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Episode 231

Komal Choong

Tire Pig / Zohr

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This Episode is Sponsored by:

Komal Choong is the co-founder of Tire Pig, an AI-powered tire shopping platform, and Zohr, a mobile tire installation service operating in Kansas City and Dallas-Fort Worth. Born in India and raised in Kansas City, Komal and his brother cut their teeth in the restaurant business before turning a shared obsession with cars into a venture; flipping parts, then full vehicles, then launching Zohr in 2015 to fix the tire-buying experience they kept finding broken.

A decade in, Komal has built a customer base of premium-vehicle owners who pay for convenience, and he’s now putting that audience in front of an AI engine that ranks tires by performance data rather than brand relationships. Tire Pig’s public beta is live, with a membership model that pairs tires with roadside, flat repair, and road hazard coverage built around the same service-first thesis.

EPISODE SPONSOR

This episode of the Gain Traction Podcast is sponsored by Cosmo Tires. Cosmo Tires offers a wide range of tire solutions designed for durability, reliability, and performance across multiple vehicle segments. Learn more at https://www.cosmotires.com

In this episode…

The tire-buying decision is moving out of the shop and onto the customer’s phone. Komal’s platform pulls thousands of data points on every tire available in a buyer’s market, weights them against where the customer lives and what they drive, and surfaces three options out of 150, with zero brand favoritism. Brand-loyalty pitches at the counter are losing power because the customer walks in already knowing which three tires fit their car best.

The install side is shifting just as fast. Mobile installers run on the customer’s schedule, not the bay’s. Online buyers expect a concierge handoff that puts tires in their driveway or routes them to a partner shop without a phone call. Shop owners who treat themselves as the destination keep losing margin to brokers who treat themselves as the network. Komal lays out the model, DoorDash for tires, plus a membership wrapper, that’s pulling high-value customers off the dealership and chain-shop conveyor belt.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[01:30] Komal’s path from restaurants to flipping cars to founding Zohr in 2015

[05:27] How Tire Pig’s AI ranks tires against where you live, what you drive, and your priorities

[08:51] The two install paths: ship-to-door DIY or concierge handoff to a partner shop

[12:12] Inside Zohr’s mobile tire shop model running in Kansas City and Dallas-Fort Worth

[15:26] The Tire Pig membership: flat repair, roadside, road hazard, and monthly coffee

[17:34] Why “nerd mode” gives enthusiasts the full data stack behind every recommendation

[19:05] Cutting brand bias by narrowing 150 tires to three based on performance data

[22:13] Leading with empathy and putting the customer’s perspective ahead of the sale

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“We want to give the power back to the consumer.”
“We’re simply trying to provide the best unbiased recommendation based on data that’s available online.”
“It’s as easy as buying something on Amazon, maybe even easier, because the decision process has been simplified significantly.”
“The whole entire idea is trying to make tires a little bit less confusing, so people can make a better decision for themselves.”
“We’ve always kind of put ourselves in the consumer shoes before we even put ourselves in our own shoes sometimes.”

Action Steps:

Audit last month’s tire tickets to see how often the same three SKUs show up, then align your counter pitch with the data-backed shortlist customers now expect from AI-powered tire shopping platforms.
Apply to become a Tire Pig install partner in your market before a competitor down the road claims the default spot on the network map.
Stand up a mobile install option, even a single van, and route it to fleet accounts and high-end residential customers willing to pay a premium to skip the lobby.
Bundle every tire install into a 12-month membership at checkout that covers rotations, alignments, a flat repair credit, and road hazard coverage.
Train your service writers to confirm or beat an AI-vetted top three with local intelligence on regional wet-traction performance, fitment quirks, and current rebate stacking.

