How I Bought a Failing Car Wash & Turned It Into a Profitable Business

Buying a business is one thing—running it is another.

In this episode of The American Operator Podcast, TJ Brogan, owner of Washaroo Car Wash in Austin, Texas, shares his unexpected journey from tech sales to small business ownership. From turning around a struggling car wash, dealing with employee chaos, and learning what really matters when buying a business, TJ opens up about the realities of being an operator.

 In this episode, you’ll learn:
🔹 How TJ found and bought his first business with no industry experience
🔹 The biggest challenges of running a labor-intensive business
🔹 The surprising struggles of hiring and retaining employees
🔹 How he negotiated with a landlord to acquire the real estate
🔹 The craziest customer and employee horror stories from the field

If you’re thinking about buying a business, this episode is packed with hard-earned lessons you won’t hear in a classroom.

🔔 Subscribe for more real stories from operators building America’s backbone.

#Entrepreneurship #SmallBusiness #CarWashBusiness #BusinessOwnership #AmericanOperator #SMB #buyabusiness 

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Transcript

Welcome to the American Operator podcast, where small businesses are the heartbeat of America. I'm Joseph Cabrera, and we dive into the stories of owners and operators who build and keep our communities thriving. Whether you're new to business already in the trenches, we're sure the hard earned wisdom, triumphs and challenges with running a business in this great country. Let's get to work.

00:00:26:15 - 00:00:37:07
Speaker 1
All right team, we are here with TJ Brogan. Not an Austin native guy. We're just catching up on Michigan and lake effects and snow. East Lansing right. Correct. Now.

00:00:37:07 - 00:00:38:22
Speaker 2
Yeah Michigan State's campus.

00:00:38:22 - 00:00:40:08
Speaker 1
Why Texas. Why did you move down here?

00:00:40:13 - 00:01:01:05
Speaker 2
I went to school went through K through high school in East Lansing, then went to a small school in, Holland, Michigan called Hope College. Played some sports there. And then when I was graduating, I knew I wanted to get out of Michigan for a little while. And I thought I would come back and jump in the family business, but I.

00:01:01:06 - 00:01:21:02
Speaker 2
What's the family business? My dad and his brothers. My grandpa kind of started, financial services, health insurance, life insurance, annuities, that kind of thing. My brother's working there now, and a couple of cousins work there. So I thought I'd end up there, but I moved down here just to take a job. My dad was always like, you know, go work some for someone else.

00:01:21:02 - 00:01:38:06
Speaker 2
Don't just come work for me right off the bat. Which I think is great advice and so kind of came down here, took a random tech job, and took another sales tech job after moving down here and then, it was between here in Boston. But I guess this is the only place I really got the job.

00:01:38:06 - 00:01:46:00
Speaker 2
So I just said, yes, I better go to Austin thinking I would be back in Michigan, you know, a year or two years later. But I just fell in love with Austin. Yeah.

00:01:46:02 - 00:01:47:13
Speaker 1
And how long have you been?

00:01:47:15 - 00:01:48:13
Speaker 2
I think a decade now.

00:01:48:14 - 00:02:14:14
Speaker 1
Yeah, man. No. It's cool. We're going to in for the folks listening in, you know, TJ runs, owns and runs, a couple different businesses. And one, probably the marquee one here in town is washroom. Yeah. Which is car wash. And we'll get into all that, all that stuff there. I just love your whole thought process and kind of the the trials and tribulations you've gone through to get to it and probably are still getting there, even when you walked in today before getting in the studio, you're like, give me like five minutes.

00:02:14:14 - 00:02:15:15
Speaker 1
I mean, I got let me.

00:02:15:17 - 00:02:18:03
Speaker 2
Let me put out a couple fires real quick. Yeah.

00:02:18:05 - 00:02:23:13
Speaker 1
So okay, so we're before we kick off first, I mean, we give all our guests some swag.

00:02:23:13 - 00:02:24:09
Speaker 2
Massage.

00:02:24:12 - 00:02:46:20
Speaker 1
Or some what do you call emergency call sweat swag. Yeah, I think it's swag. Merch is like you're buying it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not a concert. So we got this hat, man. Owner. Operator. And then. Yeah, man, we got, like, you're getting kind of the first relics of some American operator stuff, man. So, yeah, I don't know how many times you're whipping out a leather notebook in front of your crew there at the car wash, but.

00:02:46:22 - 00:02:54:22
Speaker 2
It definitely makes me more official if I. Even if I don't have anything in here, I'm just gonna pull it out and just be like, all right, guys, I've been working hard. There's just, like, lot. Note this.

00:02:54:22 - 00:02:57:12
Speaker 1
Is a bunch of tick marks and like, cars coming through you just.

00:02:57:12 - 00:03:08:21
Speaker 2
Putting names and hired or fired on here and just scare the crap out of people. Leave it open. Leave it open on the on the chopping blocks. Put a bunch of names and we'll get some more production. Top secret. Yeah. Is that someone's.

00:03:08:21 - 00:03:21:03
Speaker 1
Name? Maybe have written like this? Like. Yeah. You know, Jim or Jimmy, just g and just kind of leave. Yeah, leave it there. He make the cut or not? It's perfect. Well, thanks, man, for doing this. Yeah, thanks for that. And, yeah.

00:03:21:03 - 00:03:22:01
Speaker 2
Thanks for the swag.

00:03:22:01 - 00:03:42:08
Speaker 1
I appreciate it. The owner operator stuff, man, it's, we're we're we're we're fine. And more and more folks, have the reason we kind of use both those names just to kind of go a really quick rabbit hole. For a while, we debated, like, are the guys and gals going and buying a small business? So we call them owners, future owners, operators.

00:03:42:08 - 00:04:00:15
Speaker 1
What do you call that? And so in true fashion of not being able to decide one or the other, we just went with both. I love it like cigaret Hunter and they're an operator. Yeah. But I think it embodies kind of what it is that ownership part is like, hey, you know, the responsibility of the operators. Like, hey, also getting the work done day to day, man makes sense.

00:04:00:20 - 00:04:07:02
Speaker 1
Okay. So you got I mean take us back a little bit. So group of Michigan, you say you played sports. What did you play. What was your go to?

00:04:07:02 - 00:04:09:12
Speaker 2
I went to home to play some basketball.

00:04:09:13 - 00:04:11:18
Speaker 1
Oh, sweet.

00:04:11:20 - 00:04:29:23
Speaker 2
What I play, you know, would you play position wise? Point guard? Usually. Sometimes a shooting guard. But I tore my ACL for the third time, freshman year, and it was going to be quite the battle to get back, after three ACL tear. And so I transitioned over to a sport that isn't as much contact when I played tennis for a couple of years there, too.

00:04:30:00 - 00:04:31:05
Speaker 2
So sick. Me yeah.

00:04:31:07 - 00:04:33:16
Speaker 1
That didn't sound like it's easy on your ACL, you know?

00:04:33:16 - 00:04:44:14
Speaker 2
But most of the time it was taken. It was like when I was creating space, going into someone and leaning in, and then it would pop. So at least tennis I can. I'm in full control and no one can hit me, so.

00:04:44:14 - 00:04:46:14
Speaker 1
Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, you you you can I.

00:04:46:15 - 00:04:50:13
Speaker 2
Dictate how I move my knee. And someone can't run into me and blow it out? So. Yeah, I.

00:04:50:13 - 00:04:58:19
Speaker 1
Mean, so did you guys you played sport. Was there any aspirations to become, a professional at all, or you always thought that was just for fun? I'm gonna do something else.

00:04:58:19 - 00:05:17:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, always for fun. The nice thing about D3 sports is they don't really own you, in the sense that, you know, in-season. It's it can be pretty rigorous, but outside of the season, it's not like I have to be on campus ten, 12 months out of the year, training, practicing. It's very much like, you know, grind hard during the season prep.

00:05:17:09 - 00:05:35:23
Speaker 2
Well, but that doesn't own you. And I was I was a guy that I was never the stud on any team. I was a great role player, super competitive. And found a way to find minutes on the basketball court or get some playing time on the tennis court. But I knew I was no Novak Djokovic or anything like that.

00:05:35:23 - 00:06:01:16
Speaker 1
So did you find me in that when we had some context here for you, for people tuning in who are not as familiar, but like what? I have an interesting pattern of folks who get into this ownership and operating in these small businesses. They either seem to be former military, a lot of them for military. Some are athletes, and usually in the college world, it was there anything about that, even if you didn't make it into the pros, it was there anything about just kind of what you learn playing sports.

00:06:01:16 - 00:06:26:04
Speaker 2
So for sure what I, I mean, it's like, a big piece is just like leadership and communicating with the team and making sure you're setting expectations. Excuse me. And managing those expectations. And just like a camaraderie of a team, I think I've been on a lot of teams where there's toxic people. And things could spiral quickly and seasons could get out of hand quick.

00:06:26:06 - 00:06:43:05
Speaker 2
There's also teams of, you know, you put the right people in the right places and it's pretty awesome experience. And so, you know, seven in the business world, so much of it is just finding the right people to put on the team. And that for the car wash and for the ice cream shop, both of those took me a while to get the right teams.

