Former Wipro Engineer Builds Rs 35 Crore Turnover Pre-Owned Car Depot, Turning Passion into Profit

In Hyderabad, Mustufa Ali, a former Wipro software engineer left his corporate job to set up a pre-owned car showroom called Car Depot in 2019 after several years of helping friends, family members and colleagues in buying used cars.

Mustufa officially began his entrepreneurial journey from a rented 1800 sq ft place in Jubilee Hills area of Hyderabad with just five cars. Five years later, Car Depot has grown significantly with a turnover of Rs 35 crore.

Mustafa Ali established Car Depot in 2019 with just five pre-owned cars (Photos: Special Arrangement)

They are now operating from a larger rented place in the upscale Banjara Hills, Rd Number 10 in Hyderabad. They moved here in 2020. This 6,000 sq ft space can park 50 cars.

Car Depot deals with all major car brands like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Maruti, Hyundai, Tata, and Mahindra.

Their smallest deals are for entry-level cars like the Hyundai Grand i10, which costs around Rs 4 lakh, while their high-end deals include imported vehicles that can cost up to Rs 1 crore. The company makes about 5 to 10% profit on each car.


“Pre-owned car business is an unorganised sector. One needs to thoroughly check everything, from the condition of the car and its documentation to accident and flood checks,” says Mustufa.

Mustufa buys cars for his business only from two states - Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It is easier to verify and manage several technical aspects in his home and neighbouring state.

His team travels to nearby cities like Khammam, Mehboob Nagar, Karimnagar, and Nalgonda to buy cars for the business. These places are within 200 km from Hyderabad.

Mustufa, 34, was born and raised in Hyderabad. His father retired as a Deputy Executive Engineer from the Roads & Buildings Department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh, and his mother was a housewife. Mustufa has a younger brother who runs his own business.

Mustafa was raised in a middle-class household in Hyderabad

Coming from a middle-class family, Mustufa had a normal and contented childhood. “The four of us lived in a 2BHK house in Srinagar Colony. My father owned a Maruti 800, which was considered a decent possession at that time,” he says.

“However, I always noticed my friends from business-class backgrounds, who had big bungalows and luxury cars during our school years.”

No one in Mustufa's family had ever been in business, but he had a business mind from a young age. “I remember buying a set of stencils with a free Pokémon collectable for Rs.10 and selling it to my friends for Rs.20, adding to my pocket money,” he recalls.

While he was in Class 10, Mustufa asked his father for a mobile phone and received a Nokia 1100, which came without a camera. In the ensuing months, he began to visit Jagdish Market, Hyderabad's largest mobile market, looking at the phones there.

“A mobile seller named Faizul noticed me and asked what I wanted. I said I wanted a multimedia phone but didn’t have the money,” recounts Mustufa.

“He offered me a phone for Rs.5000 and said if I could sell it for Rs.6000, I could earn a percentage. I successfully sold it, saved more pocket money, and exchanged my old phone to buy a Nokia 3000 with a camera.”

He also made money by selling iPhones brought by his cousins from Dubai, where they were cheaper. However, he ceased this practice after his father advised against it.

Mustufa completed Class 12 at St. Patrick's Higher Secondary School, Secunderabad, in 2007. He then pursued a B.Tech in IT at Osmania University, graduating in 2011.

A month later, he was hired by Wipro as a Software Engineer with a salary of Rs.20,000 per month in Bengaluru.
Mustufa worked at Wipro’s Bengaluru headquarters from 2011-2013 before being sent to London for a UK assignment. In 2015, he moved to the US to join Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In 2016, Wells Fargo opened an office in Hyderabad, and Mustufa returned to his hometown as a Senior Business Consultant with a salary of around Rs. 1.25 lakh per month.

Mustufa always had a passion for cars. During college, he helped friends and family purchase vehicles. In 2016, he bought his first car, a pre-owned i20 for Rs. 5 lakh, and sold it six months later for Rs. 5.5 lakh.

Mustafa registered his proprietorship firm in 2019

He continued assisting people in buying pre-owned cars, which gradually evolved into a business. Initially, he worked for free, but later, on his friends' advice, he started earning 15-20k per deal.

Mustufa began to partner with pre-owned car sellers in Hyderabad to place his cars for sale, giving them a commission on profits.

As the business grew, he realised the potential in the unorganised sector and decided to pursue it full-time. He resigned from his job in 2018 and registered his firm as a proprietorship, becoming a full-time entrepreneur in 2019.

Car Depot now operates in multiple ways. They sell cars from their premises, buy and sell cars after necessary repairs, and rely on referrals from satisfied customers.

They are also registered with various car dealers to buy cars traded in by customers purchasing new ones. Additionally, they buy cars from corporate leases and resell them. So far, Mustufa has sold more than 1,000 cars through these diverse business operations.

Mustufa now has eight employees, including two drivers, sales executives, a procurement team, and a customer service manager. He personally finalises the buying and selling prices of the vehicles and manages the entire sales process.

“In the beginning, it wasn't as smooth. I had to connect with dealers and buyers myself and went to the field with the staff. But now I have streamlined the business,” says Mustufa.

Even now, finalising a deal involves interacting with several people: the car owner, a middleman, a mechanic, a salesperson, and the customer. Initially, gaining customer trust took time.

But once trust was established, referrals started coming in. “Our USP is dealing only in less-driven cars with clean paperwork, no accidents, and good condition,” he explains.

It took some time for Mustafa to deal with the challenges he encountered in the pre-owned car business

Mustufa also has an in-house garage near their Banjara Hills location where a team of five refurbishes the cars. This includes polishing, colour touch-ups, and fixing any mechanical issues.

“Understanding the intricacies of this business, especially documentation and identifying accidental vehicles, took some time. Penetrating the market was also challenging,” says Mustufa, recounting the challenges he faced in the early stages of the business.

Learning to check documents and assess the car's condition for valuation came with experience. “In the early days, we bought a car that turned out to have been in a flood. When we checked the seat, it was rusted,” he remembers an incident.

"I went back to the customer and explained I couldn’t resell it. After some reluctance, he agreed to deduct some amount and returned my money.”

Mustufa now drives a Mercedes SUV and an i20 car and lives with his family in a 4600 sq. ft. duplex villa in Gachibowli, Hyderabad, which he purchased in 2020.

Married to Maria, a homemaker, since 2017, Mustufa enjoys playing badminton, a bit of cricket, and swimming in his leisure time. An avid traveller, he has visited nearly 30 countries, including those in Europe, the Gulf, Dubai, Turkey, Egypt, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Mustufa’s advice to upcoming entrepreneurs is, “Business is all about taking risks, but you have to be calculative in taking them.” - ©TWL