Jared Kugel, CEO of Tire Agent, is a serial entrepreneur who is revolutionizing the way consumers buy tires online. This B2C entrepreneur is bringing an industry online that would traditionally only buy in stores.
Since 2020, he’s sold an astounding 2 million tires in the United States and is set to grow exponentially over the next five years. His company, Tire Agent, made the Inc. 5000 list for two years in a row. His first investor was Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator (ERA NYC). Jared is no stranger to raising capital in the startup world, having raised over $10 million in venture capital.
Jared has been featured in publications like the New York Post and TechCrunch and has been a guest on podcasts like Gain Traction, What’s Treading, and Cars Yeah.
What you will learn
- Learn how Jared’s personal experiences, from starting a business at 14 to working with his tough dad, shaped his entrepreneurial mindset and taught him the value of resilience and self-reliance.
- Discover how Jared identified the gaps in the tire industry and built Tire Agent by offering an online platform with exceptional customer service, education, and multiple payment options to stand out in a traditionally offline market.
- Understand the challenges Jared faced in securing venture capital, how he found the right investors, and why aligning with people who share your vision is crucial for business growth.
- Find out how Jared uses AI tools like Zendesk to streamline operations, improve customer service quality, and increase efficiency without compromising the personal touch that customers value.
- Gain insights into how refining marketing strategies, focusing on customer education, and leveraging repeat business helped Jared scale Tire Agent from $3 million to $75 million in just three years.
Transcript
Jeff Bullas
00:00:03 – 00:00:43
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Jeff Bullas Show. Today, I have with me Jared Kugel. Now Jared is the CEO of Tire Agent, CEO of Tire Agent. He is a serial entrepreneur who is revolutionizing the way consumers buy tires online. This B2C entrepreneur is bringing an industry online that would traditionally only buy in stores.
Jeff Bullas
00:00:46 – 00:01:12
Since 2020, he’s sold an astounding 2 million tires in the United States and is set to grow exponentially over the next five years. His company, Tire Agent, made the Inc. 5000 list for two years in a row. His first investor was Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator (ERA NYC). Jared is no stranger to raising capital in the startup world, having raised over $10 million in venture capital.
Jared Kugel
00:01:12 – 00:01:14
Thank you so much for having me. Super exciting.
Jeff Bullas
00:01:15 – 00:01:54
So, Jared, um. You in a little pre-chat we had before we hit record, um. You seem like you maybe had entrepreneur burnt into your DNA. So, um, tell us a little bit about your upbringing with your dad and how he treated you, and uh then we’ll wanna know how you cross the threshold into saying, I think I can sell tires online and uh with tire agents, so. What, how was your dad growing up? Because he actually was pretty tough on you, from what you told me.
Jared Kugel
00:01:54 – 00:02:33
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, my grandfather was actually successful, uh, in his own business in the lighting industry. And then what was so funny is my dad wanted to go into his business, but, my grandfather kind of pushed him out and he didn’t want to give anything to my dad. Uh, and so when growing up, my dad never got anything from my grandfather. And then same thing basically for me with my dad. When I was 14, you know, it’s time, you know, people ask about allowances or, you know, doing stuff around the house for money. My dad didn’t want to do any of that. So he told me he’s like, You want money? Start a business. I was 14 years old. Like, what did I know about starting a business?
Jared Kugel
00:02:34 – 00:02:47
So, well, that’s what I did though. I ended up starting a business selling left-handed products online when I was like 14. And I actually did really well. I mean, I made that time, I would say some like serious money for like a teenager. And then from
Jeff Bullas
00:02:47 – 00:02:53
there, left-handed product. Yeah, it’s like, like a golf club that left-handers would use, for example.
Jared Kugel
00:02:54 – 00:03:17
Yeah, well, I sold mostly office supplies, right? So, uh, keyboards were switched, quick dry pens, notebooks were flipped, stuff like that. And it did really well and um I kind of took that money, bought my first car, ended up investing it, uh, like a typical college student, lost everything cause I was just having fun, and didn’t really think about finances at that time. 21 years old, I now want to
Jared Kugel
00:03:18 – 00:03:53
You know, figure out what I’m doing. I’m in my senior year of college, or actually a little bit early now. I was probably like 1819 years old around there. Uh, my dad did not want me in his business at all. He’s like, I want you to become an investment banker or a stockbroker. And, and I was like, Well, I don’t know anything about those things. Well, anyway, what happened was he didn’t want to give me a real salary. He’s like, You wanna work for me? Fine. Straight commission. That’s, that’s how you’re doing it. I networked on my own. I built up my own book of business, and then I did so well that he had no choice but to put me on salary because it was cheaper for him to put me on salary to do this.
Jared Kugel
00:03:53 – 00:04:18
Um, and that, those customers really related to me. We ended up building a really big book of business and I built a lot of friendships from that. And actually 20 years later, I still speak to a lot of those customers. But my dad was very hard on me. And honestly, looking back on it, I appreciate it. So like I put myself through college, I paid for a lot of my own college. I paid for my first car. I never asked for help from him ever.
Jared Kugel
00:04:18 – 00:04:43
Um, but what he did give me was, you know, great advice. He always coached me, and was very supportive. In fact, when I started Ty Region and I told him I was going to do this, and I said, someone offered me a check. He goes, Oh, it’s a Ponzi scheme. I was like, No, someone actually wants to invest in my idea. Uh, but over the years, yeah, he was always very hard on me, but honestly, looking back on it, it was the best thing. And now we’re best friends. I mean, I talked to my dad 2 times a day.
Jeff Bullas
00:04:43 – 00:05:00
Wow. OK. Cool. So You Basically being kept honest, I suppose, by a dad that kept you accountable and say, you’re gonna own your own so you’re not, you didn’t, weren’t brought up an entitled family, right?
Jared Kugel
00:05:01 – 00:05:38
No, not at all. I’m laughing because there were times he had me load the truck. There were times he sent me door to door. I did warranties. I mean, nothing was given to me as a hand. I had to earn literally everything. I never got favors. Um, and honestly, I prefer it that way. I, I, I don’t want handouts. I want to be able to do it on my own. And yeah, it was great. Honestly, looking back on it, I’m happy he did it. At the time, I was like, what the heck? Because, you know, other people in our company that were related got a lot of, you know, handouts and, and free things and I just didn’t get that. But looking back, I understand why he did that.
Jeff Bullas
00:05:38 – 00:06:24
Yeah. Cool. So, let’s go to the birth of the idea of the tire agent. So obviously, you were in the tire business, so you sort of knew you’d been, you know, in the trenches, you knew what was about, you knew the supply, you knew the selling, you knew maybe the back office, the front office, customer service, all that stuff, so. What, was there an aha moment we went. No one’s selling tires online. Why don’t I do that? And there’s maybe a reason why they didn’t do that, but what, where did this idea come from to do it online? We know that everything’s online today, basically, so when did this idea come to you and what, what was the inspiration behind it?
