144. Stews Self Service Garage

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144. Stews Self Service Garage

00:00:01 Welcome to the everything Coworking podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host, co working space owner and trend expert Jamie Russo Way. Welcome to the everything Coworking podcast. This is Jamie Russo. Today's episode is brought to you by Community Manager University, which is a training and development platform for community managers from day one to regional manager. The platform includes many courses that cover the major buckets of the community manager role, including operations, community management,

00:00:42 sales and marketing. Finance in leadership and the content is laid out and graduated learning path so that your community manager can identify what content is relevant to them. Given their experience, the also get monthly resource is templates. We do Q and A calls each month and have a very active slack group. So in addition to learning from training modules, they get just in time support from ah, fantastic group of community managers from around the world. If you would like more information, go to www dot everything coworking dot com forward slash community managers Today is a really fun episode.

00:01:23 I have a unique guest for you stew from studio self serve Garage shares his story and talks about his business model and his lessons learned. And I invited Stew on because while he's not directly in the Coworking industry, he's definitely part of the shared economy and the folks that use his space, at least a segment of them benefit from the community aspect of the business. And I also just think it's really interesting to learn lessons from other people's business. So Stew had some great things to share about his biggest learnings and its biggest challenges and some of the things that he's overcome along the way and his plans for expanding his business.

00:02:04 That I think absolutely applied to Coworking and Stew is a G W A member. So I love that, too. So thanks stew for a great episode. I hope you guys enjoy our conversation today. I have a very unique guest on the show. He joined the J. W. A. I can't remember when you joined, but an email immediately floated around about how unique and interesting of a new member we had. So I made a note to self right then that I wanted to have stew on the podcast stew is the owner of stew Self serve garage.

00:02:42 Thank you for joining me today. Stew. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Okay. So I have so many questions for you. We were just chatting and I said, Stew, it's time to hit record so that everybody can hear our conversation. So let's start at the beginning. Tell us about you, your background and how you got to start to do self serving rush. So part of getting to this point is I'm a big car guy. From my earliest memories,

00:03:08 I was just infatuated with cars, like in preschool. When you're playing with blocks, I built cars all the way. You know, I drew cars on everything, so cars, cars, cars is everything to me. And so it was just kind of this natural progression that once I could drive, I wanted to work on the cars, and I was kind of also aided by the fact that my dad bought me a $500 car and said, If you want to drive, you got to keep it on the road.

00:03:32 I'm not paying for McCann. I think my first car was $800. So I learned how to work on my car, and I've just always been kind of self driven self starter. I kind of lived with this. I call it the grip. It and rip it mentality is that I'm not afraid and freeze take on the challenge. So just by working on cars all the time, I needed a place to work on my car's. Once I went to college. There obviously isn't a so write your apartment doesn't have a garage that you can like parts in and elevate your car and all the things you need to dio.

00:04:13 Yeah, absolutely. So where I was going in Ellensburg, Washington, which is December, is cold, snowy, windy. It's probably like 25 degrees outside ice, and at the time I had a Toyota truck. But I had to do the whole suspension on, and I really didn't want to do it in the dorm parking lot like you didn't want me. Oh, so I was calling around the local shops like Hey ho Chi, ideally rent a lift from you, but not just like some space on inside.

00:04:43 And everybody said now, no, there's no way that's happening. So I was sent into my dorm room with my buddies going. Man, I really wish there was this place that I could go to have a lift on the tools and they beat you. Yeah, There'll be a guy there, so by questions, I could ask them, and I went, You know what? That's actually a really But I guess that's kind of where I ended up going at the time. I was going to college with intention Stone being a surgeon.

