Changing The Industry Podcast

Lucas Underwood 0:00
bull's eyes who I was talking about David.

David Roman 0:02
And so they're leading detector decal is ridiculously expensive.

Lucas Underwood 0:08
Yeah. Wow. It is. It is. But you spray that foam on it and all of a sudden you can see any leak.

David Roman 0:14
Well, I get that. So I've got this BMW that has it leaked out about 30 grams overnight. Which is a significant leak. Yeah. Especially when the system is only holding 600 grams. So we put some dye in it, but the dyes like hit or miss. We've got the sniffer. The sniffer was expensive,

Lucas Underwood 0:39
but either junk they don't pick up.

David Roman 0:43
Or you're not using the correct sniff. I've got you gotta get the fancy stuff.

Lucas Underwood 0:47
It sucks. They suck. They report incorrectly, like a ton of the time. No, dude, you're

David Roman 0:54
gonna get a good snack.

Lucas Underwood 0:55
I had a guy who ended up with a little like it touch the refrigerant tank, and then ended up running it by his finger. And he's like, Dude, it detects that on the end of my finger. Right like there.

David Roman 1:05
Yeah, no, it just depends. Because if you've got I have the master cool Raptor. Okay. And that thing has been fantastic. For me. I've had it for five years. It were the dye it won't. It won't pick the dye doesn't come out correctly for you to identify it. That sniffer will pick it up. It does a really good job, especially if you just really want to get a firm confirmation of it. Or you want to make sure that that you don't have an additional issue. That that works really well. I had just picked up a Robinair LD seven. It's one of their fancier 1234. Why if sniffers it's really sensitive, it was picking up you know, the residuals. The problem is it constantly calibrates Yeah. So it's looking for an ever increasing amount of refrigerant leaking out. And we couldn't find it the system is tiny the AC system on this MW is tiny. Yeah, the condenser is like built into the oil cooler or is part of the oil cooler or is attached the oil cool. I don't even know where Tech's handling it. I'm just saying this thing. Is Luka losing a significant amount of refrigerant. We checked the whole thing with the sniffer. We just could not find it. And I think it's probably an evaporator. But what uh, well,

Lucas Underwood 2:44
you know, a couple of weeks ago, we had a, we had a vehicle in the shop, that it was a GM product and you know, any of the why if GMs especially in like the Tahoe, Suburban, whatever is a condenser, right, right away. There's class action lawsuits, there's all this information about how they fail, they crack, they leak. And we definitely had a leak in the condenser itself, right, no doubt. But then we changed it. And we had a leak somewhere else. And we when we do a leak evaluation, what we do is we'll take a picture of things like, you know, because it's got dye in it anyway. And so we take a picture of things like evaporator drains, all of that stuff, and document with the dye, like, hey, we don't have dye anywhere else. This is the only place we have dye. And so we put everything back together, recharges the system run it definitely has leaked tried nitrogen tried everything we could could not find a leak anywhere, right. And so with nitrogen, if you can't find the leak, it's a pretty freakin small leak, right? And so we go around the system, check things out, and with the nitrogen and we let it sit overnight with nitrogen into high pressure. And we come back and there is a dye trace down the rear evaporator drain that was not there the day before. And so we take everything apart. And Terry's like, Dude, he's like, I cannot find dye on this. I'm telling you, I can't find it anywhere. I don't know where it could be leaking from because there's no dye on the condenser core. It turns out, it was actually the glue that glued the two lines into the valve in the rear. And it was just I mean, dude, it was just the tiniest leak you've ever seen in your entire life. Right? It was Ed Biddy. And so it was just enough that refrigerant didn't leak out. But the, you know, because when it's under a lower pressure, right, it's cold out at night, it's lower pressure, it's not constantly exerting that force on it. But then all of a sudden, you put you put a higher pressure of nitrogen on it that that sustains it for a period of time. If it's leaking, it's more apt push die out than it would be at the lower pressure.

David Roman 4:54
Just because we're ramping up round trip. Yep. Yeah. That makes sense. curious

Lucas Underwood 4:59
what's up Eddie,

Kieran O'Brien 5:00
what's up? I'm fascinated by all this. Talk about refrigerant. You guys are

Lucas Underwood 5:06
gonna write everybody like we're gonna get shamed on the internet. Everybody's gonna be like, these fools have no clue what they're talking about.

David Roman 5:16
We're doing everything wrong. So yeah, don't don't listen. But it sounds impressive. Like these guys know what they sound like they they know what they're doing. We're

Lucas Underwood 5:23
just hoping that someone will call us and give us a silver bullet on how to fix the only reason we started the podcast.

David Roman 5:32
You know, what they're gonna tell us is you gotta get that ATS Bullseye for $3,000.

Lucas Underwood 5:38
Right with the phone, and then you understand why the majority of shops have 4% net profit.

Lucas Underwood 5:49
So I'm curious, how did you get wrapped up in the automotive world? Weren't you doing something like completely different? Well, that Yeah,

Kieran O'Brien 5:55
yeah. I mean, this is we haven't started yet. Right? I'm just Oh, of course, we've

Lucas Underwood 5:59
started. Oh, okay. Yeah,

David Roman 6:01
we started seven minutes. Wow. Okay, cool.

David Roman 6:03
Yeah, I

David Roman 6:04
didn't I didn't really introduce yourself because we don't do intro. No,

Kieran O'Brien 6:08
you're good, man. Yeah, my name is Kieran O'Brien. I'm, I'm 23 years old. I'm in the kind of like the technology and marketing space.

David Roman 6:16
You're what? I'm sorry, that does not compute. Let's start over Sure.

Kieran O'Brien 6:22
I'm only three years old. I'm I'm an entrepreneur, I've been kind of in and around the auto repair industry, my whole adult life. And yeah, I guess and

David Roman 6:32
you're I call myself an entrepreneur who

Lucas Underwood 6:34
just sent me a text message.

David Roman 6:43
So you started, you started two companies? You're a co founder of two company? Yeah. That

Kieran O'Brien 6:48
were both acquired. Yeah. My so my first business

David Roman 6:51
when you were like first one and your 12 second one when you're 17? Explain this to me.

