The $500 Mobile Detailing Startup - A Simple Walk Through

[statusdetailing]

Excellent article. Somebody made a point about insurance. Probably should get it. You could try to get away with not having it for a while. . .especially with really basic equipment like that. Probably not going to be burning through the paint or damaging anything significant that you can't just pay for out of pocket. That said, anything can happen and insurance is relatively cheap. Might be able to get a really basic policy for 500-1000 per year.

[statusdetailing]

Forgot to mention tar can be a problem too. You can just buy a can of tarminator on a job to job basis and upcharge.

[ShaunD]

You need to realize that insurance requires a deductible for damage you do. But as far as having equipment covered in the occurrence of loss, theft, etc., could pay for itself. Just make sure obtain a policy that makes sense for your situation and liabilities.

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[FinishingTouchA]

This should probably be pinned, some good info for beginners.

[BradsDetailing]

subd

[mrclean]

this thread served me well. thanks vp mark!

[Romans5.8]

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone. One of the things that really amazed me with the detailing community when I first got started was how eager everyone was to help with advice. It is extremely rare in any field, much less a service field.

I really do hope that people get some benefit from this and it turns out to be a useful tool. There are plenty of dirty cars out there to go around!

I was thinking about this the other day. Other hobby-pro forums I'm on (things like Photography; for some it's a hobby, others it's a profession) new startups are often frowned upon. A thread informing someone wanting to start a professional detailing business assuming they don't already have basic detailing tools? That's pretty fantastic. On any photography forum, just try and give people options for an inexpensive camera to start up a photography business and see if you can make it back out of the thread alive! LOL. To many of them, you simply must be the very best and even THEN, they aren't keen to give you any idea of how to improve yourself (even on a hobby level) if they think you might one day do this for a living.

But- there's some big benefit to helping this newbies. For one, I think it helps make detailing relevant. Where I live, detailing has a connotation for what a dealer does before selling a car. Very, very few folks would consider getting their car detailed or getting maintenance washes and the like done. With more professional detailers in more markets; it'll probably spark interest and help start the conversation of "Do I need a detailer" for more and more car owners. It can only help those already in the business! I firmly believe a lot of detailers could really break open the market if they started purposefully marketing towards 'everyday joe' cars. There's a big untapped market that would probably consider detailing but has never even looked into it because they think it's just for high end luxury cars and thus must be really expensive. No idea that you can get on a wash/wax plan with a lot of detailers for not a lot more than the auto car wash every week!

So I applaud you guys for being so helpful to a lot of these new guys. I hope you're encouraging them to do it right and take themselves seriously; like you are in this thread (get insurance and a business license, don't do the very, very bad mistake of 'well I'll just do it for a while and make it legal and insured when I get on my feet'). Hopefully people realize that you pretty much need to be prepared to have no income for a while when starting a new business as well. Those are harsh realities; but there's no reason to compound that with unhelpful people who just bash anyway new! So kudos to you all!

[Harry Da Hamster]

Phenomenal write up Mark. I'm not a pro detailer, only a weekend warrior, and your write up comes in very handy!

[hamlyn]

Well thought out and well laid out start-up plan... good reading.

[pointillistic_practitioner]

This is a great post! I remember when I first joined AGO everyone was extremely able to help...and I was able to get myself up with some great products! That being said, a post like this still would've made things much easier! Motion to sticky, +1