Jared Kugel
00:06:24 – 00:06:53
Yeah, well, it didn’t really come to me naturally, to be honest. I mean, what kind of happened was Uh, when I, when I decided I didn’t want to be in my dad’s business anymore, because I, I kind of felt like they were not evolving with the times. I knew I had to create my own journey. So one day I went on LinkedIn and I just, you know, that section says like people you should connect with, right? Like recommended. So I saw this guy’s face and it said the word investor under his name. I didn’t really know anything.
Jared Kugel
00:06:54 – 00:07:28
I clicked on his name and I messaged him and I went, you don’t really know me, but I have an idea for a tire business I think you need to know about. So he says, send me a deck. I couldn’t believe the guy responded to me. OK. So, I’m thinking to myself, what is a deck? I thought it was like something behind a house. So I go online and I just put out an ad on the site that says, who can make me a deck for $100. So I paid this guy $100 to make me a deck, and to be honest with you, looking back on it it was pretty crappy, and it was an idea about a search engine for tires, so.
Jared Kugel
00:07:29 – 00:07:54
I sent it to him. We made a call. Uh, call goes OK. We made a second call, which was terrible because they were very hard on me about the idea. And then we meet in person. And then the in-person meeting was for real. Like, it was intense. It was like 5 people in a room grilling me about the idea. But I understand why they didn’t because, you know, I didn’t know at the time they were going to write me a check for $100,000. Well, literally on day 7.
Jared Kugel
00:07:54 – 00:08:31
From the time I messaged them on LinkedIn to the time they made me an offer was 7 days. 7 days later, they call me, they go, and we want to make you an offer. It’s gonna be, uh, I think it was about $100,000 for 8% of the business, give or take. I don’t remember the exact amount of percent, but it was roughly around there. And they’re like, we need an answer relatively soon. I sleep on it. I wake up the next morning, I’m like, I’m doing it. Because how often is a stranger gonna write you a check, right? It just doesn’t happen. It’s like something out of a movie, right? So I go to my brother and my dad and I go, hey, I’m putting my notice.
Jared Kugel
00:08:32 – 00:08:56
I’m done. Like, I’ll help you transition out of me because I had a lot of accounts at that time, but I, I gotta move on. So I take the chance, I go into the, I take the offer, it ends up being a tech accelerator, which means they’re mentoring you and they’re coaching you and they’re kind of, it’s more than money, right? It’s like a mentorship program, basically. And they told me at the end of the program, I have to go on stage in front of 1000 people.
Jared Kugel
00:08:57 – 00:09:18
I am not a public speaker. Like, what do I know about that? I, I’m an introvert for the most part, you know, I, I’m a low-key person. So I go through the program and somebody says to me, whatever you do, do not launch your business before demo day. I’m like, what do you mean don’t launch my business before demo day? I gotta go up there with something. So the original idea, as I mentioned, was a search engine.
Jared Kugel
00:09:18 – 00:09:40
Didn’t really have any legs. Then I tried to do a couple other businesses. They all kind of fizzled out. Then I did a mobile tire installation. That’s what I went on stage with. But the day or a couple of days right before going on stage, I had landed in agreement with one of the largest companies in the country to do road hazard protection with them, to, to sell their platform. And
Jared Kugel
00:09:41 – 00:10:25
I couldn’t believe it. I was like, holy crap, I just signed a big agreement. I now could put like their logo on my presentation because I have no business. So, I go on stage, I pitch the idea of the mobile tire installation combined with the road hazard protection from that big company, and I get this huge applause and I’m thinking everything’s gonna be great, and I get no investment now. So now months have passed by since I got 100,000. After that, Someone said to me, hey, What are you doing with this? Why aren’t you selling tires online? And they kind of pushed me and challenged me. They said, why aren’t you selling tires online? And I thought about my experience from when I went door to door on what it was like, uh, talking to counter people at stores and
Jared Kugel
00:10:26 – 00:11:00
I just thought to myself, you know what, the guy’s right. Like, why am I not doing this? Because when you think about the business of selling online, you could scale quicker than going door to door on a mobile tire van, right? And that’s a great business. I have no issue with it. But if you’re taking venture capital money, you need to scale quickly. But the problem is in my mindset, I grew up in a family that had an old school fundamentally sound business at that time. So, even though I’m in the venture world, I don’t want to be like those people who are burning tons and tons of money.
Jared Kugel
00:11:00 – 00:11:48
So, I start to think, what are, what do people hate about local tire shops, right? Well, it’s an unfair advantage that a counter person at a tire shop is facing. It’s usually one guy behind the counter, and he’s expected to give the customer the information about the tire. He’s expected to tell them about financing and payment options. He’s expected to tell them about warranties, features and benefits, right? And while he’s doing that, there’s a line of people waiting to be helped. It’s unfair. So when I built a tire agent, I wanted to solve for education and customer service first. Then over time we ended up solving for payment options and giving people a multitude of payment options because In America, I’ve had the honor of speaking to so many hardworking people across the country.
Jared Kugel
00:11:49 – 00:12:00
Cause I do a lot of road trips, um, even when I was door to door sales. When you talk to people, people are barely able to pay for basic necessities. The, the hand to
Jeff Bullas
00:12:00 – 00:12:00
mouth,
Jared Kugel
00:12:02 – 00:12:41
hand to mouth, and so many ecom companies care about the top 10% of income, but that’s not most Americans. Most Americans are, are struggling and they feel rushed in their decisions about everything because the pressure is just immense. So, that’s kind of how the idea of tired came about. It was kind of like a snowball effect. I started by solving for customer service, then I started solving for payment options, and then we kind of combined the two. And uh now if you see that region today, like that, that’s what we have. I mean, if you Google us and you look at the reviews, they’re stellar, stellar reviews because I tell our customer service people, do not rush people off the phone.
Jared Kugel
00:12:42 – 00:13:12
I don’t care if it takes 5 minutes or 2 hours. You take your time and you answer all the questions. And that’s kind of how tire engines kind of like evolved. And then in 2020, we really hit it. We discovered an easier pathway for customers to buy tires with a multitude of payment options, and we launched that during COVID. And COVID was a very interesting time because the first few months, we just like lost our shirts. And then once we caught momentum, it kind of went from there.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:12 – 00:13:12
Yeah.
Jared Kugel
00:13:13 – 00:13:15
Sorry for the long-winded answer.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:15 – 00:13:39
No, no, no, no, no, it’s good. And, and for me, the, so one big question I have in my head is. So people buy online, they buy your tire. Um, I’m really shit at putting tires on, right, so how do you solve that problem, because that’s what you raised in my head. I’m going, OK, I bought a set of tires for my car. Wow, look great, um, who’s gonna put them on for me?
Jared Kugel
00:13:40 – 00:14:12
Yeah, so. Yeah, great question. I mean, we’ve partnered with a ton of independent installers across the country. So we have thousands of installers on our website listed across a lot of zip codes. But believe it or not, a lot of our customers don’t want to do that. I mean, we offer it and we, we have thousands of people every month that opt in for it, but way more opt not to do it. And I used to think it was crazy. And then one day I needed tires myself.