Kieran O'Brien 6:57
So I mean, to answer your question about how I got into auto repair. So my,

David Roman 7:01
my first Lucas's question we don't want to mess with Sure.

Kieran O'Brien 7:04
Yeah. My, my. My first my first business, I started when I was 17. It was it was actually like it was a marketing company for auto repair. And my first job in high school, I interned after school and on the weekends at a repair shop, just like in my local town where I grew up. And so I kind of I was like, 16 at the time, I think. And so I've kind of been like in and around auto repair, like, again, since I was since I was a kid, basically. And I'm kind of always loved cars. And yeah, my first business, I did marketing for auto repair shops, so like managing their social media and doing like Google Pay Per Click and stuff like that.

Lucas Underwood 7:42
So how did you get started in that? Was it that the shop owner said, like, hey, you've got a knack for this? Do you just want to do this for us? Or did you say, Hey, I see an opportunity, and I'm just gonna take it and run with it. I mean, like, how did you get that vibe to start that?

Kieran O'Brien 7:56
Yeah, it's actually a hilarious story. So when I was like, 16, I was like working at the shop. And originally, it was just for like, a, it was like a summer internship. That was like part of my program in high school. So I went there. And I would like, I'd like work at the front desk, or like, I'd go back into the shop and help out with like, an oil change or stuff that stuff that I couldn't get in trouble for messing up. And, and then the shop owners wife, actually one day was like, hey, like, could you manage our social media? And like, Could you take a look at these these ads that we're running on Google? And I didn't know anything about advertising or marketing or any of that stuff, but I just started looking up on YouTube. I'm like, How do I run Google ads? How do I do like a proper social media strategy, and I started researching it. Make this easy enough. And keep in mind, I'm still not getting paid. Like this is like an unpaid like summer internship in high school. And, and then one day, I remember I was talking to the shop owners wife, and I was like, hey, like, did you guys have someone doing this marketing stuff before me? Like, how did that work? They're like, Oh, yeah, she's like, Yeah, we're paying them like $1,000 a month, and, like, 1617 year old care, and I'm like, Oh, my God. Like, if I was making $1,000 a month, I'm rich. I'm rich, like. So. Anyway, eventually, they started paying me. And then they referred me to a couple friends who owned shops in the area. And I started working with them and charging them like 500 bucks a month to run their social media and handle their Google ads. And I was just learning as I went, was like going to YouTube University and just like learning the stuff. And so that was kind of my, my first business and of course, it evolved from there. And we ended up working with like, over 200 automotive shops with that now, yeah, okay.

David Roman 9:40
Hold on. You're skipping steps here. You went from local, going to local shops, and saying, Hey, I'm doing the social media for XYZ auto repair, and they're like, Yeah, see, I'm all over social media. So I can do it for you as well. Pay me 500 bucks and I can take care of how are you Whoo. How did you scale that up? Were you just hiring people in you're like, hey, you're 21 and don't know anything, go do some Tiktok dances and shop. And they were like, sure for free? Or were you using software? Did you like how did that work?

Kieran O'Brien 10:19
Yeah, yeah, it was using using some software using like HootSuite and stuff back in the day. And it was kind of interesting, like I started working with, with shops. And then I started working with parts distributor. So I started working with a couple like wheel and tire companies that I ended and like companies that did like body kits. And then from their, like, I would run their Google ad campaigns nationwide, even sometimes into other countries. And then their distribution networks or shops. So like the I worked with a couple companies that made body kits and all of their, all of their retailers or distributors were were auto body and collision shops. And then I'd work with you know, I worked with a couple of wheel companies, and all of their distributors were tire shops. And so I kind of like started an auto repair went to like more like E commerce distribution. And then those distributors brought me full circle back to working with brick and mortar shops, because they would just refer me business to like their distribution network, basically.

Lucas Underwood 11:18
That's insane.

David Roman 11:20
That is nuts. So you build this thing up. And then a billion dollar company decided to come in and buy out they're like, Hey, we have lots of money we want to buy out.

Kieran O'Brien 11:30
Yeah, so that was that was actually my my next business. So I started the for the marketing company, I started when I was 17 kind of ran that until I was like 2021. And then that that kind of that kind of just ran in the background for a long time. And I had my business partner Kaden kind of just kept that running. My second business was the one that I sold. And that was a software company. Kind of completely unrelated to automotive, it was a data analytics platform. In in like this kind of a social media space. And yeah, like a billion dollar company came in and bought us 18 months into running that business. And that kind of was was my first foray and

David Roman 12:12
to keep skipping stuff. You got bored, I imagine, right? You got bored with the with the the social media thing. And you're like, okay, that this is running and what you met some rando who knew how to code, you're like, hey, let's do a data analytics platform for

Kieran O'Brien 12:36
who? Yeah, so So the interesting thing is, it kind of all comes back to automotive. And so basically, you know, I mentioned I was working with some of those like larger parts distributors, they would in addition to doing like their paid marketing, I would also help them find influencers so I'd help them find YouTubers like Chris fix, or, you know, who's garage like one of those guys, I would have these YouTubers and these like, tick tock and Instagram, people in the automotive industry, they would promote my, my clients, and I would kind of handle the, the relationship between my client and this influencer. And basically there was the problem that I noticed was, there was a really hard time getting the analytics to understand like, alright, where is their audience, geographically? How old is their audience? You know, what, for sure, etc. So basically, through my marketing agency, I noticed that there needs to be more transparency for data and analytics in kind of the influencer marketing space. And so started kind of tinkering around with it. I called

David Roman 13:41
Hold on, what the what you were trying to do was to more accurately match up the influencer with

Kieran O'Brien 13:49
exactly yeah, basically, okay, yeah, basically, the influencer would sign up for our platform, they'd have all their analytics across all different platforms. Like even for you guys, for example, like, you could connect your podcast analytics, your Instagram analytics, your YouTube analytics, and all that would be in this, this one pager that you could send off to a brand is looking to sponsor change in the industry, podcast, for example. So make sense. That's what the platform did. And then this big influencer marketing company, like this big billion dollar company up in Canada, approached us about 18 months after we launched and wanted to buy us out. And that was kind of the that's the, that's a very concise version. So

Lucas Underwood 14:27
I just think I need to point out that I feel very bad about myself now. I felt like I didn't work hard enough. And I didn't put enough effort in.

