A LUCRATIVE NETWORKING SUCCESS FROM 0-60MPH IN SECONDS…

A LUCRATIVE NETWORKING SUCCESS FROM 0-60MPH IN SECONDS… by: Chaz Freutel

You have probably attended many networking events. But did you ever get a multi-million business from one of them? I did. Here’s my story: Because I coach soccer in the evenings, I typically don’t attend many evening events. But one night in April 2019, I had an opening. I attended a DANG (Dublin Area Networking Group) networking event hosted by Chris Borja at The Dublin Entrepreneurial Center (affectionately known as the DEC).

As usual, I knew many of the attendees but at least half were new faces. I don’t remember how many I connected with on LinkedIn that evening, but I’ll never forget a certain young OSU sophomore who also was a graduate of Olentangy Liberty High School. Little did I know we would become future partners and operate four-car businesses.

Ani Venkatakrishnan owned a car detail business. His first client recommended he attend a DANG event to help build new connections. Ani’s passion was contagious. I immediately clicked with him through our shared interest in cars. We scheduled a time for him to come to my home and detail a family Corvette I inherited. I watched and listened for over three hours as Ani detailed every inch of my car and answered countless questions why he was using this wax or using that cloth rag.

Some months later, my brother, Doug, and I traveled south to visit family. We hatched an exciting idea: find a couple of older, used cars we would enjoy working on, then flip them and keep working our way up to cars we really wanted. Since we grew up in a Corvette family and raced at the former Powell Speedway (yes, Powell used to have a racetrack), it made sense.

Some months later, my brother, Doug, and I traveled south to visit family. We hatched an exciting idea: find a couple of older, used cars we would enjoy working on, then flip them and keep working our way up to cars we really wanted. Since we grew up in a Corvette family and raced at the former Powell Speedway (yes, Powell used to have a racetrack), it made sense.

After finding our first set of cars, I reconnected with Ani. Would he be willing to help detail our cars when we wanted to resell them? He agreed. He also told me he had filed with the state of Ohio to obtain a dealer license. That was great news because he could also help us secure our next cars.

Ani immediately introduced us to a close friend and car buff, Sath Lingan, a Dublin Scioto High School, and OSU grad. Sath had been in the car business longer and had previously partnered with another DEC tenant to rent exotic cars and started a previous dealership.

Things started to speed up, then! Doug and I helped raise an initial $173K in early 2020 to get Ani’s dealership started. And Lux Auto Depot in Powell, Ohio, was born. Lux will sell approximately 390 cars and trucks through 2022, with total revenue of over $7MM.

In mid-2020 we launched We Buy Cars America (WBCA) for wholesaling vehicles. Since May 2021 Doug and I have raised over $8MM for WBCA and will finish 2022 with well over $80MM in sales. We also have an exotic car rental business, mainly in Florida, which will bring in over $6MM in 2022. And we just launched We Find Cars America to help car shoppers find the right car they’re searching for, even if not currently in Lux inventory.

That’s $100MM in projected aggregate revenue in 2022…all starting from a connection at a networking event. Thank You, Chris Borja, DANG (now Connected Networking Group), and all those great connections I’ve had the pleasure to meet!

Chaz Freutel