Delivrd founder teaches free car negotiation before generating $2.3 million in revenue

Tomislav Mikkola, founder and CEO of the American company Delivrd, which specializes in negotiating car purchases, began his project in an unconventional way in 2023, when he offered to negotiate car purchase deals for free for strangers he met on the Reddit platform.

He wanted to start a company, but first decided to learn the details of the market and experience customer needs himself.

He did not start collecting money for his services until after concluding about 50 deals.

After 3 years, his company, “Delivrd,” began charging a fixed fee of $1,000 to negotiate the purchase of a car on behalf of people who do not want to go through the buying experience inside car showrooms.

According to a report published by CNBC, the company has concluded more than 3,000 deals and achieved revenues of $2.3 million in 2025, while it is on track to exceed $3 million this year. It has 15 employees, all of whom work remotely.

The company's largest spending items in 2025 totaled about $1.5 million, which included salaries, software, legal and accounting services.

The company saves its clients, on average, about $6,300 in each car negotiation deal.

Most customers do not recommend hiring him

The founder of “Delivrd” adopts an unusual method in marketing his services. He tells most people who contact him that they don't need to hire him.

He does not present himself as having a “magic formula” or a secret way to get the best deal. He says clients hire him not because they can't negotiate on their own, but because they don't want to do the job.

He also shares most of what he knows for free via social media, and believes that anyone who has time and patience and deals with a reliable car showroom can save on service fees and negotiate on their own.

6 years inside car showrooms revealed the real problem

The company's founder began his career as a sales representative in the Verizon system, where he ranked first among sales workers.

After that, he moved to the automotive sector, and spent 6 years during which he became a finance manager in the automotive sector, among the top 1 percent of workers in this field.

Despite his success in his work, he noticed that many customers were leaving car showrooms repeating the phrase that they “hate buying cars.”

Customers complained of long waits, frequent back-and-forth, and the feeling that things were being imposed on them instead of being done for their benefit.

He tried to fix these problems from within the sector, making procedures faster and more transparent, but customer complaints continued.

After hearing the same complaint in 8 consecutive deals within the finance office, he concluded that improving the performance of one employee would not be enough, and that the problem lay in the car buying experience model itself. Then he decided to leave the sector.

Spend $10,000 to find out what customers actually want

In addition to the deals he closed for free on Reddit, the Delivrd founder conducted extensive market research.

He paid 100 people Amazon gift cards worth $100 each, in exchange for sitting with an independent interviewer he hired and talking for two hours about their real needs when buying a car.

The interviews showed that customers do not view price the way the auto industry assumes.

In addition to money, they cared about their time, their sense of control over the purchasing process, and confidence and clarity.

Accordingly, Delivrd has designed its business model around these four elements, rather than focusing on how much money it can save customers.

5 people work on each deal behind the scenes

Five people participate in every deal within “Delivrd”, but the customer only deals with two of them.

The rest of the team works behind the scenes; Researchers find the best deals available, while an employee monitors the documents and checks that they match what was agreed upon, and another makes sure that the car is delivered in perfect condition.

The company does not rely on negotiation services alone for its revenues, as it also generates income from social media advertising and brand partnerships.

Annual salary of $186,000...but employees first

The founder of “Delivrd” receives a salary of about $186,000 annually, but he says that he makes sure to provide a full year’s salary for each new employee before he gets any additional money for himself.

This approach is based on his desire to cover the risk that employees take when joining a startup.

Delivrd is on track to conclude between 400 and 700 deals per month by the summer.

Although it is not clear how long this model will continue, the company’s founder believes that each deal brings him one step closer to an industry that ultimately does not need a company like “Delivrd” to make the process of purchasing cars easier and clearer.

US First Lady Melania Trump is preparing to return to the screen through a new two-part documentary series, which deals with aspects of her life and responsibilities within the White House, and presents, according to what she revealed, personal dialogues that address questions that she has never answered publicly. The series is scheduled to premiere later this year, according to the New York Post.

On Wednesday, Melania Trump revealed the new project, explaining that it would be “completely different” from her recent documentary “Melania,” which followed the movements of the First Lady during the twenty days preceding the inauguration ceremony of her husband, President Donald Trump, for a second presidential term.

Melania Trump, 56 years old, explained that the new work will take on a more direct and personal nature, saying: “It is more like direct and personal dialogues with me. "I'll be answering some special questions that people haven't heard answers to before, so it's interesting."

The First Lady did not reveal the specific date for the series' launch, but indicated that it is scheduled to be launched in November.

The new project comes within the framework of a broader agreement concluded by Melania Trump with Amazon prior to the inauguration of President Donald Trump for a second term. Under the agreement, Amazon obtained the rights to documentary projects related to the First Lady during her husband's term, in a deal worth $40 million.

