In recent years, the emergence of the sharing economy has gained significant popularity among consumers. Major companies such as Uber and Airbnb have set a unique trend that caused dozens of startups to follow suit. The sharing economy has generated one of the largest on-demand spendings from consumers and has created disruptions to numerous industries.
In the age of this trend, a new company has emerged to shake up the car wash industry in Australia. Still carrying on with its traditional ways, most Australians continue to use existing carwash services. However, there is an ongoing concern for sustainability that has arisen in its deficient use of water. More importantly, customers are continually seeking to be more time efficient in the current age.
WipeHero, the on-demand, car wash and cleaning service has sought to better the industry of its ways. Founded by Reza Keshavarzi and Farid Mirmohseni, they are taking WipeHero to become the next Uber of car washing, an on-demand cleaning service that can clean any vehicles.
ECX spoke with WipeHero founder Reza Keshavarzi about his company, the changes created by a sharing economy and his plans to build a service that can wash anything.
So what was the inspiration to start WipeHero?
Initially, we created a technology which allows us to wash any vehicle without water anywhere and at any time. Once we created this product we thought “Where we could apply the product and really make an amazing impact?”. We found that if the product was given to people they would rarely use it, so we turned it into more of a service based product.
We started looking at car washing and found out that it is not only wasteful but inconvenient. It’s very time consuming and it’s not cheap at all. Often people are spending a whole lot of money going to a car wash, sitting there having a bad coffee and doing nothing whilst getting their car cleaned. Change is needed and at that moment we decided to turn the whole thing into a service. You can get a car wash at the simple push of the button. You don’t need to worry about anything at all. You could be anywhere and you simply need to push a few buttons to get your car cleaned.
What are your thoughts on the current car wash industry?
The car wash industry in Australia has been a traditional old industry. In fact, it was very ripe for disruption. People were getting their cars cleaned the same ways that existed 50 years ago. So that is definitely a big reason for the change. In the past, there have been very little changes other than saving water and the general process itself is very wasteful, time-consuming and expensive.
Tell me about the unique WipeHero technology you created?
The whole story starts from the fact that we are both engineers. The technology itself took us around a year and a half to develop. The product we created is very unique, in the way we wash cars without any water. The product itself is a completely biodegradable polymer, so it’s safe for your hands and skin. When applied to the surface, it forms little emulsions or bubbles on the dirt and the grime, forcing everything to be lifted off the paint. With only one swipe you can smoothly clean the whole section without any use of water.
You mentioned that the beauty of WipeHero is actually in the service?
Yes, we believe that the real beauty of this company is in the service. Taxis have been around for years and years but why is Uber around? What’s the innovation that they have? What’s the difference that they make? It is all about making that difference. What we are doing is the innovation on top of the product, transforming it to become an on-demand service and using that to change the industry.
So now, looking forward to the next 3-5 years, how is WipeHero going to evolve?
Initially, we started going after businesses as our core clients and that boomed very fast. Now we are shifting to direct consumers. So the same service that was exclusive to Maserati and Hertz now goes to the general public. This is all done through the WipeHero app.
Where we see it going in the next 3-5 years, is that a majority of people will have an app which they can use not just for car washing but any services they require for their car. We want to be the platform people go to if anything happens to their car.
We’ve also always had a vision to not only clean cars, but to clean anything that moves and gets dirty, from a bike, car, train to an airplane. We are creating a platform that can clean any vehicle or object and this is our primary focus.
Finally, describe WipeHero in a few words?
The future of cleaning.
Journo for ECX Magazine