00:06:43:07 - 00:06:51:23
Speaker 2
It doesn't happen overnight, but definitely that sports background kind of the competitive nature of it, and the grind of it. You definitely learned to overcome some obstacles.

00:06:52:01 - 00:07:02:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, when you thought about, What? So, you know, you got some sports experience again to college trying to get out of Michigan. What was your initial thought? Go buy a small business.

00:07:02:06 - 00:07:15:02
Speaker 2
That was always, that's always something I wanted to do. So a little backstory for me. I'm one of ten kids I think I mentioned. I think I mentioned that when I was here on site when we had the big event. Yeah.

00:07:15:02 - 00:07:29:11
Speaker 1
Which, again, for folks who don't know me. And thank you again, I that was awesome to have you come in here and talk to these, you know, about 20 aspiring owner operators here and get your background stories. And I wanted that man you shared some some juicy stuff left. But we're going to we're going to get back into it.

00:07:29:11 - 00:07:31:08
Speaker 1
But, ten kids.

00:07:31:08 - 00:07:54:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. Ten kids. Five and five. So it started off. We were up for one. The boys, it was four to the first five were boys. And then we got dominated in the back half, which is unfortunate, but I was the number two in my older brother is one of the most competitive people I know. He'll call me even today about some random golf round that he has and just goes through all the details and how it could have been better.

00:07:54:21 - 00:08:08:12
Speaker 2
And so we were constantly battling as a kid, but he was really the guy that like, you know, he was getting me up early. We went and caddied from like the age of 12 on. He was even at like six, seven, eight. He was being like, let's set up a lemonade stand on the corner.

00:08:08:14 - 00:08:09:02
Speaker 1
He had that.

00:08:09:07 - 00:08:22:09
Speaker 2
I mean, he had that hustle in them, and I kind of rode his coattails and and, and he led me to a place of of wanting to be an owner operator. And so I give a lot of credit to Blake because Blake was the hustler in the beginning. Kind of brought me along with him.

00:08:22:09 - 00:08:23:12
Speaker 1
How far apart are y'all?

00:08:23:13 - 00:08:26:01
Speaker 2
We're like 18 months. 19 months? Yeah. Real tight.

00:08:26:01 - 00:08:27:08
Speaker 1
Was. How about you're going to have to.

00:08:27:13 - 00:08:31:03
Speaker 2
Have you gotta have ten. Yeah. No brakes man. Yeah.

00:08:31:04 - 00:08:32:01
Speaker 1
Just gotta go, man.

00:08:32:01 - 00:08:33:22
Speaker 2
You gotta. You can't have five guys like that.

00:08:33:22 - 00:08:35:12
Speaker 1
Your parents run like a farm or something.

00:08:35:13 - 00:08:55:06
Speaker 2
It was wild. My mom, my dad went, It's funny, we joke. The first five kids versus the back five kids and their experience growing up, it's wildly different. So we always refer to the oh, that's a that's when they go on fancy vacations now or go to nice dinners or, you know, whatever they're doing where they're spending money.

00:08:55:06 - 00:09:13:07
Speaker 2
We're always like, oh, that was a that's a back five experience. The front five never experienced that. We were broke. Didn't get to do anything fun. That's not there's not there's a street cred there. Yeah. Oh for sure. So my dad was someone that just like went to work, grind it. He started his business kind of underneath my grandpa in the financial services space.

00:09:13:09 - 00:09:26:09
Speaker 2
And so he was awesome and, and provided well for our family. But then my mom was kind of like the militant, detail oriented, just a hustler, just someone that wakes up at 530 and grinds till the last kid goes to sleep. So, wow, I mean, she's really impressive.

00:09:26:11 - 00:09:34:05
Speaker 1
What's her, did what did she kind of rule by, like, fear, or did she kind of rule more like. I mean, what was that mean?

00:09:34:05 - 00:09:35:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, there was definitely some of them.

00:09:35:20 - 00:09:36:20
Speaker 1
Yeah, ten kids, man.

00:09:36:20 - 00:09:55:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, she was super detail oriented, so it's like the fridge would have, you know, chore charts and days of the week, which everyone, you know, had certain chores on certain days. And then she actually homeschooled us all till high school as well. So we were all at home, until we got to high school. And that was a pretty rich experience for me.

00:09:55:07 - 00:10:01:18
Speaker 2
I loved it. I went to homeschool until high school, went to a public high school, then went to a private college. So I felt like I got a pretty rapid spread.

00:10:01:23 - 00:10:06:01
Speaker 1
Did you feel like you were behind socially at all, or did you because you had ten friends?

00:10:06:01 - 00:10:27:11
Speaker 2
Basically, yeah, that definitely helped. But I would also say sports were a huge part of me stepping into high school and feeling like I had friends because there was a handful of like, leagues that were like for the middle school that you had to go to the middle school and play. But there was all types of sports soccer, basketball outside of the main season, golf, tennis, those things that, you didn't have to go to the middle school to participate.

00:10:27:11 - 00:10:33:02
Speaker 2
And so when I stepped into high school, I feel like I had so many friends. Okay. So it was pretty smooth transition for me.

00:10:33:06 - 00:10:44:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, I can't imagine t, though. I have, the, the homeschool stuff, you know, growing up. I mean, no offense by this, but it's just the fact we all, we're like, the homeschool kids are weird.

00:10:44:01 - 00:10:44:18
Speaker 2
Oh, they are weird.

00:10:44:18 - 00:10:46:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, there's. You're not weird.

00:10:46:06 - 00:10:48:03
Speaker 2
I'm a I'm a little weird, but not that weird.

00:10:48:03 - 00:11:10:20
Speaker 1
Yeah, but. But what? I've learned is we were wrong. Because I'll tell you, you go to college. When I met, a couple folks, I knew they were homeschool. These. Maybe we just got lucky. Super, very social, very easy to get along with. Yeah. Very helpful. And probably the smartest guys and gals in our class. Yeah. What about that talk to me about, like, the education home?

00:11:10:20 - 00:11:16:08
Speaker 1
Was it feel like you could learn at a rate that made the most sense to you that what makes. Yeah, that's part of it.

00:11:16:09 - 00:11:38:12
Speaker 2
That's part of it for sure. I think there's some homeschool kids that are probably like you were describing that we're like, pretty nerdy, overly sheltered, probably come from a pretty strong Christian background where parents wanted to kind of control the environment that they were in. And also if the kid was super smart, they would be way above the class and wouldn't be challenged like they probably should in a public school.

00:11:38:18 - 00:12:05:21
Speaker 2
I wasn't that one. I was. I'm not that smart. I'm a horrible test taker. In all transparency. I probably cheated a little bit too much in school just to get by because I was so bad at it, but I always had that gut feeling that like once I get out into the real world, I'll be fine. Like, I knew the jobs that I had growing up, you know, the people that I interacted with, the way I was able to, you know, socialize, make friends, network, that type of thing.

00:12:05:21 - 00:12:13:08
Speaker 2
I was like, just get me out in the real world and I'll be fine. But right now, like, staring down the barrel of this math or physics test, I was I was terrible at that.

00:12:13:14 - 00:12:19:12
Speaker 1
It would. It's good to know that stuff mean. And so going back to your brother, like, did he end up getting into business as well or.

00:12:19:12 - 00:12:35:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, Blake, Blake kind of followed a similar path to me. Or I should say, I follow a similar path to him where he went out, got a couple of jobs outside of, working for the family. But then after three, four years, he did move back. And he's now working, at the firm with my with my dad and.

00:12:35:04 - 00:12:38:07
Speaker 2
Oh, brothers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very cool man. He moved back.

00:12:38:09 - 00:12:50:11
Speaker 1
So you go through, you get through college, you can get out 1 in 10 kids, and then you decide to small business or owning your own thing was in the back of your mind. But imagine that wasn't the first thing you did at at the gate.

00:12:50:15 - 00:13:07:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, I came down here, took a job, working for a company called GLG, which is kind of this network of consultants that we, we connect with, people that are trying to learn information. So I worked for that for a little while and had that itch the whole time. To, to to buy a business or to start a business.

00:13:07:18 - 00:13:21:18
Speaker 2
And then I did that for a little bit, then went and sold software and kind of went, I was selling software six months into it. I was like, I can't keep doing this. Like I have to have, you know, a business of my own. The toughest part about the software piece for me was great job, great people.

00:13:21:18 - 00:13:39:11
Speaker 2
I worked with, fancy lattes were always nice at lunches that came in like all the perks were great. But it was, you know, you start a month and you crush it for that month, and then you show up Monday morning in February, and they're like, okay, everything you did last month doesn't matter. It restarts now. Go hit that target again.

00:13:39:11 - 00:13:55:03
Speaker 2
I just felt like I wasn't building on anything. I'm like, yeah, so you could probably move your way up to an account executive and then hopefully into a higher role. But I'm like, I want to build something that's mine and I can have control over decisions. And that's what kind of led me into the journey of buying my first business.

00:13:55:07 - 00:13:59:02
Speaker 1
So what was the step after that? You go, okay, let me start hunting. I. Where did you even start?

