With a patent application, a Research Triangle Park startup is branching out, following the Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) model. But instead of e-commerce, it’s cars the company is trying to dominate.
Spiffy, the on-demand car care startup founded by serial entrepreneurs Scot Wingo and Karl Murphy (Carolina Auto Spa) started by offering on-site car washes to employees at sprawling office campuses in Research Triangle Park. Over the years Spiffy has added other services, such as oil changes – but, for the most part, has kept to the services arena.
But now the firm has sent a clear signal that it has bigger aspirations.
The company, which announced a $10 million raise in March, has filed a utility patent application for what it’s calling a “tire sensing and analysis system.” The application describes a measurement device that could capture images using infrared cameras, coupled with software to analyze the pictures, constructing a “3D mesh describing the 3-dimensional contours of the tread.”
Wingo says trials are running internally, but right now the technology is too green to sell to third parties.
But with the analysis system, Spiffy is branching out.
Already, the company has one standalone product, dubbed the Smart Tumbler. It’s a rechargeable device meant to combat odors plaguing fleet vehicles. The analysis system shows it’s not a one-off – and that more products could be part of the business plan down the line.
“We have a bunch of ideas,” Wingo said, noting that the tumbler and the tread system are just the ones furthest along. “We’re starting to find opportunities to create things that make our lives easier or our customers, or both.”
Wingo sees it as an expansion of the mission – not a deviation. But he said it's unlikely Spiffy could someday split into two companies – one focused on its legacy sweet spot of on-demand mobile services and the other on its new car care inventions.
“I’m a big fan of how Amazon has built things,” Wingo said, adding that he sees a symbiosis between the two sides of Spiffy’s business. “Even with the smart tumbler … the same sales team calling on fleets with services can now sell them products.”
As for the tire tread technology, the key is scale. Current technology used in shops is expensive and often requires lifting the car, something that’s impractical for Spiffy's on-demand technicians to do in a parking lot.
“And we have to do it at a pretty big scale,” he said, noting spending thousands of dollars on one device is fine for a single mechanic shop “but we effectively have 250 mini-shops on wheels.”
A Duke University spin-off, Tyrata, is working on its own drive-on solution, but that didn’t fit for Spiffy, as its technicians are performing the work quickly, often while car owners are working at their desks.
As nothing available met the use case, “we had to do our own … in a way that’s scaleable, predictable and measurable.”
And fast.
Spiffy services somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 vehicles a day. That’s 12,000 tires. The goal is to measure tread in under 30 seconds, Wingo said.
Spiffy has some key advantages should it try to disrupt the tire space. Tire-maker Goodyear (Nasdaq: GT) is an investor.
It's not a complete surprise that Wingo and team would deploy technology as part of their business plan. Wingo's history is as a technology innovator, having co-founded Morrisville-based ChannelAdvisor (NYSE: ECOM).
