In the early 2000s, a pair of preteen boys sat behind a lemonade stand in suburban Virginia. A decade later, brothers Jeffery and Christian each sat behind the wheels of some of the most coveted sports cars in the automotive world. Cars they bought themselves.
Pulling into his high school parking lot, Jeffrey drew more than just a little attention from his peers along with a few million youtube viewers.
The JR Garage youtube channel now has more than 1.2M subscribers, earning him celebrity status among car enthusiasts, aspiring entrepreneurs, and entertainment seekers from across the web.
How exactly did they get here? How does someone achieve staggering success at such a young age? Just how in the world did the JR Garage boys afford cars of such extravagance before graduating high school?
Who is JR Garage?
Self-described serial entrepreneurs Jeffery and Christian – known collectively as JR Garage – have been hustling since well before becoming a hit within the online autophile community. At the ages 6 and 8, their journey into the world of business began. Not long after their lemonade stand gig did they branch out into other ventures to build what would become a multimillion-dollar business machine.
JR Garage’s youtube channel is dedicated to all things automotive. It features reviews, covers races and road trips, and vlogs. Their passion for cars, their fun and informative videos, and their on-camera personality have earned them the attention of millions.
This is an excellent example of the “do something you love, and you’ll never work a day again” sentiment. What started as something to do for fun evolved into a career.
Their audience is not limited to car enthusiasts but includes young people of all walks who enjoy the vicarious glimpse of life as teenage millionaires.
In 2017 The JR Business channel launched. This became the platform from which JR Garage now discusses their business endeavors and speaks to young aspiring entrepreneurs. They cover subjects such as online commerce, investing, cryptocurrency and provides tips for achieving financial success based on their own experiences.
Finally, JR Aviation is an extension of JR Garage that, like their automotive channel, covers fast, noisy transportation. In this case, those of the winged variety.
Yet the question on everyone’s mind remains. How Does JR Garage afford so many cars?
As serial entrepreneurs, the JR Garage boys have accumulated their wealth by starting multiple businesses and taking advantage of several methods of earning.
The JR Garage Youtube Channel
With more than 100M views, JR Garage pulls in significant revenue through their YouTube and social media presence. By building a brand and amassing such a large following, JR Garage’s content has become inherently valuable, especially to sponsors and advertisers.
With an average of 11k views per day (according to Social Blade), JR Garage’s videos could be expected to bring in about $50,000 annually. The monetization of youtube videos is determined by several factors: the number of views, the number of ads, viewer engagement, and more.
Their near-constant engagement with their followers have been effective in monetizing their content to the fullest extent. As mentioned, JR Garage has further expanded their Youtube footprint in creating two additional channels; JR Business and JR Aviation.
Tangible Investments
Jeffery and Christian started to build career momentum by buying and reselling tangible investments. These are physical assets that could be bought for little and sold for lots. Collectables, rare currency, antiques, or anything they could find sold undervalue and could be refurbished and resold for a profit. Investing profits back into their business, they could conduct more and more transactions at increasingly high values.
This was the primary venture in the early days of their career. They traveled, hunted for deals, went to antique shows, trade shows, and otherwise hustled endlessly to set a sturdy foundation on which to build an increasingly robust career.
It’s worth acknowledging the role that technology played in their initial success. Very few teenagers are active in the rare collectibles market. Their generation’s internet and tech-savvy allowed for a more efficient approach than what was commonly practiced in the trade of antique collectibles.
Ultimately this led to the buying and reselling of cars. A logical next step, given their niche. This, too, is a matter of seeing the potential value of something and understanding what resources are needed to realize that value.
Their well-documented knowledge of cars and their celebrity status in the automotive world affords them considerable leverage in the car selling game. Their brand already had a reputation as an authority within their niche.
Online marketplace
A critical factor in his success with selling tangible goods is his savvy with the online marketplaces. By taking advantage of any and every e-commerce platform available, JR Garage could go from pawn shop-hopping to conducting tens of thousands of online transactions over the years.