Transcript

00:00
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. I am Mike Edge, your host and I have the privilege of interviewing the tire dealers, shop owners, counter sales reps, technicians, industry executives and other thought leaders of our industry. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is the leading digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations, down to five locations. Get a professional, unbiased opinion and let Tread Partners review what you’re doing. It starts with a simple conversation. To contact tread partners, visit treadpartners.com so let’s get started. Hey folks, Mike Edge here with the Gain Traction Podcast. I just want to make you aware we’ve got a great new sponsor, Cosmo Tires.

00:47
You can find out more about [email protected] they sell about every tire on the market. Here’s a short video about one of their products.

00:58
Slinging that brown mud kicker mud kick up Never getting stuck Digging down deep while we cr.

01:10
Welcome to the Gang Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. My guest today is How Chung, founder of Tire Pig. How, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast.

01:22
Thanks for having me, Mike. Glad to be here.

01:24
Glad to have you. Well, as everybody knows, when we start this podcast, we always like to know a little bit about our guests. So where are you from? Where’d you grow up? And then kind of navigate us to the how you got to the tower world.

01:38
Yeah. Wow, that’s a long winded answer that I have for this. But I, I was born india. I moved here to the States when I was 4 years old, grew up in Kansas City. So basically this is what I’ve known my whole life. You know, all my friends growing up, all my education was done here. So born in India, but brought up in the States here. How I got into the tire business, I think that’s kind of an interesting story. I grew up in the restaurant world from all places. And that’s where my brother and I, we both learned how to serve customers and learn what customers come to expect from a customer service point of view. But how we landed on tires was kind of an interesting journey.

02:27
We’re both car guys, so cars have always been kind of a passion of ours since were young and growing up. Like when we’re in high school and college, we decided to kind of pursue that passion a little bit. So explore it. We started flipping parts that escalated to buying and selling full cars. And through that process, we Kind of learned a little bit more about the service industry as far as automotive repair and tires are concerned. And what we observed was that the experience was not always, but oftentimes a little bit lackluster. There’s something left to be desired. And we asked ourselves this pretty simple question.

03:09
Now, when you say that, are you referring to the, like the experience of taking your car to a repair shop?

03:15
Yes. And then even when you take your car to a repair shop, like, what happens when you’re there, how you get treated by the folks behind the counter? Potentially upsold. And this was, you know, a good 10 years ago, right. Maybe 12 years ago. So things have definitely changed, but there’s some places where it’s still kind of the same story, but there’s like a lack of transparency. You didn’t really have a clear idea as to what this guy behind the counter is going to try to sell you. So we decided, you know, hey, like, why couldn’t the tire shop come to us? That was a question that we had in the back of our minds. And when we couldn’t find answer to it, we basically decided to start building it ourselves from our driveway.

04:01
And that was kind of the birth of zor back in 2015.

04:05
Okay, so as you progressed in that thought process, what were some of the trials and errors you went through?

04:13
Oh, so many. Yeah. It’s quite a roller coaster journey, by any means, I would say, initially, figuring out who the demographic that values this service is. And that segment of consumers has continued to grow over the years.

04:34
So when we talk about that, we’re talking about. Or you’re talking about the. We’re strictly talking about buying tires right now. Correct?

04:43
Buying tires. Well, with the Zor business, it was all about delivering convenience, serving customers that convenience. But buying tires. Yeah. It begins with that journey. Right. Of figuring out where to buy, using an experience that’s easy to use and intuitive at the end of the day. Because most people don’t buy their tires online these days. Right, right. They still go into the shop or rely on a service advisor to give them the best advice.

05:10
100%. Yep, absolutely. I mean, it’s kind of that old cliche. People don’t buy tires. So you’re. I mean, they’re sold tires, basically, you know, and somebody’s telling them, hey, this is based on your needs. This is what I’d recommend. And typically you trust your tire guy.

05:27
Exactly, exactly. And that’s kind of what we’re changing with Tire pick. We want to give the power back to the consumer. We’ve designed an experience that basically uses AI to recommend the best tires for your needs based on where you live, what you drive, and if you have any preferences. Preferences could be, I’m looking for a tire that lasts a long time or that’s good in the snow or a tire that’s quite uncomfortable. So, yeah, we’re giving the power back to the consumer so that you can use a system that’s not biased. We’re not trying to push any given tire, brand, model, et cetera. We’re simply trying to provide the best unbiased recommendation based on data that’s available online.

