We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ethan Ashby a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ethan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

We do it all. From coming up with the ideas, to creating the content to editing and posting we do all of it ourselves. When we started we had no clue how to take pictures and make YouTube videos, but with some time and practice, we’ve figured it out, and I’d say we’ve become pretty good at it!

In the past we’ve hired (very experienced and talented) videographers and photographers to help us. We thought that if we could have someone else film and edit
our videos, or take pictures for us, that it would save us time. It didn’t take us long to realize that we have big visions and goals, and it’s very difficult to explain to someone else how we want our content to look, and then have them successfully execute the vision.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Ethan Ashby, and I’m one of the founders of Zotic Rentals. We are a luxury and exotic rental car business based out of Salt Lake City Utah. We’ve been in business since early 2021, and have built a fleet of over 30 cars ranging from BMW’s and Audi’s to Porsche’s, Maserati’s and hopefully soon Lamborghini’s and more!

My business partner Adam and I got our start when we looking for ways to create a little extra income. We found out about a car sharing platform called Turo and decided we’d give it a shot. Starting with a Mini Cooper and Audi A4, the goal was to make some extra money by turning our liabilities (cars) into cashflowing assets.

After a couple months of learning the ropes we decided to dive head first into the world of renting cars. We each bought 5 cars over the course of a couple of months and focused on building a fleet on Turo. At the time we each had our own small fleet and we’re just renting the cars on our own as a side hustle.

In September of 2021 we decided to team up and Zotic Rentals was born. We combined our fleets, built a website, and hired a few employees to detail and deliver the cars.

After combining, we had our fair share of growing pains and struggles, but somehow we’ve managed to push through it all and have built out a decent fleet. We always knew that we didn’t want Turo to be a permanent crutch for our business, so we’ve built our own booking site we’re people can now rent directly from us. By cutting out the middle man we’ve managed to not only create a better experience for our customers but also increase our profit margin.

Today we have a constant growing and changing fleet. We’ve found our niche in the luxury and exotic car space. There has been a hole in the market for these types of vehicles, and our goal is to fill that hole here in Salt Lake City, and eventually replicate what we have here in other cities across the United States.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When we started renting cars out, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into! Back when we started, there was hardly any competition, and it was easy to build a fleet of cars and make money renting them… But that all changed.

Recently it has become a trend for an individual to purchase a car that they want, then list it on Turo to make enough to cover the monthly payment. On paper it sounds like a great way to own your dream car without paying for it yourself, but in reality it’s not that easy. Cars get crashed, beat up, they break down, people steal them, etc. but of course car sharing platforms don’t advertise that.

As car sharing has become more popular, our rental prices have had to come down to compete with the guy who is listing his dream car just to make the payment. The issue is that these individuals believe that the only overhead is their monthly payment and insurance. This isn’t the case. We’ve been in business long enough to know that every time a car is driven, the car depreciates, tires wear down, brakes get thinner, and the engine and other mechanical components are slowly becoming worn out. We have learned to factor all of that into our pricing, whereas an individual offering their car on a car sharing platform usually doesn’t.

We’re constantly adjusting our prices to compete, which is difficult, but in reality our prices reflect our premium service. We’ve learned to build a brand on customer service and customer experience. Because of that we feel confident that we offer the best experience for your money!

How did you build your audience on social media?

We love social media. Although our following is still small, we’re confident that over time we’ll continue to grow our audience. There are a couple of key principles that are important to our social media strategy.

First is providing quality content. As stated before, we do all of our content creation on our own. We think through every post with our audience in mind to provide the best content possible. For us this has meant buying good equipment to increase the quality, keeping up with trends to stay relevant, and coming up with new ideas often to keep our posts across all platforms consistent.

Second is giving our audience a face behind the name. We’ve spent a lot of time building our brand, and people have responded well to seeing us as the faces of the brand. People can relate to people better than they can to a business, so we have kind of “become our brand.”

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zoticrentals.com
• Instagram: zotic.rentals
• Facebook: Zotic Rentals
• Youtube: Zotic Rentals
• Other: TikTok: zotic.rentals