Desiree Hill's journey is a resounding anthem of reinvention, audacious ambition, and self-made success. Just six years ago, her daily routine involved the precision and empathy required of an oncology medical assistant at Northside Hospital Duluth in Georgia, earning approximately $40,000 annually. Today, at 39, she is the formidable owner of Crown's Corner Mechanic, a thriving auto repair shop in Conyers, Georgia, whose net revenue soared to nearly $440,000 last year, with projections to hit a staggering $1 million in 2025. This dramatic pivot from healthcare to horsepower is not just a career change; it's a powerful narrative of diagnosing one's own dissatisfaction and rebuilding a life on one's own terms.
Hill's dissatisfaction with her previous career was multifaceted. The long hours, coupled with an arduous three-hour daily commute in Atlanta traffic, took a severe toll on her personal life as a single mother. "I wasn’t happy in my career at that time. I wasn’t happy in my personal life," Hill candidly admitted. "I never saw my children. So it really was taking a toll." This profound unhappiness became the unlikely catalyst for an extraordinary transformation.
The most remarkable aspect of Hill's entrepreneurial genesis is her absolute lack of prior experience in auto mechanics or business ownership. In 2019, driven by an urgent need to increase her income, she embarked on a side hustle with a bold premise: buying, renovating, and reselling rundown vehicles for profit. This was despite the fact that, by her own admission, she didn't even know how to change her car's oil at the time. Her reasoning was brilliantly simple: "Everybody needs transportation. That’s never going to stop no matter what. And I knew it was something that I could spend a very small amount on and maybe potentially make a lot of profit. It was the fastest way to make money."
Her education in auto mechanics came, quite literally, from the palm of her hand – through YouTube tutorials. Hill meticulously watched videos, absorbing knowledge on how to diagnose vehicle problems and fix specific car parts. Her inaugural venture was a truck, purchased for a mere $1,200. After an hour of work and a $60 investment in parts, she sold it for $4,000 just two days later. "I bought three more cars the next day," Hill recalled, a sense of exhilaration still palpable in her voice. "It was almost like a high. I swear, it was beautiful." This early, resounding success was not merely financial; it was a potent validation of her intuition and burgeoning self-taught skills.
For 15 relentless months, Hill lived a double life: working at the hospital during the day and staying up until 3 a.m. nightly fixing cars. The minimal sleep and time with her children were unsustainable, but the vision for her future propelled her forward. Around January 2020, she made the decisive leap, quitting her hospital job. Over the next year, her car-flipping enterprise flourished, with Hill buying, fixing, and selling 38 vehicles, generating approximately $100,000 in revenue.
The evolution of Crown's Corner Mechanic is a masterclass in organic growth driven by demand. In June 2021, Hill expanded her services, becoming a mobile mechanic, traveling to customers to perform repairs. She invested a few thousand dollars in a business license, essential auto tools, a website, advertising, and billing software. This mobile phase brought in about $13,000 in six months. Her burgeoning presence on TikTok, where she documented her repair jobs, proved to be a game-changer, unleashing a wave of new clientele. By Spring 2022, demand had so outstripped her capacity that she stopped flipping cars entirely and rented a bay at a local repair shop. She quickly outgrew that space too, a clear signal of her rapid success.
A stroke of luck, born from her dedication, came in the form of a four-month RV repair job. The RV owner, witnessing her relentless work ethic and growing pains, offered Hill a $10,000 interest-free loan to establish her own auto body shop. Hill, ever the astute businesswoman, insisted on paying 10% interest, and a three-year contract was drawn. In September 2023, Crown's Corner Mechanic officially opened its doors in a sprawling 9,000-square-foot space. To manage overhead, Hill intelligently brought on a mechanic, a welder, and a towing professional, each renting space in her shop. This symbiotic arrangement covered about half of her $6,566 monthly rent, a move she rightly deemed "the smartest thing I could have ever done." Testament to her financial discipline, Hill repaid the RV owner's loan in a remarkable 18 months.
Despite her undeniable success, Hill, a 4-foot-11-inch woman in a predominantly male industry, constantly faces the need to prove herself. Many customers, upon walking into her shop, do a double-take when they realize she is the owner. "There’s people that walk in here that don’t know [I’m the owner]... and they’re just baffled. Just because of how I look," she shared. Her response is simple yet powerful: "When they tell me what the issue is, I take them 20 steps further and break it down for them before they can even get to the next question. I have to wow them with my knowledge. Every time, I have to prove myself. Every time I open my mouth."
Crown’s Corner Mechanic is on an accelerated growth trajectory. Hill projects that the business will hit $1 million in revenue this year, roughly double last year's figure. While this is still less than the national average gross revenue per bay for auto shops in the U.S. ($203,000, according to a 2023 report from PartsTech), with eight bays, her potential for future growth is immense. Her immediate ambition is to transition from renting to owning her shop space, a move that would require an estimated $4 million for her current building. This would allow her to reinvest more into the business and her five dedicated employees.
Looking forward, social media, particularly TikTok, remains a vital engine for client acquisition, though Hill acknowledges the potential "devastating" impact if the platform were to disappear. Her long-term aspirations also include pursuing a mechanical engineering degree through a flexible online program, a testament to her insatiable appetite for learning and self-improvement. "We don’t stop," Hill declared with characteristic determination. "If you don’t know about us yet, you’re going to know about us real soon." Desiree Hill's story is not just about fixing cars; it's about pioneering her own path, empowering herself, and inspiring countless others to diagnose their dreams and build them, piece by painstaking piece.