00:05:12 So you were gonna be a surgeon. That was kind of my goal. Yeah. I can work on cars. I could work on people. So, you know, you could bring back from the dead humans. That's a little bit trickier. And so I wanted to be a surgeon. Kind of. One of my big thing was helping people. So this is kind of a different way of helping people we help on instead of pursue their passion. Like I assume you enjoy working on your car. Oh,

00:05:39 yeah, Absolutely. For me, working on my car sometimes could be therapeutic sometimes, but it s so I kind of had a major shift in career focus. Have moved more into being business and starting the business of running the business. And obviously, it's a passion of mine. Said That helps a lot. So there's always that interest level. Yeah. So did you finish school? No, I dropped out somewhere. Being a surgeon, I'm pursuing this idea. I didn't even make it through a whole year.

00:06:11 I dropped like my second quarter. I was their only a couple days a week because I wrote the business plan in December's I went to school in September, and by December I was like, This is what I want to dio I started writing the business plan, did all the financial projections. And then when I came back to school for winter quarter, after all, it is everything. I basically created my schedule, so I only had to be there Tuesday and Thursday on and every, like, I would just go back home and work on my business.

00:06:45 I'm so I was barely president for the second quarter of college, so I didn't make it very far. I dropped out very quickly for a good reason. Okay, so then how did you get the business off the ground? And how did you find a look. All the things. Yeah, very hard. So I was 19 at the time, which most people don't want to take a 19 year old. Seriously. So that stuff like a bank, for instance? Yeah, no going a landlord,

00:07:09 especially not landlords. Because now they're really taking a risk on you, because that's the thing is, you know, commercial lease for multiple years is worth hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars, so they're taking a chance on you. Yeah, and most we don't really think of it that way, because if the space it's unoccupied, that landlords are making money and they don't want to sit unoccupied. So, yeah, when I dropped out of school, Look, I hired a real estate broker to start helping me look for a location,

00:07:36 and I kind of got baby switched. Actually, that was kind of my first lesson is they may act like they're your friend, but they are not. Many people will offer, like they are going to help you, but that you do not fully understand that you have to be self interested in everybody else's self interested. You're kind of in for a world of pain and So we had found a space with this broker and I was thinking, Wow, what a great deal in our area. Real estates.

00:08:02 Pretty expensive. And so you are How far outside of Seattle? We're about it, depending on the time. 20 minute drive. OK, pretty close. Yeah, in Seattle were separated by Lake Washington. So there's Seattle on one side and the east side on the side that separated by, like Washington. Okay, in Kirkland, which is part of the side where we are in some of the most expensive real estate in the country. OK, so at that point in time, a good deal on where house space waas under a dollar a square foot on an office was about a dollar a square foot.

00:08:40 I was considered like a good deal, like you're getting a really good deal. And this broker was like,

00:08:46 Yeah, I think we can get this space for probably, like, 65 cents a square foot warehouse and maybe 90 census work but office when I was going.

00:08:57 Now that sounds like a pretty good deal with the space has been sitting timekeeper while And so I was like,

00:09:02 Yeah, let's do it right up the letter of intent, which is what is kind of like the first step in getting a lease is it's a lot of the basic terms and that they're going to go into the least just on the offer sheet and then you send it to the landlord.

00:09:15 You negotiate off of that before you get into the full legal contract. So e, I was like,

00:09:19 Yeah, put that in a letter of intent. Let's send it off. This will be great. Hey,

00:09:23 sends me the copy of the letter of intensity sent to the landlord, and it's a dollar 20 a square foot office and 90 cents a spur foot warehouse.

00:09:31 And I'm sitting there going. That's not what you told on top of numerous errors on the letter of intent.

00:09:38 And he goes, I never would have said that and blah blah, blah, blah, blah. I kind of was a he said.

00:09:44 She said kind of deal and I was just some starry eyed dreaming kid totally didn't understand how any of this works.

00:09:51 And so I knew right then and there I needed a new broker, and so at that point in time,

00:09:57 I was thinking. Okay, well, I'm gonna need a real estate attorney anyway. I'm gonna go find an attorney first on them.

00:10:02 I will let them a recommendation to a broker because it's coming from an attorney who probably is going to be golfing buddies with that brokers,

00:10:11 boss. And so they're probably gonna treat me a little bit better on. So that's what I did.

