Ben Hadley and the Car Guy Coffee crew swap stories from an Arrowhead Stadium event—complete with their logo on the Jumbotron and a locker room tour—then pivot to how an automotive-focused product and community scaled fast. The conversation connects dealer/customer feedback, a website-first approach, and a patented “tunnel system” for streaming heavy assets to the browser. They also dig into why car buying feels slow, how expectation-setting matters, and why the “premium” mindset has shifted from speed to slowing down.
In this special Series NCM Event Conversations we grabbed a few of our favorite guest to talk about their experiences and whats happening in our Industry. In this interview Lou Ramirez and Fred Lennartz speak with Ben Hadley of Auto Genius about sponsoring an event at Arrowhead Stadium and seeing their logo on the Jumbotron. Ben shares Auto Genius’ rapid growth since November with Speed Layer reaching close to 500 domains, driven by a Slack community inspired by NCM’s Internet 20 group and a “market product fit” approach of building what dealers ask for.
Join us at NCM’s first-ever Fuel the Future May 18th-20th – An NCM Fixed Ops Summit, an experience built for leaders ready to elevate performance, profitability, and the customer journey through modern systems and by utilizing AI-driven innovation. Register Now!
"What's optional
[790.6s] but still slow? A Rolex don't need it. You just get a black Submariner from a Rolex dealer right
[796.8s] off the shelf."
Rolex is a luxury watch brand. The host uses it as a comparison to explain how some popular items are easy to buy, while others require a long wait.
Rolex is a luxury watch brand used here as an analogy for optional, high-demand purchases. The speaker contrasts waiting for a limited Rolex (like a Daytona) with buying something off the shelf (like a Submariner).
"...t. Oh, the Porsche that I got. No, I didn't get a Cayenne. I got the GT3 with the guy metal skiddy, blah, b..."
The Porsche Cayenne is a Porsche SUV, meaning it’s a taller vehicle meant for everyday driving with more space. It’s designed to feel sporty, not just like a basic family car. The podcast mentions it to clarify that the speaker didn’t choose the Cayenne.
The Porsche Cayenne is Porsche’s performance-oriented SUV, built to combine everyday practicality with sports-car style driving. It often comes up in podcasts because it shows how Porsche applies its engineering approach to a larger, family-friendly vehicle. In this context, it’s mentioned as a contrast to a different Porsche model the speaker actually got.
"You're right. Oh, the Porsche that I got. No, I didn't get a Cayenne. I got the GT3 with the guy
[816.0s] metal skiddy, blah, blah."
The Porsche GT3 is a special, more track-oriented version of the 911. Here it’s mentioned as a “hot” Porsche people want, which can mean you wait longer to get one.
The Porsche GT3 is a track-focused 911 variant from Porsche, known for prioritizing lap-time feel over everyday comfort. In this segment, it’s used as an example of a desirable, higher-demand Porsche model that can involve longer waits.
"And what I keep on telling people
[821.1s] is one of the mistakes we made with the digital retailing era was the Cox Auto study came out
[832.9s] said 2019 people hate spending three and a half hours in a dealership."
The “digital retailing era” refers to shifting car shopping toward online steps (like pricing, scheduling, and paperwork) rather than doing everything in-person at a dealership. The speaker’s point is that even if the process becomes more online, it can still end up feeling slow or unpleasant if it stretches into a long, disliked workflow.
"And what I keep on telling people
[821.1s] is one of the mistakes we made with the digital retailing era was the Cox Auto study came out
[832.9s] said 2019 people hate spending three and a half hours in a dealership."
The Cox Auto study is a piece of research about how people feel about buying cars. The speaker uses it to say that even when the process changes, people still don’t like spending a long time on it.
The Cox Auto study is referenced as research used to explain consumer dislike of dealership time. In this segment, it’s used to argue that “digital retailing” may have reduced some friction but still created a long, disliked process.
