Desiree Hill is now the owner of Crown’s Corner Mechanic, an auto repair shop that made about $440,000 in 2024. But six years ago, she was working as a medical assistant and didn’t even know how to fix vehicles. At the time, she was an overwhelmed single mom who wanted to spend more time with her kids, she told CNBC.
The mom found an unexpected solution to this problem: With the help of YouTube, she started fixing cars – and discovered that she was actually really good at it.
Her job as a medical assistant was too taxing.
Desiree worked in health care for about a decade before she landed a position in the oncology unit at Northside Hospital Duluth in Duluth, Georgia, CNBC reported. On paper, it was a good job, but she wasn’t happy. Her long commute definitely didn’t help.
“It was three hours of commuting in Atlanta traffic every day,” she told the news outlet. “And [as a single mom at the time] I never saw my children. So it really was taking a toll.” As an oncology medical assistant, she made about $40,000 per year.
She wanted a new source of income, so she started learning how to fix cars.
@theshemechanic #Chevy #Lifter #Silveraldo #BlueCollar #SheMechanic #Autorepair #Atlanta #FYP ♬ original sound – SheMechanic ™️
When trying to figure out ways to make some extra money, Desiree thought fixing cars seemed like a good option because it was a skill people would always need. Additionally, the start-up costs seemed relatively minimal and the amount of money she would be able to make in the future seemed promising.
The only obstacle was that she didn’t actually know how to fix cars, she told the news outlet. She learned by watching tutorials on YouTube. When she bought a truck for $1,200, fixed it, then sold it for $4,000, she proved to herself that the skills she had acquired might pay off.
That doesn’t mean it was easy.
Now, about six years after she started fixing cars, Desiree has 125.5K TikTok followers (@theshemechanic) and her company has brought in about $70,000 per month this year. Although it’s an amazing success story, it took a lot of hard work and late nights for Desiree to get there.
Even though fixing cars seemed like it could be a promising pursuit, Desiree didn’t quit her medical assistant job right away. That meant that she would go to work, deal with her grueling commute, return home and take care of her kids, then work on cars until after midnight.
“I came home, made dinner, got my children all set for bed… and then I went to the [garage] and started working on the vehicles,” she told moneywise.com. “Sometimes it lasts until 2-3 in the morning and then I get right back up at 6am and go to work.”
She got just a few hours of sleep each night before she decided to quit her medical assistant job in 2020.
Despite being a successful mechanic with a large social media following, the mom still encounters people who are skeptical of her. “There’s people that walk in here that don’t know [I’m the owner] … and they’re just baffled,” she told CNBC. “Just because of how I look.”
Because of the stereotypes, she has to work harder to earn people’s trust. “Every time, I have to prove myself,” she told the news outlet. “Every time I open my mouth.”