00:10:16 And I got a good broker who still have a relationship with We signed the lease extension just last year for another five years in our current spot on help about.

00:10:26 So did you have to start your space search over at that twit are once you send a letter of intent to the landlord that says I'm gonna pay it this right?

00:10:34 You don't want to know you're not going. Yeah. Doesn't go down it only Yeah. Get, you know,

00:10:39 Yeah. We had to find another space which turned out it was only a couple blocks away from where we originally looked,

00:10:45 but I've got a little bit of an interest or in story on that. The space that we ended up with is actually not the first space I signed a lease on Oh,

00:10:53 first space. I signed the lease on it just did all of our due diligence. We checked the zoning,

00:11:00 we check out, permitting. We checked that we could do these things. You have no problems. We releasing too sweet side by side.

00:11:08 And then we would cut a hole through the wall yet to allow passed through. Turned out that that wall was a major final.

00:11:15 It was just not on the building. Blueprints. The phone now, did he? Oh, now it was kind of one of those.

00:11:23 Oh, you cut a hole in this? Yeah, You can't do that. And then it was,

00:11:27 Well, we leased this space and in the contract specifically stated, you know, this is what we're going to use it for.

00:11:33 It was stipulated that that would be part of the deal. So we were protected in the instance that if we couldn't,

00:11:40 we could get out of hell. So wow, we ended up getting out of that least and note Bolt of our own was kind of on the landlord,

00:11:48 who knew probably that he couldn't do this. And because he was upset that inspectors came out, I didn't realize he was doing any of this unpermitted.

00:11:57 Oh, interesting. Yeah. When you filed for your business license, can you say I did? The city sends inspectors out to make sure that the spaces is this,

00:12:07 um, so on. So Portland. And when the inspector showed up, it went, uh, that was pretty thick.

00:12:14 That looks like a firewall. Sure enough, it was That started this whole chain reaction of finding another space all over again.

00:12:21 That was a good day for you. Yeah, I talked about up is to probably one of the worst days.

00:12:26 Yeah, a lot of time and money just out. Yeah. So now the space that we're in currently and will be,

00:12:34 at least for the next five years on have been here for five years already be. Are rock solid on Awesome Did not have any of those same issues.

00:12:43 It was kind of nice because the owner at the time or building spin sold a couple times since then.

00:12:48 But the owner at the time selected our business even though there were other offers on the table because he felt like this was something that the area needed,

00:12:56 and he kind of saw a little bit of Ah, maybe a young him at the time, because when we signed the lease,

00:13:03 I was 20 by that point. And so still young men just kind of trying to grip it and rip it,

00:13:09 just get out and make something happen, you know? So, uh, it was tough, because even till our economy never really trashed when the recession happened,

00:13:20 I mean, yeah, you know, I was still a tougher bober, so insulated by Microsoft pajamas on and bowing and all these other major companies.

00:13:28 So for us, you know, there wasn't really much of a recession. Sure, some wage stagnation.

00:13:33 But now there wasn't this huge real estate availability, so there's still very competitive, and she is reflected in the prices,

00:13:40 and the prices have gone up substantially. Yeah, you know, are police. Christ went up over 30%.

00:13:48 Yeah, and that's just how it goes. So tell me a little bit more. First, I have to mention because we talked about this in our pre chat.

00:13:56 There are not many other stews out there, so your business model is a little bit unique. You mentioned,

00:14:03 you know, there are some, but some kind of started its hobbies and just not a lot of other folks that are making this business model work.

00:14:10 So you're kind of you're a little bit on an island. Yeah, there are a few there, some that have been around for longer than I have.

00:14:18 Some that haven't been around has long. Most of them usually don't last much past a year. They do get started as hobbies,

00:14:25 kind of people going the same mindset that I was in. I wanted a place where I could work on myself and then also reached out to try to help pay for it.

00:14:33 Yet I differentiate bat in that I run it as a business. In fact, I barely work on my car anymore because I don't have time for the ability.