Jared Kugel
00:14:12 – 00:14:38
And I called, uh, one of my friends who’s a manufacturer, and I said, Hey, can you send me 4 tires? He goes, Where do you want me to send it? And I could have said an installer. I actually said, send it to my apartment. So, the tires arrived at my apartment, and, and people ask me, why are you doing that? I was like, because I don’t know where I’m taking them yet. But once I get them, I’ll figure it out. I ended up taking it to a shop to get them installed. But we do offer installation on our website and thousands and thousands and thousands of people opt in to do it.
Jared Kugel
00:14:38 – 00:14:52
But the majority of people actually don’t want to do it. They want to take it to their neighborhood guy who they know. And you know, who am I? Yeah, I mean, look, I don’t want to tell people what to do with the tires. I mean if that’s what they want, that’s what they want. But yeah, we do, we do cater to both audiences.
Jeff Bullas
00:14:52 – 00:15:12
So basically obviously then the price of the time must be less than Basically going to a shop and getting the whole service done? Is that part of the plan, or is it just what other features and benefits you offer above your local corner tire store shop? Yeah.
Jared Kugel
00:15:12 – 00:15:37
So, for one, I want to go to a high level, right? People think a tire is a tire. That is so not the case. Tires have a lot of new things. I want it. There’s very micro features that are involved in every different tire. Every tire is different from the next tire. They all have different features and benefits and warranties and treadlocks and all sorts of things. And, and even fuel efficiency depending on the tire you get, right? So.
Jared Kugel
00:15:37 – 00:16:02
You, what we try to say to people is there’s a lot of benefits to buying online. One selection. You’re gonna have way more choices online than you would in a store, OK? The second thing is, yeah, the price is absolutely gonna be competitive, for sure. But the next thing is with us, you have affordability options. You have a multitude of payment options to choose from. And today, a lot of people are struggling, you know,
Jared Kugel
00:16:03 – 00:16:28
At the end of the day, it’s not like you’re buying jewelry, right? Like, when you buy jewelry, that’s a want, that’s not a need. If you buy, you know, clothing, it’s a want, not a need. But if you need tires, you need tires. Tires are not cheap, right? Like, you can say maybe they’re relatively cheap compared to other tires, but at the end of the day, it’s a bulk purchase, and we’re in a situation right now where the majority of Americans can’t afford an emergency purchase more than $400.
Jared Kugel
00:16:28 – 00:16:54
I always advise against getting used tires because you don’t know how the person drove on them. And everyone’s style is different. And if all of a sudden you don’t know how that person drove and there’s no independent certification, right, then you’re risking yourself on the road. So you got to get new tires. That’s my personal opinion. And it doesn’t matter whether you get it from a tire agent or if you get it from XYZ tire, I highly suggest you get new tires overused. It’s not even like a question to me.
Jared Kugel
00:16:54 – 00:17:25
So when you now think about that, you have to get new tires and you don’t have the money to do it, and you need tires to get to your job, your school, pick up your kids, whatever it may be, do your daily errands, we’re here to help you, right? We offer a multitude of payment options. The price is gonna be competitive. We offer the most comprehensive road hazard protection with Allstate. There’s just so many reasons to buy online versus in a store that if you’ve never done it. I highly suggest at least exploring the idea and learning more.
Jeff Bullas
00:17:26 – 00:17:39
Right. Cool. So, um, I just, I just had a little bit of a throwback memory of, you know, you talk about new tires and used tires, and then a long time ago was the retread tires.
Jared Kugel
00:17:40 – 00:17:43
I remember those. You see them on the side of a highway.
Jeff Bullas
00:17:45 – 00:18:12
And, uh, yeah, because I was a poor teacher and I could only afford retreads from my Datsun 180B, now called Nissan, and uh. Yeah, and I have been known to buy retreads so long ago I can hardly remember, but just thinking about that, so the reread and So are you in your what’s your ideal customer profile? Is it obviously the struggle, it sounds like struggle streak is one of your,
Jared Kugel
00:18:13 – 00:18:46
it’s, it’s not, it’s not struggling people, it’s. I would say we have a wide spectrum of people that order from us, like a wide spectrum. We get people that are struggling, we get people that have a lot of money. We have people in the middle. It’s not that we have a customer profile. It’s that, what I always tell people, you don’t know what somebody’s going through in that month or in that moment that you need a tire. That’s what it comes down to, right? Like, you could be doing very well, but then have a bad run for a month or two. You, but we have, we have such a diverse customer base that I don’t like to pigeonhole and say like,
Jared Kugel
00:18:47 – 00:19:33
We have one customer demographic because we don’t, I mean, we sell multitudes. I mean we sell tires for Porsches, like Teslas, you know, Hondas, GM, BMW. I mean, I, we see everything. What I would say is the common thread between everything is. It’s people that own a vehicle as opposed to lease. And, leasing is a privilege, right? Because you’re paying a premium to, to lease. That’s, that’s a fact. When you own, that is, you know, a lot of people are owning because it’s a cheaper option or it’s a better financial option, right? And you’re gonna get a different client base because of that. But in terms of like age, income, all that stuff, I don’t have a set demographic, but what I can tell you is the majority of vehicles we do sell are
Jared Kugel
00:19:34 – 00:20:01
I would not put them in luxury vehicles. Like, yes, we sell some Mercedes tires and BMW tires and Porsche tires, and they definitely make up a significant portion, but I would say the majority are the vehicles that you would say belong to like hardworking Americans, right? Like Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota, like the very basic vehicles. That’s what we typically sell tires for. So we don’t, we get enthusiasts and we get luxury vehicles, but that’s not the majority.
Jeff Bullas
00:20:02 – 00:20:37
Right? Cool. So let’s wind back to where you started. How did you get customers, because for most businesses, whether it’s an online store or whatever store, whatever business. How do you get customers, and the second question from that is, um, when was, when was there a breakthrough moment that we’re, we’ve we’ve got this now, where this business is starting to hum. So number one, how did you get your first customers and then, OK, when was the ah heart well that this is working.
Jared Kugel
00:20:38 – 00:21:07
Yeah, so I would say I’d first start out when people get into ecom. I think it’s very easy for people to say I’m gonna sell on the marketplaces, right? Because it’s the easiest pathway to get customers because they bring them, they bring the customers to you. I did not do that. I thought that was gonna be a bad idea in the beginning, um, because I wanted a business where I can not own, you know, when people say they like to own the customer because they want their information, they want to be able to reach out to them, a personal connection.
Jared Kugel
00:21:07 – 00:21:27
I wanted a personal connection with our customers and so the only way to do that is to make your own website. And then from there, I had to make a decision: do I wanna do Google first or Facebook because I didn’t have enough money early on to do both. So I really wanted to concentrate on one thing. I felt like our value prop resonated better visually.
Jared Kugel
00:21:27 – 00:21:56
Um, because if you just type in like buy tires now, everyone is just gonna only compete on price, right? And I wanted something more than that because we have such great reviews online. And when you think about why we have great reviews, people love our customer service. They love the fact we’re gonna be there for them, not just to answer questions, but even post sales if they have questions. And I really wanted to show that. So we launched on Facebook, uh, ads, Facebook ads to start, and then later did Instagram and
Jared Kugel
00:21:56 – 00:22:32
The customer acquisition cost was really high because we knew we were trying to change consumer behavior. We were trying to bring people over to the online market, which had only been bought in stores previously. Yes. Then we were trying to figure out what was the messaging that was going to work. Now, if you look now on Facebook and you see any big ecom company, they’re always saying like 12 months no interest or all these things like no money down. But we were really, uh, early on, I would say pioneers to educate customers to not only buy tires online, but hey, you don’t have to put all the money up front, or, hey, you know, we do offer road hazard protection.