00:13:59:02 - 00:14:15:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, so I was I didn't have a lot of money. I mean, I could have probably borrowed money. But I was also I had some confidence to jump, but I also didn't want to go raise a ton of cash when I had never done it. And I was also 25 years old, so didn't have a lot of street cred yet.

00:14:15:08 - 00:14:46:09
Speaker 2
And so I started, like, knocking on doors, talking to anyone who is an entrepreneur on their own business. And there's actually a guy that I met, from church who he, operated and ran a, and still does a decent size, real estate business, mostly in the residential multifamily. But he owned a couple commercial lots, and one of those had a car wash on it, and he after we were talking and I told him, I want to buy a business, he's like, hey, this car wash operator I have is struggling right now.

00:14:46:11 - 00:15:06:09
Speaker 2
It's not being run. Well, he's run into some health issues. You should go down there just meet him and see if it's something you'd be interested in. So I, I did that, and, in the beginning, when I met that guy, I mean, you could tell right away that it was a poorly run business. I mean, you didn't have to have 100 years of business experience to realize that this thing needed some help.

00:15:06:11 - 00:15:07:15
Speaker 2
It was rundown, but.

00:15:07:19 - 00:15:10:02
Speaker 1
Other than the look, was there anything else that gave it away? I mean.

00:15:10:02 - 00:15:30:17
Speaker 2
Just the operations were sloppy. So sloppy. I mean, it was it was it was rough. You could tell I'd been in neglected business. And so I started just hanging out there every single weekend and Saturday, Sunday I'd wash cars, I'd talk to customers, I'd greet customers as they came in, seeing what they liked, what they didn't like about the wash.

00:15:30:17 - 00:15:44:14
Speaker 2
A lot of it was the wait time because it took an hour or something like, for sure, we got to speed this thing up. And then I went and spent some time just doing some due diligence where I went and got my car wash and every other car wash in town that did full service car washing. And some other thing.

00:15:44:14 - 00:15:45:18
Speaker 1
At the time.

00:15:45:20 - 00:16:01:20
Speaker 2
I was driving well when I moved out, I'm as cheap as they come. When I moved down here, I brought my moped from college. The first two years I didn't have a car. And then I went to my buddy's used car lot who had met, and I said, I have $10,000, I want to buy a car. And he's like, there's this Prius right here for four grand.

00:16:01:21 - 00:16:07:19
Speaker 2
You on it? And I was like, absolutely, sir, you're taking this Prius around. So I take.

00:16:07:21 - 00:16:10:03
Speaker 1
I take this, this guy really cares.

00:16:10:05 - 00:16:31:23
Speaker 2
I took this junky Prius where my college buddy came to visit one time, and he knew I had a Prius and bought a brought a bumper sticker that said Cool Prius, no, buddy, and put that on the back. And I'd whipped that thing around every car wash. And while it was getting cleaned, I would just talk to anyone that was around that seemed like they knew what was going on, and I'd ask as many questions as I could.

00:16:32:01 - 00:16:49:09
Speaker 2
I was pretty diligent about, feeling out that first experience when I pulled in. How did they greet me? What they look like? What were they trying to upsell me on? How do we get. Because the car wash I was buying, like the average ticket per car coming in, was paying $25. These other guys were good at getting you to spend more money.

00:16:49:09 - 00:17:06:07
Speaker 2
And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Okay. And then I start asking them questions. Well, you know, how much do you get a car? And they're like 50, 60, $70 a car. And I was like, oh, this is a some low hanging fruit here. If I go from 25, if I can double revenue just by putting someone out there that knows what they're doing, that's going to be a huge win.

00:17:06:08 - 00:17:18:07
Speaker 2
So it's just like you start picking up on some small things as you look at your competition. But then, you know, a couple months into doing that, we put a deal together, at that car wash. You were at that car wash? Yeah. Did.

00:17:18:08 - 00:17:19:06
Speaker 1
The real estate come part of.

00:17:19:06 - 00:17:36:22
Speaker 2
That? It didn't know. So my buddy owned the real estate. He partnered with me. I think we did 65, 35. I took 65% of the business. He took 35. And then a couple of years after that, I sold them a little bit of the business and and bought the real estate, bought a good chunk of the real estate from him.

00:17:36:22 - 00:17:42:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. So we're kind of now at the hip. Him and I together. Oh, that's. So he was awesome.

00:17:42:02 - 00:17:46:05
Speaker 1
This buddy, you're somebody you known for a while. Just somebody you met while you got down here. How? That. Yeah.

00:17:46:05 - 00:18:03:06
Speaker 2
I hadn't known for that long. Randomly. My wife now moved down. We were just dating at the time, and she was working for Uber Eats at the very beginning. She was just a temp job at Uber Eats going on restaurants. I mean, this is the very beginning of Uber Eats, which now we all use it daily.

00:18:03:06 - 00:18:05:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, nothing super glamorous. Yeah.

00:18:05:11 - 00:18:22:03
Speaker 2
And so she wasn't making much money, so she needed some more income. And she started babysitting for some families, from that church. And that guy was one of the families, and she was talking to him. And, my wife now is like, you should go meet this guy. I think he'd be up your alley, start helping you start a business.

00:18:22:03 - 00:18:23:14
Speaker 2
So. Wow, it's pretty cool. Connection.

00:18:23:14 - 00:18:40:18
Speaker 1
Real cool, man, when you think about. Well, I think about partnerships all the time. And there's so many horror stories around folks that get together. Even those who've known each other for a long time, but especially a lot of ones about folks who don't. Yeah. And, it really just sours quickly. Was there any, like, did you even think about that at the time?

00:18:40:18 - 00:18:43:12
Speaker 1
Was it just enough gut that just said, okay, this is going to work.

00:18:43:12 - 00:19:06:10
Speaker 2
There is a decent amount of gut. And I'd also say I know myself and, I, I might be a little bit different, but, I was I'd be willing to walk away from the business almost completely to save a relationship. I mean, I can go start another business and find a way to make money. You can't find mentors.

00:19:06:12 - 00:19:26:19
Speaker 2
Like a guy like Robert was for me, very often. And so, you know, we had a couple conversations before we bought it about our relationship and how that's more important than the business, and anything can happen. But, I do feel like I'm honest, hard working. And he saw that in me, and he took a chance on me, and I also took a chance on him as a business partner.

00:19:26:19 - 00:19:27:17
Speaker 2
But it's worked out great.

00:19:27:19 - 00:19:34:15
Speaker 1
That's great. And so as far as, like, the way y'all do things moving forward, y'all plan on continuing to do stuff together? It was just for this one. Yeah. For sure.

00:19:34:15 - 00:19:57:08
Speaker 2
I mean, I would love to have him involved in anything. That makes sense. It's always nice having someone with money to around who can, who believes in you. And he kind of put me in touch with some of his connections as well. So if there's ever a deal that comes about, you know, I have I have some people I can go to to raise some capital that believe in me, which is a beautiful thing to have on your side.

00:19:57:10 - 00:20:17:03
Speaker 2
But I went and did the other deal, the ice cream deal with a different person. And I kind of became the Robert where, I was I wasn't going to be the day to day operator, but I found this guy who is probably similar to a lot of the listeners here, and people that come here who wanted to operate a business was in tech sales, 25 didn't know where to go or how to do it.

00:20:17:03 - 00:20:32:05
Speaker 2
And I kind of put a deal in front of him, similar to how Robert put a deal in front of me. And we did a similar equity split, and I, I'm kind of the advisor in the corner now who meet with him pretty regularly to make decisions, but just trying to help him grow the business. Similar to how Robert's helping me, man.

00:20:32:05 - 00:20:43:22
Speaker 1
Ice cream that the. We'll get back to car wash. But the business of ice cream underrated or it's not. It's like from the outside looking in it seems like a tough business but I don't know. Yeah.

00:20:44:00 - 00:20:59:14
Speaker 2
You know, I've only done one. And, Mack, who I partnered with, is like a stellar operator. And we didn't start it from the ground up. I had a friend who started it. He was in oil and gas. Six months into it, he's like, I'm making too much money doing oil and gas. I can't, I can't be thinking about ice cream.

00:20:59:16 - 00:21:16:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. What am I doing here? I can't be thinking about ice cream. You know, 50% of the time when it only provides 5% of my income. So that's where he was like, would you want to buy it? And I found Mack and partnered with them. And Mack's done great. I think our ice cream shops a little unique.

00:21:16:16 - 00:21:34:04
Speaker 2
It's New Zealand style ice cream. So we take fruit, frozen fruit and vanilla ice cream. And we put it in these machines that blend it together, and it comes out like a frozen, or I should say a soft serve ice cream. And then we put a bunch of toppings on top. And the ice cream is good.

00:21:34:06 - 00:21:52:01
Speaker 2
But I'd say we really just sell the experience. It's like cool venue, you know, all outside. There's some food trucks on site. We we, bought the house next door, demoed it down, created a huge kids playing area, put in a, stage for live music. Wow. And it's here. Yeah. It's here. It's over on the east side.