00:14:44 So but a lot of other people, they look at it as a way for them to get something that they want,

00:14:50 and they run it as a hobby and so doesn't last. And then there are others that have been around for a long time,

00:14:54 and then they run it as business. It's just kind of take a the same token as I do.

00:15:00 So tell me about the people that use your space, so there's kind of your use case. Who else?

00:15:06 One of the other types of people that will use your service described what the service's first. I, of course,

00:15:12 went through your website, and so I feel like I I got a handle on it. But for listening,

00:15:17 Who doesn't know it yet? Talk about your offering and then who uses it. But my business is a self service.

00:15:24 Audit arrives. So we provide lift tools and equipment and experts on staff of unanswered questions for you to come in and work on your own car so you can come in and be mechanical jobs.

00:15:33 Picture car yourself generally saved quite a bit of money and get back down the road. But the safe car on some good save in your pocket We are available to the public.

00:15:44 You don't have a membership. You don't have to be extraordinarily knowledgeably. Don't have to be a mechanic.

00:15:49 We get all kinds of people. Everybody from I've never picked up a wrench in my life to really Oh,

00:15:54 yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll have to tell that story, Okay, But I've got one in particular.

00:16:00 I love to tell, but everybody from never picked up a rental for two very seasoned mechanics. Been building cars their whole life.

00:16:07 They said, You know, it can be done on a hard they've done it and everybody in between,

00:16:12 you know, even just the general person who they get a quote for $2000 for something on their car and they go,

00:16:20 I don't have $2000 for that. But I have to have my car. How can I do this cheaper?

00:16:25 And so they if the Internet and they go looking for something like us and then we pop up and we're here to help people do that.

00:16:33 But you don't provide any service is you're not gonna do it for them. It's all self serve. Okay,

00:16:39 all 100% self service, so we cannot turn the wrench for you. So that's we're here to answer questions,

00:16:45 provide guns. We just can't turn the right for you. Oh, no weekend. As long as we're not very busy now,

00:16:52 we're sly impact busy. It's a shared resource. You are sharing that expert with everybody else in the shop as well.

00:16:58 So we left busy. We can even sit down and say, Okay, you're doing breaks, you're gonna start here,

00:17:03 take the wheel off and just kind of gives step by step instructions. And, well, generally walk you through the 1st 1 and then you generally can do the cycle.

00:17:11 Wonders. Okay, Tell us about the guy that had never picked up a wrench before. So he is one of my favorite customers.

00:17:18 Just a super nice guy. He's a software engineer. You know, he was familiar with what tools are,

00:17:26 of course, but he hadn't really, ever worked on anything. Used supper guy, and he decided he really wanted to learn.

00:17:34 And so he went and bought a older BMW that was mechanically not terrible, but needs work. And he decided he wanted to learn.

00:17:45 He wanted to do it himself. He wanted a life. And so he came in me, start off looking a little change,

00:17:51 and we had to show him what all the tools were and how they work and how to use them,

00:17:56 how to use them correctly. And it just evolved, you know, it started with an oil change,

00:18:01 and then he needed to do break. So he wanted to do some suspension stuff, and then he wanted to replace the head on the motor.

00:18:08 I wanted to replace the motor. He wanted to do all of these mechanical things in which he did.

00:18:13 I say this is probably the best mechanical mid eighties being Bill you'll ever see in your life That isn't brand new off the showroom floor.

00:18:20 I mean, he literally did every mechanical job on this car, and I don't see him very much anymore because he's got a perfectly for running car.

00:18:30 But he started. I was literally, like, no knowledge, period and just threw that self determination to learn.

00:18:37 And then obviously with some help from us in terms of instruction, he went for it and he just took that leap and have faith in us that we weren't gonna leave him high and dry,

00:18:45 and then we would help him through all of the problems he might encounter and teach him a lot of things.

