Ernest Garcia is the founder and current owner of the popular online used car trading platform, Carvana. Garcia actually comes from an interesting background as he is not an example of a rags to riches businessman. Garcia’s father had been in the business of selling cars online, as the internet was just becoming something that more and more people were starting to use. His father soon took this skill to create DriveTime. Right before the young Garcia was about to be brought on full time, his father was arrested and convicted of several criminal offenses regarding illegal practices with stock selling and government bailouts. However, Garcia didn’t see this as a lost opportunity. DriveTime quickly began losing money and the younger Garcia began purchasing used vehicles that weren’t selling from the business in order to keep it afloat. Having all these vehicles he wondered if there was a better way to sell the cars than how his father had done it. This gave him the idea of Carvana.
Although Carvana and DriveTime are similar today, this was a radical new idea during its founding in 2013. He developed a way to get quick and easy appraisments for vehicles and match buyers with other vehicles right after they were listed. The concept in and of itself is not one that is essentially new or groundbreaking, but it is the marketing tactics that Garcia has undertaken since creating Carvana that really makes him stand out. Not only have they improved user experience and created a seamless car buying system, 
they have created user engagment through their car vending machines. When a car is purchased, you can have it delivered to your home or go pick it up from one of these machines. It created user engagement on levels never seen before and makes people excited about buying a car. This is one of the reasons Carvana has grown to be such a large company and why Garcia himself is now worth over $600 million. Even though he had a head start, Garcia created something that users really love which creates value for the business and gives him value in return.
The whole concept of Carvana is brilliant, especially with how digital the world is becoming. Even if Carvana isn’t the most popular way of buying a car right now, I think he definitely has a head start on everyone else when the time finally comes. I’ve had a couple friends of mine ask me about what Carvana is recently and explaining it to them they though the idea was super cool so hes definitely on to something great.
A company like Carvana is revolutionizing the car industry. It is really interesting to see how the car industry is moving more digital and how you can buy them online and be delivered to your home. This will be the future of cars. What makes Carvana stand out is definitely its improved and easier user experience, and I think entrepreneurs should take this into consideration when trying to create or improve something.
I had heard about Carvana through advertisements and searching for cars online, but I didn’t really just how BIG of a company is and what they are doing. Car shopping has always been annoying, complicated, just unpleasant overall. But with Carvana, Ernest Garcia appears to be changing how people purchase cars nowadays by making convenient and more enjoyable.