David Roman 14:36
I think, hold on, Lucas, we've we've already had this hashtag. We've decided very early on that we are unbelievably lazy. We just find the easiest path, the path of least resistance to get to I guess where we are right now and the deep state of depression now. So how do you detach yourself? From that, I guess that's that's what I'm curious about. Because you the social media thing, I guess you kind of fell into a socket that kind of makes sense. Maybe like, I'm not passionate about growing brands or helping these individuals, small businesses out. It's like, it's whatever, right? It's just a means to an end. And then is the date was the data analytics analytics thing? a means to an end as well. It's just one more thing to do that when somebody approached you with a giant pile of money, and you're like, I'll take the giant pile of money, like, I'm not married to it, it's whatever.

Kieran O'Brien 15:33
Yeah, I mean, I think so the marketing agency was was a learning experience, if nothing else, like it was, like understanding how to run a business, how to hire employees, how to, how to delegate things like that. That's kind of what I feel like that one taught me, the reason that I moved to software from there is because I always knew that I always knew that I wanted to get into software, I was always fascinated by by software, and how software can solve problems for people. And I always wanted to do it, I just didn't know how. And so running the marketing agency gave me kind of like the business experience. And then also, like the developers that like, I'm not, I'm not a software developer, by trade, I had to kind of learn it. And so the software developers that I ended up working with, for my software company, I met kind of through people that I met running my marketing agency, so it kind of just, it was just like, kind of like a natural progression. And then, yet, to your point, when, when that acquisition offer came across the table, you know, I was, it was definitely, like, we're very conflicted about it, we're like, you know, we're like, do we do we sell this thing? Or do we keep going. But at the end of the day, it was just, it was an offer, we couldn't refuse. And I also was kind of thinking about the next, the next software that I wanted to start, I'd kind of identified something, you know, in auto repair to kind of bring it back full circle again. And I was just, I was excited about the prospect of being able to take what I had learned running that software company and apply it back to kind of like my first love, which is the automotive industry. So

Lucas Underwood 17:05
what what do you attribute that success to right, because, you know, it started with the one shop, and then it went to another shop, and then it went to another shop, and then it went to a national brand. And then it's like, Alright, I'm gonna take this next thing. And you put the same amount of effort into that. Was it just your drive to accomplish more? Was it your your willingness to sacrifice and push forward? I mean, what was it that made those two endeavor show frickin successful? I mean, what was it?

Kieran O'Brien 17:35
I? That's a loaded question, Lucas. I don't know. I think that so I didn't go to college. And both my parents did. And so when I decided I took like a, like a gap year after high school to kind of figure out what I wanted to do. But I made a deal with my parents, I was like, I really want to, I really want to pursue this business. Because at the time I was, I was doing marketing for a handful of repair shops, like in my local area on the East Coast. And I was like, like, I'm making like, I'm making a little bit of money. Like, I think there's something here like, let me just see if I, if I just focus on this for a year, let me see what I can do. And ultimately, it ended up working. And you know, by the end of that year, I just told my parents in my head, like, I'm not, I'm not gonna go to college, like, I found what I love. And I'm just going to do this. And so I guess to answer your question is kind of like, I didn't really have another option, like I didn't have a degree to fall back on I didn't have I didn't have like a safety net, I just kind of had to, like bet on myself and make it and make it happen. I think a lot of business owners can probably relate to that,

Lucas Underwood 18:37
of course. And I definitely can write like through through a couple series of events, right. But in the same respect, some

David Roman 18:44
of us are not designed for school, like some of us just can't sit in class I would. I would bang my head up against a wall. If I had to sit through a class. I can't do it. Now. You try to send me the training classes. I'm good for maybe seven minutes, and then I gotta go like, I gotta move. This is going to slow YouTube, put it on YouTube, I'll listen to while I'm sleeping. It'll be fine. I can't do it. But Lucas, this is question. Back to you. Because you're still you're still unbelievably young, in that mindset. That mindset. I remember having that mindset at 23. But for me, that meant I'm going to have two jobs. Yeah, I mean, and try to grab a degree here. I was going to school and I had two jobs. I had full time and then I had a part time. And then I would take two hours of classes or online classes, because they were just going online at the time. And and I will sleep for about four hours in the middle of the day there that because I hadn't didn't have anything else going on. I don't have kids and have a wife. I had a girlfriend that was living with me that was about Got it. Like that was it? Well, you've taken that same drive in and work ethic and said, I'm going to scale this to be bought out to turn it into a company that gets bought out by a billion dollar corporation. Like, I don't, either. We just were we born in the wrong time, let

Lucas Underwood 20:21
me eat. That's what I was getting ready to say is, is the social media revolution lended itself to this, and I think it taught you very specific lessons about what success looks like, and a different concept of success than has been present in the past. Right, a different method to achieve it. And you know, David, to your point,

David Roman 20:44
hold on, no tools are available to everybody though. I'd everybody is what he's, he's 23. Not every 23 Most 23 year olds right now, or they're on their fourth gap year. And they're still deciding, like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life, or they're just finishing school, and they're like, Okay, I guess I gotta pay on this $150,000 student loan debt. And we Hey, would you get your degree in dance theory? It's like, what? Why did you get a dance theory degree? Well, I had to go to college, because my parents told me I had to go to college. So you tell them no, like, go somewhere, go do something else. What I don't understand. None of this makes sense. I'm gonna flip my tape. This is none of this makes this is like quit

Kieran O'Brien 21:28
quit. This is literally this is literally my favorite topics to tell. I could talk about this all day. But I like the university system. And America is broken. And we talk about things in our industry. Like it affects us directly, like we talked about the technician shortage. It's because this narrative is perpetuated in society right now of like, this is the this is the path, you graduate high school, you go get a four year degree in something even even if you might not be passionate about it. And then you go find a desk job somewhere, it's like, well, if we flipped that on its head, and we started to promote trade schools and technical institutions instead, and get people into into these these proper industries, like like auto repair, just as an example, then maybe we wouldn't have as bad of a technician shortage. And so I think it all kind of plays into each other.