00:18:49 And we sure did. And he still comes in it. Like I said, I don't seem very often cause yeah much because this party is like,

00:18:57 perfect, But we still see him. He still has the car running great, and it was definitely one of I say,

00:19:06 That's probably my success story. Somebody was able to start into the hobby with literally nothing and get to the point where they are with the help that we provided him of resource that we provided to me,

00:19:21 You know, being in business for five years and certainly a success. You know, that's a great metric butt.

00:19:27 How many you know how much impact of you had? Yeah, I measured by how much impact we have.

00:19:32 If we can help people learn save money. That's more success to me than just, you know, having a great sales month or or just lasting for oh so long.

00:19:44 So it's definitely very important for me to have success with the customers. That's my metric for success. So who is that?

00:19:53 You talked a little bit in our pre chat about fleet companies, sort of doing maintenance and whatnot on their cards.

00:19:59 What are some of the other range of people that use your space? So you know, there's a fleet maintenance,

00:20:05 so you know you're exterminators or whatever. The businesses that have a fleet of cars, they come in.

00:20:11 We kicked it motor call mobile mechanics, the guys who you can hire to come to you, work on your car.

00:20:18 A lot of them do. What they do is they go to you, pick up your car and then they bring him here to you.

00:20:23 Yeah, okay, because they wanna shop environment to be able to do that. Of course, they still do work on cars at remote locations do.

00:20:31 But we also see now just the regular person who's got a car and they need to do break. So they need toe fix their struts or they need to do some job.

00:20:43 Then they're just They owned the car to get from A to B. You know, they're not enthusiasts.

00:20:47 They're not at all now into cars. They just need to keep it on the road. And then we can lick the goods sector of people who are enthusiasts.

00:20:54 Ooh, they're doing modifications of performance upgrades. They're tinkering, they're having fun. And we've got a customer who is,

00:21:02 ah, top end executive who, you know, he makes tons of money a year, has all of these exotic cars need,

00:21:07 comes in and tinkers with, um because he likes it. It's something that's fun for him, and people like I can't believe someone you know,

00:21:15 so it would work on their car because they have millions of dollars. I'm like, Well, at the same time,

00:21:19 they mess it up, They can afford the house, right? I don't really. So tell me about the experts that you have on hand.

00:21:27 Like what are they? So it sounds like they can do a lot if there's time. So, yeah,

00:21:32 depending on how much time is, you know how much assistance we can really give you. All of our experts who work here have over 10 years of experience working with the wrong parts so myself,

00:21:42 I've been working on cars for 11 12 years. We have a couple older gentlemen who have been working on cars for reporting five years.

00:21:49 So and now we our experts, it's our day job. We understand how all of the systems in your cars work,

00:21:59 and we understand the components, and we understand how to fix them properly and ways to overcome challenges that I'd arrived.

00:22:07 So we understand all of the common pit bulls that you might experience in the job. So probably one of the most common things is people coming do breaks.

00:22:15 Well, a brake rotor. It can actually get stuck on your heart. And that might be a little intimidating.

00:22:20 You're sitting there going great. You know, my car is a part of this part stuck on the car.

00:22:24 How do I get it off? Well, funny enough, Just grab a big metal hammer and hit it,

00:22:29 you know? Okay, So for some reason, I'm picturing all these people in your space, like on YouTube?

00:22:36 Yeah, YouTube universe them with that. Yeah. Better to use the experts, but way love YouTube in terms of its good information for people to just see.

00:22:50 Like the YouTube video does not include everything you know, their problems that you may have that didn't happen to the person filming that video,

00:23:00 so it doesn't get covered. And so that's where we fill in a lot of those knowledge. Yeah,

00:23:04 we know every single problem that can happen when you were doing this job, and we know how to fixed all of those things.

00:23:12 And so l your video is great for showing you the job and showing you the general things that you're going to have to interact with.

00:23:20 It might just not show you. Oh, you get stuck here. This is how you get out of that bond.

00:23:25 So we fill in a lot of that. But I mean, I like you, too, but it's just the customers don't like is the one who watches the YouTube video runs into a problem that it isn't on.

