We were lucky to catch up with Cuong Tran recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Cuong, thanks for joining us today. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

Me and my partners are Vietnamese immigrants. We are thankful for our parents who sacrificed and did everything they can in order to bring us here, for our future. We may not have generation wealth to start but we are lucky enough to have the chance to create one. We also had a chance for an education, a chance to learn about other culture. I think its some what an advantage to have different options and perspective when it comes to community connection with other immigrants, making business decisions, The goods and the bad we learn from both culture, we learn from it.

Cuong, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

At Clean Culture Socal Auto Detailing, we offer a seamless experience when it comes to getting your car as fresh as new, We offer variety of services such as exterior detailing, interior detailing, engine bay cleaning, excessive pet hair/tree sap removal….all right at the your door step. Time is money, many of our clients don’t have time to wash their own car. General car wash don’t do justice because they tend to scratch clear coat of the cars, decreasing their value. Also most people don’t have the right tools and techniques to effectively cleaning their cars. Even more, dirty cars affect you, your friends, your relative health. We offer solution that tackling all these problem at the tip of your finger. All you have to do is call us or go on our website, choose the service package, choose an open slot, fill out a short form and book an appointment. It literally takes like one to two minutes…. then simply sit back and relax. To be honest, there are many others out there who charge super cheap, do like a quick 10-20 minutes wash and call it a day. We don’t do that, for us its about the quality, the experience. Communication and satisfaction are very important for us and we take pride on the work that we do.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Luckily, mobile car detailing business does not have a lot of overhead and fairly simple to start up. All you need are money for a cargo van, and necessary tools to start. This is also the reason why this industry may have a lot of saturation simply because you don’t really need to spend too much to start. I am not a fan of risk taking….I do not take out loan. The initial fund I got was from my current engineering job. All we need is around 15000 dollars to start.
– 8000 to 10000 for an old cargo van. This was a little rough, it is hard to find a good working one for this price. Hope our van can last 2 years haha.
– 2000-3000 for equipments. I get them brand-new and bought insurance for them. I just think its a good investment/worry free thing.
– 1000 for utilities, other business expenses. Yes, We gotta pay for licenses for state, city, cost to set up an LLC, business cards, etc…
– Roughly 1000 for materials to build your own cargo van setup.
– We did mostly everything ourselves which I think play a big part in the low start up cost.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Funny story, I did not know about car detail until recent years. My fiancée’s brother, whose is now my partner, was into car mod, car aesthetic. He really love taking care of his own car. He and his buddy got into car detailing and started a side hustle with small ok tools. They did all the wash at his buddys garage….at first its their friends, family, and slowly get out to people that walk by, referrals, etc… It was not much but it gives them reps and they did it cause they love it. Me personally, always want to have/own a business. I played alot of business game and I kid you not, they are very interesting and taught me many things, go check out Sim Companies. I learned alot about the market, contracts, productions. My past works as restaurant cooks, cashier at a hardware store, tutoring and my current Engineering job also added alot to communication, sales, teamwork, process, Additionally, during my drives to work and drive home (which are like 2 hours drive, yes I work very far), I usually listen to pod casts and books. I got alot of time learning about some of the essential of businesses, like SEO, LLC, Tax, Ads and ofc car detailing and literally so many things you can learn in detail about the industry,…. Next thing I know, I was talking to my fiancée’s brother, current partner, do you want to make this legit? Do you want to make it big? We’ve got an opportunity to make both of our dream come true, we need to tackle that.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cleanculturesocal.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cleanculture.socal/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cleanculturesocal
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cleanculturesocal