Lucas Underwood 22:12
There's a there's a video, and it's called, it was from a TED talk. And it's called changing education paradigms. And, and one of the things that the speaker talks about is that our educational system was built in a time. In other words, this is really the first public education system ever built. Right? The one we have in the world today is the first one we've ever had. It was built during the Industrial Revolution, right in a time where we needed factories, and we were we were seeing technology advance at rates we'd never seen before. And it was also built during the Enlightenment, and it was built during a time when when we had a different economy, it was a different concept of an economy, right. And so he brings up the fact that they've tried to reimagine education so many times, and they keep saying, well, we need to, we need to raise standards. And he's like, Well, duh. Because I mean, why would you lower than that doesn't make any sense. And he says, The problem is, is that we're trying to build an education system for an economy of the 21st and 22nd century. But we don't even know what it's going to look like six weeks from now, eight weeks from now, we don't know, right? It's going to change. But he brings up this really cool thing. And he said that the education today is built on an assembly line. And the most important thing about any one student is simply they're born on date, right, their date of manufacture is the key thing. And it doesn't matter if one's better at one topic, it at a certain time in the day, or at a certain age, we're not paying attention to what that student is, or what they know, or their natural abilities. And we're not encompassing or harnessing that energy that they have. Right? What we're doing instead is we're trying to educate them on an assembly line. And so we move them across this assembly line. And they say, you have to learn this at this time at this space during this time of day. And he points out that we live and in this fashion, right, exactly. And he points out that we're doing this in the most intriguing time ever, right? We have cell phones, we have YouTube, we have social media, we have all of these things. And we want them to sit in a room with some really, really boring stuff. Right? And we expect them to listen. Yeah. And so I think at the very core of it, I think the educational system is broken, not just in America worldwide, right and a lot of ways because we've we've never reimagined How do we educate people? And so he brings up this story, and he's talking about a paperclip. Right? And he says that, that he talks about a type of creativity that if you ask somebody, how many things can you do with a paperclip? And he said, you know, a genius would come up with 50 to 100. And someone that is not a genius and creativity is going to come up with two to three Right. And he said, you know, they do this by saying, well, can it be 200 foot tall and made of foam rubber? Right, it's still a paperclip, but it's not a paperclip the way that we see it. And he said that they gave this test to a group of people. And they came out as geniuses. And he said, The thing was, is that we're kindergarteners, right? And he said, they tested them every single year. And their creativity levels went down and down, and down and down. We taught the creativity out of them. And so he was he was speaking to the arts, he was speaking to certain types of creativity. But I wonder if, you know, like, in your case, right, like your creativity was almost reignited, in one sense of of the word, when you started this marketing business. Right? You were thinking outside the box, you were thinking about ways to capture people's attention. You're thinking about all the cool things that could be done with social media, and the marketing on social media, right? And that's what, in my opinion, made that business successful. And then you said, Oh, if I can be this with this, what if I took this and did this over here? Right, it was the ability to be creative. Do you think that that plays into it? Do you think that plays into the success of those who are entering our workforce today? Do you think killing creativity is affecting them?

Kieran O'Brien 26:23
Absolutely. 100% Without a doubt, and I think that this again, this kind of narrative is like, this is the path you have to follow. You just you go to university, and you pick a major and you figure it out, like that. That's what stifles creativity because you end up learning about things and being immersed in things that that don't pique your creativity that that don't, that don't mentally stimulate you. And I think the US is the worst offender. I agree. I agree. I agree that it's broken worldwide. But if you look at like in Europe, like in France, or Germany, if you want to become an automotive technician, you go and get an apprenticeship, right? If you want to become a baker, or a plumber, like you name it, any sort of trade job, you go and you get an apprenticeship with somebody who's already doing it. And we just don't have that system or that mindset here in the US.

Lucas Underwood 27:10
I mean, it seems like years ago, we used to write it seems like it at one point in time. And, you know, I'm from a little country town, right. And I remember growing up, and when I was young, I remember the carpenters and the plumbers and those people had folks that they were employing that they were teaching to do a trade to perform a craft. And it seems like those people are less engaged now and they're so they're coming out and they're saying look, we would still do that we would still be following that pathway. But it's a lot harder to follow that pathway now than it's ever been before. And David why is that why do you think it's so hard to follow that pathway of apprenticeships and on the job training? Is it that we expect more is it that the people entering the the trades expect $100,000 A year starting out like what is it?

David Roman 28:05
I have no idea. I don't know what it is the I have two small children. My daughter is 10 and my son is eight and I see so many possibilities for them that I wish I I had had when I was their age so many possibilities that don't require a lot of money. And you know my kids are into right now like Minecraft. every kid's into Minecraft I think at their age. At some point somebody tells them they can't do Minecraft any longer. They're too old. Right? Hey, you can't you can't be playing with Minecraft, you gotta go get a job. Where am I gonna go get a job, Walmart's hiring, go be a cashier, or you know, the the Go stock shelves or whatever, right? Like they get told that when I'm talking to my wife, and she's like, they spent too much time doing this and they sweat i don't like so they get really good at it. And if they really, really love it, I will set them up with a streamings set. Yeah, like I'll go buy the stuff and I'll let them go stream in and say goofy things into a mic and spend four or five hours a day doing that and build an audience. And people will give them money and they can start building this brand around themselves. Like there's so many possibilities right now. I don't know why that isn't as as widespread, as widespread as it should be amongst the population. We get this kid that comes in. I'm sorry. I call him a kid and currently he was a lawyer I'm not your man, I'm not trying to disparage you. You've accomplished more than most the most, you've accomplished

Lucas Underwood 30:09
more than David and I put together

David Roman 30:12
put together twice time, two times, I

Kieran O'Brien 30:14
appreciate it, but I want I'm not accepting

David Roman 30:19
it. So we, this, this 19 year old kid comes in. And I want to give him an opportunity, because he's the son of the lady who cleans our office and stuff like that. And she's she, she's awesome. She's a hard worker, she's building her little her business. We're talking and she's like, Yeah, I got my son who, who is into cars, okay, great. I can understand being 19 years old, that you just want an opportunity I was there, I was absolutely there. And I, I'm like, I want to be the person that gives us this kid an opportunity, he gets handed this opportunity. And you would think that he would put his head down, and I'm going to make so much out of this. Get me on YouTube, give me the training classes, I'm going to know more in the next nine months than I could if I decided to go through a four year accredited diploma course thing at the local community college that has an automotive degree, I nine months, hell in six months, I'm going to know more than then those kids could learn in those four years. And plus another two years of on the job training. After that, I'm going to pack that in in the next six to nine months, because I've got so many resources available to me. Resources that I'm willing to pay for as the shop owner. On top of that, I've got the opportunity to actually tinker and work with my hands. So I'm gonna get a little bit of bone. Did you think he picked up and ran whether or not? No, no, he did not. He decided he was going to do a year of community college get a degree with a one year like certificate. And then he wanted to go work at a dealership. And it was because I just wasn't paying on my wall or enough where he just didn't see the opposite. He wanted to be in a classroom setting. How does that get beaten out of the kid?