Jared Kugel
00:22:32 – 00:23:11
You know, like, we were the first ones to really give true messaging in my mind. Because before then, on the only ads I ever saw with online retailers for tires, at least, it’d be like a mail-in rebate promotion or it would be like, buy tires online, at great prices. It was always at great prices, but like everyone could say great prices. What are you gonna do for the customer beyond that? How are you gonna show them you’re there for them? Like, a lot of big portions of our customers repeat orders. Like we get a lot of repeat business. We get a lot of referrals. That’s huge for us. If we don’t have that, like, our business is not sustainable. Like we want to be able to live on the fact that we have a great reputation.
Jared Kugel
00:23:12 – 00:23:31
So, I would say in about, that was the starting point where I knew like we had something. And then, you know, we knew our messaging was gonna resonate with people of all income levels. It was not just like people struggling cause you think about it, right? Like, there’s a whole multitude of things that we offer. It, it’s everything from
Jared Kugel
00:23:32 – 00:24:16
You know, for all different credit spectrums basically is what we offer. And so we knew that it was gonna resonate with people depending on what they’re going through, what they need. Maybe people make more money in the stock market than laying it out front. Like there’s all different reasons, right? And so the messaging, we started to hone in more and more and more. And I would say by 2020, 2021, we knew we were on to something. We went from our first year in business, I think doing about 3 million. In our second year we did 33 million. Our third year, we did like 75 at that time. Now, the jumps were so drastic. That we were trying to keep up. I would say when we knew we had something special.
Jared Kugel
00:24:17 – 00:24:58
was when we had customers writing reviews about us and the reviews were of substance. I knew then I was gaining the momentum we had. You know, when you see reviews online and people are just writing like 5 stars like service was great and that’s all you get. We were getting essays from people full of paragraphs. And I was like, wow. We are really hitting something home for people. Um, and that was a really special moment for me, and I, I think that was around like 2020, 2021, we made that big revenue jump. Um, and that’s when I knew I was on something. And once I saw those coming in repeatedly.
Jared Kugel
00:24:59 – 00:25:19
I’m like, I gotta lean in while at the top because you, you know, you see the sales coming in, but sometimes when you’re in the moment, you don’t really see the jump because you’re in it. But when you see the heartfelt thank yous and all that stuff, you’re like, OK, this is, this is something now.
Jeff Bullas
00:25:20 – 00:25:25
OK, so your go to market strategy was using Facebook ads, is that correct?
Jared Kugel
00:25:25 – 00:26:11
Early on, but it wasn’t, yeah, but it really wasn’t about Facebook. It was more about visual, like visual, yeah, because we did a whole bunch of things. We did ads in apps. At the time, we did ads in, uh, early on, like little banner ads in the Google network. Like, I didn’t care what it was. It just had to be visual. We needed to show people that this was possible, that buying tires online is a thing, and it’s not just for enthusiasts who know what they want. That was the main conversion point, because before then, the only people that really bought online were people who knew what tire they wanted. And for what purpose? We wanted to bring in the regular consumer who does not know about tires and help them educate them in the purchase.
Jeff Bullas
00:26:12 – 00:26:40
Cool. All right, so. I’m an ex-salesman, I started some businesses and I was good at selling, and, but I didn’t realize at the time that you actually need working capital because if you’re too successful at selling, you’ve got to fund the growth. So are there any challenges for you funding the growth, other words, you know, it’s supply chain, um, tell us about that challenge.
Jared Kugel
00:26:41 – 00:27:13
Um, so here’s the thing, it was challenging for me to raise capital. Uh, a lot of VCs did not believe in a tire business being venture backed. And I didn’t come from an Ivy League school. I didn’t come from a fancy job, right? So I didn’t work at a big consulting company. I didn’t come from finance, none of that. Uh, I didn’t have any tech skills, like, virtually none. I didn’t know how to code. So I’m just like a regular guy that was trying to raise capital. Um, and it was very, very hard.
Jared Kugel
00:27:14 – 00:27:52
Very, very hard, and I probably got every insult under the sun on why I would not succeed. Um, like it was, it was brutal, brutal. Uh, but what I, what I could tell you is what was easy was the industry was very supportive. Um, so I pitched the idea early. I had a lot of friends, and so they were able to help me out and give me credit lines when, you know, I really didn’t deserve it early on. And that helped when I was in the middle of fundraising cause I didn’t, you know, A million dollars sounds like a lot of money. And it is a lot of money. But when you’re trying to grow super quick,
Jared Kugel
00:27:53 – 00:28:35
You can do a lot of things wrong with a million dollars. Yes. OK. And for me, I took it very conservatively because I took the money I raised very seriously because it was a lot of people’s hard-earned money. Yes. So what I did was I went to my friends that were distributors and I said, listen, can you help me out? And they all did. I didn’t have anyone who didn’t support me early on. And so I was able to use that to kind of do it because what happened was, once I saw the unit economics made sense. Then I can, you know, for every $1 you put into advertising you get $10 back, right? So once I saw the math working, I was able to lean heavily.
Jared Kugel
00:28:35 – 00:29:15
And then the suppliers were helping me with floats, right? Because I didn’t have to pay it immediately. And so that was kind of helping me get through the early stages very quickly. But I’m not a good salesman. Uh, I think my problem was when I was fundraising. Was I maybe too honest, right? Uh, you know, when you start and you’re a founder, they’re like, where are you gonna be 5 years from now? And the majority of people are like, I’m gonna be a $5 billion company. I never said that. I said, look, this is where I plan to be. It was a very conservative number. Now we have surpassed it, which is great. Uh well short of 5 billion, to be clear, but we did surpass, we did surpass our original goal by far, um, but
Jared Kugel
00:29:15 – 00:29:51
You know, I’ve always been genuine. You know, the minute that you pitch someone, I didn’t want to be what they call like a snake oil salesman, right? Like, I didn’t want to be that guy. I say, hey, look, this is what I’m gonna do. You either believe that this is good for you or you, or you don’t believe it. And if you don’t believe it, that’s fine. I’m gonna be successful without you. Uh, we found VCs later on that, you know, where that message kind of resonate with them and they appreciated the honesty and the hard work, but I always found myself at a challenge, the fact that I was not willing to compromise my morals and lie about where I, what they wanted me to hear. Instead, I would tell them what I really believed in. So.
Jared Kugel
00:29:51 – 00:30:05
You know, you’re probably a better salesman than I am. I’m not a good salesman, but what I always found is that if you are genuine with people and you are honest and even if it’s not always what they want to hear, somebody will be there for you. Right?
Jeff Bullas
00:30:06 – 00:30:14
Yeah. Yeah, well, at the end of the day, you’re playing a long game, you’re not playing a short. You know, pump and dump, as they say in,
Jared Kugel
00:30:15 – 00:30:19
in the majority of startups that I have found played that game are gone,
Jeff Bullas
00:30:19 – 00:30:20
yeah.