06:24
So does your AI, does it take in consideration, like if someone tells it what it’s looking for, it’ll take in consideration, like the ratings of the tires in those specific categories, Is that correct?

06:37
Absolutely. So the whole idea here is that this is a process that would otherwise take a human being quite a bit of time to figure out because there’s so many different variables that are being factored into this recommendation. So it’s not like your typical recommendation engine that other retailers may have, which is just simply like a decision matrix or decision tree. This takes into account thousands of data points that are available on any given tire from both reviews and also like raw performance data.

07:10
That’s awesome. I mean, basically you’re cutting down the buying process or the decision process tremendously. And then when they. Well, first of all, I want to recommend to people, like, because you took me through a demo and I think people can ask for a demo if they want to experience it, correct?

07:28
Absolutely. Right now we’re pre launch, but we’re rolling out our public beta in the next seven to 10 days. So anyone will be able to go to tirepig.com and basically buy tires. The whole system will be live. We’ll be doing an official launch with a big announcement at the end of this month, going into next month. But yeah, I mean, that would be one thing that I would love to hear from any consumer is if anybody wants to give the private beta a try, would love to share and collect feedback from those folks.

08:05
Well, let me give the audience a little scale here too, because our pipeline podcasts aren’t always published immediately, so they’re. They’re basically stacked up in recordings. So by the time they’re hearing this right now, it’s. It’s going to be up and running. So please check it out@tire pig.com it’s real easy to do. And it’s, you know, when I found out that I like so much How is that it’s very intuitive and it’s. And I felt like it wasn’t biased, like I didn’t feel like I was getting, you know, steered into a certain brand or anything like that. And. And it was very objective.

08:42
Absolutely. Yeah. That’s. The entire idea is trying to make tires a little bit less confusing so people can make a better decision for themselves.

08:51
Let’s talk about the long range plan then, because functionally. Okay, let’s say that I’m a shopper and I find something online that I like. Now what? Now what? What’s my options? Because I’ve got to get them on my car.

09:05
Yeah. So we are giving you two options. Either you can do it yourself, tires get shipped straight to your door, or second, you can select a professional installer. Now, initially we won’t give you a long list to choose an installer from. Installers include both shops, physical brick and mortar shops, and mobile installers where available. But that will be much more of a one one concierge approach. So we would be, our team will reach out to you, coordinate that installation so that you don’t have to basically do anything after you press the purchase button in the checkout.

09:45
Nice. So you’re going to handle helping me get to the install?

09:51
Absolutely, yeah. We believe that’s a critical component of the experience and that’s what we’ve perfected over the years. And where we began the journey with Xor is it kind of began with that last mile and it kind of trickled back into other components of the experience.

10:11
So let’s say that somebody does have a shop that they like. Let’s say, let’s say they’re primarily auto repair. You know, they do tires, but that’s not their thing and they’re always ordering and you got to wait a day or two anyway. So they’ve got the shop they want to send it to, they can ask for that, correct?

10:28
Absolutely. I mean, they just simply select that they want a professional installed at a nearby shop and then we would coordinate the rest. So that’s why that one one experience is so important. We’re just trying to collect data from the consumer on what their preference is because otherwise it’s really hard to judge what a consumer. What they prefer. Like, do they prefer to go to the local dealership? Sure. If that’s the case, then we can send the tires there.

10:55
Yep. Well, what I like about it is if I’m somewhat knowledgeable about tires because like, in my case, I joke about this, but we’ve got a mini fleet here. Because I’ve had, you know, five kids and we, you know, dad was always, you know, in heavily involved in some type of, you know, somebody needed tires, somebody needed an oil change. Something had to happen all the time. And what it does for someone like me is allows me to go make a decision at night, like when I have time and shop, and then know that I got that kind of crossed off my list. I already got the tires ordered and got that unbiased opinion, got a price that I liked, whatever, and then I get to determine where I want them shipped.