00:23:35 The video comes and asks us for help and then says, No, you're wrong and continues to look on now,

00:23:41 right? We are there to offer the help. It's included in the price. It doesn't cost anything extra,

00:23:49 but the prices in any less if you don't use our right, right? Totally. So you might as well.

00:23:55 Since we know how did people find you? How do you market? We get a lot of people through word of mouth and Google searching usto is important.

00:24:05 We also do social media advertising. We okay mainly on Facebook and instagram. Yeah, you also are present at some party events.

00:24:13 Okay? Saying that relation with the car community as a whole. But a lot of our customers come in through word of mouth.

00:24:21 We have a last count. We had something like 405. Star of news spread across Google, Facebook and yell.

00:24:29 So can I read one of the testimonials from your website? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, Jim W.

00:24:35 Says there is nothing bad to say here for the do it yourselfer. This place is like an oasis in the middle of the desert.

00:24:42 Full tool suite for each bay, specialty tools behind the desk and very nice lifts. Clean, organized,

00:24:49 not pretentious. I'd freaking live here if it wasn't weird, but that would be the best testimonial ever.

00:25:00 Sometimes acts like he lives here, so I have a question about that. So, you know, we come from the working world where community is primary for us.

00:25:10 What does it look like in your business? So that's Jim. Who wants to live? There were a little different in terms of people aren't here,

00:25:20 like by the month. Alright, Right. They're not coming every day. Yeah, however, the so for,

00:25:28 like the A and B car owner, you know, they're not a car enthusiasts. Yeah, it's more transactional there,

00:25:34 transactional. A lot of our community comes from guys were going out to the racetrack or they own a car and they're in the car club,

00:25:42 and so they interact with somebody else. who has the same car, who's an enthusiast and say, Hey,

00:25:47 maybe you should join our car club or whatever And so we do have ah, community of guys who go to the track all the time and have probably grown closer together from coming in and working on my car's here.

00:25:58 Does they come and support each other now? Somebody goes to the track and they blow up their engine.

00:26:03 I gotta pull my engine. Can you guys come help me? And so you know that Monday they're in replacing the engine on the car or you know other things,

00:26:13 too. And though the community is a little different in terms of, there is a lot that's just transaction,

00:26:19 because we're very short term. Most people aren't here for more than a few hours, so they don't have that opportunity to get to know the person next to him on It's more so.

00:26:29 We just kind of helped build on an existing community so that the existing car community is improved when these people come here together or extend their network by meeting somebody here is enthusiast who might be interested in joining a club or hanging out with that person,

00:26:48 So it's a little different in that sense, Yeah, but I still couldn't see how it plays out.

00:26:53 I think that's it's really neat. I mean, it's neat to have a place right outside of the track or the car club or whatever,

00:26:59 where people can come together and pursue a hobby and something that they're passionate about. Absolutely no. It's like a community center for them have a couple of business questions.

00:27:11 What's been, besides the least that you couldn't actually occupy? What, her a couple of your biggest challenges so far.

00:27:19 I mean, your five years in you're like a total pro at this point. But, yeah, specks.

00:27:24 Nearly days. Nailing down the product is certainly a big challenge. Others the three p's and business people.

00:27:31 Product process and nailing down your product and be kind of challenging. When you start, you have this idea in your head of what you wanted to be,

00:27:39 and then the customers show up, and maybe they didn't like that. Or maybe that just doesn't work.

00:27:45 It's a cool thought. It's just not able to be acted upon. And so some of the early challenges we're just making sure that our product works or the customers.

00:27:56 And I mean, obviously I had a pretty good start. He had had a lot, a lot of friction on that sense.

00:28:04 It was just kind of improving upon the existing offering to just build additional value. So when we opened,

00:28:10 we still provided tools and every bay, and we had a business, you know, tool room for all the other,

00:28:15 especially tools that don't need to be in every day. But adding onto that, it's a lot of capital to continue to add tools on top of market penetration.

00:28:23 Nobody knows what the hell self service garage is. You know, I don't think that's very curious about the marketing aspect.

