. And I, I'm like, okay, I'll either bring you a new battery or a new, A new scooter. And when, you know, later that day or the next day, I did a couple of times, I just swapped out the scooter for them and that's it. I mean, and they're happy, they're fine, never complained. And that's kind of the. That's the biggest thing that ever happened.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, that's helpful to hear. It's like, okay, it's not, it's not as scary as we maybe make it out to be in our heads, but what's next for you? So you got the scooter business, you've got the E Comm business, you've got the struggling entrepreneur YouTube channel. Where do you want to take this thing?

[Lenny Tim]

Well, it's a good business and at some point I might expand, I might focus on it, but to be honest with you, I'm thinking of other equipment that I can get into. Things that are bigger ticket, you can make more money out of and that are maybe bigger, that could be. That are more interesting and more higher ticket. So I am right now, coming up, always trying to find new ideas and I'm actually working on some other stuff with a friend of mine. We're trying to get into another equipment rental business, actually.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, very good. Is the site live already? We can plug it for you.

[Lenny Tim]

We're doing generators, those portable towable types of generators. And we're still trying to figure out who the customer is, but it could be either again, movie productions or parties. Right. Or events where they need a generator somewhere out in the, you know, there's no power and they need to power some equipment or whatever they're doing. And it's LA Generator rentals. Just like LA Mobility. Yeah, we keep it, you know, keep it simple and that's what we're working on right now. And we're just, just like the other business. We're trying to see where the demand is. And we have a few generators. We don't have all of them that are advertised, so we're starting with a few and we're kind of going from there. And we've already had some rentals going.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah. I love this idea of just putting something out there, seeing what kind of reaction to get, see if people actually want the thing and then going out and buying the inventory for it. I think it's a really creative approach. Again, la mobilityscooterrentals.com you can check Lenny out at the struggling entrepreneur. We'll link up his YouTube channel as well. Thanks for stopping by. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation.

[Lenny Tim]

Sure. So I always listen to these number one tips that everybody gives and it's always hard to come up with something. But I'll keep it simple. Just like we talked about. You don't have to invest money up front. You don't have to buy a bunch of equipment or whatever it is you're doing. Whatever business you're trying, start with a minimum viable product, throw up a website, but make sure it's good. Invest in that and then see if you get demand. And you can do that for any business. I think that's very important. And I would say that's my number one, number one thing and see what works.

[Nick Loper]

Yeah, I think that's probably the big idea to take away from this, is how can you validate demand really affordably? It costs almost nothing to put up a website these days. And as long as you do it right, the branding, positioning, I filled in the blanks on the Google or the GoDaddy website builder and all of a sudden that was enough because there was so little competition doing that same thing. So, yeah, fascinating. I'm just smiling and taking notes along the way. It's like, shoot. What else? What other website could I spin up around the same idea? And if you're thinking the same thing, I've got my list of 25 other unconventional rental ideas. Maybe something in there will strike your fancy. I don't know if industrial equipment is on there. It might be, but these are other products that people are renting out for a profit. And that is your listener only bonus for this week. You can download that for free at the Show Notes for this [e-mail] Lenny or just follow the Show Notes link in the episode description.

[Podcast Sponsor/Ad Host]

Big thanks to Lenny for sharing his insight.

[Nick Loper]

You can hit up Sidehustlenation.com deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. And thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. It really does help. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, make sure to text a friend. Hey, we should totally start a business like this. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on the.