(This article first appeared in the August 2018 issue of “Dealer E-News.”) Tim Miller got his start in window film in 1984, when he began working for his cousin who owned a car shop in Phoenix.

Since then, Tim has built one of the largest window film businesses in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He started Home Window Tinting & Commercial, originally known as Tim’s Window Tinting, in 1989 after a trip to Texas turned into an unexpected move.

When the company first started, he said, nearly 80 percent of the business was installing residential film. Since then, things have shifted. Today, Home Tinting & Commercial does about 70 percent of its work on the commercial side. In recent years, the company has seen major growth. Its business increased by 30 percent from 2016 to 2017, which Tim credits, in part, to the use of billboard ads.

Home Tinting’s best-selling films are Night Vision 15, Prestige 40 and Ultra S800. Tim and Home Tinting actually have a patent on a security film attachment system for squeeze frame doors. “For years, we had to tell people that we couldn’t secure this door for them, but then a light bulb went off,” Tim said. “I went home and took apart my door.”

On his first try, Tim’s new attachment system, paired with Ultra S800, stood up against an 11.7 pound rock thrown at it three times. With additional tweaks, Tim and his team have further improved the design. In addition to owning a patent, Tim trademarked “You’ve tinted your car, time for your home.”

He’s also the proud owner of the valuable URL, hometint.com, a domain he lucked into after timswindowtinting.com was already taken. Outside of work, Tim enjoys boating, cooking and golf. He also likes spending time with his wife and dogs, Chili and Charlie, at their home on the north side of Lake Grapevine.

For more information, visit www.hometint.com.