00:28:28 Like, do they even know it's possible? So it wouldn't even look for you? Gotta yeah, make that awareness.

00:28:35 And so, yeah, market penetration. So there are all of these people out there who will come to your business.

00:28:41 But if they don't know the thing exists, they aren't showing up. Yeah, that was easily like the biggest challenge for us is getting the people to show up and use the product.

00:28:52 Once we get you through the door, your hooks and gotcha Okay, lift, addiction lifted. That's great.

00:28:59 Good for you. Our goal is just to get you to come in and interact with the service. And so is that market penetration.

00:29:06 It was probably like the biggest, biggest challenge by our, but still like nailing down exactly what the service product had to be to make sure that these people are back was important.

00:29:17 What are a couple of things? The biggest learnings that you've had in your business. So kind of the touch on how you know you need to make your product work.

00:29:25 Very customer. It's how much success somebody can have in business by just listening to the customer. You know,

00:29:32 you don't have to do everything that they say honestly, but just taking what your customer has to say and some of the feedback and going,

00:29:40 How can I change or adjust or implement my product or service so it works better for them in a way that still works for you?

00:29:51 You know, that's the thing is saying I was probably one of the hardest things in business. Do do we?

00:29:55 You have to be willing to say no. We have requests from our customers, will We just have to say,

00:30:00 No, it's just not gonna happen. But it's harder, especially in the early days when you're desperate for customers.

00:30:06 You're like, You want that? I'll do that right? Yeah, well, that's the thing is you can't stray too far away from your core body.

00:30:15 That's another thing about one thing that I was talking about earlier was we did these safety inspections for ride shares and you get in a rideshare car that Roger harassed have a safety inspection,

00:30:27 at least in Seattle, in the very air Seattle area. And so we did those rideshare inspections for a specific company,

00:30:33 and when we did, them were the fastest shop in the world to do them. And we got paid very,

00:30:39 very well to do that, and I was keeping our doors open. However, it's like the circus comes to town when you deal with that,

00:30:45 you know, you have 50 60 70 80 people showing up all at one time, too. Get you to do this inspection on their vehicle and they want it done.

00:30:55 Right now. They don't want to wait, and all the while you're still trying to maintain this other business.

00:31:00 That's afraid of this garage, and so you start strain away from your core product and so, so tempting because of the revenue.

00:31:08 But that's not really what you meant to dio, but it's lucrative. Way were able, in a sense,

00:31:15 we stopped at the right time. We were able to extend our cash runway by good amount and give us that additional time.

00:31:24 So once we pretty much unusually separated, it was okay and we were ever them much better get back to a core product because what was actually a signal was we had somebody call.

00:31:36 They had come to the parking lot, assumed that we were way to busy and left and the an appointment.

00:31:42 And they're like, Yeah, when can I come in? When you're not SAI Impact and it's like,

00:31:45 Well, we had room for that self service customer, but they didn't realize it because they saw everything else.

00:31:52 And so that's definitely a big learning thing. And we started getting complaints from our customer, saying, You know,

00:31:57 this is real pain and asked to come to you when that ride share companies here can win. When are they not there?

00:32:03 Yeah, I was like a big alone flag yet. So what's next for Stu's self service garage? So kind of the next step in what we're working on throughout the year is getting ready for expansion.

00:32:18 We want to bring a student soap service garage to a city near you. So now that being said,

00:32:25 you have to do it right. The important thing for me is making sure that we have the perfect product people in process in place in this existing location.

00:32:36 So when we do get ready to expand, we can do that. And that's smooth. And the product is consistent across the board.

00:32:42 You can You could go to anyone in any city and have that exact same experience because I wanted to be that away.

00:32:49 Sits in the middle of desert. Those Jim, you just don't want people to live there. Who knows?

