A novel car wash and money spinner

Thatayaone Otukile, 22, decided after three years of hard toil at a car wash in Game City, to take a bold step and start his own similar business – Wash Works Botswana.

He needed P70 000 to start the business, money he didn’t have. But as fate would have it, a benefactor (a regular client at his former employer) provided some three quarters of the start-up capital so that he had to find the remaining quarter.

And much sooner – last year January to be precise - he started trading under his new business name offering car wash services, carpets cleaning and sofas. Otukile told Business Trends in an interview that he was motivated to start a cleaning services business because he found it to be viable with prospects for profits. Further, it provided him an opportunity to become an employer.

Currently he has four employees. Explaining how the business idea came about, he said that one of their regular clients at the car wash in Game City called him one day to wash his cars at home. “After I did the job he was very impressed with my services and he asked me to consider it as a business and he also helped me with some finances to start up,” said Otukile.

A mobile car wash service, says Otukile, is more profitable than the static car one and is much more profitable because, “We do not wait for customers in the workplace but we go to them, therefore we never run short of customers,” said Otukile.

On average he can have eight to 10 customers per day.  He said service charges range from P60 for normal wash and P300 for total cleaning including the engine. Among the challenges, Otukile said they have shortage of transport as the business involves travelling. “We are still a start-up. We have not yet made enough capital to buy many vehicles that we need for transport.”

Even then Otukile said they are expanding the business. He recently acquired a waterless washing machine which will help improve services. He said with the machine they could do the job easier and quicker.