Some good news this week — I’ve officially been granted a work permit from North Tyneside Council to run Adam Auto Care as a young person in business!

It’s been a bit of a journey getting here. Because my situation was a little unusual (running my own business as a car washer rather than working for someone else), the Council’s legal team had to take a look and make sure everything was okay. The people at the Council have been really friendly and helpful, but the process did take a while. I’m glad I applied though — it’s helped me understand how it all works and the risk assessment made me think about things that could possibly go wrong and how I’d deal with them.

What Does the Work Permit Actually Say? 🧐

The permit is valid for a whole year and covers car washing jobs I do in the NE30 2 and NE30 4 areas. There are limits on how many hours I can work depending on whether it’s term time or school holidays:

📚 During Term Time

• Max 2 hours per day
• 1 hour before school starts
• 1 hour after school (but finished by 7pm)
• Max 12 hours per week

☀️ During School Holidays

• Max 5 hours per day (Monday to Saturday, 7am–7pm)
• Max 2 hours on Sundays
• Max 25 hours per week

The Council also made it clear that if my school attendance or health was affected, they could take the permit away — so I need to make sure I keep the balance right but I'm well within the limits.

Slower on the Business Front 👀

The business has been a little quieter lately — mostly because I’ve not been doing as much marketing and had other things like footy on. I’m still getting a few repeat customers, which is amazing, but I know I’ll need to do another flyer campaign soon to keep bookings coming in.

For now though, it’s great to have the permit in place and feel like I’m doing things properly. Thanks to the Council for supporting my business.

It’s been a little while since my last blog update — partly because things have been busy, partly because I’ve been figuring out what’s next for Adam Auto Care and also thinking up a completely new business to run alongside this one. 🤔

Over the last week I ran my fourth flyer campaign, using design B from the A/B test and targeted a brand new area. As always, I’ve been keeping track of the results using Plausible to see how it compares with my previous campaigns:

📦 Campaign 1:
• 100 flyers dropped
• 64 unique site visits
• 8 bookings
• 8% flyer-to-booking conversion

📦 Campaign 2:
• 50 flyers dropped
• 20 unique site visits
• 4 bookings
• 8% flyer-to-booking conversion

📦 Campaign 3 (A/B test):
• 100 flyers dropped
• 9 tracked visits from flyer QR codes
• 23 additional direct visits (likely from flyers, URL typed manually)
• 5 bookings
• 5% flyer-to-booking conversion

📦 Campaign 4 (this week):
• 100 flyers dropped
• 38 unique site visits
• 3 bookings
• 3% flyer-to-booking conversion

So… the conversion rate has dipped again — down to 3%. Still a few bookings but a drop-off from previous rounds and it’s not totally clear why.

The approach was pretty consistent:
✅ Used the B flyer design again
✅ Targeted a new part of Tynemouth
✅ Calendar was live and working
✅ Back to including business cards with QR codes

The main differences were that:
- My slot availability was a bit tighter (football season kicking off + other commitments).
- The seasons are shifting — summer holidays are over, routines are changing.
- I’m starting to wonder whether the online booking model is right for every customer or if there’s a more convenient way to offer the service.

All this has got me thinking — maybe it’s time to try some new marketing ideas beyond flyers:

• Digital or social media marketing?
• Trying to pick up jobs on the street, ice-cream man style?
• Changing the model to subscription?

Still figuring it out — but definitely not disheartened. The customers I met this week were really happy with their clean cars and I enjoy doing a good job 🚗✨

Lots to think about and still to learn!

When I first set up Adam Auto Care, I tried to keep my costs as low as possible. That meant using free trials for some of the tools and software I needed. But eventually, every free trial runs out and you have to decide — is this something worth paying for?

One of those tools was Plausible Analytics, the service I use to track how many people visit my website, which pages they look at and how well my flyer campaigns are working. It doesn’t use cookies, it respects privacy and it’s been really helpful. I knew it was something I wanted to keep.

Asking for Help 🤝

Before I paid for the full subscription, I decided to email the team at Plausible. I explained that my business is small, it’s a learning project for me and I wondered if they could offer a discount.

They got back to me really quickly and were really supportive. They explained that they only make money from subscriptions (they don’t sell data or run ads), so they couldn’t offer a huge discount but they gave me 15% off — which I really appreciate. It’s not always about getting something for free but it’s always worth asking politely and explaining your situation.