11:39
And I could have them shipped here or whatever, but it puts me in control of that just to know that the process is in the works. I’m done. And I don’t have to send my, I don’t necessarily have to send my kid who’s at college or whatever to a shop, try to figure it out on their own or get dad on the phone in the middle of the day. All that process. I can get it all knocked out.

11:59
Absolutely. It’s as easy as buying something on Amazon, maybe even easier because the decision process has been simplified significantly.

12:08
That’s awesome. Yeah. Where did you guys. So tell us a little bit about Zor, because I didn’t touch on that enough and you’ve mentioned that a couple times just for the sake of our audience.

12:21
Yeah. So Xor is a mobile tire shop. So it’s essentially a tire shop that comes straight to you. We solve the problem of people who maybe don’t want to interact with anyone at a nearby shop. So were one of, I wouldn’t say the first in the industry, but probably one of the early movers in the industry. Now there’s mobile installers in just about every major metro area in the country, and it’s continuing to grow, which I think is a great thing. But with Zor, I mean, we’re just solving the problem of making tires a little bit less painful to get installed and more convenient. So sort of like the doordash model for tires, you could say. Yeah.

13:06
And it’s on my schedule as a consumer, not the shop schedule, per se. I mean, I get, Granted, I got to coordinate, but I know that if I were to call Zor. And you guys are in Kansas City, correct?

13:21
Yep. And in Dallas, Fort Worth.

13:22
Okay. So, like, you know, if I’m in one of those markets called you guys or whatever, basically, I, I, I know when it’s going to be done. I mean, it’s not A. It’s not the hassle of dropping my car off or potentially having to go sit somewhere for a little bit or whatever. It’s. You guys are coming to me whether it’s at the office or at home.

13:41
Absolutely.

13:42
Yeah.

13:42
And I think Covid kind of accelerated some of that adoption or that change in behavior.

13:47
Yeah.

13:47
Because nowadays there’s so many people just working from home. Right. So the vehicle’s always going to be in the driveway. And in other instances, like people are at work, they’re busy in their offices and their vehicles downstairs in a large sea of other vehicles. And we just come out, replace the tires and it’s like the customer. It’s just like magic, basically.

14:09
Yeah.

14:09
They come out to a brand new set of tires and that’s it.

14:13
You know what’s interesting about you guys growing up talking about your brother as well. I mean, you know, in the restaurant business, it’s extremely service oriented because the room for error in the food business is literally zero. I mean, it’s.

14:28
Yeah.

14:28
You know, because once you get a bad meal somewhere, I mean, we’re all the same. I mean, I think every man and woman, the child’s the same way, had a bad meal there and it’s less likely to draw you back because once you’ve had it’s just, you don’t waste your money or your time or whatever and you just. It was bad on the taste buds, whatever, but you’re just. And then sometimes it may take a little bit, but you’re like, all right, I’ll give them another shot. And it’s interesting that you’ve taken that approach into this industry because you realize from the service side, mobile side, doing zor what that extra, you know, the last mile of service means, you know, coming to the customer and everything.

15:09
And it’s interesting that you’ve been able to put your finger on how to make that work for all the. For quite a few years now. And I’m sure, like, you know, we joked about earlier. I’m sure you’ve learned a lot, you know, and the methodology and the process, but it’s still working. But it’s interesting to me that you guys took it to another level about ordering the tires online through and creating Tire Pig, but not only Tire Pig, but the AI process behind helping the consumer make that selection.

15:40
Yeah, it’s really all just about timing right now. We felt like the best time for us. And then also we have all of these tailwinds Right. We have AI that’s changing the world every six months. It’s like something new is reinvented every six months. Right. And on top of that, I mean, we’re also listening really intentfully from our customers of what they want.

16:05
Right.

