A lot of stories have been written about how quickly most of the tire industry bounced back during the COVID-19 pandemic and a few have been written about the companies that went under.
Here is one that is a little different. Flat Tire Co. of San Antonio, Texas, is reinventing itself.
Flat Tire owner Paul Brown, the CEO of the company, started his business as a mobile tire service that was available to fix flat tires for disabled vehicles 24 hours a day. The service was available in San Antonio and Austin, Texas.
The pandemic hit just as the company was taking off, and it wasn’t a pretty picture.
Brown was nearly forced out of business. He had to remove the equipment from the vans, return the vans and liquidate the tire machines.
With the pandemic slowly lifting, the demand has not returned to a point that Flat Tire could sustain a mobile market, but Brown isn’t finished.
He has reverted to a physical storefront presence near San Antonio International Airport.
Paul Simmons, CEO of Lead Squad, is assisting Brown in getting things rolling again.
“The man didn't stop, though,” Simmons says. “He is a fighter and I have not seen him stop to get things moving once again. The business is not anything huge. It is just a small comfortable place to get some personable service.”
Simmons describes Brown’s operation this way, “About half of the customers are other businesses in the area who need fleet services. The other half are customers who have found Flat online via research and wanted someone they could trust.”
Brown focuses his business on being available with late-hours service, getting referrals from insurance companies and towing services. The niche might be small, but it is working again. Flat Tire presently has three employees.