What's Next?

I’ll definitely carry on using Plausible — having clear analytics helps me understand what’s working and what I need to improve. In future I might contact to some car cleaning product suppliers and see if they’d offer a discount for a small business like mine. Again, no expectations but worth a try.

Lesson learned: It’s okay to ask, just don’t expect — and always be polite. 😇

It’s been a week since my last blog post and before that I was writing one almost every day. I decided to take a bit of a break to focus on sorting out a few things behind the scenes — here's what's cooking 👨‍🍳

Replacing the Trolley 🚲

After the beach trolley broke a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been trying to find a better solution. I’m looking at bike trailers because they’re built to carry heavier loads but ideally I want to get one second-hand to save costs. I’ve found a few online, but getting hold of sellers is harder than I expected… still working on it.

For now, I’ll need help getting the equipment moved around but I need a proper replacement before I push to get any more bookings.

Applying for a Work Permit 📝

The other big thing I’ve been doing is applying for a young person work permit from North Tyneside Council. It's something I read about when looking for things the business should have in place (like the Service Terms I wrote a couple of weeks ago). Part of this process involved writing a risk assessment and filling out the application form. It’s actually been really useful — it made me stop and think about the things that could go wrong and what I can do to keep safe while working.

I’ve also learned more about the limits on working hours for young people which will help make sure I’m not doing too much. I’ll write another post about what I learned from doing that soon.

No New Campaigns… for Now 🛩️

Because I’ve been busy sorting these things out and don't have the trolley to get my stuff around, I haven’t dropped any new flyers or run another campaign this week. I do still have a couple of car washes booked in for the weekend (thanks to earlier flyers) but it’s clear that without the campaigns, bookings slow right down.

At this stage I don’t have enough repeat customers to fill my calendar — so until that changes, marketing campaigns are essential to keeping the business going.

Last week I launched my third marketing campaign — another 100 flyers, this time as part of an A/B test. The test itself has already been explained in a previous post but now that the data is in, it’s time to compare how this drop performed against Campaigns 1 and 2.

I’ve been watching the Plausible stats closely and here’s how the numbers stack up:

📦 Campaign 1:
• 100 flyers dropped
• 64 unique site visits
• 8 bookings
• 8% flyer-to-booking conversion

📦 Campaign 2:
• 50 flyers dropped
• 20 unique site visits
• 4 bookings
• 8% flyer-to-booking conversion

📦 Campaign 3 (A/B test):
• 100 flyers dropped
• 9 tracked visits from flyer QR codes
• 23 additional direct visits (likely from flyers, URL typed manually)
• 5 bookings
• 5% flyer-to-booking conversion

So, slightly lower conversion this time around — but still a healthy 5%. But a lower flyer to site visit rate - one explanation for this could be that I removed the business cards from this flyer drop, since their QR code didn’t include UTM tracking (something I needed for the A/B test). That might explain the drop in visits - I’ll be reintroducing the cards for Campaign 4 so let's see if visitation picks back up 🤔.

Overall, still very happy with the results — and really useful to be learning what works and what doesn’t week by week.

Three full weeks into Adam Auto Care and the stats are looking good! Week 3 brought more learnings, a few surprises and the first signs of real momentum. Here’s a quick look at the key numbers and events:

• 👥 178 unique visitors really low numbers for most websites but fine for me and healthy 25% growth
• 📈 Total of 250 visits and 656 page views — visitors are spending more time clicking around.
• ⏱ Average time on site: 3 minutes 44 seconds
• 🏀 Bounce rate: 37% — slightly better than last week, still showing good engagement
• 📱 78.7% of traffic from mobile devices — this trend continues
• 🧼 19 bookings made so far
• 🚗 19 washes completed (with help from my friends along the way!)
• 💬 7 5-star reviews on Google — thanks so much to everyone who’s taken the time to leave one!
• 🔁 Week 3 brought my first repeat customers — huge milestone and a sign that people are happy with the service

There were a couple of challenges too. The beach trolley I’ve been using to carry all the cleaning gear finally gave up — one of the wheels sheared off completely on Sunday. It’s made me realise I need a proper heavy-duty solution but that’s going to cost money, so it's probably going to be an addition to the costs I didn't expect.

I’ve also decided to take a break this weekend — no bookings, no flyer drops and the calendar is blocked out. It’s been a busy few weeks and I’m still loving the project but it’s important to pace myself too.