00:21:52:01 - 00:21:53:00
Speaker 1
And it. What's it called again? It's called.

00:21:53:00 - 00:21:53:12
Speaker 2
Zs.

00:21:53:12 - 00:21:54:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's it's it's.

00:21:54:11 - 00:22:03:22
Speaker 2
So, And and that one's done great. And we're about to open up our second store in Tarrytown here. Should be May 1st. So we worked on that for, like, nine months. So.

00:22:03:22 - 00:22:07:21
Speaker 1
So the experience is what drives it. And also it sounds like good product, but yeah.

00:22:07:22 - 00:22:18:12
Speaker 2
It's a good product, but it's you're really just selling the I think the experience when yes, product does matter. But you know, creating a great vibe in that type of situation. People love the vibe.

00:22:18:14 - 00:22:21:13
Speaker 1
So how much does being in Texas matter? Like the weather?

00:22:21:15 - 00:22:38:18
Speaker 2
What's funny is, is I don't think there's many ice cream shops in Austin, which is so strange to me because where I'm from, Michigan, every small town you go into has 1 or 2 ice cream shops, and they only operate for 3 or 4 months out of the year, or you come down here, it's like we take a little dip November, December, January, sometimes February.

00:22:38:18 - 00:22:55:23
Speaker 2
But for the most part, sales are pretty consistent. March through October. Yeah. And so I don't know why there's not more ice cream shops in town. Amy's has done pretty well, but that's kind of the household name. We're trying to make Zs be another household ice cream name, man.

00:22:56:01 - 00:23:07:20
Speaker 1
On the ice cream front, one last thing. When it comes to, like, when it comes to operating it with, like, the people. Yeah. What's the ramp up? Time to get somebody to be proficient in there. And I imagine it's like gig work almost. Right?

00:23:07:21 - 00:23:26:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's similar to, it's similar to the car wash where your ramp up isn't that hard. Like, you know, I could go in there for two hours and train someone, and I think they'd they'd get 80% of it after day one. Yeah. And then they kind of learn the back 20%, probably over the next couple weeks, if not months.

00:23:26:10 - 00:23:45:20
Speaker 2
The toughest thing is just getting people to stick around and eliminating churn on people because training and developed I mean, it just takes work and time, which every business feels this, so I can get people going. We can get people going pretty quick in that job, similar to the car wash. But trying to find ways to get people to stay around is is the toughest part.

00:23:46:00 - 00:23:46:18
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:23:46:20 - 00:23:59:21
Speaker 1
So going back to the car wash there, the the business of car washing is kind of give us a spectrum like or give us a little background on your specific car wash. This isn't a self-serve place, right.

00:24:00:02 - 00:24:21:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. Mine's mine's pretty unique in the sense that really I bought it six years ago and that probably six years ago was the start of private equity coming into the car wash space. And they were buying, you know, the tunnel car washes that are 100ft long. You can do 100 cars an hour, type deal. And so that's where most of the industry sits.

00:24:21:05 - 00:24:45:02
Speaker 2
And then the other half of the industry is, this self-serve car wash where you get boomers in the early 2000s mid 20s buying these and starting these self-service car washes. And those are also kind of a dying fad as well, as mine. Mine's a dying fad too, but mine's different from both of those. Mine's full service hand car wash and detailing, which couldn't operate in Michigan very well.

00:24:45:04 - 00:24:47:19
Speaker 2
Too cold to have people outside messing with water.

00:24:47:19 - 00:24:50:01
Speaker 1
Why is that, Dan fan?

00:24:50:03 - 00:25:07:12
Speaker 2
No one wants to mess with the labor. I think it's like it's a lot of work to have people on, on the clock. And you're managing a lot of people. And also, you know, you can't do as many cars, so, you know, where a ton of wash is doing 300 to 1000 cars a day.

00:25:07:12 - 00:25:24:04
Speaker 2
We sit somewhere in the 40 to 120 range. If it's sunny weekend, we can we can hit 120 at each location, but for the most part will float around the 60, 70, 80 cars a day. And it's a lot of work. It means a grind job. I mean, you're outside in the elements in the heat of Texas.

00:25:24:04 - 00:25:42:17
Speaker 2
I mean, it's 40 degrees right now, and we got both stores open, and guys hands are freezing, so it's a tough job. And finding the right people to do that job is just. It's difficult. And people just don't want to manage manage it. So the good thing for me is in Austin proper, the real estate's too expensive to build car washes of any kind.

00:25:42:21 - 00:25:58:11
Speaker 2
And so there's more car washes every year going out that are coming in, which is awesome. And for me. So even if I don't grow to a ton of locations in Austin proper, more locations are going out. And by default, I'm just going to actually get more customers coming to me. Exactly.

00:25:58:12 - 00:26:03:02
Speaker 1
Do you see long term that the that there's always going to be a need for hand washing like that?

00:26:03:05 - 00:26:22:17
Speaker 2
I think so I mean it's a it's a smaller customer base that really cares. I think, you know, we've been doing some surveying recently because, you know, doing a hand wash takes more people where I could just put a machine in there and do most of it. And so we're trying to figure out if our customer base really cares if it's hand wash versus a machine wash.

00:26:22:19 - 00:26:37:05
Speaker 2
And from what we're gathering, it's like 60, 70% of our customers really care that it's a hand wash. Like they they want a hand doing it. Now those people would probably go to a machine wash if that was the only option, but, good. A good chunk of our customer base really likes it that it's a hand wash.

00:26:37:09 - 00:26:56:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think probably what grown up as someone who who was around and was in is, I guess, a car guy. Yeah, I would say that there is that, there's that, that kind of almost stubbornness about like, I don't, I do not want to take this thing through a machine. Oh, yeah. Even if the machines are really, really squared away these days.

00:26:56:18 - 00:27:17:02
Speaker 1
Like, that's just something. They're just like, no way. Yeah. You know, and if anything, I get almost. I've had a couple guys actually like, sort of hire these mobile services that just come to their place or these big, warehouses that have like the Jay Leno's collection. And totally. So I think that's still a thing. But, you know, and to your point, it makes sense if folks are kind of dying out, then then you could have released.

00:27:17:03 - 00:27:17:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

00:27:17:19 - 00:27:35:16
Speaker 2
As they're kind of dying out. There's also been this surge of what you're describing of like the mobile detail kind of guys who I mean, the barrier to entry is super low. I mean, you can get a van or a trailer, and you can be a one man operation and build a website for a couple hundred bucks and start booking detail appointments and running around town.

00:27:35:18 - 00:27:47:19
Speaker 2
So that's probably our biggest competitor is not one individual person, but there's probably 50 to 60, you know, mobile if not more mobile detail. Guys in town who are we're all competing for the same detail dollars.

00:27:47:19 - 00:28:08:22
Speaker 1
Yeah. Interesting. How do you when you when you have this business and you think about. And you think about like what are the main levers. Like what are the things you think about every day now? Like what are the things that from a, you know, if, if growth is one of those things that like, hey, it's harder and harder to get more washes, just what's the day to day stuff that you like?

00:28:08:22 - 00:28:13:06
Speaker 1
Hey, if I can optimize these things, then I'm probably doing my job to keep it thriving.

00:28:13:06 - 00:28:35:13
Speaker 2
Yeah for sure. We have found it to be. I mean, I've probably put offers on 12 different washes over the last couple of years. And through that process, I've realized I don't want to travel. I don't want spend a bunch of time in the car. So it, you know, I've put offers in, like, lowball and, you know, 30, 40, 50 minutes outside of town, and haven't gotten those.

00:28:35:13 - 00:28:52:19
Speaker 2
But then there's been some one on ones in town that I've tried to get competitive on. And the real estate prices just make it so tough to make sense of the deal, especially with interest rates where they are. But so, you know, I kind of took a step back after this last year and are like, okay, how do we just fine tune what we're currently doing?

00:28:52:19 - 00:29:18:07
Speaker 2
We were probably a little overstaffed, hoping we'd grow to more locations. That hasn't happened. And so for me, our chemical cost is super cheap. I don't really worry about the chemical. I don't really worry about utilities. It is what it is. But our labor is everything. And so finding ways. So one control labor percentage, for a day, you know, we try to, at the end of the year, land around 50 to 55% of every dollar spent is going towards labor.

00:29:18:07 - 00:29:39:11
Speaker 2
So that's our kind of goal. We're trying to get to, which is a lot. But, you know, most restaurants try to operate 20% where, you know, my people are the business. Like, that's that's how we clean cars is the people, and not the machines. And so labor is the big thing. And then we're always trying to drive that, those sales numbers helping kind of the guy that greets you is really a salesman.

00:29:39:11 - 00:30:02:03
Speaker 2
And you come in thinking you're going to spend 40 bucks on a vacuum in a wash, and you end up leaving with $120 ticket, and you got more of a detail on the inside, plus put a wax on the outside. And then ultimately we want to get you on the memberships where you're they're paying us monthly to come in as much as you want or get to the six month or annual pass where you pay upfront for a year for 500 bucks.

