17 year old Steven Ortiz from Glendora used Craigslist to get himself a Porsche, after having started off with an old phone. Over the course of two years, this young man traded up various items before he ended up with a beautiful Porsche.

Craigslist has helped many people trade up goods until they have something worth a lot of money. One famous example is Kyle MacDonald who created a website in which he chronicled how he was going to trade up a red paper clip for a house. He managed to get this done, but it was mainly because he had created a large fan base that helped him achieve this.

Ortiz’s story is different in that he had not outside help. He did not have a website, fan base and no publicity during the time he was doing his trade up. So, how did he do it?

This high school student started off with an old phone that a friend had given him for free. He used the barter section of Craigslist to find trades that would have him trading up. His first trade was to a better phone that he then traded for an iPod Touch. From there, he traded the iPod for a dirtbike. Ortiz then traded up a few more dirtbikes and then eventually, he ended up with a MacBook Pro. From here on, he began to trade up for cars.

At the age of 15, Steven Ortiz traded the MacBook for a Toyota 4Runner and he now owned his first car. However, since he was not yet at the legal driving age, he traded the 4Runner for a custom made off-road golf cart.

A more expensive dirtbike was the next exchange after the golf cart and after that, he got himself a street bike. He then moved on to some cars until he found himself with a 1975 Ford Bronco. This is what he later traded up for a Porsche.

It took fourteen trades for him to get from an old phone to a Porsche and all this he did in two years and below the age of 18.