Taking up the business mantle
When brothers Chris Saykally ’11 and Derek Saykally ’14 bought AC Transmission Total Car Care, a Denver-based transmission repair shop in 2020, they joined a trend for entrepreneurs their age.
With nearly 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day, many of their small businesses are changing hands, with younger generations making up the majority of small business buyers today. Boomer-generation entrepreneurs don’t want to have to close the businesses they’ve spent their careers building in order to retire or be forced to work through their golden years just to keep that business going. Now, they’re looking for someone new to step into their shoes to not only carry on their business’ legacy but help that business continue to grow in new ways.
“They wanted to sell to another family that would essentially keep employees and keep the shop going,” Derek said of the previous owners of AC Transmission.
From layoff to opportunity
The Saykallys both started their careers in the oil and gas industry. They worked for the same company in different roles—and in different states—but both got laid off in 2020. It was Derek’s second time on the chopping block, which made him realize he wanted to work in a less volatile industry. He talked to his brother about owning their own business to have control of their careers.
“We were both in the same house trying to regroup and see what we were going to do,” Chris said. They struck upon an idea: why not go into business for themselves?
They logged onto a website of businesses for sale and looked at everything from a barber shop to a brewery. The description for AC Transmission was vague but the financial numbers listed looked good. When Derek read the description of the business out loud, their father overheard him and said he knew the shop from when he had worked at a Cadillac dealer in Denver. The brothers decided to take on the challenge.
A new generation bringing crossover skills
Despite not having any experience in the automotive industry, the Saykallys turned a stable-but-not-growing business into a booming one. They doubled the shop’s business in the course of three years.
“It was a huge learning curve,” said Chris. “But we implemented what we used to do in oil and gas, just on a smaller scale with our own money. It’s working great.”
Chris and Derek changed the sales strategy, the parts system, taught themselves digital marketing and dug into how the business was run.
“Well optimization wasn’t just gathering data and handing out reports. We were literally changing operational procedures on the drilling rig to save millions of dollars in down time,” Derek said of his previous oil and gas role. “We were able to do it at a smaller scale for our own business.”
For example, transmission jobs take a lot of time, which meant that technicians would be very busy or not busy at all. They worked on a performance-based pay structure, meaning their income often fluctuated. To make things smoother for the employees and for the business’ cash flow overall, AC Transmission started adding other kinds of services, like general repairs and tune-ups, which now make up about 10 percent of their income.
A large part of their success has been due to striking a balance between maintaining the shop’s existing employees and principles while implementing new business practices and tools.
The brothers see it as their mission to maintain the same culture, quality and standards of AC Transmission. They knew they would be taking over the legacy the previous owner had worked hard to build and maintain. But they also knew they could take skills honed in their engineering careers and bring new strategies to a small business to handle different economic factors and business trends.
Derek said, “Add a little bit of technology, data-based decision making and a little bit of optimization and you will definitely increase any business.”