In addition to the costs of obtaining distribution rights, Amazon spent an estimated $35 million on marketing the movie “Melania” before it is released in theaters on January 30, 2026.

The film, directed by Brett Ratner, grossed $16.7 million, after earning $7 million during its opening weekend, marking the best box office performance for a documentary film.

However, the film was harshly criticized by a number of mainstream film critics, who described it as a “lengthy promotional stunt” or a “means of improving public image,” rather than a full account of the First Lady’s story and life.

Analysts in the film industry shared this opinion, considering that the film represents, from their point of view, a kind of political investment on the part of Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon.

However, President Trump praised the documentary in February, calling his wife a “major movie star” and talking about her performances in theaters during its run.

Trump told reporters at the time: “I've always said it's a hassle; “There is no room for two stars in one family.”

He added that theaters are “crowded with audiences,” noting that women in particular “come back to watch the work two, three, or even four times.”

Also in February, Mark Beekman, the first lady's senior advisor and publicist, told PEOPLE that Melania would continue to release film and television work, likely focusing on lifestyle topics aimed specifically at a female audience.

The controversy continues in Egypt over the proposal of the Egyptian Minister of Information, Diaa Rashwan, to establish an entity for news websites, with objections registered by members of the Journalists Syndicate Council through their social media accounts, declaring their rejection of the proposal and their astonishment at the timing of its introduction.

During his meeting with the editors-in-chief of websites that have obtained work permits from the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, in a meeting held on Monday evening, the Egyptian Minister of Information, Diaa Rashwan, spoke about a proposal to establish an entity that brings together officials of news websites, similar to the “Cinema Industry Chamber,” which has been registered with the Federation of Industries for several years.

Rashwan stressed that the proposed entity must be worked on through those in charge of managing the websites themselves to organize their work clearly and defend their interests, pointing out “the absence of any organized entity that brings them together, and the absence of meetings between those in charge of the websites in a way that makes them able to make collective decisions that support their interests and benefit their workers, while adhering to the constitution and the law.”

Rashwan, who was appointed Minister of Information in the Egyptian government last February after the return of the Ministry of Information, which was abolished for about 5 years, previously held the position of President of the Journalists Syndicate, and he is one of the names strongly proposed to run in the Syndicate’s elections scheduled for next March.

Assistant Minister for Digital Media, Khaled Al-Baramawi, confirmed in a blog post on Facebook that “the essence of the proposal is not related to establishing a new union or withdrawing any jurisdiction from the Journalists Syndicate, but rather creating an institutional umbrella that represents the websites and electronic media platforms themselves, and gives this sector a unified voice on the issues that concern it.”

The vision, according to Al-Baramawi, is based on the fact that “institutions can cooperate on joint files, while each of them maintains its competitive space in content and access to the audience, while presenting the idea of ​​the entity as a tool to confront challenges that exceed the capabilities of institutions alone, including regulating the digital advertising market, developing audience measurement tools, negotiating with global platforms, and protecting content rights in light of the accelerating expansion of artificial intelligence.”

The editor-in-chief of the “Sarrah” website, Mahmoud Saad El-Din, believes it is necessary to differentiate between the proposed entity or association and the Journalists’ Syndicate, explaining that the idea is based on coordination and providing an umbrella for the sites and their workers, and does not aim to create a parallel entity to the Syndicate, take away its powers, or exercise a union role. He added to Asharq Al-Awsat that “website workers suffer from the absence of an institutional umbrella that guarantees their rights and speaks on their behalf when they face problems related to their work,” noting that he has been working as editor-in-chief of a website for four years, and during this period the site workers did not find a clear union umbrella to represent them, despite discussions that took place more than once with members of the Journalists Syndicate Council about this problem, but they did not lead to results.

Here, the editor-in-chief of the “Egypt Telegraph” website, Sami Abdel Rady, points out that “the initiative to establish an entity or union for websites would have been better to come from the websites themselves, and not through an invitation from the Minister of Information,” considering that the timing of presenting the idea contributed to sparking controversy within the journalistic community.

He added to Asharq Al-Awsat, “Part of the confusion came as a result of interpreting the minister’s statements inaccurately, or according to the view of those who made them, taking into account that ideas can be discussed, accepted, or rejected, but their presentation during a meeting with a government minister made it raise a larger area of ​​controversy, in addition to the timing in which it was presented in light of the existing discussions within the journalistic community among workers in the print and electronic press about membership in the Journalists Syndicate.”

Mahmoud Kamel, a member of the Journalists Syndicate Council, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the current time is not appropriate to talk about establishing an “entity” that includes press institutions and websites, explaining that “the controversy that arose around the proposal was largely linked to the method of conveying the statements attributed to the Minister of Information, because the statement was conveyed inaccurately, which contributed to creating a state of confusion regarding the nature of the idea and its goals, which reflects part of the problems that the press faces in dealing with information and conveying statements.”