Starting a Moped Rental Business with Motown Mopeds

Building on your own experience is a great way to start a business that you are passionate about. Erin Guillen found this when she decided to start a moped rental business after falling in love with them in her teens. She worked tirelessly to create a business plan and now uses Booqable to manage her newly launched moped rental business.

Often the advice to writers is to write what they know, but this advice is never used in the context of entrepreneurship. It makes complete sense to create a business that revolves around something you are passionate about and knowledgeable about. You could be sitting on a brilliant business idea and might not even know about it yet.

Motown Mopeds

Erin Guillen grew up in Manistee, Michigan, riding mini bikes, dirt bikes, and quads, and she loved the sense of freedom and exhilaration from riding these vehicles. In her teens, she would ride her bicycle to the beach and her friends’ houses but never got the same feeling. That was until her parents got her a moped when she was 15.

From the first ride she took, Erin was hooked. She no longer had a pedal up and down enormous hills to get where she needed. The moped was a transformative experience and opened her up to the possibilities of travel. Once she got her car, she would still ride her moped because it was fun and helped her save a few bucks for shorter journeys.

In 2018, she moved to Detroit, Michigan, and noticed the lack of public transport options and how dangerous electric scooters can be. The city is filled with cars, and aside from expensive rental bicycles, perilous scooters, and ride-share services, there aren’t many ways to get around. Even the bus system is inconsistent and isn’t an attractive way to travel.

Erin knew there was a better way to travel that was low-cost and reliable from her experience with her moped while growing up. So, she set about creating Motown Mopeds in January 2022 and worked daily on a business plan to make it the best moped rental business in the area. She decided to rent out 49cc gas-powered mopeds for an hour at a time.

Starting a moped rental business

Once she knew what she wanted to rent and how she wanted to do it, there was one last thing she needed to get started; a beautiful website. Erin had a list of requirements for her website that had to be met:

1. Offers online bookings

2. Customizable in terms of rental length and inventory

3. Modern and professional looking

To achieve this, she created a Squarespace website and used Booqable to accept online bookings and manage her inventory. With Squarespace, she made a beautiful website that expressed the unique personality of Motown Mopeds. In contrast, online bookings were handled by linking to Booqable’s hosted store, which she has customized.

She can control the information she wants to display about the mopeds, hide availability, and set up specific rental periods in hour slots without coding knowledge. This has made it easy for her to accept rentals as soon as she launched her business. At the same time, maintaining a modern and professional look and feel in her online presence.

Grand opening

In the inaugural season of Motown Mopeds, Erin hopes to show residents and visitors the fun one can have on a gas-powered scooter. She expects residents will rent them to go to and from work, while tourists will help stimulate other local businesses. By renting mopeds, they will be able to visit much more of Detroit than would be possible otherwise and for cheaper.

Thanks to Booqable, she has been able to get started quickly and offer customers a professional experience from the get-go. This has been received positively as customers love using her website and find it easy to navigate and make their bookings. This has helped Erin to provide the professional service she had dreamt of from the beginning.