Jared Kugel
00:30:20 – 00:30:23
Because eventually you raise all that money, you have to do something with it. Yeah,
Jeff Bullas
00:30:24 – 00:30:34
like I’ve heard reports like, you know, like I think even Suliman, who’s head of AI at Microsoft now. I think he raised 1.5 billion and it didn’t work.
Jared Kugel
00:30:36 – 00:31:06
Listen, I’m a big believer in experimenting and spending money on things that, you know, on moonshots. Like, I do spend money on moonshot ideas sometimes, and I, I’ve had failures, but I will never spend money that I believe I cannot afford. So like, if we can’t afford to do something or it’s on the fence, I don’t do it. It’s not my money I’m playing with. It’s my investors’ money, and I want to make sure that I am doing the best for them, and I wish for more.
Jared Kugel
00:31:07 – 00:31:42
People, you know, have that same philosophy. There’s a lot of people out there that do. I’m not saying they don’t like to meet a lot of great people, but in the venture world you are taught to burn money and grow, and I believe you can grow a business profitably and stably over time. I don’t think I have to grow a million X year over year to be a successful business, right? Like, you know, someone once told me the term, you have a unicorn and you have a camel. Right, and you have a turtle, right? And I, I think we’re a camel, right? We grow at a really good pace, but we can control the growth, and I think that’s more important. Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:31:42 – 00:31:55
So another question I have is regarding distribution, so Do you Cause you can buy all these tires. Do you store them or are you like a drop shipping intermediary for?
Jared Kugel
00:31:56 – 00:32:39
It’s a hard question to answer, not because I don’t want to answer the question. It’s because we’re a hybrid of so many different models. Right. Like we have, we do have 3 PL warehouses we work with, but we also work with distributors and we also work with manufacturers and so we blend a lot of things together. And that’s part of the customer service angle that I’m trying to do because for example, if I know a distributor is closer to a customer and I can get them quicker than another method, I’m gonna send a last mile courier to pick it up and drop it off. If, if I think I can get a, you know, a better product from another, you know, source, I’m gonna do that. So I think it’s important.
Jared Kugel
00:32:40 – 00:33:04
Whether we do it or someone else does it, it’s important to not be pigeonholed to one concept. You have to adapt with what the times are. When we very first started, we did not have a 3PL. We had only drop shipping and then we went from drop shipping to 3 PL on certain occasions to then manufacturers and so like we’re a blend of like a lot of different things. Yeah.
Jeff Bullas
00:33:05 – 00:33:12
So it sounds like you’ve got something complicated. System and processes now. Would that be correct?
Jared Kugel
00:33:12 – 00:33:55
Let’s use the word sophisticated. Uh, no, and it is. I mean, it, yes, it’s complicated. It’s probably the reason why a lot of people don’t enter the online entire space. I mean, it’s not an easy thing where it’s not like you get an order, you give it to the supplier and you’re done. No, that’s not how we work. We have a lot of different methods of doing things. Like we started rolling out same-day delivery, uh this year. And we did it on a very, very small level. And it’s been doing really, really well. And so now we’re expanding into other methods of that to get tires to people quicker and also how do we get it to the installer and streamline that process a little bit better. Right now, if you go on our website, you can order a tire, get the installation.
Jared Kugel
00:33:56 – 00:34:26
And check out. I wanna go one step further than that is how do we then help you set up an appointment in some cases. And so that’s what we’re looking at towards the end of the year. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s a very sophisticated logistics model that we built out. I mean, I was used to doing logistics working with my family, where I actually imported tires overseas. I did LTL full truckload, parcel, like everything under the sun, and I’m able to take that same knowledge and kind of transfer it here. Right.
Jeff Bullas
00:34:27 – 00:34:35
Yeah, because there’s a lot of moving parts and, um, essentially, and a lot of tire, different tire manufacturers as different installers and
Jared Kugel
00:34:35 – 00:34:44
size tires also, I mean, some people are ordering like monster size tires that are like 40 inches. You’re not gonna move that the same way that you move a 15-inch tire.
Jeff Bullas
00:34:46 – 00:35:34
Exactly. So. A lot of entrepreneurs learn too late that good processes and systems can either make the business work or they can kill it if they get it wrong. Um, and to add to that, let’s lean a little bit into the world of AI, and we had a quick chat about that before, that is, you know, we, we both view AI as an assistant or a co-pilot rather than actually taking over and handing the keys to the AI, including customer service. So, quickly, you know, When did you realize that systems are very important, or you knew that because you’d worked with dad. And then, as AI helped you with processes and systems to, um, you know, customer service as an enhancer or autopilot. Tell us a bit about those two things.
Jared Kugel
00:35:34 – 00:35:53
I’m laughing because my family’s business had no processes at all. It was like shouting across the room. That was like the biggest process they had. No, I, I mean, when I started I didn’t, we didn’t even have any processes. We didn’t even use Slack or teams or any of that stuff. Someone would call in on a hardwired phone.
Jared Kugel
00:35:53 – 00:36:35
I would literally stand up, write down a piece of paper like I’m in a boiler room stock, you know, stock trading place. I’d be like, so and so called for you, and I’d run over and give them the paper. I mean, yeah, they had email, but it wasn’t as quick, you know, it’s quicker just to give a piece of paper to someone, right? And so like, when we were early on, then I said to myself, we had gotten too big for the paper and I had to kind of move. And I was like, we need to come up with actual processes, so make sure customers are being taken care of and don’t, don’t slip through the cracks. So I started to research ticketing systems like Zendesk, Fresh desk, there’s a whole bunch of them out there, right? Um,
Jared Kugel
00:36:36 – 00:37:20
We ended up taking 6 months. To do ticketing, to prepare us for ticketing software. A support ticketing software and for 6 months we wrote out all the rules and processes and how we’re gonna do it. And then I took another couple of months and built out a training school, uh, and we, you know, it was, it was a lot of growing pains in that process, a lot of growing pains, but I knew it was better for our customer experience. Like it’s, it’s just an expense you have to do if you’re a business. You cannot be reliant on email and paper. Even email alone is not good enough. Like you need a support ticket software. I cannot emphasize that enough if you’re a growing business and
Jared Kugel
00:37:22 – 00:37:38
Oh, over the course of a year, it was a lot of growing pains, but I could say that once we made it through that. Our MPS score went through the roof, right? Like it was close like the amount of customers that were appreciative of the communication and follow up. I mean that was very important. So.
