Business Spotlight: Wheels on Wheels

Customers are usually stunned when they peer into the back of the TreadRight Mobile Tire LLC van for the first time. Can a full-scale, full-service tire shop really come on wheels? Yes, in fact, it can.

“We can come to you, we can come to your house, do it while you’re at work, and you don’t have to spend two to three hours waiting in the tire shop, which no one wants to do,” co-owner and founder Joshua Hart says. “You just got your time back.”

TreadRight was nearly a decade in the making by the time it was founded in 2021. It started as a side gig for Hart and his wife, Stephanie. Joshua works full-time as a physical education teacher, assistant junior varsity boys basketball coach and head cross country coach at Logan-Rogersville High School. Stephanie is a part-time registered dietician at CoxHealth.

When COVID hit and Hart was sent home from school like his students, he found himself with more time to spend conceptualizing TreadRight. So, the Harts spent quarantine writing out the business plan and researching other successful mobile automotive care companies, such as Safelite.

“We got to writing up a business plan and started doing the research on it and it was an East Coast, West Coast thing,” Hart says. “So, we were trying to get ahead of it and bring it to Missouri.”

The Harts, who still work their full-time jobs in addition to running TreadRight, hit the ground running and, in 2023, hired their first technician, Micaiah Rocha, who runs the day-to-day operations. However, Rocha has been part of Hart’s team for much longer than that. Hart was Rocha’s basketball coach at Forsyth High School and, over the years, Rocha says he has been personally and professionally inspired by Hart. Rocha is pursuing a degree in education with the goal of becoming a physical education teacher and coach like Hart. Wherever his career leads, he says he is also committed to staying with TreadRight as the company expands.

“He’s helped me a lot, and not just on the business side but with school, as well,” Rocha says. “You’ve got to just sit there like a sponge and soak it all in.”

Mobile model
TreadRight operates out of a high-roof, extended Ford Transit van, outfitted with all the equipment found at a tire shop. Hart and Rocha can do repairs, change tires, and provide balancing and rotation for motor vehicles and most anything else on wheels, such as UTVs, ATVs, trailers and lawn mowers. They don’t do alignments or service heavy equipment.

TreadRight’s range is 25 miles from Nixa and they’ve provided services in a variety of settings. They’ve provided service in business parking lots and the driveways of people working from home. One of the largest misconceptions of the business, however, is that they’re an emergency roadside service company. They are a tire shop on wheels, Hart clarifies, and only provide services in places that are safe such as parking lots or homes.

As the Harts developed their business model, they defined their target customer as full-time workers and businesspeople juggling professional and personal obligations. These are people who don’t have a lot of extra time to sit at the tire shop, Hart says, and value the convenience of a mobile service. Their prices vary depending on the service, starting at $38 per tire for installation. This is often slightly higher than competitors, however, TreadRight keeps tire costs low, which often evens out the cost.

“Our target is going to be working individuals who are not necessarily thinking, ‘I want the cheapest thing,’ but ‘I want a quality service and my time is more valuable than saving three to four dollars going to a tire shop somewhere,” he says. “We compete as far as pricing wise, so basically it comes back to they don’t know the mobile thing exists and it’s an option for them. That is probably our biggest hurdle.”

Getting over this hurdle happens mostly through word-of-mouth marketing. Last year, TreadRight serviced more than 400 customers, approximately 100 of which were repeat clients. They have an overall customer base of 1,000.

“It’s like when TV got color,” says Rocha with a laugh. “It’s just baffling to some people.”

Down the road
Hart says he plans to offer TreadRight as a franchise business. However, they’re being mindful of scaling at a sustainable pace.

“You don’t want to get too big too fast and lose everything,” Hart says. “We’re trying to scale in a way that’s appropriate for us and how we can manage it.”

That pace could move at a slightly faster clip were it not for the current economic uncertainty, says Hart. High tariffs on automotive goods have created additional costs that get passed on to customers, Hart says. One of their distributors has already increased prices by 10% and another by 7%. Since founding TreadRight in 2021, tire costs have risen nearly 50%, Hart says. Currently, TreadRight’s distributors are still working off inventory from prior to the tariffs, which is mitigating some of the cost.

“Right now, we get our tires from the same place that every tire shop in this area gets their tires. There is nobody here that has any special connection,” Hart says. “We’ve got really good distributors that have said they are not going to do anything or make any moves because their inventory is so large right now versus what is needing to be imported still, so they are playing it by ear.”

 It’s hard to say what is going to happen next, Hart says, leading businesses like his to proceed with caution as they consider future growth.

“You hear everybody from every walk of life giving their opinion and, the reality is, we don’t know,” Hart says. “So, that would be the big thing is wait and see if things start turning around and start flourishing. We have ideas of things and collaborations that we would love to get going.”

Regardless, Hart says TreadRight is focused on planning for the future, providing quality service and making customers’ lives easier through their unique services.

“You also get the social side of it where you meet someone completely new and different,” Rocha says. “Everybody loves that you’re helping them out and then, at the end, you feel fulfilled because you’re helping somebody out.”