00:32:55 Maybe someday live work E. I can't talk to you much about some of the things that I have in my Oh,

00:33:04 uh, okay, we've got some kind of creative ideas, okay? And that's the thing is we just want to make sure that when one opens up nearby to you wherever you are,

00:33:18 you can consistently experience what I want you to experience, which is I want you to come in, feel comfortable,

00:33:26 no matter who you are. I mean women. Specifically, When I was just thinking, I was like,

00:33:30 what could I fix their? So my I grew up on a farm in upstate New York and my dad was like,

00:33:37 the ultimate You want a swing set up, build you a swing set, you need new tires, I'll change your tires like well and of course,

00:33:45 all the tractors. And like farm equipment he had to fix. I was thinking like I can't even imagine what he would do if he saw a place like yours.

00:33:52 He would think he'd died and gone to heaven. I think you would want to live there. Yeah,

00:33:58 way shoot pours. I want you to feel very comfortable being here, and like I said, regardless of who you are and know pretentious attitude from us and you can have that consistent experience wherever you go it's like going to Jimmy John's franchise.

00:34:13 You're getting the exact same sand which made the exact same way. But the exact same level has service.

00:34:18 It's just perfect. Every single time. That's exactly how we want to be. You can walk into our location anywhere in the world you are,

00:34:26 and it's likely walked into this exact one. So this year is the year of process for May, its mailing down all of the ways that make our shop what it is and how it works.

00:34:39 So we can, yeah, copy paste that. So when do you open one up another and another another you're getting?

00:34:45 That same experience is the process. Pete's hard. Some entrepreneurs like, Oh, painful, I have ideas I would like to pursue no,

00:34:55 like process. The process is probably the hardest one. It's not. I shouldn't say it's the hardest.

00:35:01 I think actually, nailing down the product of the people is probably harder than process. The process is hard and it's very monotonous.

00:35:09 It's very lice detailed in detail, and you're really working through a lot of fine things, like you just know to do this thing because that's how you've done it this entire time.

00:35:21 Now you gotta write that and you got to create a policy around it, and you have to, like,

00:35:25 exactly state. It's like in fifth grade. I specifically remember this lesson in fifth grade. We had to write.

00:35:32 How could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Seems pretty simple, right? Yeah, but he knows how to do that.

00:35:37 Okay, Yeah. We'll write those instructions you handed to somebody, and you make them do it. Absolutely.

00:35:42 How you wrote it. Guess what? That sandwich is gonna stuck a lot of time and thought process into How do you actually do this?

00:35:51 And so that's I would say is probably the most who don't like processes because it isn't fun. It's a lot of that fine detail oriented by You are really having to spend a lot of time on some very minute things.

00:36:05 But if you don't do it, yeah, no, I get to the next step. Yeah. Put peanut butter on bread.

00:36:10 Okay. Just dropped the jar on their right. E. Love you. Remember the fifth grade so vividly?

00:36:17 I can't remember. Like last week. Uh huh. You're closer to the fifth grade that I Yes,

00:36:26 but I do try to take some of those life lessons, is very seriously, even from a young age,

00:36:33 I say learn things the easy way. Let somebody else do it the hard way. way Lovett. That's great.

00:36:40 Totally well, stew. I look forward to watching your world domination. Progressive abomination of car. Totally.

00:36:50 It's a great model, and it's a great story. So thank you for sharing with us. And best of luck with your next steps.

00:36:58 I appreciate the opportunity to be on a podcast here, and I appreciate the words of encouragement. I'm definitely looking forward to world domination.

00:37:05 Yeah, and for anybody who's interested in checking out Steve's Garage, I will put the link in the show.

00:37:10 Notes. Hold on, Let me look at the girl. You've got to be stopped or you just use garage dot com news garage dot com one.

00:37:17 Asian Stu's Barrage Student Self Service project Find us on Facebook as well. Student self service garage. I love it.

00:37:24 Perfect. Okay, good. So you confined stew. If you wanna learn more stew thinks again. Absolutely.

00:37:29 Thanks for thanks for joining us on this episode of everything. Coworking. Be sure to click the subscribe button so you can stay up to date on the latest trends and how two's until next time

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Jamie Russo