Born and raised in Nigeria, Ikenna Ordor moved to the UK when he was 14. Years later, in 2016, with just £5,000 he would found Starr Luxury Cars, now the largest luxury car rental company in the United Kingdom. We tell his story and draw insights from this entrepreneurial masterclass.
The Ikenna Ordor Story
“I grew up in Nigeria and when I was about 14 I moved over to the UK,” Ikenna Ordor told Forbes in 2019. “My mum was a grafter; she bought houses and was always interested in buying and selling. I always emulated that–I’d go take trips to look for houses to purchase. I’d say my influences really came from watching my mum.”
He credits his mother, a nurse and trader as his earliest influence. His father, a politician, was assassinated in 2011 and she raised Ikenna alongside six other siblings moving them to the UK to give them a better life. While in university at Birmingham, he worked part-time in a betting shop. Though he developed a sense of responsibility and hard work from this job, he also quickly realized regular jobs weren’t for him.
As he recalled, he would end up ‘an accidental entrepreneur’ when “almost mistakenly when I decided to host an event one night with just a few friends. I liked the idea that we’d be able to create so much profit in one night from doing something we loved.” Earning £10,000 profit at this event, he threw efforts and spare time into understanding entertainment and hospitality.
From observing people’s spending habits at his parties, he would go from being the guy who would “buy as much champagne as possible when I walked into a party” to being “the organizer who made a lot of money off people spending a copious amount on champagne.”
Founding Starr Luxury
After university, he would move back to London and there, launch an entertainment company. His first clients would ask for transportation, for private jets, and luxurious experiences that drew him deeper into the hospitality industry. Between 2012 and 2013, he launched a transport car business that he exited in 2015, with dreams of providing his clients with a heightened experience of luxury.
In 2016, he founded Starr Luxury when he saw that wealthy individuals wanted to celebrate their money with cars, helicopters and boats one would find only in movies. But they’d rather not own them. He decided to provide it as a rental service.
Starr Luxury Carrs offers an “easy-to-use on-demand luxury travel platform” that allows its users to secure luxury automobiles right to their doorstep. The Company has access to luxury vehicles worth over £150 million and has provided services for prominent clients including Drake, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, P-Diddy, 2 Face, Banky W and Saudi Royals.
He’s An Adventurous Entrepreneur
In 2023, he told Ventures Africa: “When I enjoy an activity or a service, there is a natural calling to want to share experiences with my network, which births thoughts of the feasibility of the opportunity and the financials – I am an adventurous entrepreneur, and I tend to press GO very quickly on new ideas. That is how I created Starr Luxury.”
Full-Service Is the Starr Luxury Way
Starr Luxury Cars allows clients to instantly book luxury cars for self-drive. It also offers them the option of being chauffeured in a luxury vehicle or helicopter. This ‘360’ full-service model, that makes the a one-shop hub for all luxury needs by road and air, is its unique proposition that helped them crush the competition.
The company is built with range in mind; to provide clients with a range of options and easy access to luxury. In his own words,
“There is no platform or luxury car hire platform that operates a 360 luxury car hire service. I think we are unique as a company, and because we are that one-stop shop, people tend to be able to identify us as unique in our space”.
Again:
“My industry is known as one where some of the largest providers or luxury car hire don’t have instant pricing available on their websites. We should be able to be able to see pricing instantly, be able to book instantly online, and also have the ease of delivery of a Lamborghini to your home address in the morning or the ease of requesting a Rolls-Royce to arrive at your home three hours from now because you have an event and would like to arrive in style.”
He Bootstraps
According to the CFI, bootstrapping is a way of building a business from scratch without seeking out investment or external capital. To bootstrap is to finance a business by using resources at the owner’s expense, without sharing equity or borrowing huge sums of money from banks. According to the CFI, bootstrapping compels entrepreneurs to seek out for unusual ways to solve problems, create new offers on the market, and power their business with creative and novel solutions.
It also allows them independence from investor opinions. Also, attracting external investment can take a lot of time and drain motivation. But bootstrapping allows an entrepreneur to fully focus on the key aspects of the business, such as sales, product development, etc. Thus, creating the foundation of future external investment.
Ikenna understood that to have to seek out funds would have drained him of his motivation and consumed his time. While at it, another company would probably have caught on the idea and taken the first mover advantage. So he had a go at the business with £5,000 of his own money, generating 100X that amount (£500,000) in the first year of operation.
In his words, “every tech company has time to raise capital. I have chosen “proof of concept” first.” He already has his sights set on turbo-charging the company and has started to seek out external investments in the hope of building a billion-pound company within the next five years.
He Has An Eye On the Environment
The transportation sector accounts for 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions globally, making it a significant contributors to climate change. This has put pressure on the industry to reduce its carbon footprint, a challenge that Starr Luxury is taking very well.
He drives an electric vehicle on a day to day and is hoping that the luxury car industry will evolve rather quickly. In his words,
“Zero-emissions is a mission we are championing. And we are perfectly positioned to demand more from our partner operators, as we encourage them to switch to electric and hybrid cars for the market. We also need the manufacturers to immediately increase the electric offering as well as the experience of using an electric car just so you do not feel like you are losing out on the experience of typical sounds of enjoying the V8 engine behind when you drive.”
He’s Going Global
Starr Luxury Car has expanded into the US, in major cities like Miami and Los Angeles. It has also expanded into the UAE and other parts of Europe and is now available in Abuja, Nigeria and Ghana.
Beyond cars, the Starr Luxury brand has moved into real estate and private jet hire, with over 2,000 charters and a five-star rating. According to Ikenna Ordor, his ultimate goal is to relaunch in the hospitality industry where he started. This time, it will be with beautiful and vibrant rooftop concerts in the UK and beyond.”
He Looks to Home
In an interview with Independent, he said he plans to bring Starr Luxury to Nigeria. He cites one of his dream jobs, as being the minister for travel and tourism in Nigeria. If he had the job, he says, he will advertise the Nigeria as much as he does Starr Luxury.
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