Matt EbertFounder & CEO

For decades, young people were heavily encouraged to pursue college education, leaving the trades neglected. Today, the trades are catching fire because people are realizing they can build highly lucrative, six-figure careers without going into debt.

The industry faces a projected shortage of a hundred thousand technicians over the next several years. A large portion of our existing workforce belongs to the baby boomer generation, and they are retiring at a faster rate than we can replace them.

Trade schools only graduate a few thousand technicians each year. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the rate at which experienced technicians are retiring, creating an operational bottleneck for collision repair shops nationwide.

Today's vehicles are rolling computers. For perspective, a Boeing 777 airplane has fifteen million lines of code, whereas modern cars have a hundred and fifty million lines of code and a thousand chips. Collision repair now requires highly technical software and electrical skills.

In a collision shop, every accident and every repair job is completely unique. Unlike a manufacturing assembly line, you cannot easily train a robot to perform the same repetitive task. Because of this high variability, the technician's role remains AI-proof.

We use artificial intelligence on the administrative side of the business. It helps us optimize our supply chain, streamline parts ordering, and manage technician scheduling. This improves our overall operational efficiency while allowing technicians to focus on physical repairs.

Tariffs have increased parts prices slightly. However, this affects the consumer more than our company because parts costs are passed through. Because tariff policies are highly unpredictable, we do not spend much time trying to forecast them.

Daymond has been a massive help with building my personal brand and raising company awareness. In a service business, consumers want to do business with people they know and trust. Daymond helped us find our voice and build that public trust.

Nobody gets excited about needing a collision repair shop unless they have been in an accident. If consumers do not know or trust you before they need you, they will not bring their vehicles to your shops. Brand trust is our primary customer acquisition tool.

We reach out to young people through social media messaging and public appearances. We highlight that they can earn a paycheck while they learn a valuable trade, providing a much stronger financial starting point than a costly four-year college degree.

Trade schools provide the basics, but graduates still lack the real-world speed and troubleshooting skills required in a busy shop. We have to take trade school graduates or raw recruits and put them through our own internal training programs to bridge the gap.

We pair recruits with experienced master technicians. The challenge is that being excellent at repairing cars does not automatically make someone a patient or effective teacher. We have to actively train our top technicians on how to be good mentors.

Learning a trade is not a lifetime sentence to fixing cars. It serves as an entry point. As companies like ours expand, they create diverse career paths in management, operations, and training. I started in a shop and have not repaired a car in years.

The biggest bottleneck is the talent pipeline. To support our expansion, we must constantly source, hire, and train technicians. Without a robust apprentice program and an active mentorship culture, scaling physical repair locations at this pace is impossible.