16:06
And we’re constantly doing experiments internally to determine that. And I think that’s one of the benefits of us being in the service business that we’re in, is that we have that touch point with those consumers, those high value consumers that value convenience and usually drive premium vehicles. You know, they’re top spenders when it comes to tires and vehic services. Right. But from that we even came up with a new membership model that’s going to be announced here soon with the launch of Tire Pig. So imagine I’m not going to disclose all the details of each tier right now because that’s being finalized, but imagine you being able to get a free flat repair anywhere in the country. Imagine roadside assistance and towing kind of tied into the same membership as something that also covers the road hazard policy on your tires.

17:01
Might even be as go as far as offering you like a free cup of coffee every month at a specialty coffee shop in your town, you know, so like it’s a little bit more than just tires is how we’re positioning Tire Pig. And the whole idea of Tire Pig was to kind of go back to our roots of like what makes this fun for us as well as founders as a team. Because that’s why we’re bring this really interesting, creative, fun approach to tires, which if you, once you see Tire Pig, you can’t really unsee it.

17:34
Well, it’s interesting because when you took me on the demo, you got the Pig’s pig’s pick and you called it Nerd mode. You want to talk about that a little bit?

17:47
Yeah. So the whole idea is to simplify what a consumer sees when they see a tire result. Right. So that’s the standard view for an ordinary consumer. But if you’re like one of us where you of understand tires and you want to nerd out about them, you can press this button called nerd mode and it expands and opens up a whole array of additional data and information on this specific tire. So it’s just taking a little bit more of a fun approach to like that’s a core part of the product is it has to be fun, it has to be interesting, it has to be engaging. Right. Because. Yeah.

18:24
Well, what I like about it, you say it’s like nerd mode. But it’s for the guy that understands and wants more information. He doesn’t need it. He can go as deep as he wants and it’s there.

18:37
Yeah. Yep, yep. Yeah. Because there are a lot of those folks, right? Oh, yeah. So that was kind of the idea there. But yeah, essentially we’re trying to build an experience that meets everyone’s needs and also kind of helps, like an enthusiast kind of unlearn their buying habits of how they’ve been buying tires. Right. They’re kind of forced to trust the system to kind of look at the data that’s behind the recommendations.

19:05
That’s great. One of the notes I have here too is brands have basically no spot in the decisions. It’s completely unbiased. Talk about that a little bit more. What you mean by that.

19:18
So what we mean by that is the results are purely based on our data that we have on these tires and anything that’s out there on the Internet related to any specific tire model. So essentially what the model does right now is it takes a snapshot of all the tires that are available within your area. And if there are none, then it expands to more of a regional, national search. And then out of all those tires that are available in that specific size or size combination, it runs an optimization based on what you drive, where you drive it, and what’s most important to you, like I mentioned earlier. So essentially we go from this list of like maybe sometimes 100, 150 tires down to three, and that’s it. That’s all you need to see. Right. So there’s no biasing in this at all.

20:15
It’s purely based on logic that makes sense to us from a tire buying perspective. So if the Continental is better than the Michelin in a certain situation, like, you’re going to see that, you know, and it factors in costs, value, all those things as well, so you don’t have to think about it.

20:32
One of the things I think I pointed out to you, just based on my own experience, I had a really bad hydroplane accident one time and, you know, some water tires that are made for water, very important to me. But it’s also breaking it down to what’s available in my size in my market right now. So that it can.

20:51
Exactly, yeah.

20:52
Yep.

20:53
So you don’t have to wait on tires two, three days. That’s kind of the. The old way. In our opinion, you could get tired this soon, the same day, if you order soon enough.

21:02
Yeah. No, that’s awesome. Well, just on a personal level, I think people like to know a little bit about who my guest is. And one of the questions I always. I have a variety of questions I like to ask, but what’s. What’s your. One of your favorite places to travel?

21:19
Oh, that’s a good question. I haven’t traveled everywhere, but out of the places that I have been, I would say Europe is always a little bit refreshing. Just kind of a change of pace, I think. But also traveling to anywhere in Asia now, Europe’s big.

