Today we’d like to introduce you to Zachary Salazar
Hi Zachary, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Salty Beards Customs Auto Restyling originally started back in 2020 as Salty Beards Customs. Initially we were soly t-shirt and sticker business. But as I kept getting business, I realized it wasn’t profitable versus the amount of time I was spending creating the stickers or t-shirts, As I was spending many hours, creating them for about $5 – $25 each job. I had a friend and her husband that was working at a local flea market doing window tint, I needed one of my vehicles tinted and I always love to support my friends small businesses, so I took them vehicle to get done. As I was there waiting for it to get done I noticed they were extremely busy just for the 2 of them. They stated they are always busy and needed to higher somone and offered to teach me how to tint window. Naturally since I already had a good paying day job and had SBC on the side, me being me i was very interested to learn a new trade as I saw how busy they were and I could only imaging the money they were making. But I didn’t say yes right off the back as I wanted to as I had to dicuss it with the mother of my children. Few weeks went by as I tried to convince her it was a good thing for the household but she didn’t feel the same way. But I decided to still take them up on the offer and contacted them to let them know i was willing to learn if they were atill willing to teach me. As they taught me the basic process of how to tint a car window, I grew really fond of this trade. I started doing research on my own to try to learn more about the tools used, and the different types of film there were and the differences between them. They showed me where I can purchase film locally that was able to be sold to the public with out a merchant account, so I purchased 1 5% box so I could practice on my own vehicles. As I started practicing, I started getting better and better. I even started doing it for my friends vehicles. As their response was overwhelming, I realized I loved doing window tint and the feeling I got when I saw my friends faces when they would see there vehicle compleatly transformed and look way better! I quickly replaced my Services for Salty Beards Customs to include window tinting and after awhile I ended up get rid of the t shirts and stickers part to soly focus on offering window tinting services. Needless to say as soon as I did that, it took off and really fast! At the time, I still had a full-time job working at C.V.S Health as A Senior Representative Which that position was pretty much a supervisor position, as I would approve overrides talk with irate customers when they wanted to speak with supervisors and help them resolve serious issues with their health insurance plan. As I Began to grow tired of Corporate America and not being appreciated for all my hard work, efforts and working every single holiday, even working on my days off when they would call me for help because they were too busy, I was always passed by for promitions due to me being too good at my job. The position I was in along with my dedication to my work they wanted to keep me exactly where I was because it really benefited the company. That didnt sit well woth me at all. Luckly I was actually about to have my 2nd son during that time with the Mother of my children. During that time i applied and was approved for baby bonding time off through FMLA, so I actually use that time to go full time with window tinting as i was unhappy with my current job at C.V.S Health. And again, it took right off! I began to see how much money I was making now that I went full time doing window tint vs. how much money I was making working 40-60 hours sometimes working at C.V.S. Health. It started off to be a little more than I was currently making at C.V.S. Health, and as the weeks turned in to months the amount grew well past the amount I was making monthly at C.V.S. Health. So naturally, since I already grew tired of Corporate America & C.V.S. Health after 6 years of loyalty to them, I decided to invest in myself and I quit my job during COVID as I was about to get fired anyways, for not wanting to get the covid vaccine as C.V.S Health made it company policy (mandatory) for every employee to get the Vaccine. In the midst of a pandemic, I opened a small business to the public, due to also having trouble finding another job for the past two years before that due to my unhappiness with C.V.S. Health. Due to my personal background I was not able to secure another job elsewhere. The only option I had to support my family was to open SBC to the public. I started tinting windows for the public in my small two car garage at my home for the first 3 years. After that, I ended up getting my first actual shop, which was a 15×45 foot comercial storage unit. Once I got my first shop, that is when Salty Beards Customs Auto Restyling was born. I also added more services at that time to include some of my other skills which included vehicle wrapping, Paint Corrections, Ceramic Coatings, and I also signed myself up to get certified to install Paint Protection Film (PPF). Business was booming after that. As business started to grow I had a bunch of investors who wanted to invest in me but I refused everybody because honestly I didn’t trust anybody as every investor was set out to make money off of me and not with me. There cuts they wanted were too large for the amount of money they wanted to invest especially when I was doing all the work. I quickly realized majority of the investors were only looking out for themselves. Fast forward to July 2024, myself and another window tint business owner I became very close with as I would travel outside of San Antonio to help him out in his shop in Beville, Texas From time to time as we were friends and again I love to support my friends small businesses even if they are my competitors locally or far away. We started to discuss the possibility of us going in business with each other. He saw my drive, the way how I ran my business in San Antonio, my dedication to my company so he decided to invest in me. After we discussed a few business things I agreed to go in business with him, because he is a humble man and just as myself just want to see his friends succeed. We both wanted to grow both of our business, and we both felt this was the best way to do it, as we both realized outside investers were just to greedy. Both of us went half on a 1800 sqft shop out in McQueeney, Texas right next to Lake McQueeny. So I decided to close down Salty Beards Customs Auto Restyling in San Antonio, Texas and decided to rebrand it and apply everything I’ve learned being in business the last 4 years, and turn it into Lakeside Tint Masters. Threw networking i made a conection with someone that does Hydro-Dipping and we now offer this as a service also. My partner also made a conection with a reputable audio company and now we are getting set up with them to sell vehicle/ marine/recreational vehicle sound systems, lights, even backup cameras and we rlare going to be installing them aswell. Now I am working on getting the new shop set up, as my partner handel’s setting up the legal stuff for me as he continues to run his business out in Beeville, Texas so I can focus on moving all equipment and setting up the new shop in McQueeney. We both would meet up periodically to meet up with our CPA and book keeper to sign paperwork and make final business decisions togeather on the technical side of splitting a business. As of now the shop is almost fully set up and almost ready to open to the public once again, but this time I’m also looking for talented employees to help with the business we are expecting to have. So if any tinters/ wrappers/ detailers/ audio installers are reading this and looking for work give me a call!