Honey, I Am Starting a Business

These aren’t quite the words used when CarTango was started, but it basically came down to just that. In the beginning of 2004, after years of infertility, we decided to build our family through international adoption. We were very excited, but at the same time nervous. Where would we get all the money? How many times can I vacuum before the social worker visits? Do I have time to wash the floors? Many crazy things run through your mind, but these are a few that I am willing to admit to thinking.

My husband had a very comfortable job, as did I, with good salaries. If you looked up dinks in the dictionary, you would have found our picture. However, not wanting to go into debt, knowing that I would quit my job after the baby arrived, we vowed to pay cash for the entire process. We paid, and paid, and paid. Not even having a child home yet was expensive; what were we going to do once the baby was actually here?

So my husband got this idea, let’s buy cars and resell them. Sounds easy enough and it doesn’t hurt that we live five minutes to the world’s largest auto auction. Easy money, right? Not quite. He bought a vehicle and had the hardest time finding someone to buy it. People were not flocking our driveway in auction style to buy this vehicle from us like we had hoped. The newspaper ad didn’t draw anything but more money from our bank account. A month went by. Agonizing over his defeated state, he was really bothered that there was no one out there looking to buy this exact car, and if there was, he couldn’t find them through the conventional car selling methods. After about two months, he ended up selling the car to a local car dealership, for just a little under what was paid. Still feeling defeated and let down by the entire car selling and buying process, CarTango was born.

He thought if only there were a matchmaking service for cars, he could peacefully bring buyers and sellers of cars together in a non confrontational, and even anonymous setting. As he researched even more, he learned just how much the car buying process was a nuisance specifically to women. I dragged him car shopping on one of our first dates because I was too afraid to do it without a man along, even if it was some guy I just met. 

The name CarTango came to him because he found women (me especially) felt like it was such a song and dance whenever you go to buy a car. Still working his current job, he dove fully into it. Research was done, websites were developed, thrown out, and redeveloped, and viola, CarTango as well as the Car Soulmate Survey were born. Of course that was not the only thing that was born. A little boy in Guatemala was born that summer as well, and we were blessed to become his parents. So, here we are, new idea, new job, a new way for women to comfortably buy cars, and, of course, the beginning to all of this … a beautiful son named Carter.

Photo courtesy of CarTango