Jared Kugel
00:37:39 – 00:38:09
I can’t say I knew exactly when it was to do it, but I could tell you, you know when to do it when you’re yelling across the room and you have a handful of paper and hoping someone takes it from you. So I think that was kind of like the snowball moment in which we moved in that direction. I remember I had spoken to another e-commerce company at the time, and they’re like, are you using a support ticketing system? And I was like, What? What? Like, what are you talking about? No, I’m using pieces of paper and Post-it notes. Uh, and once they told me about my research, I was like,
Jared Kugel
00:38:10 – 00:38:57
You gotta, you gotta make the switch. Like it just wasn’t sustainable at that point. Um, and looking back on it, I thought it was huge. Now, I’m happy we chose, and I’m not being paid to endorse them by any means. I don’t even know anyone there, but I’m happy we went with Zendesk because Zendesk Was a platform that was able to scale with us and what has happened is with this new AI boom that’s happening, we’ve been able to use some of their AI tools that has helped us a lot, uh, on the end on the back end. So like, um, we have a, we have a QA team that makes sure that everyone’s saying what they’re supposed to say and, and do everything the right way and so we use an AI tool to score our customer service agents. We use it.
Jared Kugel
00:38:57 – 00:39:24
Yeah, yeah, and that, that’s great. I mean, I, I, I cannot emphasize how great that is, quality assurance. You know, it makes it easier because quality assurance used to be, you have to have a team full of people to listen to every call one on one. You had to read every ticket. That makes it a lot easier. And then also, we’re now implementing AI to shorten the process of taking notes on the phone. Um, so no, you know, that and transcribing, which has been very helpful.
Jared Kugel
00:39:24 – 00:40:04
But as you and I spoke in the pre-show, I don’t believe in using AI to replace agents to talk to people. Because if that’s the case, then why do people pick up a phone and call, right? They want to talk to somebody. Why are they clicking in? I want to speak to an agent on a chat because they want to talk to someone. I don’t want to mislead people to believe it’s an AI, it’s a human when it’s an AI person. I think that’s very misleading. Now, can my opinion change later when things get way more sophisticated? I doubt it, but anything’s possible. Uh, that a lot of problems that we have today is because people are doing everything they can to disassociate personal connection.
Jared Kugel
00:40:04 – 00:40:29
And I think that leads to a lot of problems, and I wanna make sure that I always have a personal connection with our customers. I think people appreciate it. I think they like the fact that we’re there for them, and I think they like the fact that we’re listening when they talk. And if you have an AI person, that person is not really, yes, OK, they’re sophisticated, they’re gonna take notes, they’re gonna give recommendations but a customer wants to be heard. They want to feel like they’re talking to somebody that their voice matters and.
Jared Kugel
00:40:29 – 00:41:00
In our case, their voice 100% matters and I don’t wanna make them believe otherwise. And so that’s why right now I am against using AI to replace an agent on the phone or on chat when you’re talking to somebody and advising them on a tire. Plus I’ve used Chat GBT. I’ve tried to test with it on tire recommendations. I don’t find it to give accurate information. So, you know, right now that’s my stance that I just don’t believe that that’s the right course, but I do believe in using and making tasks more efficient. I mean, how could you not?
Jeff Bullas
00:41:00 – 00:41:10
Yeah. So you’re using AI to help you with quality. Uh yes, so what is a certain app for that, or are you using a combination of tools?
Jared Kugel
00:41:11 – 00:41:13
No, I mean, the one we use is owned by Zendesk,
Jeff Bullas
00:41:13 – 00:41:14
right?
Jared Kugel
00:41:14 – 00:41:44
So yeah, so we use the internal one, and I just find it’s easier to use Zendesk because they have all the plug-ins. Um, you can like it, it’s just very simple, right? And like for us, simple is better. You want to keep everyone in one window if possible. You want to keep everyone to one login if possible. The more complicated you make it for customer service agents. The harder it is for them to relay proper information. Because then they got to remember so many things. I used to tell people all the time, my brain is like a glass of water that’s filled. The more water you put in, the more other water is gonna spill out.
Jeff Bullas
00:41:46 – 00:41:59
Very cool. So, uh, one of the questions has got nothing to do with anything except you mentioned a few times, roadside hazard service. What’s that? Is that basically like your car breaks down and someone turns up?
Jared Kugel
00:42:00 – 00:42:21
So we sell road hazard protection. So it’s like if you buy tires from us and you opt in for it and let’s say you run over a nail, debris, a pothole. And now you need a new tire. Well, if you just opted in for it, you, it’s the simplest process with us. Like you submit the form, and if you qualify and everything’s kosher, you get a new tire.
Jeff Bullas
00:42:22 – 00:42:23
Right. OK, right, yeah,
Jared Kugel
00:42:23 – 00:42:25
so it’s like tier protection.
Jeff Bullas
00:42:25 – 00:42:34
Right, OK, cool. Yeah, because in Australia here, uh, we have basically roadside assistance which covers everything, but you pay an annual fee for that. So,
Jared Kugel
00:42:34 – 00:42:38
Well actually if they buy the road hazard, they, they, we have a plan where they can get to the roadside for free.
Jeff Bullas
00:42:39 – 00:42:40
Right. That,
Jared Kugel
00:42:40 – 00:42:42
that comes with the plan that they buy.
Jeff Bullas
00:42:42 – 00:42:47
Right. OK. That’s a pretty good idea. Well, it’s not even an upsell, that’s as part of the service. It’s very, very good.
Jared Kugel
00:42:47 – 00:43:03
I mean, people call it an upsell, but I, I think depending on where you live, you should absolutely get in how many miles a day you drive. I mean, if you drive really long distances every day to work and back, why would you not want to just take the extra add-on when you know it’s gonna help you? Yeah,
Jeff Bullas
00:43:03 – 00:43:19
exactly. Alright, so just to sum things up there, um, Jarrod, a few more questions just to wrap this up. What have been your biggest challenges along your entrepreneurial journey, um, that you could share with our audience?
Jared Kugel
00:43:21 – 00:44:03
Uh, raising capital early on was really, really challenging. So I think you gotta master that. You gotta master how you’re gonna speak to people, you know, how you’re gonna sell the vision in a realistic manner, in my opinion, right? You don’t wanna be pie in the sky. You want to be realistic, but you want to be optimistic, right? There’s a good balance. Uh, I think the other challenge for me was. Understanding how to hire the right people, because if you hire the right people, It makes your job as a CEO way easier. You want people that are brought into the same values and thought process and work ethic that you have. Um, so, and I’ve been very fortunately we haven’t spoken about this, but
Jared Kugel
00:44:03 – 00:44:36
I am really good friends with most of the employees here. Like we generally hang out and we, we like each other and we love coming to work. You know, I made coming into the office optional for a lot of the people and a lot of people still come because they love you. Every month we do outings. We fly people in if they’re in different states. And I would say, you want to work with people that you genuinely care about, people that you can be friends with, because at the end that you’re spending what? 10 hours a day with someone, right? You better like the people that are across the desk from you. Yeah,
Jeff Bullas
00:44:37 – 00:44:40
yeah, basically there’s a bit of a term in Australia: don’t hire an arsehole.
Jared Kugel
00:44:41 – 00:44:42
Exactly,
Jeff Bullas
00:44:42 – 00:44:43
exactly.
Jared Kugel
00:44:43 – 00:45:11
100%, I could agree with you more. The only asshole that should be in the room is you. No, you, you know, you wanna hang around people that you generally like and that are good people and have good character and, you know, that are gonna do the right thing, and that’s really important. And then the last thing I would say is Process what you were talking about before. I wish I understood before I got bigger about processes because I’d have a lot more hair.