"the Cox Auto study came out
[832.9s] said 2019 people hate spending three and a half hours in a dealership. And I was like, if you,
[839.0s] you can tell if you're a little too data drunk, you can tell if you're a little too short sighted,"
The speaker is talking about how long car buyers often have to sit at the dealership. They’re using “three and a half hours” as an example of why people don’t enjoy the process.
This phrase refers to the time consumers spend at a dealership during the buying process. The speaker uses it as a benchmark for how long people find the experience, and how that dislike can persist even when parts of the process move online.
Select text to request an explanation
Hello and welcome to the CarGuy Coffee Podcast. You are listening to the interbrews at the NCM
Client and Friends event. Enjoy these conversations. Let's brew! What's going on CarGuy's and CarGuy's?
We're excited to be brewing solutions out here in Kansas City, having some fun at the NCM Associates
Clients and Friends Workshop and look at who we're brewing with. This CarGuy, the one, the only Ben Hadley!
Let's go my dude! Let's go! Auto Genius brother! There is so much that's been brewing out here
and last night you all had this logo represented inside of the Arrowhead Stadium. What was that like?
I'm not even joking. I literally posted, look mom, we made it. It was wild and that was the first time
they've ever put that, used the Jumbotron to put a logo out there. Wow, that's pretty big.
And it was all because you got a bigger TV because it was a last minute moment. They were like,
they were like, hey, can we put the logo on that? And they were like, we're gonna, we'll try. And
then when he was kind of, you're gonna surprise for us. Wow. Julie was so instrumental in this whole
event, came over to us and she goes, you'll never believe it. No way they did it. Looked amazing.
So cool. Yeah, man. And what an event last night. We appreciate you all sponsoring it over there at
Auto Genius, man. We had great drinks, had great conversations. Most importantly, the food was
phenomenal. I love barbecue, right? And you guys had that all laid out. You had a really great view
of the whole field. You really brought people into a room and there was, I literally didn't even get
a chance to go on a tour because I was in so many conversations that I was, every time I tried to
step away, there's a tour, I'm like, I'm in the middle of one. I got to keep going. I can't stop
talking. It's the closest to Taylor Swift either. Yeah. Isn't that the truth? Hey, I think we all
felt that way a little bit. Okay. Maybe this is especially when seeing right there by Kelsey's
locker, that was pretty awesome to just be inside of the locker room. Did you go on one of the tours?
Yeah, I saw Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey had to. I got that shot from my wife. I was like,
everybody's wife wants to Travis Kelsey. Hey, this is Taylor Swift Stadium. This is
Mr. Swift's locker. This is Mr. Swift's locker. That's how the tour guy did it. This is where
Mr. Swift changes. And then we were like, yes, that was awesome. It was really cool. Just to be
inside of the halls, of course, anytime that you're inside of a room where you know champions and
legends go through history is made inside of those rooms and you get to be there in it,
it's awesome. And to also know that you're in there amongst the champions of the car business.
You all leading the way in that auto genius, making some big moves inside of the industry,
and you've been doing it in such a short amount of time. What has this trajectory been like for you
and how's the ride been? November was our first client on Speed Layer. I think we have
close to 500 domains on it now, which is crazy. Wow. Insane growth. Fastest growing company I've
ever been a part of, which is pretty special, but it actually all started because we'd said,
maybe product market fit as a concept is broken because a lot of companies will create a product,
then they go to the market, people aren't quite right, like it, right? And then they
iterate and iterate. Spending time, money, resources, trying to figure out what it is.
And what we did was we made probably the best automotive community possible.
And the craziest part, a lot of people don't know this part of the story,
came, there's NCM group, the internet 20 group that he was running. That was inspiration for this.
Wow. Man, every quarter of these guys are coming back and they're sharper and they're
smarter and they got all these great ideas and they're doing something better for their businesses.
What if that was a daily occurrence? What if we could do that every day? Oh, man.
So we started the Slack community. We get some of the best, smartest people in the room joining
there. They're in there every single day. Most of the time they're solving their own problem, right?