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. More like a bumpy rollercoaster ride with a few broken tracks and no breaks. There were as many challenges I had to face along the way as any entrepreneur would experience. With the first 4 years of business already in the history books, the very first year of business was the hardest. There’s been many times where I would get so discouraged due to not being able to prefect my craft as i was still learning, amd at this point I had to figure it out myself as i no longer worked for the people that showed me how to tint in the 1st place. Due to having to figure out how to prefect my craft alone I wanted to quit and go back to Corperate America because i could fail countless times. But my determination to create something for my children to have when they get older keep me going and I wouldn’t give up. But as much as I wanted to give up im so glad I didnt. I was always a sole proprietor so I would have to do all the marketing, advertising, scheduling, ordering and everything else that comes with opperating a business myself. This was alot for me to handel as I never experienced the stress from owning and opperating a booming business before. I was over worked, over stressed and it took a tole on my relationship unfortunately. There has been many other challenges I faced creating, owning and running SBC Auto Restyling Which mainly came from building it from the ground up and trying to prefect a new craft, as I had no idea how to run a business. I’ve made many mistakes along the way some of them severely discouraged me to close my doors but I realized since I was the only form of income in my household I couldn’t give up and it made me try even harder. I couldn’t fail as I was my own back up and didn’t have any support from the mother of my children during the 1st 3 years of business. Being a dedicated entrepreneur has shown me it is not for the weak. I ended up loosing my family as I was not around as much to help with my children because I was too busy running a booming business trying to make money to support the mother of my children, our children of 3, and her 2 older children from previous relationships. I felt I had to focus on the business to keep money coming in for our bills and necessitys and it ended up consuming me and I got lost inside the business neglecting the mother of my children and sometimes our children due to dealing with everything that came from running a business. The best part about working at home from my garage for the 1st 3 years was I was able to see my children throughout the day and they would come visit me and even help me clean a few windows and i would teach my oldest son to tint windows. But he would quickly get bored and go play elsewhere. Learning how to balance business life and family life was the main struggle I faced doing this. Mainly because I was the only source of income for my family and the pressure of inflation was sweeping the nation during the pandemic. I felt it was go time and I went harder to get business so I could keep us aflote. With the rising cost of everything including the cost of my materials, tools, food, bills etc. I sacrificed time I should have set aside for my family to work countless days, nights even overnights with no days off. This caused me many problems with the Mother of my children and ironically my dedication to support my family and create something my children can benefit off of long after im gone from this earth ended up causing me to lose my family. Another struggle was sometimes neighbors would complain because they would see the vast amount of cars coming in and out and would call the police, saying there’s suspicious activity going on. Once I would tell them what’s actually going on, they stopped coming out as they realized I was running a business and not doing anything illegal as most neighbors thought.
As you know, we’re big fans of Salty Beards Customs / Lakeside Tint Masters . For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
SBC Auto Restyling had been transformed into Lakeside Tint Masters. We specialize in Automotive, Residential, Commercial, Watercraft, Recreational Vehicles window tinting, Vehicle Wraps, but not just vehicles. We can wrap anything! Paint Protection Film (PPF) installation, Ceramic Coating, Paint Correction, Vehicle Lockouts, Headlight Restoration, Headlight/ Taillight Tinting, Hydro Dipping & we are going to start to offer sales and instalation of vehicle audio, lights, cameras very soon. But we are mainly known for Window Tinting as this is what most people knew me for. I was the “Tint Plug” lol What sets us apart from others is we strive for Honesty and giving the best work we possibly can, we stand on and by our products and instalations and offer warranty and unlike most other tint small business that ive heard about from my customers previous experiences with other business, we don’t go ghost when you have an issue with the job yiu purchased from us. We strive to make everything right in anyway possible. The main thing I am most proud of is, I’ve seen something grow from very small into something very large, and because of that, I was able to sponsor a back to school event along with another fellow small business owner which happened to be a long time friend of mine. Together, we were able to give back to our community and bring other small business owners on board as sponsors together for a free event for our community. Free school supply, free haircuts, free food and entertainment for everybody! This took place on 8/11/24 and was a huge success! What I would like everybody to know about my brand is that we will always go above and beyond for our customers. We take care of them as they were apart of our family. Along with providing quality products, quality service with warranty and we actually stand by our products and warranty. We believe in doing Good business with everybody which is why my company has grew to what it is today for upholding the honor I have based my company off of and righting all of our wrongs or mishaps as every busness will at something encounter. I’ve defently taken my fare share of looses trying to uphold our core values to the public but I would do it again and again to keep the integrity of my company intact.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
People are able to support us by restyling their vehicles, boat, houses, businesses, recreation vehicles like razors, go-carts etc. with us or supporting us by letting people know about us. Liking, following and sharing our pages and post really help us to get out there and that is the best way to support us. Recommending us is a huge part to our success as i have never paid for any advertising and went on word of mouth for the past 5 years. I am also hiring currently for professional installers. So if anybody would like to come work for us definitely reach out. Another way our pervious customers can help us further is by leaving a review on our social media accounts such as facebook, instagram, tiktok, or our google page. Google reviews are key to any successful business!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.lakesidetintmasters.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/saltybeardscustoms?igshid=ZDc4ODBmNjlmNQ==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61563794432804&mibextid=ZbWKwL
- Yelp: https://m.yelp.com/biz/salty-beards-customs-window-tinting-san-antonio
Image Credits
David Torres
Myself