Jared Kugel
00:45:12 – 00:45:37
Because at the end of the day, you know, I was guessing. Nobody was teaching me anything. I had to learn on my own, watch a lot of YouTube videos, you know, speak to people, speak to strangers. I would meet random things at random events I went to. I wish I understood and did the research earlier on in my career about processes and operational efficiencies, and I didn’t have to learn it on the fly. So I think if you can master those things, you’re in a really good place.
Jeff Bullas
00:45:37 – 00:45:48
Yeah. Yeah, I think, um, I think a lot of people learn that too late by the time the business is out of control and they’ve, um, they’ve run out of money and, um, the bank’s knocking on their door.
Jared Kugel
00:45:49 – 00:46:20
So and one major thing as a CEO or founder or business owner, read the reviews that are told about you from consumers. And if you get negative reviews, it’s OK. Read them and learn from them. Yes. Like, don’t, don’t bury your head in the sand and pretend everything is perfect because nothing’s gonna be perfect. I am constantly reading reviews about us and talking to my team on how we could be better. Like, nobody’s gonna be perfect and if you go into that thought process that you’re perfect, chances are you’re probably not.
Jeff Bullas
00:46:20 – 00:47:06
Yeah, exactly. One final question is that, uh, there’s a big movement to get everyone back to the office, and it sounds like you’ve already done that. So basically remote working has been, you know, the thing, and I think we’ll never go back to everyone like 100%, you’ve got to be in the office. I think remote working has basically leapt a decade ahead of where it was. But of course, some businesses work better with it and some work without it in terms of remote work, it’s important, it’s more important for others, for some than others. So, um, do you guys, you said, well, obviously you cover all of the USA, is that correct? Yep, yep. So you have a head office and that’s in New Jersey. Yeah,
Jared Kugel
00:47:07 – 00:47:48
Yeah, we have a head office in New Jersey, but I will tell you my opinion on remote work versus head office. I think about some positions. should be in office, but I think the majority don’t have to be. I think the majority can be remote and in fact are remote for us, the majority. You know, for me, I think if you hire adults that take the work seriously, that you don’t have to worry about whatever, you know, slacking off. A lot of, there is this battle between Remote and an office, right? It doesn’t have to be a battle. It’s very simple. You hire the best quality people.
Jared Kugel
00:47:49 – 00:48:20
And if you find that you hire them and they’re remote, they get rid of them. If, if they’re not, if they’re not doing the work, right? If they’re not doing the work, get rid of them. If they’re doing the work, then you should not care if they want to slack off an hour a day. Like for my personal opinion is. If you get the work done, I don’t care. Just get the work done that you’re supposed to get. And, I will be totally happy. Like we have some people that are super. I like their work, and I am very passionate.
Jared Kugel
00:48:20 – 00:49:03
And they don’t want to waste time commuting into an office. How can I argue that when I know that they’re passionate and they work hard and they do everything right? So for me, it’s not a matter of in-office or remote. It’s like, let me find the best quality person. Do I need to shout across the room if I have a quick idea? Like cause if, if I do, then I want them here, right? But if I don’t, if I don’t need to yell across the room to somebody, like, quickly as I’m like, you know, brainstorming something, and they want to work remotely. Let them work remotely if they’re gonna be a responsible adult. Now, I can’t speak for other companies about how they work, but it works because we have a really strong work culture. Like every month we do an outing.
Jared Kugel
00:49:04 – 00:49:37
We don’t do an outing because like, people have to come. We do an outing because people ask me to do an outing. Like they love hanging out with each other. They love spending time with each other. We’re all really close here. So it works because we all respect each other and they all understand if one person is slacking, then everyone in your department feels it. And if everyone’s, if everyone’s crushing it, then everyone in your department’s doing great. So it just depends on how much you trust your team, what your work culture is like. If you have a toxic work environment, and you’re pressuring people all the time.
Jared Kugel
00:49:38 – 00:50:15
And you don’t care about who they are as people, then yeah, work or remote, they’re probably gonna slack off because they’re not happy. But if you give people an environment where they feel like they are benefiting from the success of the business, then they’re gonna work their butts off for you because they want to see the business do well. We have a company culture here. People love what they do. When I tell you I love what I do, I love coming in, hanging out with them, talking to them. We go to dinner, we go to Knick games, we go to Ranger games, like we do all sorts of stuff together, not because we have to, it’s not required. It’s because we actually like being around each other and we like the environment we have.
Jeff Bullas
00:50:15 – 00:50:16
Right.
Jared Kugel
00:50:16 – 00:50:18
Did that answer? I know I’m always long-winded about this.
Jeff Bullas
00:50:18 – 00:50:51
No, it’s very good. So, um, you know, work culture, enjoying who you work with is very, very important. Sometimes you don’t want an echo chamber, someone saying, Well, we just want to keep you happy by telling you what you want, which is known as sycophants, and we know. There’s a certain person in the USA that maybe does that very well, surrounds himself with people that just are yes people, um, but that’s another story, not going there. So, um, what’s the future for T agents? Um, obviously you sound like you’re still growing. Um, are you still raising money to fund that? What’s the future?
Jared Kugel
00:50:52 – 00:51:38
No, no, I mean. So here’s what I would always say, I’m not. I have not actively been in the process of fundraising before. Uh, I took a few years off from that. That said, like, we may consider it at some point, fundraising, um, but it would not be the purpose because like the business needs it to survive. It would be for the purpose that we want to grow. Like we could never raise another dollar and keep growing at the similar pace we’re going at. I have really big aspirations on some things. And so we may like to fundraise, but I want to do it consciously. I want to do it with the right partner. I want to be picky and that whoever, you know, if I do take money, I’m taking it from the right.
Jared Kugel
00:51:38 – 00:52:16
The type of person that I’m looking for. Um, I don’t. Go into fundraising. Into the thought process of like, I need this money to survive. You never know if your business needs money to survive. You don’t have a good business. I’m sorry. I don’t care what anyone says. That is my opinion. I’m very vocal about it. You want money when you don’t need it. Yes, and I have very big dreams of where we’re growing into. We’re actually launching another business, uh, well, department in a month. We have another business we operate currently that’s doing very well.
Jared Kugel
00:52:17 – 00:52:33
And uh you know, when we decide if we decide to take money at some point, it’s gonna be because it’s on, you know, it’s gonna be because we like the people that we’re taking money from, but it won’t be because we need it, it’ll be because it would be nice to have it.
Jeff Bullas
00:52:34 – 00:52:53
Right. Yeah. And, uh, yes, choosing the right, you know, venture capital company partner is important because you don’t want somebody coming in and their culture is different to yours, and they, um, change the culture or disrupt it or blow it up because they’re not the right sort of people you want to work with. And that extends right through the whole relationship, doesn’t it?