They figured out, oh, I can actually hack it this way, I can do this, but then Speed keeps on coming
up. Wait, I can't figure out how to make my website faster. I can't. And we go, cool. That's,
that was the way I took a year. We kind of sat on our stuff, like hands were like,
someone have any ideas? Finally happens. And so really the growth is a testament to the community.
It's a testament to what we call market products. You know who you want to build for,
basically just go ask them what they need and go build that. And it used to be there was a time
when I first got into auto where, yeah, there was like a discrepancy. There was like a knowledge
based problem, right? Where you had the engineering team at a software company and then the digital
folks and then this giant gap of knowledge in between. But we've watched that gap close.
And so now you really can just go to the customer, right? Go to the dealer and say, yo,
what do you guys need? We can make it. Just let us know. And that's our thesis and it's working.
You know, it's always, to me, the best way to go. It's when you seek to understand first,
then you can be understood because it doesn't matter what you have. It's not what they're
looking for. It's, Hey, I wrote a book, but no one cares about that subject. So you're never
going to sell that book, right? So the idea is to make sure you have a subject that people really
want. I love genius of you all. No pun intended. Actually all pun intended. A lot of pun intended
to get together with a slack group of people, some really innovative people talking about
ideas. And then most importantly, also talking about what the struggles were, right? Hey,
we're doing this really well, but we can't figure this out. And in finding that solution for that
really quickly, yo, there it is right there. Let's make this happen. Because the majority of my guys
and gals out there, they're struggling here. So let's make it really easy for them. So that's
awesome. Yeah, man. And it was a Alice in itself, once we found the idea, even figuring out how
you're going to go and execute. Yeah, that's the next level. That was the whole other piece. We
went through two different state three really stages of the code. Because the first was just
the cost, I think was like $850,000 to like, was a big problem, but a lot of money to solve it.
And then the next two became cheaper and cheaper. And then we figured out one that like everybody
can afford. It's the amount of money you save on wasted add dollars. Yeah, easy to cover itself.
It's a no brainer 300% agree on that, especially if your website is doing that for you and it will
and that's what's magic. If you have the right speed to it, everything is going to be connected
right there. We all want everybody to go to the website. That's the key. Everything needs to go
there. It's the most important showroom that we have is your website. And if your website isn't
performing, you're going to miss tons of opportunity. You're also going to lose a lot of people who
started at your website and never mind next one. So it's super important. What was the key factor
inside getting that speed? What are you guys doing that makes it so special?
All right. So we patented a way to basically use what we call a tunnel system that opens up
per visitor and basically streams the really heavy assets of a website to the browser.
Okay. Wow. So I always give like Avengers, the one with Thanos, Captain America is all
my guys are gone. He picks up Thor's hammer is where I guess I got it. I'll take it on my back.
That moment, all those portals open up. Yeah. All the superheroes walk through where the portal
the fastest point from point A to point B. And so we just take a lot of the things that take
the long way in and we just know interdimensional portal streamer right there.
That's a really cool way of putting it. I could see that. I love it. Actually,
great visual, great visual. Actually, crazy enough. I give that analogy and hopefully it's
not a spoiler for people that haven't seen the movie. I do them a demo. I could you not maybe
like last six demos, I missed that movie. Oh, wow. I hope now that you know, I hope that you
heard that and want to go watch it. Go watch it. Everybody was watching movies. Come on. Let's get
it done. Right. Get it over with. Watch it. It's great. It is. That was a great scene. I remember
that moment. And literally when you're talking about it, it's silly as it sounds. I got a little
goosebumps from that. Just thinking about that part of the movie. But then also, what you're
talking about how your business and how your company is causing that to happen for their
websites. If you can really speed that up and causes portal for them to go from here to here,
how much better is that? It's so much better for your customers to be able to click a button. There
it is, right? The last thing you want is them to hit a button and load. And then it comes up
with an error and there's something missing, right? Something that happens to some of y'all's
websites. We've seen it all the time. So it's important that we have that for our customers.
