In one sentence, what is your product/service?

We are London’s first mobile car wash marketplace – delivering car washes right to people’s front door.

What problems does it solve?

More and more people are increasingly frustrated with queuing for a long time on car wash forecourts. GoWashMyCar is solving this problem by offering a much more convenient mobile service. 

Our users simply locate their cars online and book a wash – choosing between either an ‘asap’ service or scheduling it over the coming week.

One of our operators accepts the order and the user receives a confirmation mail. Once we complete the service, users get a nice photo of their clean car! 

Feedback has been very encouraging – users love being able to make payment online and handle the whole process remotely – not even needing to be present when the car is washed – it’s the ultimate time saver when it comes to getting the car cleaned.

We are realising that many people are willing to pay a premium for an on-demand service.

Is this a crowded market? 

Fixed location car washing is a competitive business, but the mobile space is highly fragmented with no recognisable brands and no players employing tech and digital marketing to achieve scale.

We see a big opportunity to migrate market share away from the fixed location business.

What are your goals?

We aspire to become the GO-TO mobile car wash platform in London and expand nationally from there.

We believe there is a lot of latent demand for a more convenient car wash service and we aim to stimulate that demand by providing a more convenient, transparent and cost effective solution.

What are the biggest challenges you face?

A lot of car owners either are unaware of a mobile car wash service or perceive it to be too expensive for regular use.

A large challenge lies in showing the marketplace that there is indeed an easy and affordable way to get your car washed. Working out exactly what the customer finds a value-add. 

How will you make money?

Currently we take commissions from each booking and then pass the work onto operators (marketplace model) – although we are looking to become a fully integrated mobile car wash business whilst still preserving the third party model.

We also feel there is a way to monetise additional customer demand such as on-demand services where your car could be washed within an hour at a premium rate and an out of hours service.

Who is in your team?

CEO Adam has a background in commodity trading whilst CTO Robin’s background is in banking and finance.

Robin took a break from finance to study a developer’s course and with this knowledge he built the backend infrastructure of the platform.

Both Adam and Robin are car owners in London and always were frustrated with the experience of going to the fixed location car wash forecourt. Hence the concept of Gowashmycar was there to solve problems they faced in day to day life.

Where would you like to be in one, three and five years’ time?

  • One year: We operate a fleet 20 vans and scooters operating in London and have a fully operational platform and app. We will also still have the 3rd party contracting.
  • 3-5 years: Develop the franchisee and marketplace model (think Addison Lee) to expand to 500-1000 vans minimum & offer white label (tech) product to international parties. 

Other than your own, what are your favourite websites / apps / tools?

Uber – we feel our model draws similarities to Uber where we do not directly offer the car wash service but merely provide the platform to connect customer and operator.

Others include Citymapper, Instagram, Medium, Stripe, Laundrapp and Handy.

Econsultancy readers can grab a 20% discount on an external car wash, using the code ECONSULT20. GoWashMyCar currently operates only in West London.