
As a senior, I’m always looking for productive ways to spend my free time outside of school and planning for college. I have a job and I spend plenty of time with family and friends, yet I find myself not knowing what to do in the meantime. I’m sure a lot of highschoolers feel the same pain, right?
My friend Norman Decelles (class of 2025) started a business, D&D Mobile Detailing, over the summer. I knew he already had a lot on his plate, and I was curious to know how he fit owning a business into his schedule as well as why he decided to. So, I asked him a few questions to gain some insight.
How did you come up with the idea?
I came up with the idea because I’m looking to save money for college and mobile detailing is a strong business. I also have an interest in cars so I had much of the supplies on hand and I enjoy doing it.
Is owning a business time consuming?
At times it can be. Some days you may only have one job that could take an hour or two, while other days you’re busy booking appointments, running to places giving quotes, or being tasked with doing multiple details at a single location.
What’s it like working with a partner and how do you divide and manage tasks?
Working with a partner allows us to split costs at times and also reduce the workload. On site we usually assign ourselves a job based on the detail. If we have two cars, usually I will take the outside of the first car while my partner takes the inside of the second car. Once we’re done, we switch cars and continue. Generally, we do what we excel in. My partner is really good at vacuuming, so he usually does that while I do better with exterior and nitty gritty detailing.
How do you advertise? What seems to draw the most attention?
We initially did a lot of door-to-door advertising, but currently as the seasons change most of our clients come from Yelp or Google, sometimes word of mouth or previous door-to-door advertisements. Yelp seems to draw the most attention, but most of our conversions come from previous door-to-door advertisements.
Are you considering doing this in the future?
I’m looking to do this throughout college, but not much further than that.
What would you recommend to someone wanting to start a business?
As dumb as it sounds, I would recommend starting. People constantly talk about what they want to do but fail to do it. If you want to start a business you need to actually push yourself. Running a business for the first time or doing your first door-to-door sale is difficult, but you’ll never get anywhere if you don’t start in the first place.
Basically, if you have an interest that you enjoy doing, why not make some money while you’re at it? I’m not trying to tell people to go and start a business— I know I could never handle that myself— but it can just be something on a small scale in your spare time. I do think that last point is a very valuable lesson, though. If you want to do something, the first step is actually doing it.
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