North Carolina man gets paid $1,000 to negotiate people's car deals and built a $2.3M business out of doing it

Tomi Mikula is a guy in North Carolina who’s essentially making money by removing the stress that comes from car deals.

He acts as a middleman, so to speak, between the buyer and the dealer, and business is clearly a-boomin’.

He made $2.3 million last year, which is not bad for a business that only started three years ago.

But there’s an interesting element that we should talk about.

Why his business would not automatically work in other markets

Mikula negotiates deals in the US, where the buying process is completely different from other places, especially Europe.

There are several reasons why that’s the case but the main one is the difference between the MSRP in the US and the MSRP in Europe.

In the US, it’s called the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price and the key word is suggested.

If car XYZ costs $30,000, dealers are free to charge $45,000 for it if they think the market allows it.

We’ve seen this with several sports cars, for example.

The Corvette C8 was technically priced at just under $60,000 when it first came out, but it’s always been impossible to find at that price.

In Europe, that’s not how it works, as negotiation is almost exclusively downward.

The MSRP (which is called something else but that’s a detail) is fixed, and dealers can’t apply markups at all.

They can only apply discounts.

Obviously, one thing that both markets have in common is the dealers’ attempt at selling you optional extras you won’t necessarily need.

And on that front, yep, Mikula’s idea would work.

This is how Mikula can help you with car deals

“I want people to stop saying ‘I hate buying cars’,” North Carolina-based Tomi Mikula said, speaking to CNBC Make it.

The idea behind his business – called Delivrd – is to act as a middleman between the buyer and the dealer, mainly to remove the stress.

He basically gets paid to spend hours on the phone arguing with the dealer so you don’t have to.

His job is to filter the BS, the tone, and the information.

If the dealer says: “There’s no way that cheap [bad word here] is getting this car for XYZ,” Mikula will translate that to “the dealer said that price point won’t work for them.”

Delivrd charges a flat fee, because Mikula believes that, with the exception of invite-only or ultra-high-end supercars, buying a cheap Toyota is the same as buying an expensive Porsche.

The basic dynamics don’t change: you’ll still have to handle price negotiations, trade-ins, and unwanted add-ons.

The business is growing rapidly.

He started it in 2023, and he’s already making seven figures a year by closing 2,300 car deals so far.

The goal is to scale and transition from a founder-led model operating in North Carolina to a ‘conveyor belt’ system that can operate nationally.

“I’m building a business that hopefully puts itself out of business,” he explained.

Mikula claimed that the average savings for his clients was approximately $6,300 per deal last year.

At this rate, his vision might come true sooner rather than later.