Former Car Salesman Creates $2.3M Remote Empire. His Secret? Charging $1,000 to Haggle on Your Behalf

Tomi Mikula spent about six years in car sales and finance, learning every lever a dealership pulls to squeeze margin out of a buyer. Then he switched sides. For a flat $1,000 (£790), his company Delivrd now handles the entire negotiation on behalf of consumers who would rather pay a professional than endure the showroom grind.

'I don't have a magic wand or a secret sauce to save you thousands of dollars more than you can on your own,' Mikula told the Car Dealership Guy podcast. 'I teach everything I do for free.' His argument is that buyers who follow his tips can match his results on their own. Most simply do not want to.

That bluntness has not hurt business. Delivrd pulled in $2.3 million (£1.82 million) in revenue in 2025 with top expenses of $1.5 million (£1.19 million), and is on pace to exceed $3 million (£2.37 million) this year, Mikula wrote in a first-person column for CNBC. The 33-year-old now employs 15 people, all working remotely, and completed 300 deals last month alone.

How $100 Gift Cards and Free Reddit Deals Built a $2.3M Business

Before Delivrd charged a penny, Mikula spent 10 months negotiating car deals for strangers — first on Reddit, then through any forum that would have him. He described the early pitch as 'creepy': a random person sliding into DMs offering to haggle on someone's behalf.

What set those months apart was the research. Mikula offered a $100 (£79) Amazon gift card to every client who completed a third-party survey about the experience. The data reshaped his entire model. 'The biggest shocker to me is that consumers didn't care about savings at all,' he said. 'It was like out of the top four or five things, it was number five. People cared more about the time, the energy, the anxiety.'

When he asked what they would pay, most said he could keep half the savings he secured. He felt that model lacked the transparency he was trying to build. A flat $1,000 stuck. 'There were very few people that said below $1,000, and for those, they weren't our clientele,' Mikula said.

His marketing budget since day one is, remarkably, $200 (£158). Everything else came through social media. Mikula used to livestream 12 hours a day, showing his profits, his income, every call. Some dealers loathe it, Entrepreneur noted.

One dealer branded him a liar on camera and took to calling him 'Bubba' during a 27-minute call that pulled more than 700,000 views. Others refuse his calls entirely. Mikula is fine with both. 'You yell at me, you curse me out — but you look terrible and it just advertises well for my business,' he said.

What Delivrd's $6,300 Average Savings Says About the Car Market

Delivrd's average saving across price, trade-in, add-ons and finance charges comes to roughly $6,300 (£4,980) per deal. Against a $1,000 fee, the net benefit is $5,300 (£4,190) before accounting for the hours a buyer never spent being pitched warranties they did not want.

The timing has helped. The average new car in the United States crossed $50,000 (£39,500) for the first time in September 2025, according to Kelley Blue Book. At that price point, professional negotiation looks less like a luxury and more like common sense.

Every deal passes through five staff members, though buyers only interact with two. Researchers source competing quotes from multiple dealerships, a compliance team checks paperwork, and someone inspects the vehicle before delivery. Mikula said his deals take a dealership about 30 minutes on average — far less than the multi-hour ordeal a walk-in buyer faces.

His advice to dealers wanting to put him out of work was blunt. 'I should have an app where in 10 clicks I can buy a car,' he said. 'People would go hand over fist just to skip the dealership.'

Mikula has said he wants Delivrd to become unnecessary. Either dealerships fix their process and make hiring a negotiator pointless, or his company becomes the default way people buy cars. 'It's the second biggest purchase of your life,' he said. 'It shouldn't be a dread.'