From a deer totaling his BMW to running a specialty European shop, here's how Aiden Arvizu accepts payments with Whop
Aiden Arvizu was 14 years old when he touched his first classic car.
Two years later he was buying and flipping his own. A Cutlass, a GTI, a Mustang, one after another. And he'd gotten pretty good at it.
Then a freak accident changed everything.
But Aiden didn't give up – he built a business instead.
And now, that business runs on Whop.
A kid with a car obsession
Let's go back to 2015. 14-year-old Aiden is living in Long Beach, spending his days hanging out at his dad's recording studio. The building shared a lot with a tire shop, full of older guys who had been in the business for years.
"I saw all these classic cars come in and out all the time and I was into that."
A young boy with a car obsession? Groundbreaking. But instead of just admiring, he wanted get his hands dirty, "Whether it was sweeping or moving tires," he says.
Aiden started working at the shop, learning brake jobs and how to swap tires. Little things, but it all adds up.
Now earning his own money, he was able to save up to get his first car. But the old 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, barely running, wasn't anywhere near driveable. Fixing it up wasn't going to be cheap, and he didn't have the money to hand it off to someone else.
"I wanted my own classic car, because that's what I was into," Aiden says. "I never had enough money to fix it, so I learned to do that stuff myself."
This started a cycle of buying a rough car, fixing it up, selling it. This eventually led him to an old BMW. He fixes it up and has a buyer lined up for the next day.
Until a deer ran in front of his car and totaled it.
OH DEER
It was one of the top 5 worst days of my life. Everything I had ever done led up to me buying this old BMW for a year. I was about to sell it and move on to the next. Everything was lined up and I was crushed.
In seconds Aiden's life was changed. And unfortunately, like one in four Americans, he only had liability insurance. Meaning no payout.
It would have been pretty easy to give up at this point. He's 19, it's two days before his birthday. And did I mention that it was 2020, weeks before covid lockdowns began? The vibes were off.
But that also meant that Aiden now had other things in his life: all the time in the world, and a captive audience. So he turned to TikTok.
Aiden shared his story and said that if everyone who watched it Venmo'd him a dollar, he'd have enough to rebuild his car. To his surprise, the video did really well .
Now, he still had his doubts. "I'd done the work – maintenance, replaced parts – but in no way would I have called myself a real mechanic. Going into it I never thought it was going to work".
But with thousands of people commenting and messaging that they were excited to follow his journey, the pressure was on.
"All I had was my crappy tool box, a bunch of parts, and people telling me that I could do it".
So he got to work. With help from friends, he rebuilt the BMW in his mom's driveway over the next year and a half , documenting the entire thing on TikTok. It came back painted a powder blue, with a killer of a license plate: OH DEER.
The beginnings of VIIIZUTech
By the time that the project was over, Aiden had three things: a rebuilt car, a new skillset, and a growing audience.
Other car enthusiasts reached out asking if he could work on their cars too (and with an estimated 69 million car enthusiasts in the U.S., there's no shortage of them). The whole situation that could've made Aiden give up turned into a business opportunity instead.
Aiden went from working at someone else's shop, to doing mobile jobs on the side, to renting his own space. Three months ago, it became his full-time gig.
That business is VIIIZUTech, a specialty European service by appointment only.
The jobs vary – full exhaust and header installs on an '88 190E 2.3L 16v, an oil change and spark plugs on a 991 GT3, a full AC overhaul on his own E28 535i. Classics are still what he prefers. European is what he specializes in.
"It's pretty exciting, pretty terrifying," he says. "The past few years have felt like a bunch of random things falling into place."
Auto repair is one of the oldest service trades in the country – mechanics adapting from blacksmithing when the first cars hit American roads in the 1890s. But just because the trade is old doesn't mean the tools running it have to be.
Which is why Aiden turned to a modern tech stack for an old trade.
Accepting payments anywhere and everywhere with Whop
Aiden began his career in the field, fixing up cars from his mom's driveway. Now he has his own shop, so 99% of his work is on-site.
But what about that other 1%?
Aiden needs a solution that empowers him to accept payments wherever the work is.
The solution? Whop Payments.
With Whop, Aiden can create an invoice from his dashboard (description, amount, due date) and the customer gets an email to complete payment.
And for off-site jobs, Whop's Tap to Pay on iPhone means Aiden doesn't need a card reader, a separate terminal, or anything extra plugged in. Having an iPhone is enough.
Here's how it actually works: Aiden opens a checkout link on his phone. Underneath it is a button that says "Tap to Pay." The customer holds their card, or their own phone, over his – and that's it.
Whop supports physical debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, and other digital wallets, so there are plenty of ways for clients to pay.
VIIIZUTech runs on Whop
Whop is the full stack for running a business end-to-end. With Whop, Aiden can sell services online, accept payments (online and in person), run ads, issue virtual cards, manage tax, set up an LLC, and manage it all through simple commands with the Whop CLI.
The only thing Whop can't do? Actually work on the cars.
Everything that Aiden does on the Whop dashboard can be automated, scaled, or handed to an agent as VIIIZUTech grows, all from one place.
Ready to bring Whop to your business?