Lucas Underwood 32:17
You know, and here's the thing is, man, I look at you. And I think like that this new venture you're on, right? Like, when we talk about it, you don't get excited about the money it's gonna make you get excited about like this cool thing it's going to do you get excited about the the achievement of accomplishing it, you get excited about, you know, having a certain number of clients, you get excited about people saying it's a good product, right? And so many don't, so many. That's not what inspires them. It's that I need this number of dollars. Right? It becomes so money focused. And the people that I have who, when how well, I mean, I'm just saying that people that I've seen become money focused, do exactly what you just described, David, because they become so focused on the dollar bill and I look, I understand we have to survive, we have to

David Roman 33:17
build we have when you're 19 What bills do you have he I bet you he doesn't have it's too late. He 100 Unless you decided to go out and buy your 23 years old you live in a one bedroom apartment or the the apartment is the bedroom. And you have a chair and a TV and a computer apparently with an SM seven beat. And then other than that, like what else do you need?

Kieran O'Brien 33:40
Hang on? It's not not everybody's like that. I think I think there are I think there are good apples, so to speak. Like, you know, maybe the maybe the guy that you're referring to David was just like didn't have it, right. He didn't have what it takes. But like I'll give an example. So my little cousin, he's 17 years old. He currently has an apprenticeship at a repair shop. And he's going to become an automotive technician. Completely unrelated to me. I didn't even know this until he already had the job. So I don't I don't believe that I that I influenced him to go down that route. He's just always loved cars. And so if you take two people side by side, you take my little cousin who's 17 about to turn 18 years old. He's not going to college, and he has an apprenticeship getting paid 10 $12 an hour at this at this repair shop. Right? So if he turns that into a full time position, he's making 3040 Maybe 50 grand a year if he gets some bonuses, versus compare him to maybe one of his classmates that goes to school, they come out they do they get an entry level job at 60 grand a year, but they're $100,000 in debt. Right? So it's like if we do want to look at it from the money point of view, like I just don't think there's enough education. I don't think people like us are talking to this generation of kids, where if they knew that they could make more money and have a better Head Start by going into the trades or By choosing a different career path, they probably would. But I just think the education as a whole is just not there to show them that that opportunity exists to first place.

Lucas Underwood 35:09
Did you have a mentor? Did you have someone advise you on that? Or was it you know, and it almost sounds like your parents were very supportive of the concept of you doing your own thing. Right? of you, you were in reinventing the wheel, right? Because they both went to school. And they said, hey, you know, what, if you don't want to go to school, Fine, let's see what happens. Right? I think a lot of parents are not that supportive of that. Right? And working with the schools, one of the things we hear is that that guidance counselor's are not supportive of putting students they think that the bottom of the barrel students need to be put into the trade programs, right. And then parents, when when a child talks about going into an automotive space or something like that, parents sometimes will cringe, right? They'll like, we've even heard that that like, Oh, God, I don't know. Are you sure? You know what I mean? And so do you think that that a maybe having those people in your life that said, You know what you can be whatever you want to be, like, as long as you're happy, I don't care if this is what you want to do be happy. I'll never forget, we did an episode one time. And it was an episode where David was talking about his daughter, and dog grooming. And somebody got like, super upset and said David was trying to force his daughter to be a dog groomer. Right. And, and I can't remember the exact details of that, but I thought it was going to turn into he said

David Roman 36:37
I was limiting her potential right, by just are pushing her towards just quote unquote, just dog grooming.

Lucas Underwood 36:47
My point is, is that it almost seems like there's there are people who look at the skilled trades who look at service work as a whole and look at it in a negative light. And maybe that's our fault, right? Maybe Maybe we all have a part in that. But I mean, how do we fix that? And do you think that mentor piece was a big part of you not feeling that way? Did you have a mentor that was pushing you

Kieran O'Brien 37:14
100% That that first that first shop owner that I worked with, and then a few mentors after that, like, a lot of these guys that that kind of that I looked up to early on in my career, a lot of them didn't go to college, a lot of them started their business out of necessity. And, you know, I think, like, look at look at what we're doing right now this this is where it starts. This is the change in the industry podcast, right? That's the name of this podcast, this this is how it starts like, we can't change this stuff overnight. But if we keep pushing this narrative, and and helping this, this new generation understand that there's a better opportunity out there, that there's that there's something that's that's more secure, where you can potentially even make more money like we see, you know, automotive technicians making six figures a year. It's like, right you know, there's a there's a huge problem with unemployment and underemployment in the like, the more white collar industries and, you know, it's, it's crazy, there's some statistic that like 60% of recent college, college graduates in the last four or five years have an have an entry level job that's completely unrelated to the degree that they got when they went to school. So I think this is where it starts, like on a grassroots level, doing podcasts like this and talking about it. And the people listening, talking to their children. And those children talking to their friends at school, like this is the ripple effect that that I think needs to happen. As as like a society and as a country.

Lucas Underwood 38:35
For sure. Definitely.

David Roman 38:37
What do you tell the shop owner that has their kids going to college and saying, Oh, I don't I don't want this life for them?