00:30:02:05 - 00:30:23:14
Speaker 2
And you can come as much as you want. So that's kind of the controlling the labor, also trying to drive the sales. And then ultimately like the customer experience is everything. So, you know, making sure the person greeting your smiling looking professional, the person handing your keys to you at the end when it's done, smile looking professional, and then speed and quality all the way through.

00:30:23:14 - 00:30:26:23
Speaker 2
So those are the things that I'm constantly trying to trying to fine tune.

00:30:27:02 - 00:30:42:02
Speaker 1
Yeah. The, when it comes, I'm just thinking about probably get some nice cars that roll in there. Do you ever like how many times you actually have a customer issue where they're like, hey, man, this thing's scratched up or buffed out weekly? Oh, we're going, oh yeah, how do you handle that?

00:30:42:04 - 00:30:43:06
Speaker 2
People get.

00:30:43:08 - 00:30:53:00
Speaker 1
Pissed. Yeah. So it's one thing to like kind of nick your your Honda Civic. It's another thing to be like, hey, this is a limited edition Aston. Yeah. How do you do that?

00:30:53:02 - 00:31:12:18
Speaker 2
The I mean, the Astons, we tell to leave because your 40 bucks aren't worth the potential. Ding at $5,000 ding damage. We actually had one the other day. This one? This is a operator nightmare where we have a customer who's been a loyal customer for 5 or 6 years. They have a they own a business down the street.

00:31:12:23 - 00:31:33:11
Speaker 2
We clean their fleet, we clean all their owners cars. But we go pick them up and bring them back. And, like, maybe 4 or 5 months ago, one of my employees jumped into a nice order to go bring it back, and some traffic was coming out of me, swerved and hit the curb, and it and it messed up like, oh, everything with the joints like ball joint, wheel tire, like everything.

00:31:33:11 - 00:31:53:01
Speaker 2
He drove it back and I was like, gosh, it's going to be a tough insurance claim. And what I didn't realize, which is such a rookie mistake for me, is my insurance only covers damage on the lot. And since he turned, I mean, I could see his car from the lot, but he turned and he hit the curb, you know, 100 yards down the road.

00:31:53:03 - 00:32:08:15
Speaker 2
It wasn't covered. And so we have our own mechanics that we like, have gotten to know because people get pissed about different things and we have to go try to make it right. So, you know, we have our mechanics that we work with who give us deals and whatnot. And he's adamant like, no, Audi's going to work on my car.

00:32:08:17 - 00:32:17:02
Speaker 2
And I think it was 11 grand to to fix that. And yeah, that was a tough pill as well. Let 1111 K hit.

00:32:17:03 - 00:32:23:16
Speaker 1
But price of like it's a it's the risk and the cost you take by doing that. Totally.

00:32:23:16 - 00:32:40:21
Speaker 2
Yeah I mean I definitely change my insurance plan the next day to cover cars off the lot. But you know, part of being an operator is a guy said this to me who came in early when I was running the car wash, and I've, I've said it a million times since, but I just, like, never get too high.

00:32:40:21 - 00:32:59:21
Speaker 2
Never get too low. Because on good days, you can kind of feel like the man. And then the bad days, you can feel like, what am I doing with my life? I need to just sell this thing and go get a corporate job. And he was just like, don't get too high. Don't get too. So I've tried to find the equilibrium where it's, you know, I can control how I'm going to react to this.

00:32:59:21 - 00:33:21:16
Speaker 2
I can control how long I'm going to dwell on this. So, hey, a mistake was made. Correct the issue. Make sure it doesn't happen again. Or if it does, make sure you have insurance cover that. And then keep moving on. You just got to keep improving it. So I think in the beginning, if that would have happened to me, it probably would have put me into a cycle of depression for a month.

00:33:21:17 - 00:33:30:08
Speaker 2
But now it's like. I mean, I was pissed for a couple hours, and then you start to just move on and try to ask Audy for the cheapest deal you can.

00:33:30:10 - 00:33:31:03
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:33:31:05 - 00:33:46:09
Speaker 2
That's the, I actually worked that guy down, like, 3 or $4000. I was, like, telling him a sob story. I'm a new entrepreneur. I need to, you know, I just I run this little car wash. This is like, everything to me. This is going to kill me. And he helped me out quite a bit. So that's what I did, I tell you.

00:33:46:09 - 00:33:51:03
Speaker 1
I mean, yeah, a little nudge against Audi. Yeah, they probably have that overlay inflated anyways.

00:33:51:03 - 00:33:52:02
Speaker 2
Oh my gosh.

00:33:52:03 - 00:33:54:15
Speaker 1
Him helping you probably just got down a reasonable. Yeah yeah.

00:33:54:15 - 00:33:56:11
Speaker 2
Yeah probably made it fair.

00:33:56:13 - 00:34:17:02
Speaker 1
Okay. So you got you got this car wash. Me and you, you're you're got to be aware of, like, taking care of people, stuff and everything else. How are how are you taking care of, like, how are you finding these folks? Are they all college kids that work for you? Like, how are you finding folks, or do you have some folks who, like, always wanted to be a car washer?

00:34:17:03 - 00:34:36:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I came in with the mindset that you had because I was looking at this wash and I was like, okay, these are all like quasi drug addicts, quasi homeless, not very well to do people. And I was like, oh, I get all these, you know, UT college students to come work for me. None of them want to do that job.

00:34:36:23 - 00:35:00:12
Speaker 2
No, no. Well, it's just too hard. It's like, if I can go work at a coffee shop or scoop ice cream or, wash cars, I'm like, I'm going to go ahead and take the take the coffee shop. Yeah. And so that that idea quickly went out the door, unfortunately. But I, you know, I, I bought it like I said, it was, it was the employee base was a disaster.

00:35:00:14 - 00:35:29:07
Speaker 2
And I really spent a year and a half every single day from open to close. I was there, I was greeting every customer, touching cars, helping clean them, making sure the customer experience was as good as it possibly could be. And then, you know, over that year and a half slowly transitioned some team members out, brought in some new team members, but labor was impossible here in Austin to, to manage, really kind of leading up to Covid and then Covid, it was a disaster.

00:35:29:07 - 00:35:55:22
Speaker 2
Like when the government's paying people to stay home more than go to work. I mean, how can you get people to work? So I think we've kind of reset now. I think it's at a better equilibrium where we have people coming to get asked for jobs all the time now. And we got pretty fortunate where we were able to hire a couple people who were kind of long time car wash ers, you know, working, you know, 12 to $15 an hour.

00:35:56:03 - 00:36:00:06
Speaker 2
And we got them in. And then they knew people who were also car washers and like.

00:36:00:06 - 00:36:01:05
Speaker 1
Kind of helps.

00:36:01:07 - 00:36:13:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then we just whether it's like family members or cousins or, you know, at the last wash that they worked at, you know, we slowly have transitioned into our teams like never been better. So it's a pretty exciting time now.

00:36:13:17 - 00:36:21:12
Speaker 1
For how do you keep them like so you get these good folks in they kind of bring their family and friends over. What's the number one thing TJ thinks about? But like, how do I keep these people? Yeah, I.

00:36:21:12 - 00:36:40:08
Speaker 2
Think it's different between managers, who are kind of call it the 60 to 100 K type guys versus the hourly employee guys. You know, a lot of those early car washers that were kind of, long time car washes. They got to come over. I actually got them from, like, going to other car washes in town and just.

00:36:40:08 - 00:36:59:19
Speaker 2
Oh, you just driving in? Oh, yeah. Got pretty dirty. But especially on the manager side, it's like I would go in. The coolest thing is you get to see them operate with without them knowing that you're studying them. And so you get a pretty clear look at like how they operate and how you think they would. Then operate at your store.

00:37:00:00 - 00:37:15:11
Speaker 2
So I would go around and just be like, oh, I like how this guy works. I like how he talks. I like how he engages with the employees and the customers. And then just start of the dialog with him saying, you know, what I learned was money isn't the main thing. It's like that's part of it. But also time.

00:37:15:11 - 00:37:34:20
Speaker 2
Time in the car vacation days, you know, those types of things these guys really care about. So I'd say the manager level recruiting was, you know, asking good questions about what they care about and then kind of trying to pitch the job in that way. But the hourly employees, you know, it's the little things. It's buying lunch.

00:37:34:20 - 00:37:54:10
Speaker 2
It's, you know, rent came up and we had a rainy month and they didn't make a lot. It's like Ford and, you know, a thousand bucks so they can make their rent payment. I think I've probably bought ten employees cars over the course of really, you know, run in the wash. At one point, I bought a duplex because a lot of my employees didn't have housing.

00:37:54:12 - 00:38:11:03
Speaker 2
And so I bought a duplex, and I had, you know, five and six employees living on in the duplex. So I've gotten creative on ways to to make them happy. I think it's a give and take. I was probably a little naive when I started, and I was like, oh, I'm going to be these guys savior and hero.

00:38:11:05 - 00:38:29:07
Speaker 2
And I can't be that. I learned that pretty quickly. But I can provide a safe working environment for them to come into someone that cares about them. I feel like it kind of flows down river. If I'm taking care of the managers and managers and then taking care of the employees, and in return, everybody takes care of the business.

00:38:29:07 - 00:38:42:20
Speaker 1
So yeah, me well, when you were when you think about taking care of folks, was that something that just like, where'd you learn that? Like, was it, I see your pain point of mine keep you let me just do this thing, or. I mean, where did that come from? Where you grew up? I mean, yeah.

00:38:42:20 - 00:39:02:00
Speaker 2
A lot of that is just like the way you grew up. It's like, treat others how you want to be treated. And I think you can take that a lot of different directions. But ultimately, like, I want guys to come in and feel like they're loved and cared for as much as a business can. I can't take care of all their problems, obviously, but I can take care of some.

00:39:02:00 - 00:39:18:03
Speaker 2
And so being open to talking about it, everyone has my phone number. It's not. We probably have 30 or 40 employees and everyone has my number can get Ahold of me at any time. So we work hard. Just try to take care of everybody. And, yeah, it's just kind of been in the DNA since I was a kid.

00:39:18:08 - 00:39:19:04
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:39:19:06 - 00:39:29:03
Speaker 1
Well, okay, so you talk about the people that are, loyal that you've built on. And whatever do you get when you're sharing some good stuff the other day, you get some horror stories about, oh, crazy. Yeah.

00:39:29:03 - 00:39:37:04
Speaker 2
I mean, I can tell you, I mean, we have monthly horror stories. I mean, they are so brutal. I mean, some of them are just absolutely nuts.

00:39:37:05 - 00:39:42:21
Speaker 1
Give me one of your favorites, man. Like what? I mean, like, would make people go, I've never been in a car wash.

00:39:42:23 - 00:39:50:11
Speaker 2
I have 50 stories that make you never want to buy a car wash. I think the one is my favorite. Was the one I told when I was here.

00:39:50:11 - 00:39:51:13
Speaker 1
Telling me, and I love it.

00:39:51:15 - 00:39:55:02
Speaker 2
I mean, I think that one's unbelievable. I have two of these, like.

00:39:55:02 - 00:39:55:20
Speaker 1
Lord of the flies.

00:39:55:21 - 00:40:17:06
Speaker 2
Oh, it's nuts. It's absolutely nuts. There's so many of these stories. But there was when I bought the wash, there was two guys that worked for me named Rocky and Mondo. Absolute legend. Drug addicts. I mean, fantastic human beings. And these guys were probably my two best employees, but they were like total idiots. And why were they the best?

00:40:17:06 - 00:40:34:01
Speaker 2
They're just they were just there every day. Like they were just bodies that I could rely on. But who knows what they were on when they were washing cars. But we'll let that. We'll let that part go. But Rocky and Mondo, you know, didn't didn't know how to control anything in their lives. It was just constant chaos.

00:40:34:01 - 00:40:48:14
Speaker 2
They got evicted from their apartment, and they needed a place to stay. And they were like, can we stay in the shack in the back of the car wash? And I was like, good Lord. Well, at least you'll be here on time every day for work. And so I let them go crash in the back.

00:40:48:16 - 00:40:50:01
Speaker 1
This is like a supply ship.

00:40:50:02 - 00:41:17:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, dude. I mean, it's terrible. Like, you poke your head in there and it's like roach infested, like bongs lying on the ground, and I'm like, okay, we got to get rid of the bongs. At least like that. Those can't be here. But these guys are just crash back there for probably 4 or 5 months to the point it got to a pretty unhealthy relationship with work where they were shown up late and they lived on site, like, I mean, you know, you're in trouble when you're when you got two employees on site and you still can't get there on time.

00:41:17:01 - 00:41:18:01
Speaker 1
If you're not coming.

00:41:18:02 - 00:41:41:16
Speaker 2
No door. No. Literally, like I would send someone like, oh yeah, we got we got cars here. There's no excuses for about the bus or anything. If it, if, if, if you live on site. But I got to a point where, like, they had to go, they couldn't work anymore. And I had to help them, like, run an extension cord out there because it's 100 degrees and, you know, plus in the summer, in their little box, it's probably 120.

00:41:41:16 - 00:42:02:02
Speaker 2
So I helped them run a, an extension cord out there, and we put an AC unit in for them just so they could have some power and some air conditioning. But then, you know, when I was doing that, I was like, okay, let's make them pay something. So I was like, well, I'll charge them. I mean, maybe 30, 50 bucks a month each just to cover the AC bill, just to say they're paying something.

00:42:02:07 - 00:42:09:16
Speaker 2
Anyways, fast forward, I got to get them out there. They're fired. They're not working for me anymore, but they're like, we're not leaving. And so I'm like, this.

00:42:09:16 - 00:42:10:04
Speaker 1
Is our home.

00:42:10:04 - 00:42:26:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, this is like a week of like customers pulling in, seeing like bums living in the back and dropping off their Porsches to get cleaned. Like you're not going to come back. So I finally call the cops. I'm like, I don't know what else to do. I call the cops. It's two cops. One's getting their side of story, one's getting my side of the story.

00:42:26:10 - 00:42:44:22
Speaker 2
And the cop that talked to them then comes to and talks to me and he's like, hey, did these guys paying you anything for rent? And I was like, yeah, I'm making them pay 30, 50 bucks a month for the AC. He's like, well, technically they've established residency if they're paying rent, so then they have to be evicted if they're going to be able to, you know, actually leave.

00:42:45:00 - 00:42:45:15
Speaker 2
And it was.

00:42:45:15 - 00:42:49:11
Speaker 1
It was like, dude, this shack didn't even have an address. No address here. There's like.

00:42:49:13 - 00:43:09:13
Speaker 2
There's no bathroom. There's nothing here. What do you mean? So finally they left one day, and I, like, closed the car wash. No cars can come in. And the whole team just went and demoed the. Oh, yeah, we pulled their stuff out to the side. Anything that looked like it had any value. And we just demoed it and threw it all the shed in the dumpster.

00:43:09:15 - 00:43:34:18
Speaker 2
And I told the guys like, hey, you, can you still have residency? You can live on site, technically, according to cops, but you can't live in that shed anymore. So eventually they moved on. Mando for the next three days, held a sign at the entrance on a cardboard box. Whatever little sign that said washer is racist. And so every customer pulling in and it was just off the property, so I couldn't kick him off for doing that either.

00:43:34:18 - 00:43:37:16
Speaker 1
So did the other guy. Rocky, leave right away? Yeah.

00:43:37:16 - 00:43:39:00
Speaker 2
Rocky was gone. He's gone? Yeah.

00:43:39:00 - 00:43:40:05
Speaker 1
Rocky was sleeping.

00:43:40:05 - 00:43:52:23
Speaker 2
In the corner, so I don't even know. I can't remember, probably. I probably just left at the end of the day and he was around and I was like, I just can't even think about this anymore. I gotta go. So that's one of the many horror stories of of owning and operating guy.

00:43:53:01 - 00:44:11:12
Speaker 1
I mean, that's like you talk about there's zero zero training for that. Oh, who's going to be like, oh yeah, I mean, in this case, this is a thing, man. We spent a lot of time. We actually just jumped before you before you came in a studio. We were, with like 50 folks, 50 aspiring operators, like, on this, on this, webinar we were given.

00:44:11:14 - 00:44:33:06
Speaker 1
And it's amazing how many the questions and they're good questions. They're they're important questions are about capital stacks. They're about how do you get this financing in there about like, hey, who is this attorney better than this? But nobody's asking like, hey, what happens when a guy squats in your shack? Yeah. No, Charlie. Just in tighty whities and, like, drinking some energy drink in there, and you got to get him kicked out.

00:44:33:06 - 00:44:33:22
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:44:34:00 - 00:44:34:20
Speaker 2
Oh, for sure.

00:44:34:22 - 00:44:35:15
Speaker 1
Know what he's talking?

00:44:35:16 - 00:44:52:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I think the I think a big thing is just having some, some confidence in yourself that you're saying, hey, no matter what comes my way, I'm going to do everything I can to make this business successful. And then also just put a network of people around you who you can call on for answers as different things come up.

00:44:52:04 - 00:45:08:01
Speaker 2
And in the beginning, when you start your business like, I knew nothing about car washes, my car wash network was super small of like, who could I call on if we scratched the rim? Who could I call on for a plumber when something goes wrong? Who's my electrician? Who's my roof? Who's my? You know all those things? Who's going to do my bookkeeping?

00:45:08:01 - 00:45:27:05
Speaker 2
Who's going to do my marketing? Like, you know, you don't have that Rolodex in the beginning, but, you know, every day you slowly kind of piece together. And there's again, you know, ups and downs all the time. Call Rocky Mondo story, ultra low point. Call an order getting hit ultra low point. But you just try to remain cool, calm.

00:45:27:05 - 00:45:31:10
Speaker 2
And, you know there's a there's a problem at hand. Let's go solve it and then keep moving.

00:45:31:10 - 00:45:57:12
Speaker 1
Keep moving. What? When you what do you call that man? It seems like the the guys and the gals that operate it seem to continue to keep moving. Maybe it's critical thinking, maybe it's creativity. I'm not sure what it is mean, but it's, It reminds me of a guy I. I reminds me of this home builder. And I remember he's building this house in this neighborhood, and I stopped on by, and, he'd been calling the, power company.

00:45:57:15 - 00:46:06:15
Speaker 1
I think now, power. It might have been internet, whatever it was, it was some utility. They needed to get to the house and they wouldn't show up. And so he's like, I'll have him here.

00:46:06:15 - 00:46:07:16
Speaker 2
This was this in Austin?

00:46:07:21 - 00:46:22:03
Speaker 1
No, this one was just right outside office. Okay. So, I stopped by and I was just like, hey, man, so what do you do about that? What do we get? We'll have it. We'll have a fix this this evening. And I was like, how do you know that? You know, I, I got a plan. And so what he did, he cut the power.

00:46:22:03 - 00:46:32:11
Speaker 1
He, like, took the thing, and he cut the power to the whole street to do. And he goes, they're going to come out now because everybody here is going to complain. And now I got who I need here and I can go get him done.

00:46:32:11 - 00:46:34:09
Speaker 2
Dude's got some dog in them.

00:46:34:10 - 00:46:52:12
Speaker 1
So maybe that's what it's called. Like there's this thing I've learned about these owners, man. There's this. Like, if you're kind of, I'm not. It's weird. Like they have. They are stand y'all or stand up folks. But I think about, like, my mother and my father and and they have this kind of like, they kind of are okay not playing by the rules.

00:46:52:12 - 00:46:54:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. In order to get it done.

00:46:54:09 - 00:46:55:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know that.

00:46:55:12 - 00:47:00:09
Speaker 1
What is that man is like, is that in you like, I mean, yeah. You think it's an important piece of being an owner?

00:47:00:09 - 00:47:23:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. I think I could actually be better that I think, I can be sometimes a little soft and a little too careful. And the guys that are really good probably are the most aggressive, when it comes to cutting power. Like, I probably wouldn't cut power to a whole street. I wouldn't want to see little Susie down the street and her mom outside being like, I can't.

00:47:23:05 - 00:47:46:16
Speaker 2
I can't get the microwave to work. Yeah. So that guy's definitely got some dog. And I'm, being from Michigan, I'm a big Detroit Lions fan. And their coach is Dan Campbell. He always talks about grit. Yeah. And so I kind of think that when you ask that and like, grit kind of came to mind. So like, you know, there's a problem at hand and you're gritty enough to go, you know, figure out the solution, whether that means you're getting dirty or, you know, someone that has to figure it out for you.

00:47:46:18 - 00:48:04:07
Speaker 2
I feel like the best operators have a little bit of that grit in them. Yeah, it's like, it's so true, though. It's like, I think the world in which we've grown up in, and this is a little bit of the knock on education is like, there's these kind of rules that you have to stick in lanes, you have to stick in, rules.

00:48:04:07 - 00:48:21:15
Speaker 2
They have to stick by, when you kind of go through the whole educational, you know, all the way from Kade through college and it's like there's parameters and then you get into the world of operating and there's like, I guess, pay your taxes and don't break the law. But, for the most part, it's kind of the Wild West.

00:48:21:15 - 00:48:24:17
Speaker 2
And I think if you're going to do small.

00:48:24:20 - 00:48:25:07
Speaker 1
Owner.

00:48:25:07 - 00:48:42:09
Speaker 2
Operator, call it someone who's going to be in the business day in and day out grinding like you got to learn to to play the game, and you got to learn to get some grit and you got to get super creative, because problems like that are going to, I mean, every, every single one of these small business has those problems come up.

00:48:42:09 - 00:49:01:17
Speaker 2
And you got to be able to, you know, solve them quickly or else things can go south very fast. So, I that that's my favorite part about owning businesses is like, there's no there's no rules to this whole thing. Yeah, America is pretty sweet. And they just, you know, there's freedom to go grow and be an entrepreneur.

00:49:01:18 - 00:49:05:00
Speaker 2
And I think we live in a great place to go try to own and operate a business.

00:49:05:00 - 00:49:23:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, no, it's it's not, it's not for the the faint of heart, for sure. Like, you got to have some. You gotta have some steel in there, man. Otherwise. Yeah. Broken hearts to just like, how do you get these, druggies off the off the property? Like, all those things are things that come and hit you when you.

00:49:23:03 - 00:49:38:12
Speaker 2
But I'd also say, like, confidence grows, too. So, like, I was pretty confident it was in the first business that I bought that I could get it to work. I saw some low hanging fruit that I knew I could. I could at least not lose money. I could get it back. And if I needed to quit two years and I could.

00:49:38:12 - 00:50:01:21
Speaker 2
But, I felt like, you know, when I first started, I was a little naive, but there's some kind of beauty in the naivety. Because if I knew I was going to be having to kick off Mondo and Rocky six months later, a year later, I probably wouldn't have done it. Yeah. So it's kind of good to like, hey, I'm going to be able to withstand most of these storms, and just no getting in.

00:50:01:21 - 00:50:02:20
Speaker 2
There's going to be some storms.

00:50:03:01 - 00:50:05:08
Speaker 1
Yeah. Don't overthink it too much. Yeah.

00:50:05:10 - 00:50:28:03
Speaker 2
Make sure it's a good deal. Make sure what you're buying is, like, something that you're excited about. You know, I would encourage people to, even before you buy it, go work for the owner for free for a couple months. Make sure it's something you really want to do. But then when you jump in, just, you know, put that Rolodex of people around you that you can call to get questions answered and also put on your own work boots so you can, you know, you can go figure out some problems.

00:50:28:05 - 00:50:44:08
Speaker 1
Talk to me about the family piece about this whole thing. This is something that a lot of guys and gals don't either think about or talk about. But, imagine this especially in the early days of running something. It's all consuming. Oh, yeah. Just like, what advice or what insights? What you. I mean, maybe even even more raw.

00:50:44:08 - 00:50:52:14
Speaker 1
Like what were the early days from a family perspective? You know, you and your wife just kind of you were there were probably 12, 14, 15 hours. 20 hours.

00:50:52:14 - 00:50:53:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, it was nuts.

00:50:53:18 - 00:50:58:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. We just paint a picture for like, what level of commitment also that required.

00:50:58:13 - 00:51:18:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's a great question because that's such a huge piece of it. So I bought it when I was engaged. And my wife had moved from kind of the temporal end of some more full time role at Uber. So there was some there was some structure and stability and income, and I had saved some. So we had a little bit of money.

00:51:18:10 - 00:51:27:10
Speaker 2
But I mean, so much of it was just like communicating as it was going, shockingly, she thinks I'm a bad communicator. I think I'm a phenomenal communicator. It's a great.

00:51:27:10 - 00:51:27:17
Speaker 1
Job.

00:51:27:19 - 00:51:37:23
Speaker 2
She thinks I'm one of the worst communicators out there. I mean, she say that because you. Oh, dude, I just like, there's so much stuff going on at work that I just don't want to bombard her with, so I just kind of bottle it up a little bit.

00:51:38:03 - 00:51:40:01
Speaker 1
Oh, because you just kind of am shutting down, right?

00:51:40:01 - 00:51:58:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. For sure. And in the beginning, when I was working, you know, 12, 14 hour days in the heat, I would come back and I would just be done, like I had no energy for her. So I think, you know, depending on the business, you know, you're going to be all in, all in. Could being eight hours a day, ten hours a day, 12 hours a day.

00:51:58:15 - 00:52:20:21
Speaker 2
So trying to manage some of those expectations. And I think, like, if you can bring them in in the beginning, as you're like, maybe not to every conversation of the due diligence in buying a business, but as as start things start moving towards that finish line, like have those open conversations about like, hey, this is probably what it's going to require of me, from a time perspective, from a mental capacity perspective.

00:52:20:23 - 00:52:39:00
Speaker 2
You know, and my wife isn't someone that's going to come to the car wash and wash cars, but she'll support me in anything that I'm doing. And she's a huge advocate for me buying small businesses. She loves it. And so she's been an awesome support role for me. But yeah, as many of those conversations, you can have to just, like, manage expectations.

00:52:39:02 - 00:52:58:09
Speaker 2
I've realized managing expectations is like one of the biggest things you can do in life across all relationships, but especially with my spouse. And then find ways to, you know, try to go above and beyond for her in different seasons where she feels like she needs it. So, my wife and I for ten years have done a weekly date night.

00:52:58:09 - 00:53:14:15
Speaker 2
So every single Thursday, no matter what's happening, we throw. How's it going? Yeah, we throw our phones in the car and we go out for two hours and we get a babysitter, and, we just go spend some quality time together. So, that's kind of, an avenue where we can communicate well without kids around. That's been great.

00:53:14:16 - 00:53:35:19
Speaker 2
And we did that before kids. But as much as you can manage those expectations, maybe set up some some time throughout the week that you're going to be guaranteed to be, like, fully attentive to her, which fully attempt is I'm still thinking I walk into a restaurant and I'm thinking about how it could be improved and maybe what the cost of goods are and how the server could probably try to upsell me on a better.

00:53:35:19 - 00:53:37:00
Speaker 2
I'm like always thinking slightly.

00:53:37:02 - 00:53:39:20
Speaker 1
Ahead of the menu. Yeah, I mean, how are this thing? Could be better.

00:53:39:21 - 00:53:46:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. Like I have a million ideas for you guys, but just bring me my food. I guess today I'll focus on my wife, but try to at least.

00:53:46:23 - 00:54:14:01
Speaker 1
What would you say, looking back on it now, you know, if you kind of looked at one, two parallel routes, one route which is like you and tech sales and whatever and continuing that life. And then now you being the small business owner. Yeah. Do you feel like now that you've gotten the business, kind of at least on its feet and move in, do you like the way your life looks in this version, or do you sometimes daydream that maybe sitting in that corporate job would have been.

00:54:14:01 - 00:54:22:19
Speaker 1
And I'm just strictly talking family? Yeah. Like, do you feel like now it's as healthy as family wise and cohesive? Or do you feel like now it's still the corporate stuff's always going to be more healthy?

00:54:22:19 - 00:54:43:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, it's a great question. I mean, the beauty of owning your own business. And I shared this the other day when I was here is you at least have options, like I have the option to work 50, 60, 70 hours a week if I wanted to grind and grow this business to whatever height I want to grow to, or I have the option to work 20 hours a week.

00:54:43:11 - 00:54:58:09
Speaker 2
And I've put the right people in place. You can kind of manage the day to day, and I love having that option because in the beginning, pre kids, my wife was working, I was working, you know, I wanted to grind and I wanted to try to set up a lifestyle where I could have those options. And now we got two kids.

00:54:58:09 - 00:55:16:18
Speaker 2
My wife stay at home. I'm home by 3:00 most days. You know, we just had a kid three months ago, so I'm kind of letting her sleep from 7 to 9, and I kind of take the kids early where if I was working a tech job, that'd be really tough to do. Now, granted, they give you, like, six months off and you have a kid, which is absurd.

00:55:16:20 - 00:55:18:00
Speaker 2
Absolutely absurd.

00:55:18:00 - 00:55:19:02
Speaker 1
You might take six days off.

00:55:19:03 - 00:55:35:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, six days maybe. I'm still answering calls and emails and probably not touching cars or in those six days, but, it just gives you the freedom to operate your life on a time perspective how you want. And there's always going to be more money to be had. And that's a conversation my wife and I have had recently.

00:55:35:22 - 00:55:53:14
Speaker 2
It's just like, how much money do we want to make? And what's the sacrifice for that? And is it worth it? And I think those are pretty fun conversations to have because strangely, you know, we've decided, like, you know, we want to keep growing income to X amount, but we don't need that much money to be happy.

00:55:53:14 - 00:56:06:19
Speaker 2
And so I'd rather take a couple more trips every single year, come home every day at three, and be around the family as much as I can. During these beautiful years of the kids being young, and that wouldn't be an option. Most likely not if I was doing the the tech sales grind.

00:56:06:23 - 00:56:17:07
Speaker 1
Yeah, and 9 to 5 and or 5 to 9, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Do you I think on that note, man. And shit. Let's see here. Yeah man we we ran. That really blew by.

00:56:17:08 - 00:56:18:07
Speaker 2
Was that an hour I.

00:56:18:07 - 00:56:18:19
Speaker 1
Mean.

00:56:18:20 - 00:56:19:19
Speaker 2
Oh man I'm sorry.

00:56:20:00 - 00:56:37:06
Speaker 1
It's awesome. No, this is great I don't I mean this is where to me this is where the best combos man come into place. They just go like, yeah. But as a random basis here, I'm wondering, like, when you kind of the last name in the family. So because I think it's so important, it's one thing that we probably don't spend enough time talking about.

00:56:37:08 - 00:56:57:09
Speaker 1
Well, when you think about ultimately like what now drives you, I imagine like in this, in this season, like if you got your wife and your kiddos and so you want to make sure you're there and engage with them. And yeah, what do you think from the perspective, do you think that'll do you think you're just kind of putting it in low gear right now and then when the kiddos are gone, then you'll put it back in the high gear or you kind of like, no, you know what?

00:56:57:09 - 00:57:04:21
Speaker 1
I actually kind of like this more steady path, just even for myself. Just what's the I don't know, what do you think happens after they're out?

00:57:04:21 - 00:57:33:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think I mean, I look at I haven't bought another wash in three years. We've opened a couple ice cream stores, but I haven't, you know, I'm not. Day to day operating that. And so, you know, if we, if we bought another if we bought another, car wash, you know, it'd probably take 3 to 6 months where I'd be back in the grind and I'd be totally open to that, knowing that it's a short stint to get it to a spot where it's operating cleanly, I can put a manager in place to take over.

00:57:33:19 - 00:57:53:22
Speaker 2
So, you know, I'm excited about the season that I'm in. I think, again, going back to the owning your own business, grinding it in the beginning and getting it to a spot of some type of stability is super fun because it gives you just all the options in the world and and how you want to spend your time and how you want to move throughout life.

00:57:53:23 - 00:58:02:00
Speaker 2
Whereas corporate jobs wouldn't allow that to happen. But, I'm still knocking on doors of all types of businesses trying to buy more. I'd.

00:58:02:02 - 00:58:03:23
Speaker 1
Like to get you sound like you just enjoy the game.

00:58:03:23 - 00:58:19:20
Speaker 2
Loving of it. Yeah, I love the game of it. I love the beginning stages of it. I think I helped the guy buy the ice cream shop. I've helped a couple other entrepreneurs where I've took a little equity, you know, get them their first business. I love bringing people from the tech sales who want to do it.

00:58:19:22 - 00:58:37:20
Speaker 2
And I get a sense that they have the capabilities to do it and try to like, you know, get the deal across the finish line. Those first couple months of getting an operating, bringing the marketing, you know, the bookkeeping, the simple operations, like fine tuning that early on and then just trying to let the operator kind of run from there.

00:58:37:20 - 00:58:43:07
Speaker 2
So that's, that's what I love the most. And hopefully I can keep doing that across a couple different businesses.

00:58:43:13 - 00:59:03:23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Sounds like you came in and you got a lot of runway in front. You got a lot of things to share. So we appreciate you helping us with the group of folks that we continue to to like, mature and grow and get them into the right see. But I think it is I had a guy is probably a great note to end on because I think it's just so key to what you just said about, like, the passion for the game.

00:59:04:05 - 00:59:25:06
Speaker 1
We had a aspiring operator, come from finance background, investment banking, literally asked us point blank recently said, yeah, but what's in it for these advisors like these guys? Like, really? Yeah, sure. I understand the equity stuff. I mean, like, I basically like, I wouldn't give my time up to go do all this stuff. And I thought the answer back to them was, was on the nose.

00:59:25:06 - 00:59:46:03
Speaker 1
And I think they still didn't believe, as I said, you know, these guys and gals just they love the game. Yeah. And if they can help a guy or gal that looked like them, it's just there's also a lot of satisfaction in that. Just helping that next generation come up. Sure. The the equity in the finances are great and increasing your wealth pool is awesome, but they get a lot of satisfaction.

00:59:46:03 - 01:00:01:18
Speaker 1
And just like one, I think it's probably two for them in the thing. This is probably why I want to see if it resonates with you. Like you get to see a version of yourself and actually just help them. And that just in general, I think it's like how humans were made. And then two, I do you think you get this sense of you are leaving the world a better place by.

01:00:01:18 - 01:00:06:08
Speaker 1
So like you're looking at somebody trying to do a thing. Yeah. Like why would I try to. I want to help you.

01:00:06:08 - 01:00:30:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, totally. And I think it's interesting to me is when you go talk to some of these operators, what I thought in the beginning is they would be closed books, not want to share anything about their business. You know, they wouldn't want to potentially help a competitor and all the carwash operators in town that I know. It's like everything's in open book and it's like, you know, come check out what I just put in my wash and how it's changed the way we do X, Y or Z.

01:00:30:09 - 01:00:51:04
Speaker 2
And it's, you know, affected, you know, outcomes, revenue saving on labor, X, Y or Z, like people generally want to help. And so I'd encourage, you know, everyone that's trying to start a business is go talk to as many operator as you can. It's people want to help other people. For the most part, I found and the people that don't, move on too quickly.

01:00:51:04 - 01:00:52:22
Speaker 2
You'll find someone that wants to help you pretty quick.

01:00:53:02 - 01:01:07:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, so good to have you on today. Yes, we'll have some other things I know we're going to jam and do with you, but I appreciate all the work that you do out there. Yeah. You're looking for a killer car wash with no, no Rockies or. Yeah, there's there come.

01:01:07:23 - 01:01:19:10
Speaker 2
The washer here. Washer. If you drive an Audi, you want to get your front end trashed. Come by washer. We'll just. We'll just destroy it for you. Thanks to you. Yeah, that's a

01:01:19:10 - 01:01:44:18
Speaker 1
Thanks for tuning in to the American Operator Podcast, where we celebrate the backbone of America small business owners and operators like you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe so you'll never miss out on more of these stories and insights from people who keep our community strong. Until next time, keep building, keep operating and keep America moving forward.