The Onboarding Story
Friday install. Saturday 7am, your first brief lands.
For a $19,995 platform from a company with one founder, the installation story matters. Here’s exactly what the first 90 days look like — for the lot attendant, for the F&I manager who’s been on legacy DMS for 10 years, and for the GM who’s skeptical.
Schedule a walkthrough →Three people. One platform. Day one.
It Works for All Three — Without a Training Day
Most dealer tech requires a trainer, a manual, and a week before the floor can do anything. LouieAuto was built to be useful on the first open. Here’s what day one looks like for three different people at the store.
Role
The Lot Attendant
Opens it on day one. Sees their queue. Doesn’t need a training call. The UI is built so one right-click reveals all context. If they can run a browser tab, they can run Louie. Nobody had to explain anything. They just started using it.
Role
The F&I Manager (10 Years on legacy DMS)
First reaction is skepticism. By day 3, they’ve run their first deal through the routing engine. By day 14, they’re asking why Westlake wasn’t routing first on their legacy DMS setup. By day 30, they’re not skeptical anymore.
Role
The GM Who’s Skeptical
Asks Brian a specific question on Friday. Gets an answer by Friday evening. Sees the morning brief on Saturday. Asks a second question. That’s how it works — not a support ticket queue. A conversation with the founder. The skepticism lasts about two weeks.
The actual timeline
Day 1 Through Day 90 — What Actually Happens
Not a marketing timeline. The real sequence, based on how dealers actually come up to speed.
Day 1
Installation
- Download the installer — Windows, Mac, or Linux — 47MB
- Run the 8-question setup wizard: store name, rooftop count, which modules to activate first, DMS connection (or manual CSV upload to start), lender preferences, phone number for Louie
- First data sync runs automatically — or import your first CSV if the DMS API isn’t wired yet
- The AI brain wakes up with your data for the first time
The 8-question wizard handles setup that most platforms need a two-day onboarding call for. Most dealers are done inside an hour.
Day 2
First Morning Brief
- 7:00 AM: the morning brief lands in your inbox
- It covers: inventory aging summary, leads not contacted in 48 hours, lender program changes overnight, equity alerts for customers with positive equity in their trade
- It already knows your data because you loaded it on day one
First reaction from most GMs: “How did it know about the 2019 Ram with 82 days on lot?” It knew because you gave it the data. It surfaced it because that’s what the brief does every morning.
Days 3–7
First Routing Deals
- F&I manager runs their first deal through the lender routing engine
- The engine shows: lender 1 at 82% funded probability, lender 2 at 61%, lender 3 at 44% — with the factors behind each number
- First week: most dealers route 3–5 deals, watch the predictions, compare to what they would have chosen manually
First surprise: the routing order is almost never what legacy DMS’s system suggested. The engine accounts for program matrices, recent approval trends, and deal structure factors that generic routing doesn’t touch.
Week 2
Agents Running
- Nightly agents are live: lender reweight at 1:30 AM, equity scan at 2:30 AM, morning brief at 7:00 AM
- First stip watcher alert fires — a deal in the pipe with a missing document that was about to age out
- First equity alert: a customer who bought 18 months ago has $4,200 in equity and hasn’t been contacted since delivery
Most dealers are surprised by the equity scan on week two. They knew their customer was in the book. They didn’t know the book had moved.
Week 4
The Floor Starts Using It
- Training Academy activated for the floor team — each role gets their module, their quiz, their word tracks
- BDC runs the first script from the Closed Loop Agent
- GM runs the first competitor check against the nearest used-car chain
- First floor salesperson notices the customer context on their unit inquiry — doesn’t have to ask the manager what was said on the last visit
Day 90
The Agents Are Running the Floor
- 29 agents running their cron schedule every night
- Morning brief is the first thing the GM reads — before checking their personal email
- The routing engine has now logged 90 days of outcomes — the lender weights are calibrated to this specific store, not a generic model
- The Training Academy has completed first-wave certification for the floor team
Most common thing GMs say at day 90: “I don’t know what I was doing before this.”
What happens if you need help
There Is No Tier-1 Support Queue
Most dealer tech has a support ticket system. LouieAuto has a founder with a direct email. That’s not a limitation — it’s a deliberate decision about what kind of relationship matters.
1
You email Brian. Not a support tier. Not a ticket queue. The founder, at brian@louieauto.com. He reads it. He answers it. Usually the same day. That’s the support model at this stage of the company — and the reason most GMs know exactly who built the thing they’re using.
2
The system is self-diagnosing. The AI brain surfaces its own anomalies in the morning brief. If an agent fails its run, you’ll hear about it in the brief before you notice a gap in data. The platform is designed to tell you when something’s off, not to silently degrade.
3
The documentation is built into the platform. Every module has a car-guy explanation — not a manual, not a video library requiring a login. The answer to “how does this work” is inside the module itself. Plain language. One paragraph. Done.
The anxiety questions
The Things You’re Thinking But Haven’t Asked Yet
Every GM has a version of these questions. Here are the direct answers — no sales language.
What if I’m not technical?
The installer runs like any desktop app. The 8-question setup wizard handles the configuration. If you can set up a new phone, you can install this. The only technical decision you make on day one is which folder to install to. After that, it’s a UI.
What if my DMS doesn’t connect?
Start with CSV upload. It takes 15 minutes to import your first inventory list and customer roster. You’ll be running deals through the routing engine on day three before the DMS API is even wired. The API connection gets set up in week two or three, after you’ve already seen the platform working on real data.
What if I need a refund?
60-day clean refund. No questions asked. We publish the price publicly and we publish the terms publicly — on the same page. The terms match the price. If it’s not working for you inside 60 days, you’re not stuck with it.
What if you (Brian) get hit by a bus?
Fair question — and the right one to ask before writing a five-figure check to a one-founder company. The platform runs on your server. If the company disappeared tomorrow, your software keeps running. The lender playbooks are in the rules engine, not in Brian’s head. The AI brain runs locally. No cloud dependency, no subscription to cancel, no data held hostage. The diligence FAQ covers the full continuity picture in detail.
“The first question most GMs ask after day 90: why didn’t I do this sooner?”