Online sales allow them to broaden their reach beyond local buyers and sellers to a global market. It’s important to sell through multiple platforms at once, ensuring that they have access to as many potential customers as possible.
They also utilize a form of e-commerce called drop shipping, acting as a retailer themselves, but with no need for brick and mortar or inventory storage. Essentially they do marketing, makes sales, and facilitates the transaction and transport of products from a wholesaler to a customer.
This is a slightly different way than other automotive YouTubers operate their merchandise stores.
Digital marketing
JR Garage’s stature in the digital media space has created an enormous opportunity to generate income through cross-promotion and affiliate marketing.
Partnering with big brands, predominantly automotive brands, they make money through referrals. Simply by providing a path for their viewers from their platform to the point of sale for an affiliate’s product, JR Garage can collect commission from the sales of goods they neither need to produce or hold in inventory.
Of course, their success as a YouTube personality could be largely credited to their skills at self-promotion and community building. After all, marketing is another way of saying “to put oneself out there for the world to see.”
Content creation may deserve its own category. But from a marketing perspective, the ability to churn out engaging videos consistently and hold an audience of millions has positioned JR Garage to maximize every possible avenue for earning.
Beyond this, JR Garage offers digital marketing solutions and consultations directly to clients, mostly auto brands. Broadly, this involves managing their client’s online presence, including content creation, social media, and reputation management.
Clothing and Lifestyle Brand
JR Garage’s brand name recognition is a powerful engine for revenue generation. This is evident by the fact that slapping the name on a T-shirt or hat creates value. Of course, managing a lifestyle brand is considerably more involved than that, but it speaks to the accumulated worth of their brand that such efforts are viable.
Throughout their career as YouTube personalities, the JR Garage brothers have gradually established a lifestyle brand. This seems to have happened organically as their viewership grew. Selling branded merchandise is not only a source of revenue but an effective marketing strategy too.
Stocks and Cryptocurrencies
Part of the JR Business channel’s goal is to educate aspiring entrepreneurs, and a primary focus of this is offering tips on investing in stocks and cryptocurrencies. They’ve been trading for a few years and continue to stay current and involved with the market as they grow their portfolio.
As with their investments in tangible goods, JR Garage built their portfolio gradually by reinvesting their earnings into more substantial investments. Often learning by way of trial and error, they acquired expertise held by very few people their age.
JR Garage’s videos on Cryptocurrency and investments are in-depth and friendly to a layperson’s audience. Their fluency in finance and technology gave them a considerable edge as a young investor.
What is JR Garage’s Net Worth?
Ultimately, JR Garage’s success is an accumulation of more than a decade of work across many endeavors. JR Garage’s estimated worth is upwards of $2.5M. This is astounding.
Between their ongoing revenue-generating media presence and their history of entrepreneurial success, they accumulated wealth since before they were in middle school. Their net worth lies in several different assets:
- JR Garage youtube channel
- JR Business youtube channel
- JR Aviation youtube channel
- JR Garage Lifestyle Brand and Store
- A collection of sports cars including Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis, and more
- Company stocks and Cryptocurrencies
- Tangible investments, including antiques, collectibles, and rare coins
These guys are doing it right by investing in other projects outside of YouTube.
A Brief History of JR Garage
Even at such a young age, the JR Garage brothers have traveled a long and exciting road to arrive at the position of teenage millionaires.
At ages 6 & 8, Jeffery and Christian open a lemonade stand, officially embarking on their business journey.
- Around age ten, the brothers start selling rare coins and collectibles
- At age 16, JR Garage starts buying sports cars
- In 2016 JR Garage youtube channel launches
- In 2017 JR Garage posts a video of him driving to school in a Dodge Viper. It is a viral success.
- 2017 JR Business channel launches
- 2018 JR Aviation channel launches
- The JR Garage Viper is involved in a fatal accident