Back to it next week 🚀

This week, instead of rushing out another flyer campaign, I’ve taken a step back to ask a really important question: How big is my market?

In other words — how many people in my area could realistically book a car wash and how many do I need to turn this into a business that works?

Where I Operate 📍

I’m focusing on Tynemouth covering NE30 2 and NE30 4. These are close enough for me to reach on foot and work between jobs that may be booked back-to-back on different streets.

I found some really useful stats from the Office for National Statistics: there are 5,233 households in this area. 3,843 of those households own at least one car. Big numbers but what's realistic?

TAM / SAM / SOM 🤷‍♂️

When it came to figuring out my market my dad told me to look up TAM, SAM, SOM. I had to read the definitions a few times to get my head around them, but here’s what they mean and how they apply to my business:

• TAM = Total Addressable Market — this is the maximum number of people who could ever use Adam Auto Care (every car owner in NE30 2+4, whether they actually want or need a car wash)
• SAM = Serviceable Available Market — this narrows it down to the estimated number of customers I can realistically win (every car owner who wants someone else to wash their car, prepared to pay £8 for a wash, prefer to have a home wash vs going to a drive-in)
• SOM = Serviceable Obtainable Market — this is the proportion of the SAM that I can actually serve as customers (based on how many washes I can physically do each week, how many weeks I'll work a year).

Why This Matters 🚀

Following me so far? 😅 So how does it help? Knowing this should help me:

• Stay focused on the right customers
• Avoid over-marketing to people who are unlikely to convert or that I can't serve anyway
• Understand how many customers I actually need to sustain and grow the business

Time To Get The Calculator Out 📲

📦 TAM = 3,843 households with at least one car

🧼 SAM = ~1,150 based on an guesstimate that 30% of households are likely to want a hand car wash

👨‍👦 SOM = ~84 regular customers - that each book around 2.5 washes per year. This is based on me working 30 weeks a year (other commitments) x 7 washes a week = 210 washes/year

🎯 What This All Means

• 84 regular customers to run the business well - that's my goal.
• I'll need to capture 7-8% of the SAM which looks achievable based on the conversion rates in my first 2 campaigns.
• Continue the marketing campaigns to cover up to 1,150 households - this could be flyer drops or shifting to other methods with similar conversion rates.

I've found this really useful to work through because it's given me clear targets and I definitely like having a target 🎯. Now all I have to do is put theory into practice 😳 😂

You might have noticed my website is missing something lots of other sites have — a cookie banner popping up asking you to “Accept All” or “Reject.” That’s not because I forgot to add it, it’s because I don’t need it.

How Can I Track Without Cookies?

I use something called Plausible Analytics, which is a privacy-friendly way to see how people use the website. Unlike most analytics tools (like Google Analytics), Plausible doesn’t use cookies at all. That means it doesn’t track you personally or collect any private data, and that’s why there’s no banner to accept or reject.

Instead of tagging each visitor and following them around, Plausible just gives me simple, anonymous stats — like how many people visited the site, which pages they looked at, and whether they were using a phone or a computer.

Why Bother Tracking at All?

Even though I care about privacy, it’s still really helpful to know:

• How many people visit the website after a flyer drop.
• Which pages people are most interested in (like the About page or Business Journey).
• What kind of devices people use.
• Where we have drop-off in the funnel steps: Visit, Click Calendar, Click Slot, Book (super important).

Having analytics helps me improve the site and make better decisions — but in a way that’s honest, respectful and doesn’t need to spy on anyone.

Keeping It Simple and Respectful

I like that Plausible is lightweight and fast (which helps the site load quickly) and that it fits with how I want to run Adam Auto Care — simple, transparent and trustworthy. Also, I made the stats public so you can view them here.

So next time you visit, you can browse without being tracked all over the internet. I still get the info I need to improve and you keep your privacy. Win-win! 😂

Last week I launched my first ever A/B test — a way to compare two versions of something to see which works better and in short it both failed and succeeded, here's how...

