Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Engelskirchen.
Hi Jeremy, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
In May of 2020, I flew home from Iraq. I was the Fleet Maintenance Manager for PAE at Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center.
During that time, I was also finishing my MBA at NC State. Due to Covid-19, the Government of Iraq closed for a few months and my Iraqi visa expired while I was home. Not knowing whether I would be able to return to Iraq, I went for the gusto and opened Maxtint Concepts.
Opening my own shop was way overdue. At 16, I started working at Clearview Window Tinting in Spring Lake. Ron Bacani, a legend in Fayetteville, owned Clearview, and eventually moved on to open Diamond Window Tint and Diamond Autosport.
Working for Ron, you never knew what you were going to do the next day. One day, I would tint a car and the next day I was installing stereos, sunroofs, remote starts, underflow, mounting rims, or laying security film on Ft. Bragg. We did all of this before YouTube and Google.
At 18, I left for Basic Training. At 21, I deployed to Iraq. But even in Iraq, I was still tinting windows. When I came home in 2005, I bought a house and wanted to turn the garage into a tint shop. My neighborhood, however, was pending annexation into Fayetteville so the city denied my business license. I went back to tinting for Ron at Diamond, then Discount Auto Sound, and eventually Dirty South.
I even tinted cars outside of the apartments at Pembroke, while going to school at UNCP. After graduating, I moved to Alexandria, VA, and started examining patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. I worked my way up to GS-12 and then quit because I had zero passion for the job. They did, however, have a nice parking garage that I’d tint coworkers’ cars in.
Life was great in D.C., but I still wanted a shop. So, I left the Patent Office and started contracting overseas to build capital. I spent three years in Afghanistan working my way up from mechanic to lead supervisor and then I returned home and attempted to work without a brick-and-mortar location. I tinted houses and businesses, but it didn’t take off like I thought it would.
I reached out to the VA. Enrolled in NC State University and started the Jenkins MBA program. This is when everything started to come together. I took one more job overseas, managing vehicle maintenance on a Department of State contract. That experience, coupled with the knowledge from NCSU, really allowed me to get a plan going for the shop.
And here we are. Maxtint Concepts turns three next month.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Starting a new business during a pandemic was probably not the smartest decision.
The shop is off the beaten path, so we don’t have a lot of walk-ins. Finding skilled workers is a huge challenge, so I spend a lot of time training employees. It really takes a long time to develop a good window tinter.
You must have resilience learning how to tint. I could spend six months training someone and after one bad day, they quit. Building and developing the team is a constant cycle.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Maxtint Concepts?
Maxtint Concepts is a tint and vinyl shop in Fayetteville, NC. Maxtint is named after my old pitbull, Max. Although it is a new business, we are veterans in the tinting industry. When it comes to vinyl, we trained with industry leaders, such as Digital EFX in Louisville and Geek Wraps in Ft. Lauderdale.
We might be known for wrapping the “El Cazamboni” or the downtown Fayetteville trollies, but we like to be known for quality and experience. Every car is a Ferrari. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Chevy Chevette or a Wraith, it’s going to receive the same high-quality treatment if the customer’s money is good.
Tinting is a dying art. And passion for that dying art brought me to where I am today. However, all of the passion in the world would mean nothing if we used a tint that failed in six months. So, choosing a brand of tint was a vital piece of opening the shop. If 3M denied my application, then I would not have opened Maxtint Concepts.
Luckily, the 3M Sales Rep. remembered me from 15 years ago when I tinted at Diamond. In my opinion, 3M is synonymous with high-quality products. I believed carrying a high-quality window film at a competitive price was the most important part of starting a new tint shop in the area, even if that meant profit margins were less.
We are located less than a mile from I-95. We can accommodate R/Vs, Semi-trucks, and of course, trollies. We have a tint that will block a ton of heat and it is legal for use on commercial vehicles. We also have a tint for commercial and residential glass. We print and install storefront graphics as well as print banners, stickers, and wraps.
Just recently, we linked up with a community college in the area. We will soon teach window tinting classes to students that sign up for the class. We will provide more details about this service very soon. We are extremely excited to develop an army of tinters.
The benefits of tint are not widely known, and we hope to change that through this course.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Advice – Yeah, Keep Going. Don’t lose sight of your vision for the business. You can always pivot and find new ways to make money, but don’t forget why you started the business.
Also, you can’t get fired when you’re the boss. And if you quit, you’re only quitting on yourself. So, what is there to be worried about? Take the risk.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.maxtintconcepts.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/maxtintconcepts
- Facebook: facebook.com/maxtintconcepts
David Engelskirchen
July 7, 2022 at 2:26 pm
What a great story. It’s all about determination and hard work to succeed in business. So proud of my son. I just wish he would open a shop near me in Washington state so I could see him more often.