Over 10 years ago, tech entrepreneur and U.S. Army Special Forces veteran Yinon Weiss encountered problem after problem with his Jeep and was struggling to find a reliable shop that would take care of him. With each new name, he was taking a leap of faith—and he just so happened to keep striking out.
After starting his first business—a social media platform for veterans called RallyPoint—he wanted to start something new.
He looked back on the experience he had as a customer in auto repair, and realized the potential there was to create a single brand that was held to the same standard nationwide.
The idea turned into what is now Stress-Free Auto Care: a company that originated around five years ago and has been steadily spreading across California and Texas ever since.
Stress-Free’s approach to acquiring shops is what has allowed them to grow while maintaining a stellar reputation. Weiss shares what his company is doing to identify and recruit some of the best shops as he works towards building a national brand.
A Modernized Experience
The concept began with a business Weiss started in 2016 called CarDash. The aim was to act as a national marketplace for automotive services. The trouble was, however, that many shops the company was working with didn’t have much technology to be improved upon, if there was any at all.
When Weiss and his team decided to open their own shop up in 2019, it revealed how much potential there was for modernization in the industry, but it was something CarDash wasn’t invented to remedy.
“The goal with CarDash was to build a superior, new, modern customer experience that people expect from many other industries,” Weiss explains. “What we found was that we couldn't really do that just by building a marketplace layer. We had to go deeper into the operational level, and actually transform operationally what happens at the shop.”
Weiss sold the intellectual property of CarDash to RepairSmith and went on to establish Stress-Free Auto Care: a nationally recognizable brand providing reliable auto repair.
Knowing Who to Acquire
From the get-go, Weiss had the idea of creating a national brand. Stress-Free Auto Care has already expanded from its home state of California into Texas, where Weiss resides. This growth was largely achieved through acquisitions, which continue to play a key role in the company’s plans.
In areas where Stress-Free has already established itself, it isn’t uncommon for shop owners looking to retire to reach out—the bright purple buildings and large signage makes the brand hard to miss. But for newer markets it can take a little more legwork to identify acquisition opportunities.
The first step Stress-Free takes in determining a good spot for expansion is by researching different areas: specifically, how much traffic the area sees and its consumer demographics.
Ideally, a shop in a commercial retail area will be more viable than somewhere more industrial.
Once an area with potential for business is found, notable shops within that region are highlighted. This includes shops that have established a reputation, have great reviews, a decent exterior, staff, and sales performance.
A shop that passes those criteria will still have more standards to meet. With Stress-Free’s emphasis on modernizing the repair industry, any shop being considered for acquisition must have the space to accommodate the equipment they use across all their shops: typically, this means a minimum of five bays.
The Stress-Free Process
Stress-Free Auto Care’s name expresses not just the experience of the customer, but also that of the owners who sell their shops to the brand. The company has optimized its acquisition process to make it as easy and simple for the owner as possible.
Part of what makes Stress-Free unique is that they understand the shop owner’s experience that others may not, enabling them to provide them with all the resources and guidance they need.
“We are the operators; we're on the ground, we're not some private equity shop that is just doing a financial engineering deal and are separate from the deal. We are shop owners, we own shops, and we run shops,” explains Weiss. “We understand the challenges that shop owners have, we understand the staffing challenges that they have, and we can relate to that. And we come prepared to address those issues as best as we can.”
Though Weiss and his team have been through the acquisition process numerous times, most sellers they work with are in their 60s or 70s looking to retire and have never had to sell a business before.
The biggest challenge shop owners usually face is fears of what their staff will think is happening, which is why Stress-Free tries to be discrete throughout the process until it’s finalized. They’ll never show up to a prospective shop unannounced, or ever talk to anyone there without the shop owner’s permission.
Stress-Free always tries to retain all the original staff of an acquired shop, typically by offering them higher wages and introducing benefits such as performance bonuses. Though the shop’s equipment sometimes needs a bit of an upgrade, employees often view it as a path to expanding their skill sets.
“Most of the staff that we meet are excited to learn new tools, they're excited to advance their career, they're excited to learn new skills, and feel like they have an opportunity to progress—which is what our business offers,” tells Weiss.
By not requiring third party financing, Stress-Free also has the ability to usually close a deal in a timely manner, which has also made the process easier for shop owners trying to sell. Additionally, Stress-Free doesn’t require shop owners to stay on for transition training after the sale—they’re free to sell their business and then move on to retirement.
Stress-Free has made the transaction as seamless and comprehensive as they can for shop owners, but it’s not in an effort to rush through it. It allows them to set aside all the time needed to engage in discussions with a seller on whatever their concerns or thoughts may be, which is a fundamental part of their acquisition process.
“It's just helping sellers reduce their level of anxiety, or concern about what it means to sell their business. There's a lot of that,” says Weiss. “And that’s just educating them, and coaching them, and training them, and building trust with them.”
From the beginning, Stress-Free has had a vision of being synonymous with up-to-date, trustworthy repair services that span across several regions. That vision has guided its strategy for identifying successful shops for acquisition and working with that owner and their team to seamlessly transition to the company’s brand.
That’s ultimately what has made Weiss’ acquisition strategy so successful: he knew what he was looking for, and he doesn’t accept anything that doesn’t meet clearly defined minimum requirements needed for the kind of shops he wants to run.
“There's a lot of different styles and flavors of shops,” explains Weiss. “Some shops do European focus, some shops don't; some shops have a culture of appointments, some shops don't. And so, the more one can better narrow down their own operating model, the easier it will be to align with your potential acquisitions.”