Kieran O'Brien 38:47
Yeah, I mean, I think I think no matter what, and listen, I'm not a parent. So maybe I'm not the best to give this advice. But for me, like receiving it, like I think just the more supportive a parent can be of whatever their their kid chooses to do, the better. Right? It's like, yeah, becoming an automotive technician is not for everybody, but getting a liberal arts degree and then going and working in something completely unrelated to that is is also probably not the best outcome. And so I think, you know, just understanding what your children are passionate about and supporting them along the way and allowing it to be something that's non traditional. That doesn't conform to you know, this this like university society that we're all living in where it's like that's the only option and that's what you have to do

David Roman 39:32
I don't even know where that's coming from because things are changing so quickly that there is nothing traditional like what you see you go get a desk job where exactly who's hiring desk jobs? Is your job going to be? What's the word I'm looking for? obsolete because the AI in three years anyway, so what exactly it is you think you're gonna go do? Those entry level jobs are going to be He also made obsolete as well, because you can get a computer to do it for free. minimal cost instead of paying 20 People 50 $60,000 a year until they can move up into middle management, all the middle management jobs are gone, too, because you don't have any employees to manage. So at what point do you go, Hey, nothing is off the table now.

Kieran O'Brien 40:22
Yeah, no, exactly. And I think these are the types of like tailwinds that are going to help our industry thrive. You know, it's like, if if people are starting to lose their jobs because of AI, or they're starting to lose, lose their jobs because of a recession. Like, guess what? Cars still break, they still need to be fixed. So at the end of the day,

Lucas Underwood 40:43
you know, and I think back, Have either of you watched the show Mad Men? I haven't, you know, a really good show, right? Like, believe it or not, it's got a good storyline, it's a good show. But you think back in, in the greatest time that this country ever had, right? And so it kind of highlights a generation somewhere from I would say, late 40s, all the way through the 60s. Right. And, and we lived in a different country. Right. And maybe the way I liken this is, is if we're looking at it, like our business. If, if you showed up tomorrow, and you build a marketing company, for the automotive repair business of 1980, guess what, it's not going to be very successful, right? We've seen generational changes, we've seen changes in the workforce. And we see this in all shops all the time, and they they are stuck in 1980. They're stuck in 1990. They're stuck in 2000. And they're not taking steps forward to fix it. And so I think this comes back to the exact same thing. In this country, we've not taken the steps to prepare the next generation for the workforce that's going to be required to keep us moving. Yeah. And I think we've overlooked the fact that it's, well, we want them to go to school, we want them to have a four year degree, we want them to this that or the other. Well, the reality is is that that a lot of the demand is a in the service industry, be the service industry has become so much more complex than it's ever been before. But we've treated it like it's not. And then all of a sudden, 20 years later, we pop home and say, gosh, we should do something about that. Well, guess what? You do that with your business? You're out of business? Right? Yep, you're relevant. And so I think Washington's got a lot to do with it. Okay. And I'm not trying to set David off to, I think Washington's got a lot to do with it. I think state and local governments have a lot to do with it. Because we've not pushed that narrative that says, hey, we need a different workforce. Right? And I maybe they're embarrassed, right? Maybe they're embarrassed because they say, Well, we've been telling everybody for 20 years, you need a four year degree to be successful. And now in that video I was telling you about that's one of the things he said he said for for 30 years, we've said you need a four year degree. And this is a guarantee for success. Well, it's not a guarantee for success anymore. Yeah. Right. If anything, it's a liability to some of these organizations.

David Roman 43:04
Absolutely. But hasn't been since 2000. Right? Yes.

Kieran O'Brien 43:07
And, and the reality is, it is that way, because it's big business, like, have you seen that the size of the endowments of some of these universities? It's like, Oh, these are these are, these are corporations, not educational institutions. And actually, when you look at it through that lens, everything makes sense. Just follow the money. And you'll see exactly why this narrative is perpetuated.

Lucas Underwood 43:26
So this crazy is crazy. So what are you doing now? Because like we've had, we've had a conversation about this new thing you're doing? Yeah. And that was the reason for the podcast is because I want to know where you came up with this crazy idea. Yeah. And be like, where everybody else is afraid of some of the new coming technology, you're like, hey, I want to be out in front of everybody else. So I'm just gonna go ahead and take a leap of faith. And here we're going to do this thing. What is the new thing? Right? What are you doing now?

Kieran O'Brien 43:56
Yeah, so the, the new company that I that I just launched, as of this podcast coming out is called shop, Genie. It's an all in one CRM, specifically for automotive repair shops. And we do everything from websites to free online scheduling, to all the things that you're used to that, you know, in love with a CRM. And we also have a really cool kind of AI elements that's almost like an AI, an AI assistant, like after hours, receptionist that can help with, you know, customer questions and appointment scheduling and things like that, as well. So it's, it's a bunch of different really cool modern tools all in one software platform.

Lucas Underwood 44:35
Right? Well, and so like you saw, you'd been in the automotive space long enough, and you'd seen it from a lot of different angles, right? You saw it from working in a shop. You saw it from the marketing angle, you saw it from kind of that corporate level. And now you come back and you say, Alright, I want to build a new tool. I want to create something that no one else has created before and to me, they especially after this conversation, I see a lot of that Creativity and what you've built here, right? Because it's very unique. It's not like anything else on the market. Where did the idea of this come from? What was the brainchild that got you here? Like, how did you it's super unique.

Kieran O'Brien 45:15
Yeah, thank you. I mean, so to bring it full circle, I can I can identify the exact moment when I when I kind of saw this. So when I was working in that repair shop back in, or 2016, or whenever that was, where I was, I was running, I was helping them run their marketing. So I was interacting with their website provider with their CRM company, they were using their, like all their like radio, print, TV, ads, mailers, all the stuff they were doing for marketing, they had like a loyalty program to and then their shop management system. And I just remember interacting with all these various different software's and vendors, and armor thinking, number one, holy crap. They are there are so many vendors that are doing all this stuff. But then number two, I'm like, wow, like this software, whether it was the management system they were using back then or the CRM they were using, like the software, it looks like it was built in the 90s. Like, it's crazy. It's so hard to use, and me being like a 16 year old kid back then, I was like, man like this is this does not look like my iPhone, I don't know how to use this thing. And, yeah, basically, I thought to myself, I remember looking at this, I was like, Man, if I only knew how to build software, I would totally try to try to do this. And so fast forward four years later, I had a software company sold it kind of understood how these things work now. And that's when I wanted to come back to the auto repair industry. And I I kind of did a little bit of research. And I was like, Okay, wow, there's been some amazing advancements on the shop management side, there's some incredible cloud based shop management systems. But on the marketing, CRM side of things, there had been, you know, next to nothing. And so I wanted to kind of build the platform that I knew shop owners were looking for,

