My first job was working in my dad’s Automotive Shop, Brunsweiler Automotive. I did simple manual labor jobs and minor logistical tasks like giving customers rides to their homes while their cars stayed behind. This time greatly affected the way I look at business and work; I learned several important lessons from my dad.
Brunsweiler Automotive LLC 🔗
Dad’s mechanic business started with his mornings, nights, and weekends in our rural home’s garages. I remember the driveway often full of vehicles, and being pulled away from video games to help him bleed brakes - a process where he alternates between adding fluid and opening and closing valves while I press the brake pedal on command.
After years of this and a growing customer base, my parents invested in a dedicated property and formed a legal entity, Brunsweiler Automotive LLC. They built the shop themselves from a steel kit while continuing with their day jobs to save money. My dad quit his reliable day job as a laborer for the local government and his morning/night/weekend automotive work turned into his morning/day/night/weekend work.
Mechanic’s Apprentice 🔗
The first time I made a resume was to apply for college internships, and the work experience I started with was “Mechanic’s Apprentice - Brunsweiler Automotive, LLC.” I was able to frame my experience in terms of “soft skills” that recruiters of the time appreciated, but there was so much work that didn’t make the page.
My most profitable and most common task was changing tires. While I made $10/hour, the business was able to purchase the tires at wholesale and sell them at retail (luckily, we weren’t competing with Costco in our market). To change a tire at Brunsweiler Automotive, a Mechanic’s Apprentice must:
- Bring the vehicle into the bay, set it up on the hoist, and lift it to a point where the wheels are shoulder-level
- Remove all lug nuts and hub caps, then remove the wheels from the hubs and bring them to the tire-changing area
- Deflate the tires, then use a pneumatic metal arm to separate the tire’s bead from the wheel’s lip
- Using a rotating table and another metal arm, lift the tire’s sidewall above the wheel then repeat for other sidewall. Dispose of old tire.
- Use a specialized part on the same metal arm to set the sidewalls of a brand new tire below the top lip of the wheel
- Expand the tire’s beads out to the outer lips of the wheel with compressed air, sometimes requiring one of the loudest tools in the shop - the “bead blaster”
- After the tire is balanced through iterations of spinning on a specialized machine which measures such things and the application of wheel weights, the process can be reversed to replace the wheel on the vehicle
Changing oil was the other job I commonly did. This was much simpler and less strenuous, but we would also perform multi-point inspections which would add some variety to the task. This included things like checking all of the lights, topping up fluids, and inspecting for any signs of worn parts. Thinking back on this, it was a great blend of manual labor, diagnosis, and easy work.
There were also tasks that needed being done around the shop that Dad was too busy to accomplish. I was perfectly suited for these, which included:
- driving back and forth to the parts stores in the nearest town, which was about 15 miles aways
- picking up and dropping off both vehicles and their owners, who would sometimes only have one vehicle and no other way to get home while their transportation was due for an extended stay at Brunsweiler Automotive
- delivering tires to surprising places, including to be used as an earth ship at a neighboring farm
- and when there was nothing else, I cleaned
While none of these were very valuable on a resume for computer science internships, I was able to speak to the work I did dealing with customers, managing time and tasks effectively, and the ability to learn new skills that came with the job. It wasn’t as convincing to recruiters as I had hoped, but I did end up with two offers, one of which was at an auto parts supplier working as website support.
Honest, Quality Work at Affordable Prices 🔗
Brunsweiler Automotive LLC’s slogan is “Honest, Quality Work at Affordable Prices,” and we live up to that. The way my dad runs the business is admirable and increasingly rare in American businesses. Instead of prioritizing profits, he prioritizes his customers.
The business’s identity is closely aligned with Dad’s, appreciating honesty, hard work, and value. Growing up, he would always emphasize how important it was to tell the truth and how lying was never okay. Providing value under the constraints of honesty and quality meant exhausting, extended work was the only way. This looked like long hours which started early in the morning, pushed late into the nights, and left few weekend free from work.
Dad recognized the downsides of this while mentoring my brother and I, which is why he pushed us to go to college. He saw this as a way for us to get white-collar jobs and avoid the burnout he had to endure to make end’s meat. Unfortunately, even cushy white-collar jobs can lead to burn out.
The Entrepreneur 🔗
I learned of “entrepreneurs” for the first time in college while idolizing founders of successful tech products or companies. It took some time before I connected that my dad was also an entrepreneur, but the values he taught me would shape the way I approached business ventures.
I believed that only brand new, novel ideas would be a path toward entreprenuership when I first got interested in pursuing it. I would spend a lot of time researching, developing a proof of concept, and then get discouraged when I realized there was already a funded startup with a similar product. As I matured, that mindset changed, and it made entreprenuership so much more approachable.
A market opportunity in the form of missing skills and employers in my hometown led Giovanna and I to start a non-profit which would offer discounted web site development to local small businesses. We would use the proceeds from the business to fund scholarships for students pursuing technology. The non-profit ultimately failed (read more about that here), but we had discovered a viable path to entreprenuership.
Since starting the non-profit, we have provided websites to:
- Salons
- Local Governments
- Tour Companies
- And Brunsweiler Automotive (:
Inspired by the frugality of my parents on their journey, Giovanna and I have bootstrapped our product through the most cost effective strategies for ourselves and our clients. It’s development has been the product of early mornings, late nights, and several weekends (see Dad, there’s no escape). We’re proud to provide a high quality product at an affordable price.
As for the secret sauce of our business, it is honesty and respect for our customers. The same value that my old man provides through Brunsweiler Automotive LLC which has helped him attract and keep more customers than he can schedule comfortably will allow us to help so many small businesses with their web needs.
If you’re a small business looking to create a website or wanting to save money or time on your current website, please consider our product!