Again, it's the busiest showroom we have. And if your showroom isn't being covered the way it
should be covered, then what would you do if it was your real showroom? You'd be screaming at
people. You should be screaming at your website developers if they're doing the same thing for
you. That's because again, it's your busiest showroom. Let me pause for a second. Pause.
It's not the website provider's fault. Oh, okay. Okay, I like this. It's not the website
provider's fault. I think that's a misconception. Okay, I like that. Over the last 10 years,
almost every dealer has done what they could to keep up with consumer demand, right? They
got hacked in the day, actually pre-mobile, so more than 10 years. Websites actually were super
fast. But then everybody's like, I gotta have chat. Man, I gotta have trading. Gotta have digital
retail. Gotta have a Facebook pixel. Gotta have a Google tag manager. Gotta have another Google
tag manager from my agency. Oh, I fired that agent here. I forgot to tick that Google tag
manager off. I'm just gonna throw another one on and just stack all that stuff up. And a lot of
times, those are the assets I'm talking about speeding up. Oh, man. So you go back to this
website that was actually perfectly fine. And then you take all this other stuff that you can't get
rid of. You can't just be like, oh, here's the other solution. Let me just not have chat.
It's good luck. Let me just not have SMS. Let me just not have it. No, you still gotta have it.
But there's just a better way to load it off. So you basically just found it again,
he just created a portal that was never there before. Now it's available for you.
All those chat guys with the superheroes walking through the floor. So dope. That is such a great
way to clean it. That is so genius. Love it. Yeah. With that said, wanting to make sure that we do
get clear about what it is that we're actually doing at an event like this and how people can
get with you at other events. Because some people, you all, you didn't make it here. And we wish
it that you did. For those of you that did make it here, you had the chance to meet him,
to see them and to see this event become what it's becoming now that NCM is in the mix with all
their people. But people are going to want to see you. They're going to want to ask you all
more questions, get more swag. The swag is dope, y'all. Simple, clean, loving it. Can't wait to
rock it. I got the shirt. I can't wait to rock, probably wearing on a plane on the way home.
Definitely need one of those hats though. Looking dope. But where are people going to be able to
run into you again? Because you guys are running everywhere. A lot of people are reaching out to
you. Events are plentiful for us to go to, but we got to be selective. If you want to be absolutely
a wild man with it. This is the first time in automotive that I know of that a startup has
been asked to present for Cloudflare. Cloudflare, probably a $20 billion company, they run the
entire internet. When they go down, all your favorite TikTok, everything, everything goes down.
They're putting on their first global conference called Cloudflare Connect. It's October 13th
to the 16th, and they picked us out of the crowd and invited us to it.
Congratulations on that. That's big. Bonkers, but that's amazing.
After that, we got MRC, one of those. It's either one, the Pash event.
And then seeing me on LinkedIn. Yeah, he's always there. I'm always there.
Always there. And it's always good. He's easy to get a hold of if you want, if you need to get a
hold of him, look him up. Ben Hadley all over the place. But one thing I want to mention,
and it was something that you said it or so do, when I was watching you get interviewed,
and man, you always do great on interviews. And you were talking about how people were
paying premium for speed at one point. And then you talked about how now the premium is to slow
down a little bit. Explain that a little bit more, because I thought that was such a cool
thing. I've actually used that analogy to other people explaining how that's luxury now. Yeah,
people want it to be a little bit different. So explain that.
I'm in. I'll send you guys this magic quadrant graph that I've been working on, which is
some obsessed with it. But if you imagine on your screen right now, from this access to this
access, we're going to go from an optional purchase to an obligatory purchase. And then from here to
here, we're going to go from delayed gratification over to instant gratification. Okay, so you got
that. Okay, we'll come back. All right, up here, you have a slow obligatory purchase. That is a car
in America. Okay, not a brand. When you get to a brand, it becomes optional. A car, I need a car
to get to work. My lease just came up. Car broke down. It's an obligation. What else is an obligation?