Lucas Underwood 46:50
you know, one of the things that stood out to me when we were talking about this, right, because we're in Charlotte, are we in Charlotte together? Yeah, ASTM ASTM event? Yeah. And so, one of the things that that stood out to me about this, and one of my biggest issues, especially in the shop, that that I will look, and I'm hard on service advisors. Okay, I'm just gonna be completely honest. I'm hiring one right now. And I hope that all the applicants don't listen to this, because like, I have a very demanding things like a very hard to deal with in that aspect. But the reason I say it is because I always want them to be answering clients, right? If somebody sends a text message, I don't want it to sit there unanswered, man. That just bothers me to death. Dude, it looks so unprofessional. If somebody sends a Google My Business message, or whatever it is, I think it's pretty important that it gets answered. Because a not only have you lost that client, but they will remember that you didn't even take enough time to respond to him, right? Yep. And so when we were talking about it, the first thing you said to me is, hey, I developed this really cool thing that when somebody messages a shop, we can make sure there's at least some communication going back and forth. It's not like a blank slate. Yeah. And you're right. Like, we've got so many aspects. We've got shop management system, we've got all of these other things going on, we've got maybe a DVI system, and we've got text updates. Maybe we're texting through our shop telephones, maybe we're texting through the shop management system, maybe we're also texting through something else. It's easy to miss something, right? It's easy to overlook that one person you were supposed to respond to. So tell me a little bit about that. Because I thought that was a super cool addition to a CRM.

Kieran O'Brien 48:35
Yeah, absolutely. So. So communication, there's there's three buckets that shopping he falls into. And we've basically broken it down into acquisition. So getting new customers communication, so communicating before, during, and after the repair, and then retention, keeping those customers coming back. So acquisition, communication, retention, those are the three things that shopped and he does in various different ways. So communication is kind of what you're talking about. So imagine if your text messages, your GMB chats, your phone calls, like imagine if all of that was just in one centralized inbox where you could just see all of your communication that's happening in your shop. That's what we're building for that. And then of course, you know, what happens is whether it's after hours, weekend holiday, or your service advisors are just slammed with customers that are physically at the shop that need that need assistance. Stuff goes unanswered stuff gets missed. And so we're we're building a platform that can basically handle those responses and take a little bit of the weight off of the service advisor shoulders because, you know, as much as I use the term CRM, we're not really a CRM, we call ourselves a customer experience platform, because we want to make incredible customer experiences for the shops. And one of the ways that you build an incredible customer experience is human to human interaction. It will never be replaced by technology. And so that might that might sound counterintuitive, but the way that I explained it is like the way to make an incredible customer experience at your shop is to keep your service advisors focused on that face to face human interaction that they're having with the customers that are physically there at the shop. And so sure, that means if you can keep them out from behind the computer behind the screen for a longer period of time, then you can enhance that customer experience because they're not stuck there in the office behind the screen the whole day. And they can they can trust that their CRM is going to handle that stuff. And that they can be out doing things that are going to make an impact on the customers that are that are there shaking hands, making sure the customer understands what's being done to their vehicle, etc.

Lucas Underwood 50:34
That that's super cool, dude. And so I guess my next question is, this is, you know, you were really successful in the marketing piece that you did for repair shops, right? Like, you were very successful with that, because it took off and you grew it into an actual business, and it grew into a good sized business, right? What is it that you're taking away from that experience that you're seeing shops missing when it comes to their marketing, right? Because for dude, for you to be able to go, Okay, I'm going to start with this shop that I worked for. Okay, now, I'm gonna go over here and talk to this shop. And now I'm going to go talk to this shop, and I'm going to talk to the shop. But of course, it takes drive. But you had to be doing something right, there had to be new clients coming in the door, because they wouldn't keep paying you if if there wasn't right, like it would be stupid. And so if, if that's the case, you had to see something that shops were missing that you could bring to the table. Now I get it that time, there were a lot of older shop owners. I'm not saying they can't do social media, but I'm saying that it was more difficult for them to do the social media. And so I guess my question for you is, what was it that you saw during that period? And running that other business? That you say, Okay, I absolutely must bring this to repair shops, when I when I incorporate shop, Genie, right? Like what is it that they have to have

Kieran O'Brien 51:55
towards online scheduling. And so I'll break that down, when we were running the marketing agency, what what you need in your marketing is a call to action, right. And so the call to action, typically, in marketing historically, if you go look at nine out of 10, auto repair shop websites, they have these really, really long forms. And so when we were running a marketing agency, it was the bane of our existence, because these forms are really long. And the bounce rate would always be really, really, really bad, because the forms had like 10 different fields you had to fill out. And it was a it was an appointment request rather than a real time appointment on the calendar. And so as a marketing company, like man, we're spending all this money on ads for the shops, and the conversion rate could be way higher. If it was number one, a real appointment booked on the calendar. And number two, if the form fields were, if there was way less fields that the customer had to fill out, just reduce friction. And so yeah, one of the things that we've built, and to go back to your point of, you know, this generational shift that's happening in our industry, there was a study done that's recently that 61% of Gen Z prefers booking an appointment online to a phone call, right. And we see this trend in restaurants, massage parlors, you know, Home Services, whatever it is, you can book appointments online, you can have things just delivered to your door, you can schedule your next massage, you can for sure book, a reservation at a restaurant. And that has not existed in automotive. The reason it hasn't existed in automotive is because our workflow is so complex. And there's so many different variables like the type of service, you know, inspections, waiter and waiters and drop offs and that whole dichotomy. So we've built basically the the first real time online scheduling tool that integrates with your management system, we know you're busy and technician availability, you can customize your services, you can customize your way to drop off settings. And we've actually made it completely 100% free, so you don't have to buy our CRM to use it, we'll install it on your websites for free, takes 15 minutes. And it's one of the easiest ways to provide your customers with a better customer experience, and enhance the effectiveness of your marketing because you're getting rid of those really clunky web forms.