I wanted to test two flyer designs and track how many people scanned the QR code on each version. I used something called UTM tracking to tell where the visits were coming from. You can read a full explanation of this in the post called “Experiment to Improve” further down the page. Here are the results:

❌ What Didn’t Go So Well

• I only printed 50 flyers for each version (A and B), which probably wasn't enough to get clear results (the amount of people you include in a test is called the 'sample size' 🤓)
• I got just 9 visits from people scanning the QR codes with UTM tracking from the 100 flyers I dropped - not enough!
• The results were almost evenly split 🙄😂 — 5 visits for Flyer A, 4 for Flyer B — which means I definitely can't say which design worked better 👎

✅ What Went Well (not all bad news!)

• I successfully set up and ran my first A/B test, with proper tracking and redirect links that worked!
• Even though visits were low, I still got weekend bookings from the flyers. I had 1 booking before the drop and 7 by the time the weekend arrived, which was the main goal
• I learned an important lesson: you need to test at the right scale — small numbers make it hard to get useful results

Even though I didn’t get a clear answer on the flyer designs, it was good experience. I now know how to run tests, what to avoid next time and how to make better decisions using real data — even if the data is small!

Well… that didn’t last long.

On the way to my first job on Sunday morning, the beach trolley I’ve been using to carry all my cleaning gear gave up on me — one of the wheels completely sheared off! I think the combined weight of the spray bottles, buckets and cleaning materials was just too much for it. To be fair, it was designed for pulling around beach gear, not car wash kit 😂

Thankfully, my dad stepped in and helped out, driving the materials between the remaining jobs. All the washes still got done and the customers were happy, but it was a stressful way to start the day.

Looking back, the trolley probably wasn’t up to the job from the start — but it’s still frustrating. Now I’ve got to decide whether to spend money on a heavy-duty alternative or try and build something stronger myself. Like most of the challenges so far, I see it as a chance to improve how I do things… but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t tiring.

After the Sunday cleans, I felt pretty wiped out. It’s been a really busy few weeks since launch, with lots of flyer drops, car washes, bookings and handling the tech side also.

So I’ve decided to take next weekend off.

There won’t be a mid-week marketing push this week — instead I’m going to relax a bit, hang out with friends and enjoy the start of summer. I’m still really driven to make Adam Auto Care a success, but I’ve learned that pacing myself is important too. Staying motivated means taking a breather now and then.

Thanks to everyone who’s supported me so far — I’ll be back for the following weekend - hopefully with a new trolley 🛒😂

One of the things I’ve learned recently is that it’s not just the service itself that matters — it’s also how you explain it. That’s where Service Terms come in.

What Are Service Terms?

Service Terms are a short set of rules and expectations that explain how the service works. Things like: what’s included in a wash, how to cancel or reschedule, what happens if there’s a problem and what I need from the customer too (e.g. I'll often need water). They’re not meant to be complicated — just clear, fair and helpful for everyone.

Why Write Them?

Having these wasn't on my to-do list at first — it's just not something I thought about or have had any problems around. But the more I thought about it, I can see they'll be useufl:

• They help the customer know exactly what to expect.
• They help me think through tricky situations before they happen.
• They protect both sides if something goes wrong or there’s a misunderstanding.

What I Learned from Writing Them

I looked at Service Terms for other businesses which gave me an idea what to write but needed to think specifically how things should work for Adam Auto Care. Just like the rest of the site, I wanted them to be clear and simple - written in a way that anyone can understand.

I also had to imagine things that haven't happened yet. Like what if someone cancels last-minute? Or the car isn’t there when I arrive? Writing the terms helped me prepare for those kinds of things.

Where to Find Them

I need some time to add them to the site but the Service Terms will be added to the footer of the website and also linked from the booking confirmation email, so customers can easily check them any time. They’ll probably get updated now and then as I learn more, but the idea is always the same: be fair, be clear and be upfront.

Writing these terms got me thinking about what else I might be missing — and I found out there’s actually local byelaws about when and how much young people can work. Turns out I probably need a work permit - something new to learn about 😂. I’m working on that next and will explain more about it in another post soon!

One of my goals with Adam Auto Care was to make it the most convenient car washing option around. For a lot of people, paying by card or phone is simply easier — so accepting online payments felt like an important thing to do.

Powered by Stripe

I use Stripe to securely handle payments. It’s one of the world’s biggest online payment platforms and takes care of all the security and processing. Customers receive a payment link in their booking confirmation and I also carry QR codes with me to make it easier to pay straight after the wash.

Setting it up was fairly straightforward, though Stripe does carry out a few checks before letting you go live. These include verifying your identity, linking a bank account and clearly describing your business. Once that was done, I was up and running in a day or two.