Repairing your roof, dentistry. Where do we rank in happiness for the car buying experience?
Everybody always pulls out the stat. People rather get a root canal than go buy a car. That's an
obligated, slow, to satisfaction purchase as well. But now let's go brands. I'm going to come down to
this part of the graph. This part of the graph would be optional, but still slow. What's optional
but still slow? A Rolex don't need it. You just get a black Submariner from a Rolex dealer right
off the shelf. That's all right. That's cool. Right. But the guys that get the Daytona with the
ceramic guy with the they start bragging about, oh, I gotta wait 18 months for mine. You're right.
You're right. Oh, the Porsche that I got. No, I didn't get a Cayenne. I got the GT3 with the guy
metal skiddy, blah, blah. That's, man, I got at least 12 months on that one before.
All of a sudden, the slowness actually becomes the experience. And what I keep on telling people
is one of the mistakes we made with the digital retailing era was the Cox Auto study came out
said 2019 people hate spending three and a half hours in a dealership. And I was like, if you,
you can tell if you're a little too data drunk, you can tell if you're a little too short sighted,
if your brain immediately tuned into the three and a half hours and skips over the word hate,
because we're still ranked neck and neck with root connects. But more of us are doing digital
retailing than ever. So now we just created a 45 minute process people hate. But you know what
there is no such thing as a fast cruise ship. Nobody goes man, I was cruise ship was faster
was like ribbon at 200 miles out. No, it's a slow thing that is just so enjoyable people probably
at the end go shoot, I wish that wasn't over yet. Yes. And every dealer has the free opportunity
right now to go how can I make three and a half hours enjoyable? How can I make that experience
something that people go man, I was that was for yeah, free, right? Figure that out. You don't
need anything. I think that's incredible. Great insight on that, bro. Seriously. And when you
read that, bring that at a soda, I remember sitting there going, he's so freaking right.
So good. We're all talking about speed and he just started town for us. And I absolutely love that.
It is true. Not everybody's going to want that. But I think people who like luxury,
that's something special to your point. If I'm going to order a special course, it's going to
take time. It's going to have to be shipped over here. It's going to be special made. I'm going
to have to wait for it. And I'm good with that. And I'm actually going to brag about it. Oh,
how long you only had to wait two months? Oh, you must have bought one of the easy ones. I bought
this one. But no matter what the actual time is, the key piece though is that it's enjoyable. The
thing about doing a car deal that we want. Okay, let's say that we wanted it to be 45 minutes.
And the truth is, it's a process that took an hour and a half. Everybody doing what they needed
to do an hour and a half, two hours. The problem is, is that in that hour and a half to two hours,
we have these sprints of doing this fast, not not keeping a good pace for the customer. And
there's a lot of parts where there is confusion. There is apprehension. There is, I don't know
what the heck they're talking about in there. And I don't know what I'm getting ready to engage with,
right? There's this fear that's building up. You're not making it a fun, engageable experience.
Like when you go eat at a restaurant that most everything you're picking is at a market price.
And you're there for 23 hours, right? But it was a seamless, enjoyable experience.
You're like, how did I just spend three hours in this restaurant? And I don't even want to
talk about the bill, but it was amazing, right? That is what we want to offer if it's a 45 minute
experience or two weeks. Every pizza place takes a half hour. Yes. But Domino's has the tracker.
That's all they did was they said, man, this pizza, it's still going to kind of suck.
But we got track. I know Chris just put it in the app.
You're like, I'm like, I love it too. That's the best part. Uber didn't change anything.
We had a car phone when 92 or whatever you could call a taxi off that car phone. But
the worst thing was, and I'll be frank, it was like, if I call the taxi at my house,
and I didn't know if I had enough time to go to the bathroom, it could be pulling up any second,
and you're like, this guy's going to knock on the door. I'm gonna miss it.
He's gonna drive away. All that anxiety went away. All they did was just say, dude,
he's seven minutes away. You're good. Go to the bathroom. It's all good.
