Car-buying website AutoRef.com might look like your average Internet startup founded by a pair of 20-somethings, but there is a lot of life experience packed into it.

The Santa Monica company, which launched in December, was started by Mike Pena, a cancer survivor, and Mike Buonocore, a Marine Corps veteran who enrolled in Harvard after fighting in Afghanistan.

“Our experiences balance each other very well,” Buonocore said.

The site allows prospective buyers to select cars, with dealers bidding for business with firm sale prices. It tends to attract serious buyers because it requires a credit card and a $33 hold, which is not charged if the customer does a test drive. Some 100 Southern California dealers have signed up.

Pena and Buonocore, both 28, met by chance last year when Pena attended a leadership conference at Harvard, where he pitched his idea for a website that would simplify used-car buying.

Buonocore was studying public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School but gravitated toward entrepreneurship after coming to a realization that it is important for the United States to remain a leader in business innovation. Pena’s idea particularly appealed to him, because he had seen many fellow vets taken advantage of by unscrupulous car dealers after returning from duty.

So Buonocore moved to Southern California to start the business with Pena, an L.A. native. The pair enlisted a team of college students to design the site, while the two funded the startup out of pocket. They are now seeking venture funding.

For Pena, who had worked at his uncle’s dealership as a kid, the impetus to start the company came from his difficult fight with cancer. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2007 and relapsed the following year. It took a serious toll but ultimately pushed him to take the risk of starting his own company.

“I don’t think I would have done this if I had not gone through this experience,” Pena said. “You don’t get too many chances in life so you’ve got to just go for it.”