Lucas Underwood 54:03
Well, and you're making it easy to do business with you. Right. And and, man, I'm not gonna lie, I was super afraid of the concept. No, mine is mine is complex, right? My own mind scheduler. And for me, there's a reason for that, right is because we wanted them to answer questions, and we didn't exactly want it to be easy peasy. We wanted them to put some work in, we wanted to be able to help qualify that client, make sure we're a good fit for them. And so we did make it a little complex, but I was super nervous about bringing an online scheduler All right, and I did that five or six years ago, right? And it is an actual appointment when they schedule online. And dude, everybody told me oh, you can't do it. There's no way you can do that. You're going to cause all these problems for the business. It's not fair to your technicians. It's not this it's not that dude, it was one of the best decisions we ever made. It has worked so well for our shop because You know, and look, I'm not Gen Z, right? And I think about the fact that when I want a service, I want to be able to look up on my phone and say, Okay, I could probably make this work this day, I can make it work this day, I can't fit it in that day, I want the ability to see that flexibility. And I want to be able to even if I'm going to pick up the phone and call them to make the appointment, ask some questions, right? Look at ZocDoc look at all of these other apps where like, even your doctor, you can get online and book your own appointment there. Why is it because we have very complex lives. And the other thing is, I think there's some anxiety about calling and talking to people and them asking questions you don't know the answer to Yeah, and and you don't know what kind of experience you're gonna get. So it's a lot easier just to know, like, I'm gonna show up at this place at this time. And here's what I've asked for, right, we'll sort the rest until I get there, you know,

Kieran O'Brien 55:54
when, and that's the reality of it, too. It's like, you know, all you need to do to acquire a customer is get them to show up at your shop with their vehicle. And your service advisors, hopefully, if they're, if they're trained properly, we'll do the rest, right. And so all all you have to do really is lower the friction at the point in which that that that interaction happens. So if it's a really ugly web form, and the guy down the street, your competitor has an online scheduling tool, it's really easy to use, they might win that customer that's never been to your shop before, you know, sure, you know, 25 years old and just wants the familiarity of of ZocDoc. Right. And so, yeah, for sure. It's fun to use the doctor analogy, because, you know, I've been working with shop owners for years and shop owners, you know, one of their objections to online scheduling has always been well, you know, we can't we can't allow people to book because we don't know what's wrong with the vehicle. And they oftentimes compare themselves to like a doctor like, right, like our inspections, our diagnostic is the same way that you go to a doctor for a checkup to find out what's wrong with you. You can't prescribe something over the phone. Right? But ironically, doctors offices have figured this out, they figured out the online scheduling thing. And so the really the barrier is just getting the customer to show up at the shop physically. And you can take care of the rest from there.

Lucas Underwood 57:11
Absolutely, dude. 100%. Now, look, you're not going to convince me this is where you stop. Like what's in the next 20 years for you? Right? Because there's no way I'm buying this is like the last, the last entrepreneurial effort. What

David Roman 57:24
are you going to do in three years?

Kieran O'Brien 57:30
I mean, right now we're just we're super, like, kind of tunnel vision super focused on on changing the industry, like, in our own way, right. And that's, that's why I love I love this podcast. By the way, guys, like I'm genuinely a fan. I listened to most of the episodes. But that's awesome. Like, thank you. We want to we want to change the industry. We want to change the way that customers do business with auto repair shops and flipside, the way that auto repair shops do business with their customers, we want to empower repair shop owners all over the country, and eventually all over the world to provide world class custom customer experiences, world class, digital and online experiences for their customers through our products. And that's really all we're focused on right now. So

Lucas Underwood 58:11
that's fantastic, Brother, how can folks get in touch with you? They want to see what you're doing now?

Kieran O'Brien 58:16
Yeah, absolutely. So website is shop geni.io. So it's sh o p g n ie.io. And yeah, you can book a demo for our CRM. And then you can also go to shop Genie IO slash solutions. And you can install your free online scheduling tool on your website in under 15 minutes right there. Again, like completely free, there's literally no catch. We just want as many shops as possible to have the power of online scheduling. So

Lucas Underwood 58:42
now there is an option for no waiters, right? Like you're gonna get me to install this on my website. I'm gonna select something that says yeah, the waiters allowed Okay, can I get it in big flashing red legs up top?

Kieran O'Brien 58:52
You can so you can do you can do waiter mode off completely. You can also limit waiters, you can limit the amount of waiters per day the amount of waiters per hour you can also put cut off Windows so for the shops that do take waiters, you can you can limit it like Oh, no waiters past 9am or 1030, or whatever it is. So there's a million ways to do it. It's super flexible and super customizable.

Lucas Underwood 59:13
That's pretty cool. David, are you gonna switch?

David Roman 59:17
Wanna check it out? It's free. Why wouldn't ya?

Lucas Underwood 59:19
Free for sure. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Dude, are you Hey, are you going to integrate with with shop management software's? Is that

Kieran O'Brien 59:27
the future we we already do? He already

David Roman 59:29
does. Yeah. Do your research, bro. Come on.

Kieran O'Brien 59:32
We integrate with Shopware tech metrics shot monkey Mitchell, one and a few others.

Lucas Underwood 59:36
Very cool. Awesome, dude. Thank you. I

David Roman 59:38
knew the answer. Because I did my research. I was prepared for this podcast. I'm

Lucas Underwood 59:43
a hillbilly I can't read you tell me that all the time. Yeah,

David Roman 59:47
I did not say that.

Kieran O'Brien 59:49
David did his research. Lucas. You got to do some more pre podcast research, I think.

Lucas Underwood 59:53
Okay, I'll work on it next time. I'll work on it.

David Roman 59:57
He did. He doesn't do research. You like you He walks in and sits down and let's do this go. And then he's out

Kieran O'Brien 1:00:04
David David's the workhorse he does all the all the hard stuff, right?

Lucas Underwood 1:00:08
Of course. Absolutely. 100% That's it. It's worked out pretty well for me.

David Roman 1:00:13
Right. He's gritting his teeth.

Kieran O'Brien 1:00:16
Yeah, you guys are you guys are fun man. We got to do this again sometime. This is this has been

Lucas Underwood 1:00:20
surest I love it. Absolutely, dude. We'll do it again soon, man. Cool. All right. Appreciate it, guys. Yes, sir.