So just like that, if you just say, hey, checkpoint, you got 10 more minutes,
we're gonna then we're gonna switch you over and meet you at FNI guy. Take checkpoint. Yeah,
this is the TO to the GSM. Hey, checkpoint. You just create that loading bar. Yeah. So people
can go, Oh, give me an ETA. Yeah, you got an hour left here. Can we get you because you everybody
does the can I get you anything? You want water or anything? I think I'm good right now. It's
where five minutes away. Oh, we're an hour away. Yeah, a water and a coffee. You got me. Donald's
coming to Starbucks, but setting the expectation. That's the key piece, whether it's working from
inside of business to business where we're serving the dealers and we're setting them up for success,
giving them a realistic expectation of what to expect, what's going to happen,
how this is going to implement, what questions you might have when we get to this road. And these
are our answers when we get there. Similar to telling a helping a customer when they get in,
know this is how we're going to ride this ride. And this is what to expect so that there's no
surprises except pleasant surprises. And with that's what helps to see your relationship with the
customer and let it be at their pace. Because at the end of the day, the customer controls the
clock. And we want to encourage them with that always. But if we're not putting on a good show
while they're there, why are they there? They can go anywhere they want. And literally go click
a button and buy a car now. So give them an experience because that's why they came to your
store. Period. They didn't go there because, Oh, it's fun to come to dealership. But let's make
it fun so that they want to come back. They send their family, they send everybody and then they
brag about it on social media, give you great reviews. That's what it takes to get those today.
They're not going to give you a review for some lackluster work. Go in there and be really
transparent show them the process. I love the idea of telling people to where we're at, when
we're going to be there. Because if you have that, it's almost like they should have almost like a
wall tracker on a thing. Hey, there you are. And why not? It's so cool to be able to do that because
it does let people know actually, I don't have time for that. But then okay, does nothing wrong.
It doesn't mean they're not going to buy, but we least not keeping them there and making them feel
pressured to buy something when they need to do it at their pace. At the end of the day,
they control the clock. They're the ones who make the decision. And most importantly, they're the
ones who have the experience. And we want to make sure that experience is excellent. So good stuff,
bro. You're killing it, dude. Killing it with the stuff. Ben, I could do this for an hour. Me too,
man. You've got nothing to say. I don't see how. No, I love it. You're saying some incredible
stuff. Love your heart. Ultimately, we love what it is that you're contributing to the industry as
a genuine person. You're always bringing that smile. You're always trying to bring wisdom. And we
champion people like you that are doing what you're doing and living the dream right now and pushing
it to the next level. Can't wait to see where this grows, where it goes. But ultimately, we're
excited to be able to be here with you, have some microphone time with you, give you some microphone
time, telling you all you need to reach out to auto genius. If you want to truly be brewing
solutions or see how to do things on the next level, how do people get a hold of you? Do my
email ben at auto genius.io find my random videos, Ben Hadley on the LinkedIn side. Those are the
easiest. Those tiktoks out there too, just so y'all know. Yeah, not Ben Hadley, but it's been a
dormant. Yeah, I know. But let's he's doing it. He's doing big things. But one of the most important
things he's one of the smartest guys I know. So reach out to him for anything you need to know
about our motive. He'll give you guidance once you relax. Before we hang up, I want to learn.
Oh, we got to do it right now, brothers. We're going to drop some MEP comps.
This choreography is not sign language, but it's forgive. Why go off the weight of
unforgiveness? Get focused on where you're going. You can help what you're going to do.
Stretch out and fly and keep growing. Let's do it. Ready? All three loud and proud everybody.
123 Forgive. Focus. Focus. Lie. And keep growing. Keep growing. Thank you so much
for tuning in, everybody. This has been an incredible interview with our friend, the one,
the only, Ben Hadley. Bruin Solutions and the Car Guy Coffee Podcast. We're out. Let's brew.
Request an explanation for:
1 cars
1 cars featured
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark.
Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.