Fees and Costs

Stripe charges 1.5% + 20p per UK card transaction. On an £8 wash, that’s 32p in fees — so I receive £7.68. It’s not free, but it saves time and gives customers more flexibility, so I think it’s worth it rather than expecting everyone to carry cash.

How Many People Use It?

So far, 5 out of 14 completed washes have been paid through Stripe — that’s about 36%. I still mostly get paid in cash (and prefer that) but a decent number of customers are choosing the online option and the benefits definitely outweigh the costs.

Adam Auto Care has now been up and running for two whole weeks! Feels a lot longer because so much has happened 😂 Time to review how things have gone so far...

Here’s the main stats since launch:

• 📬 250 flyers have been dropped in different parts of Tynemouth (100 of these only yesterday).
• 👀 The website has had 142 unique visitors, with people spending an average of 3½ minutes on the site.
• 🏀 Bounce rate is 38%, which is still healthy — most people don’t just leave straight away.
• 📱 78% of visits have come from mobile — focusing on a mobile design still looking right.
• 🧠 Most visited pages were the Homepage, Business Journey and About — so people are interested to know more about the business.
• 🛒 18 bookings have been made — giving me a visit-to-booking conversion rate of 12.7% which is really strong.
• 🧽 12 washes completed, with the rest lined up for the weekend. Thanks to Fell and Freddie for being the latest people to work with me on those.
• ⭐️ I’ve had five 5-star Google reviews — thanks so much to everyone who’s left one. You can read them here.

Beyond the numbers I've learned a lot, met some really interesting customers and I'm really proud of the job we've done on the car washes. Looking forward to seeing what week 3 brings!

I've been using targeted flyer drops around Tynemouth as the way to market the business and get my car washing service off the ground. So far I've ran 2 campaigns with the same flyer and now it's time to experiment a little. I've read the way I can do that is with something called A/B testing.

What is A/B Testing?

A/B testing is a simple way to compare two different versions of something – like a flyer, email or website – to see which one performs better.

You split your audience into two groups:

• Group A sees version A of your flyer.
• Group B sees version B of your flyer.

Then you compare which group responds more – in my case, that's by visiting the website or making a booking. This helps you learn what works best so you can improve your marketing over time. But how do you know which is which? By using something called a UTM.

What’s a UTM?

To track which flyer people scanned, I’ve added special codes to the links behind the QR codes on each flyer. These are called UTM parameters which stands for Urchin Tracking Module. Fascinating fact 🤓: the weird name is because these were created by a company called Urchin Software in the 90s, Google bought them and set up Google Analytics – sorry, too much info but I just had to know and now you do too. 😂

Anyway, they’re bits of text added to a link that help analytics tools (like Plausible which I use) understand where a visitor came from.

For example, the link behind Flyer A might look like this:

https://adamautocare.co.uk/?utm_source=flyer&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=ab_test&utm_content=A

This tells me the visit came from a flyer (print), part of the A/B test and it was version A. Flyer B uses the same structure but with utm_content=B.

Making the QR Codes Work

One challenge I didn’t expect was the QR codes for the flyers themselves. It turns out the longer your URL, the more complex the QR code pattern. Makes sense but I didn't know that. This can be a problem because they might not scan properly once printed, especially on a small flyer.

To fix this I needed to create short hidden links on my site with the redirect written into my Python code:

• /flyerA
• /flyerB

When someone scans the QR code, they go to one of these short links and my website immediately redirects them to the full tracking URL in the background. That way the QR codes stay simple and scannable but I still get the full tracking information 😅.

One thing I’m learning through this process: nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems! There’s always some unexpected bit of complexity to figure out.

My Plan

Here’s how I’m running the experiment:

• I’ve designed two different flyers. Flyer A is my original design. Flyer B is a new version with some changes based on early feedback.
• I’ll print and drop 100 flyers in total – 50 of each version.
• I’ll drop them in a controlled way – for example, Flyer A at even-numbered houses and Flyer B at odd-numbered ones, so the test stays fair and even if the fancy tracking fails and people book then I'll know by the house number which version they got 💡.

How I’ll Measure Success

I’m using Plausible Analytics to:

• Track how many people scan each flyer’s QR code.
• See if they go on to make a booking.

By comparing visits and bookings from each version I can learn which flyer is more effective – and why. That’ll help me improve future marketing.

