Tuesday 29 April 2014

About Charlotte Leuw and MyCarGossip

Hi my name is Charlotte Leuw and I am the founder of MyCarGossip, a London based start up company.
I didn't set out to join the Start-Up community, I accidentally fell into it after I had a bad experience with my car in 2012.



I had just graduated from Leeds University after studying Primary Education for 4 years only to not become a teacher. Whilst at University I took up a part time job in sales, renewing car warranties. I loved working at this tiny company in Leeds as all of the other sales people were women and I formed fantastic friendships with these ladies whilst I was studying for a degree that I really was not enjoying.

After graduating from University, I had an interview at Groupon, who were still establishing themselves in the UK. When they phoned me I had only heard of them because I saw a Facebook advert, advertising a Groupon deal on some beautiful stiletto heels. I passed the phone interview and the face to face interview and I was offered a job with them.



A year later I was driving home from the tube station and when I got home I realised that my tyre was flattening. It was 6.30pm and my local garage was closed for the evening, I really needed my car to get to the tube station the next morning so I took it to the nearest garage I could find. Unfortunately I didn't do any research on the garage and I turned up to a place that was not very "female friendly." I was told that my other tyre was below the legal minimum tread depth and had to be removed immediately else it could fall off whilst I was driving.

Being a young female driver with very little knowledge about cars, I obviously believed the mechanic and paid him double the original quoted price to change the other tyre. The next morning I called my local garage to ask why they hadn't told me that my tyre was under the legal tread depth a couple of weeks ago during my MOT and service. They told me that my tyre was fine and didn't need to be changed.

This information shocked me and it was at that point that I decided I would never be ripped off or taken advantage of again because of my lack of car knowledge. I began to write a blog to help female drivers understand their cars a bit better so they had more confidence when they needed to get their cars fixed.

MyCarGossip was formed initially as a blog, I noticed it was getting a lot of views and people were constantly commenting on my blog. I saw a gap in the market, I left my full time job at Groupon and found a part time sales job. I then began working on MyCarGossip part time and turned it into a website directory.

www.mycargossip.com is now a motoring website primarily for female drivers. It is a one stop source for women in the UK to help them be comfortable with their motoring journey from learning to drive to selling their car. The problem that I am solving is to give confidence to women from 17+, to help them make an informed choice on all aspects of motoring.

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