Two outdoorsy entrepreneurs in Florida met after one nearly ran the other over. Together, they now s

• Two Florida-based millennials say they turned their love of van life into a thriving business.  
• Estelle Bain and Lebelo Mosehle became business partners after she nearly ran him over in 2022.
• Converting vans into boho tiny homes on wheels is their bread and butter – take a look.

Last March, Estelle Bain nearly ran over Lebelo Mosehle on her way to the beach in Florida. The pair were complete strangers at the time.

"I love driving really fast," Bain, 27, said with a wry smile as she told Insider about the day she and Mosehle, 27, first crossed paths. 

As Bain tells it, their fateful encounter happened around March 2022. She driving her moped to the beach in St. Petersburg, Florida when she nearly crashed into Mosehle as he was crossing the street. 

She didn't know it then, but she'd met her future business partner and the person that would help her run Florida Van Life.

It was a bumpy start, but Mosehle and Bain quickly bonded over their shared love of travel.

Despite nearly getting run over by Bain, Mosehle said he decided to introduce himself to her when he saw her later that day in the parking lot by the beach.  

During their conversation, the pair said they quickly bonded over a shared passion for travel. Mosehle, who had moved to the US from Lesotho, said he was instantly impressed when she said she'd visited his home country before. "I've been in America for eight years and nobody has ever been to Lesotho," he said. 

More than that, he found himself fascinated by Bain when she began telling him about the nomadic lifestyle she used to live and how it inspired her to start renovating old vans. 

"She was like, 'Oh yeah, I lived in a van for a few years and now I just convert them. It's such a fun project,'" Mosehle said. "She just started showing me the whole thing and I was just like, 'Wait, this is awesome.'"

Mosehle said they decided to become business partners after he saw her handiwork for the first time.

After they first met, Bain said she invited Mosehle to check out a van she was converting in her backyard, and he was instantly in awe of her talent. 

"She's an artist," he said. "She can sit literally in the middle of a van and just visualize how she wants it to look like."

It was then that Mosehle, who also runs a tennis academy in Tampa, proposed they join forces with the company, which has over 34,500 followers on Instagram. 

Mosehle focuses on the numbers and paperwork of their van conversion business while Bain is the artist.

"I deal with the business side of it, like the paperwork and little things like that," Mosehle said. "I'm pretty savvy with it."

His involvement has allowed Bain to fully focus on the artistic part of the business. Describing herself as a "serial entrepreneur" who had run several small businesses herself in the past, Bain said it's freeing to dedicate her time to her artistic passion while letting Mosehle handle the finances. 

"I was like, 'Wait a minute, maybe I can just focus on the stuff I like and he can do the stuff I don't like, which he likes.' So absolutely, it works," she said. 

Not only did their partnership arrangement end up working, but it also helped the business thrive, they said. 

Since teaming up, Bain and Mosehle say they've sold over 20 vans to clients from all over the US. 

No van they sell is ever the same, but they generally take around a month to convert.

Mosehle and Bain declined to discuss how much they originally purchase the vans for. 

However, they did say that the prices they resell them for take into account the year of the van, the mileage, the time it takes to renovate it, the cost of mechanics, and how "cute" it looks when they are finished. 

In order to make sure the vans are able to run smoothly from the moment they exit their yard with a new owner, the pair say they work with a private mechanic who does the necessary work to get them in shape.

After the mechanic is finished with them, Bain is given free rein to decorate them. When it comes to the exterior color of the van, Mosehle said that's down to what mood his business partner is in. 

Currently, most of their new vans are yellow because Bain is in a "yellow vibe," he said. 

However, one of their newest listings is a pinkish-orange van, which is currently on the market for $24,850.

Just like all the other vans they've converted, this van oozes a boho aesthetic.

That's because the pair said they love blending the outdoors with the interior decoration of their vans. 

"Let's put it this way, we are a bunch of hippies," Mosehle said. 

The van, which was originally made in 1996, now features a pink dashboard and white steering wheel with a floral crochet cover.

When they got the van, Bain was not a fan of the original color. "It was just gross and brown and gray," she said. "I was like, 'This looks like it's 25 years old. How am I going to make this cute?'" 

One of the first things she was inspired to do was hand paint the dashboard and front door interiors the same color she decided to paint the exterior — a pinkish orange. 

The inside of the van is covered in wood to give it a cabin-in-the-woods feel, which Mosehle and Bain say is their signature style.

The interior of most of their vans is usually covered in wood and their latest listing, which has a standard box truck layout, is no different. 

According to the listing, the van is fitted with vinyl wood flooring and insulated floors, ceiling, and walls throughout. It also features plenty of storage options, a shower, and a toilet that they say makes it well-suited for long-term living for potentially more than one person. 

"It kinda has that rustic feel," Mosehle said. 

"It's not perfect," Bain added. 

But imperfection and simplicity are what Bain and Mosehle say separates their vans from others in the van life movement.

As Insider's Frank Olito previously reported, the van life movement has grown in popularity on social media since the hashtag first originated in 2011. 

Since the trend began, the market has become increasingly full of vans that are sometimes even more luxurious than the average apartment, which is not what Mosehle and Bain are interested in doing. 

"A lot of vans, everything is so perfect. So, that's what separates us from everybody else," Mosehle said. "Our clients, they want to get out of that in an apartment type of feel. They want to feel like 'Wow, I'm outside. I'm in a cabin somewhere.'"

"We're trying to get people to be out more in nature," he added. 

Although the van's interior is relatively simple, it does have some nifty features that Bain felt are important to include from her own experience.

During the five years she spent traveling the world, Bain said that she spent a good amount of time living in a van. That experience helped her and Mosehle add several important details to their van conversion.

First of all, they swapped out the physical lock and key on the backdoor of the van for a key-code lock. "I always lost my key, so I'd always have an extra one underneath the car, but then I was, like, 'What if you don't even need a key?'"

Another important feature was the addition of solar panels on the roof, which ensure everything that requires power at the back of the van – such as the air conditioning – can continue running even if the car battery runs out. 

"I learned from waking up to a dead car battery, like, so many times in a van," Bain said. 

"If something happens with the engine and the car cannot move, that will not affect you whatsoever until the mechanic gets there," Mosehle added.

Bain and Mosehle love the idea they give others the opportunity to live nomadic lives but long to be out on the road themselves.

Most of their knowledge about van renovations has come from prior experience and from meeting people at festivals who have given them advice or suggestions about how to improve the vans, the pair say. 

While that has helped them cultivate a successful business over the past year, with clients who they say tell them they've made their "dreams come true," Bain and Mosehle are keen to get out on the road soon. And that could be super valuable for the business, they added.

"It's like a business trip in a way for us," Mosehle said. "We got the business side knocked down, now we can almost go out again, and try to remember the feeling of what it feels like for other people being out there."

Until they find the time to set out on the road, they say they are totally happy with making tiny homes on wheels for others, which doesn't feel like work at all.

"Even when it's like I'm under a car fighting rusty bullets. I'm like, 'Ah, this is so fun,'" Bain said.

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