Car cleaning teen goes from door-knocking to commercial contracts

Tuesday, 14 December 2021

Reuven Gooding of Alpha Car Detailing talks about his journey.

We’re well into the age of the startup, with intrepid entrepreneurs hunting new ways to solve problems. Most of these sadly end up failing for one reason or another, but some find success.

One of the latter is Reuven Gooding, a 19-year-old Auckland-born car detailer who is currently juggling three different commercial contacts and well over a hundred regular clients.

Gooding started out four years ago as an eager-faced 15-year-old who just wanted to clean cars. Armed with a bucket and a sponge given to him by his grandad, he got his mum to drive him to St Stephens Ave in Parnell, Auckland, where he went door-knocking to ask people if they wanted their cars cleaned.

“I just hoped that someone would give a youngster a chance to clean their car,” Gooding told Stuff.

Reuven Gooding, the 19-year-old founder of Alpha Car Detailing, in action.

It was a success, with the very first person to give him a job being the prime minister at the time, Sir John Key. Gooding began moving up from cleaning Nissan Tiidas to vintage Chevrolet Corvettes, Ferrari Californias and Aston Martin DB11s.

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Since he couldn’t drive himself at the time, his mum would help him out by taking him around the suburbs. The hobby blew up into a full-time business, with more than 140 regulars getting their vehicles cleaned and refreshed.

That’s not to say he is exclusively luxury these days. Gooding said that he just loves detailing cars, and will happily clean anything that comes his way.

With five other staff members working beneath him as part of his business, Alpha Car Detailing, Gooding has also managed to pull three commercial contracts and start his own car cleaning clinics.

Car brands have also tapped him to teach their own detailers, which Gooding said made him feel a bit like Gordon Ramsay. Once, he was so horrified by the tools they were using that he broke a scrubbing brush over his knee.

Considering he isn’t even 20 years old, Gooding has also had to figure out what to do with his university studies. He was working while studying for a business innovation and property degree but has decided to take a small step back at the advice of his lecturer in order to properly develop Alpha Car Detailing.

The next steps will be meeting some key performance goals that Gooding has set for himself and the business. Those include: doubling the current output of 40 cars per week to about 80 by this time next year; doubling revenue for ceramic coatings; and establishing Alpha Car Detailing as a one-stop shop for painting, panel repair, tinting and even warrants and tyres in 2022.

“My main mission statement is creating consumer awareness about car detailing and providing good service at a good price,” Gooding said. “People often ask me, ‘How do you become entrepreneurial?’ and I say: ‘It's quite simple; you just start.’”