After realizing that school and overnight warehouse shifts weren’t for him, Bryan Guzman decided to work for himself. The 22-year-old from South Gate launched his own car detailing business drawn by the freedom to set his own hours and be his own boss.
Guzman decided to name his business “Weros Mobile Detail” . A nickname that he’s carried his whole life ended up being catchy enough to build an entire business around. It took about 2 years for his business to really get known. Eventually he became a go-to car detailing person in South Gate and cities nearby. His success was fueled by word of mouth. But, with success also came lots of stress, there were several jobs that he had to turn down or reschedule because he couldn’t do it all alone.
He decided to ask a friend he’s known since high school to join him in his business. Steve Hernandez, a 22-year-old from Lynwood, decided to give it a shot. “I worked in the same warehouse for 8 months as a forklift driver and wanted more money then I did door to door sales for 3 1/2 years to make more money. I didn’t like the job so I stayed only for the pay. I took the chance to be able to work with a friend that has had the time to grow the business to what it is now. Now that there’s always work, we are always making money,” Hernandez said.
Having two people made the business a lot stronger. They now travel to cities up to two hours away to get jobs done. One of their favorite moments when working is when they get the chance to work with luxury cars. Some of their favorites are Corvette’s, Porche’s and Lamborghini’s.
Most of their luxury car clients are regulars. They like to get their cars detailed every two to three weeks.
As business continued to thrive they decided to add a new skill to their service and learn how to tint car windows. “We detail and tint. There’s always a learning curve but the detailing is as simple as it can be, just need to be thorough and patient. Tinting is a steeper learning curve that always can cause problems but once we got it we can never forget,” Hernandez said.
Although the scheduling of this job may be unpredictable Hernandez is still grateful his friend gave him this opportunity to learn and grow together. “I had a different work schedule and didn’t have to start till 12 p.m. , it’s not an issue but I do wake up earlier now but it also means I end early some days as well. I also work more some days but I enjoy it since it means more money in the end for the business. And some days there will be little work. I used to work alone. Now I work with one of my best friends making the days not feel long. I used my own car before so I racked up miles and now we use a work truck. My schedule is different and my work load is different. A little more labor now but not too bad,” Hernandez said.
“I’m lucky that the friend is a genuine person and very similar in mindset for working. We both want to make money and strive for excellence near perfection in our work. We like to be efficient in time and organized to prevent chaos. While we work hard we are still able to joke and have conversations. Between customers we will go eat breakfast or lunch and during downtimes we usually find something to do or hit the gym. It’s never a dull moment at work,” Guzman said.
One of the biggest challenges they’ve faced is using the wrong color tint on a customer’s car. “It was a complete misunderstanding, the customer was kind and understanding about it, but we did have to drive out all the way to Chino, CA the next day to redo the entire car,” Guzman said.
After that misunderstanding Guzman and Hernandez triple check with the customer on what percentage they want for their windows, they make sure to show the customer examples before they get started.
Mario Alvares, a Watts resident, has been a client of “Weros Mobile Detail” for a year. Alvares has always washed his own car and never knew that mobile detailing was a business. He first heard about “Weros Mobile Detail” from a family friend and decided to book an appointment. “I love these guys, their pricing is great and they do an amazing job everytime,” Alvares said. He likes that he doesn’t have to take time out of his weekends to go wash his car; he can just rest at home while they do it for him.
One of their biggest goals for the business is to open a shop where they can detail cars, tint car windows and eventually modify cars. “A shop where we do mostly anything car based. We still want to travel to the client but a shop can be helpful when we do tinting and for when it rains since on rainy days we have no business, a shop might be able to help with that,” Hernandez said.
“We for sure want to hire employees so we can get more stuff done. For now we just strive to get more high end clients and retain them from monthly to weekly services,” Guzman said.
Sophia Castillo is a California State University in Long Beach (CSULB) student.