Why This Matters

I can't know how to improve things unless I test them in the real world and measure the results. I'm trying to do things the way bigger businesses do them, just at a much smaller scale. It'll let me make decisions based on data – only a small amount but it's better than none at all. Hopefully I can make this all work and I'll do another post with the results next week!

One of the first things on my to-do list when setting up Adam Auto Care was getting the business registered with Google. Why? So that I could get reviews. I did a bit of research on why reviews are important for businesses and it comes down to something called social proof.

Social Proof?

Social proof is when people look at what others are doing to help decide what they should do. It's the reason that full restaurants feel more appealing than the empty ones so it's not just a digital thing, but with everyone having so much choice online it becomes even more important. People use it as a shortcut to help make decisions and I've read the results of a Consumer Review Survey that a company called BrightLocal do and there's some interesting facts:

• ⭐ Google is the top platform for reviews, used by 83% of people (compared to 48% for the next most popular).
• 🚫 71% of people wouldn’t even consider a business with an average rating under 3 stars.
• 💬 89% expect businesses to respond to reviews — something I’ve started doing.

How I’m Using It

So far, I’ve had 5 five-star Google reviews (big thank you to the customers who wrote them 🙏). They really help people trust that we're doing a good job. Take a look 👉Read our Google reviews.

I’ll try to include the reviews somewhere in the homepage and will hopefully keep addding to them as the business grows.

I'm starting to realise that a lot of running a business is solving the problems you didn't see coming. The most recent one was an issue I noticed last week but thought might be a one-off: duplicate bookings sometimes coming through. I'm still not completely sure what was causing it but I think it might be people refreshing the 'booking success' page and this re-submitting the booking. Whatever the reason it was getting confusing for me and likely for customers as well so I needed to fix it.

What was going on? 🤔

It turns out that the website couldn’t tell if someone had already booked. If they refreshed the page or went back and pressed confirm again, the site just accepted it like it was a brand-new booking. There was nothing in place to stop duplicates.

To find a fix I turned to AI and that’s when I learned about something called a token.

What’s a Token? 🤷‍♂️

A token is like a code the website makes when you first open the booking page. It’s unique and helps the system keep track of whether a booking has already been made. If the same token is used again — the website knows something’s wrong and blocks it. So all I needed to do was get the idea to work in practice and it wasn't that easy but I got there in the end 😅.

The fix that worked 🔧

This is what happens now when someone visits the site to solve this problem:

• When someone opens the booking page, it creates a token and saves it (so it doesn’t change when they refresh).
• When they press Confirm Booking, the token gets used and then deleted — so it can’t be reused.
• If they try to submit the form again (by refreshing or clicking back), the system sees that the token is gone and blocks it.

No more duplicate bookings! 🎉

💡 What I Learned

• You need a reliable way to spot repeat submissions — especially for forms.
• Tokens are great for that, but only if you store them properly.
• Sessions help the website remember things during a visit, even if the page refreshes.

This was the trickiest bug yet but I think it's fixed and the booking system is working perfectly! Until the next one 😂

This week I launched my second mini marketing campaign by dropping another 50 flyers — expanding the area a little from where I first started. I wanted to see if I could keep the momentum going from last week and maybe even improve.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the site analytics (you can view them here: plausible.io/adamautocare.co.uk) and while it’s too early to draw proper conclusions (I only dropped the flyers 2 days ago), you can see a pattern starting to form:

📦 Campaign 1:
• 100 flyers dropped
• 64 unique site visits
• 8 bookings
• 8% flyer-to-booking conversion

📦 Campaign 2 (this week):
• 50 flyers dropped
• 20 unique site visits
• 4 bookings
• 8% flyer-to-booking conversion

So far, the conversion rate is exactly the same. It’s too early to say for sure, but having this info helps me predict demand and plan ahead. I’ve gone from having 2 jobs booked this weekend to 6 — a really good number.

Now I just have to hope the weather holds... it’s gone from being sunny to a weather warning for thundery showers! ⛈️😩

This week I learned something small that makes a big difference: if you don’t set up meta tags on your site, platforms like Google, WhatsApp and iMessage just grab whatever text they can find on your homepage to create the bit of descriptive text you see in results (called a snippet) — which doesn’t always make sense when you can’t see the page it's on and isn’t how you want to present the business to people.