Jared Kugel
00:52:54 – 00:53:33
Yeah, anytime I’ve ever tried to raise money, because, so I’ve raised 4 times. Each time we raised, the business would have survived without it. Maybe not the first year because we needed that to get off the ground, but I would say by like The 2nd through 4th, I would have figured it out how to do it without it, and we had the cash flow and, you know, I, I, once, once you go into because you need it. You’re, you’re in a bad position at that point. Um, very rarely do people come out of it. I always say, you know, when people ask me like, are you fundraising right now? Because like, as a CEO you’re always kind of fundraising because you want to keep your options open, you want to see what’s out there, but
Jared Kugel
00:53:34 – 00:53:53
I just don’t think I, I, it’s funny, I have an old school traditional business mindset while running a venture backed tech startup. It’s like this, it’s weird like uh Battle between two mindsets that I always have.
Jeff Bullas
00:53:53 – 00:53:59
Right. So in essence, you’re, um, even though you sold Tas earlier a technology company now, is that correct?
Jared Kugel
00:54:00 – 00:54:27
In my heart, I’ll always be a tire company. And my heart will always be a tire company, but we, I mean, the business would not function without technology and without cutting edge technology. I like to think that we’re on the forefront of all initiatives that we do. I never like to play defense. I’m always playing offense. I’m always thinking a few steps ahead to make sure whatever we’re offering customers see value in it, and I like to be pioneers in things that we do.
Jeff Bullas
00:54:27 – 00:54:45
Yeah. Yeah, it’s, um, well, the whole world landscape as well as the business landscape is evolving so quickly now because of AI and implications and social media and different ways you find things. One question I was going to ask, um, so you.
Jeff Bullas
00:54:47 – 00:55:00
You want to keep growing, is it because you’re ranking higher in search engines, they find you organically, that’s not visual, I know, or is it just word of mouth? What’s your purpose for growth, is it a combination of everything?
Jared Kugel
00:55:00 – 00:55:41
Uh, yeah, I mean, you left out some things so I can kind of fill in the gaps. So I would say referral continues to grow. I mean, we’re always getting, you know, more people referring to us as their friends, their spouses, their kids. I mean, that’s always gonna be a factor. I would say partnership deals are a big factor for us. Um, I would say, you know, paid marketing is certainly always gonna be a core function for us and SEO, yeah, we have been ranking higher and, you know, SEO is interesting because it’s changing so rapidly. It is like it was not too long ago. It was actually relatively recent where Google started ranking Reddit higher is what it looks like. I know
Jeff Bullas
00:55:41 – 00:55:56
It’s crazy. It’s like, yeah, well they gave them $50 million to buy the data. Yeah, they just happen to be ranked on the first page of Google for almost everything. It’s like and should Reddit be your like source of truth?
Jared Kugel
00:55:57 – 00:56:38
Yeah, I’m saying, yeah, as in like, I kind of agree with what you’re saying. Uh, you know, for us. You get into a moment where you catch momentum in every angle, and when it’s going right, it’s going right. And when it’s going wrong, yeah, and when it’s going wrong, it feels like everything is collapsing at the same time. We are growing. If I had to really pinpoint it to something. I don’t think it’s one thing. I think it’s a lot of small things, you know, uh, my CTO Franco and I, we always talk about like why we’re growing so much and he’s been with me by the way, for like
Jared Kugel
00:56:38 – 00:57:26
6 or 7 years. We have virtually no turnover here of people. Um, but when we, when Franco and I talk, we sit in a room sometimes and we’re like, how the heck are we still growing? And he, we, we try to pinpoint it to one thing. It’s never one thing. It’s a multitude of things. And every year we just are perfecting every department we’re perfecting, you know, our marketing, we add new people, um, we had the right people. And like I’ll give you an example. Last year, I added a supplier relations role. I used to handle all the suppliers myself like negotiating and all that stuff. Well, thank goodness I did that because this person has taken a world off my plate. I’ve been able to focus on partnership deals.
Jared Kugel
00:57:26 – 00:57:42
And now that’s helped, right? And so like, it’s never just one particular channel or strategy. It’s like, you just cannot be complacent in every part of your business. Everything has to keep moving forward. And if you do that, you’ll start seeing incremental sales in every part of the business.
Jeff Bullas
00:57:42 – 00:57:49
Yeah. So what you described is a synergistic recipe that works and you keep optimizing as you go. Yeah,
Jared Kugel
00:57:49 – 00:58:03
because there’s no moonshots in our world. I mean, you could try. I mean, I’ve maybe had two moonshots since I started where I had an idea and it exploded into something big, but the majority of the time it’s, it’s a lot of incremental things. Yeah,
Jeff Bullas
00:58:03 – 00:58:18
cool. So one last personal question, um, you love your work obviously, so I ask people, what would you do every day if you had all the money in the world, um. What curiosities or passions do you have that float your boat?
Jared Kugel
00:58:19 – 00:58:42
Well, I love the tire industry, so I probably would do something in the tire industry. I, I, I really love the people. I’m not even saying that. I genuinely love the people in the industry. Some of them are my best friends and I, even when I don’t have to go on a trip sometimes, I’ll go just to spend time with them. Uh, so I probably do something either that or I love talking to startup founders.
Jared Kugel
00:58:42 – 00:59:20
Uh, I would love to do more mentoring and, and help more people that are trying to follow that entrepreneurial journey because I think at least, you know, in this world, we need more entrepreneurs, we need more people who are gonna be innovative and move the world forward and, you know, brainstorm, right? Because we would never be where we are if it wasn’t for that. So I don’t think I have any normal hobbies. I think my hobbies are more focused around business and helping people and. You know, entrepreneurial things. I mean, even this weekend, we’re doing some uh charity work, um, not for any other reason than we just, we want to, we want to just do something to help people like the local food bank.
Jared Kugel
00:59:21 – 00:59:29
Um, but if I had all the money in the world, I would probably be doing what I’m doing now. Um, I don’t think it would change a darn thing, to be honest.
Jeff Bullas
00:59:30 – 01:00:12
Well, that’s it’s interesting because almost every entrepreneur I talked to said I’m just doing what I am doing now because obviously it’s a passion and And you’ve found your purpose in life, which is to sell tires and keep the world rolling. Uh, it certainly feels like it, and I gotta tell you, when I, when I talk to customers, because sometimes I’ll call customers or sometimes I’ll, I’ll see them. I coincidentally sometimes see people in person. I always ask them for their feedback, but I love hearing their story. Like, I love hearing people’s stories about how they got, you know, where they are in life, whether it’s their job or their beautiful family that they have or, you know, where they live, um.
Jeff Bullas
01:00:13 – 01:00:32
I don’t think I would be here today if it wasn’t for the customers that I love, to be honest. I, I, I’m really lucky that I get to do something every day that gets to help a lot of people, but also, you know, gets to fulfill what I wanted to do really since I was a teenager and got to see my dad, uh, working in the same type of industry.
Jared Kugel
01:00:33 – 01:01:01
Right. Well Jarrod, thank you very much for sharing your story and stories because that’s what The Jeff Willer Show is about is basically hearing the stories that help other people with their journeys and um thank you very much for Ripping off the bandage and showing some of the pain underneath the joy, and uh thank you very much for uh sharing um your journey. Thank you very much, Jared. It’s been an absolute blast.
Jeff Bullas
01:01:01 – 01:01:04
It has been an honor being on the show and thank you for making this painless.
Jared Kugel
01:01:06 – 01:01:09
Thank you. Thank you, Jared. Take care.