21:37
So, like, where. Where in Europe stands out to you?

21:40
Oh, man, it depends on the time of year, I guess. But, you know, London is fun. I love central Europe. So anywhere in Switzerland or southern Germany, I think is a fun place. And yeah, there’s a lot of nature out there, so I think that’s what’s kind of nice about that part of the world.

22:02
Nice.

22:03
And yeah, it’s just kind of an interesting change of pace. Change of culture. Yeah.

22:08
Yep. No, I hear you. And everybody likes. Knows I like to ask, like, what’s a code or a, I don’t know, quote somebody’s left here or that you. That stuck with you, that you. You kind of like anything stand out to you, like a mantra or something?

22:23
Yeah, I’ve got so many of them, to be honest, so it’s hard to pick and choose. But, you know, I think given kind of the state of the, like, the time that we’re living in today, I think you know, things like, you know, love your neighbor. I think that’s a. That’s, you know, take care of yourself, but also take care of the people around you. I think that’s really a good one because at the end of the day, I mean, yes, we’re in a business. We’re here to sell more tires. But when we get kind of detach ourselves from that mission, what really matters? Right. It’s the people around us and taking. Taking good care of them. So spread love and. Yeah, just be. Just be happy and satisfied.

23:05
That’s a very good advice for today. I’ll leave you on that. But I think it bodes well for an entrepreneurial mind. Like, if you. If you truly are concerned about your. Your neighbor, then you’re looking at the process from their point of view, not your own. Like.

23:20
Absolutely.

23:20
I’m not trying to sell you tires as much as I’m trying to supply you a tire that you need anyway. Let me help you. Or help me help you, in other words. And yeah, yeah.

23:30
Being empathetic is, I think, a core value to what we do and how we do it right. So we’ve always kind of put ourselves in the consumer shoes before we even put ourselves like solved in our own shoes sometimes. So. Yeah.

23:45
Well, it’s interesting. I’m a little bit of a history buff, but I do believe that some of the greatest entrepreneurs started out with. That’s not to say that greed doesn’t come in the picture somewhere. Right. But it always usually starts out that they see a need. Right. And when they see a need, they’re like, I can. I can feel that.

24:02
And it’s all about solving the problem. Yep.

24:04
That’s it. That’s it. Well, I. I gotta tell you. Come on. I’m glad we got introduced. I’m glad that you were able to come on the podcast and I wish you the best of luck with Tire Pig.

24:13
Thank you so much. Yeah, it was. It was fun having you.

24:16
All right, have a good day. And to all our listeners out there, thanks for being part of the podcast. We look forward to seeing you again here at Gain Traction. Thank you. Hey, folks, Mike Edge here with the Gain Traction podcast. Real quick, we get a lot of people ask us, they know Gain Traction, but who. Who’s Tread Partners? Well, Tread Partners is our parent company and they’re a marketing agency dedicated strictly to tire and automotive repair shops. Anywhere from five locations all the way up to hundreds of locations in primarily one field that is always a pain for most people is paid search or PPC or Google Ads. We see enormous amount of waste in it and we see inefficient spend in it. If you want to know if you’re doing well or not, give us a call. We’ll help you.

24:59
We’ll audit your account. We’ll look under the hood and tell you if you’re doing things the right way or the wrong way and help you optimize that spend. You can reach me and I’ll direct you in the right [email protected] or feel free to go to treadpartners.com the website. To all our listeners, thank you for being part of the Gain Traction podcast. We are grateful for you. If you’d like to find more podcasts like this, please visit gaintractionpodcast.com if you’d like to make a guest recommendation, please email [email protected] this episode has been powered by Tread Partners, the leader in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. To learn more about tread partners, visit treadpartners.com.

Contents hide

1 In this episode…

2 Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

3 Resources mentioned in this episode:

4 Quotable Moments:

5 Action Steps: