How to start a mobile car wash business

Create a mobile car wash business plan. Your business plan should cover customer research, competitors, a startup budget, and financial projections for your mobile car wash business.

Other things you should add include the problems you will be solving for clients and customers, what sets your business apart from the competition, the resources your business will depend upon, and your business's mission statement and vision for the future of the company.

Obtain the necessary startup capital. The money needed to start a mobile car washing business can vary widely.

Depending on what type of services you are going to offer and the overall structure of your mobile car washing business, it may cost you as little as $5000 or as much as $25,000 to start your business.

Determine if you can self-fund the starting of your business or if you are going to need a small business loan or get startup capital from investors.

Hire qualified and motivated employees. Depending on the scale of your business plan you may not need many employees initially or perhaps you do need large teams.

To service many cars at a time, you are going to need a considerable staff, though a mobile car washing business can likely have fewer employees than a standard car wash.

You also need to consider any other services you might plan on providing, do you need mechanics or technicians, in addition to mobile car wash employees?

If you are planning on keeping your mobile car washing business on the small side, you can get away with wearing many hats in the business and hiring only a few employees, but if you want your business to grow in scale, you are going to need a workforce.

Invest in equipment and supplies. There are many instruments and products that go into car washing. You should make a list of everything you think your business will need.

Some items for exterior mobile car washing and interior mobile car washing include:

Market your mobile car wash business. Utilize the internet to market your mobile car washing business. Here are a few great options in terms of marketing:

• Social media

• Website

• Online advertisements

You can also market the old fashion way by handing out fliers, discount coupons, and other promotional items by hand.

You (or an employee) can hand out fliers in heavily populated community areas or blanket potential customers' cars with fliers in communal parking lots. You should make sure you comply with any local solicitation laws when doing this strategy though.

One of the best forms of marketing for a mobile car washing business is word of mouth. Here you don't actually have to do much of the marketing at all, just simply provide very good services to your customers and ask your clients to recommend you to other possible clients and customers.

You can also incentivize your clients to make recommendations by offering them perks, like a free mobile car wash or multiple free washes per a certain number of referrals.

Overall costs of starting a mobile car wash business. This cost can vary widely depending on certain factors.

As was stated earlier, most mobile car wash businesses cost in the range of $5,000 to $25,000 to start, with the median startup cost of around $9,000.

Your total costs will depend on these factors:

• The services you provide

• If you need to purchase a company vehicle or vehicles

• The products you need to run your business

• The number of employees you initially plan to have

• Insurance plans for your business