Student starts a hot discount wheels business

Anthony deYurre spent so much of his own money customizing his cars that he decided to go into the discount wheel business himself.

deYurre, a 25-year-old third-year law student at Vanderbilt, is chief executive of Wheels Next Inc., the company he and Chief Operations Officer Jesus Leon created to tap into the growing business of personal car modifications. Wheels Next sells customized discount wheels, tires and other items like exhaust pipes on the automotive aftermarket nationwide through the company’s Web site, www.wheelsnext.com, and over the phone.

“I have always been a car nut, and I found myself going to the same local shop in Florida over and over again with different cars.” deYurre said. “I spent so much money there that I got to be friends with the manager, and we came up with the business model for a larger version of what he was doing.”

Customizing vehicles has become a multibillion-dollar business, where cars are trimmed out with discount chrome wheels that are often much larger than stock ones and specially tuned high-performance engine modifications. The price tags aren’t cheap however; a set of four custom rims, plus the tires, can cost upwards of $19,000.

Chuck Ketchel, owner of Hubcap Annies Wheels, a discount custom wheel store in Nashville, said that, while customizing cars has been going on as long as there have been cars, the growing wheel sizes, ranging from 16 inches to 20 inches, has gotten, “a little crazy.”

“But it’s certainly a great add on, it makes your car stand out more,” Ketchel said.

Wheels Next, which made its first sale last year, has 30 employees and two warehouses, one in Doral, Fla. and the other here in Nashville by the airport. The latter will soon be moved to a bigger space in Franklin. And once deYurre takes the bar at the end of July, he plans to open another warehouse in southern California.

Starting the venture took some private individual investors, who fueled the company to the tune of between $3 and $4 million, according to deYurre.

“Capital is the biggest problem,” deYurre said. “If you can convince someone to give you $3 to $4 million to sell custokmwheels, good luck.”

Wheels Next holds about $2 million in inventory and deYurre says that until the inventory doubles, they will keep putting money into the company without taking any dividends.

deYurre’s performance has attracted notice from Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management.

“It’s very rare to see a company come up and achieve this revenue, while a student is still in school. He’s already very far ahead of the majority of startup ventures,” said Bruce Lynskey, clinical professor of management/entpreneurship.

Movies like The Fast and the Furious have also helped bring custom designed wheels and cars to the mainstream.

“This is a new avenue of self-expression. People are spending more time in their cars, and it’s just going to increase more and more in the future. I don’t know where it’s all going to end, or if there’s a bubble, but we’re going to grow right along with it,” deYurre said.

His next project is to try partnering with car dealerships to increase revenue.

“We’re very focused on doing repeated business with car dealerships and I think they’re realizing the extra $2,000 they can put on with financing,” he said.