If you looked up the Adam Auto Care site on Google it showed weird text like “Logo Meet Adam. £8. wash...” then dates in the calendar instead of a proper description.

🛠 The Fix

I added something called meta tags to the site’s code — they tell search engines and apps what to show when someone shares your site. I also verified my domain in Google Search Console and requested reindexing so the changes show up quicker (it might still take a few days to work).

💡 What I Learned

Search isn't my main focus right now (my customers come from the targeted flyer drops and maybe word of mouth), but search is super important for other businesses, so I'm glad I'm learning this stuff early.

If I’d bought a website template, this would’ve been handled for me — but building from scratch means I get to understand how it all works. Bit by bit.

It’s been a busy first week running Adam Auto Care and I’ve already learned a lot.

One thing that’s been really interesting is checking the web analytics. They’re helping me understand how things are performing. In the interest of being open, the stats are public and you can view them here: 👉 https://plausible.io/adamautocare.co.uk/

Some things I’ve learned from the stats:

• 📱 80% of people used a phone to visit the site — we designed it to be mobile-first and that’s looking like the right decision.
• ➡️ 56 out of 59 people visited directly (only 3 came via Google). This shows the impact of the flyer drop — I chose this method so I could grow slowly and keep washes close to home.
• 🏀 Bounce rate is 30% (that’s the percentage of people who leave without interacting). I’ve read that under 40% is really good, 40–55% is average, and over 60% could mean something’s not working.
• 📈 People spent around 5½ minutes on the site — which is a lot! It means they’re actually reading what’s there.
• 🧠 The Meet Adam and Business Journey pages were popular — it’s great to know people are interested in how I’m building all this.
• 🛒 12.5% visit-to-booking conversion — that’s a really strong start! I know I can’t expect that forever though — the novelty will wear off and then it’s up to me to make sure the service is useful, high-quality and convenient.

So what’s next?
Traffic is dropping as expected after the first flyer drop and I’ve got slots available this weekend. Time to expand a bit and drop some more flyers.

This week showed me that flyers work, real people are using the site and it’s possible to turn an idea into something real. I’m aiming to keep improving things from here. 💪

Adam Auto Care has officially been live and trading for one week! I know that's not long 😂 but it's enough time to look back at how the launch campaign performed and see what I can learn from it. Before I get into that I first want to say a massive thank you to everyone who supported me, especially my first customers:

• 🚗 8 people trusted me enough to book their cars in for a wash.
• 💷 That means real money paid, cars cleaned and real feedback.
• 🧼 6 washes have been completed (2 arranged for this coming weekend) – special thanks to Harry & Tom who worked with me on those cleans.
• ⭐️ 2 five-star Google reviews – thanks very much for those who reviewed the service. You can do that here.
• 📬 I dropped 100 flyers and had 64 people visit the website – I'm really grateful for the time and interest people have shown.

Whether you booked a wash, visited the site or told someone else about my business – thank you. You helped me get off to a great start.

Bring on week 2! 💪🧼😂

Washing a car sounds like one of those simple things anyone can do — but once I started researching it, I realised there’s actually a lot of method involved 🧪.

If you search for car detailing tutorials on YouTube, you’ll find hundreds of videos explaining how to clean a car properly (some over an hour long, and most of them feel like it 😂). As a mobile car cleaning service, I don’t have a pressure washer or even a hose like most car washes do, so I had to figure out how to clean cars well with equipment I can fit in my cart.

Here’s what I use and the method I follow:

• 9L pressurised spray bottle filled with pre-wash solution. I spray this all over the car to loosen dirt and grease before touching the paint.
• While the pre-wash is working, I clean the wheels using car shampoo and a wheel brush.
• I rinse off the pre-wash and then do the contact wash using microfibre wash mitts (look weird but work well 😂).
• I use the two-bucket method:
  - One bucket has clean water (which gets dirty quickly)
  - The other has soapy water (which stays clean)
  I also 3D printed two grit guards that sit at the bottom of the buckets. These help stop the mitts picking up grit that could scratch the car’s paint.
• I dry the car with big microfibre drying towels. (Contrary to popular belief, car detailers don’t use chamois leathers because there's more of a chance of scratching the paint.)
• I clean the windows using a glass cleaner and special cloths that help remove streaks.
• Finally, I do a careful check all around the car for any spots I might have missed.

I try to use the best-quality products I can. The cost does add up, but I’ve tried cheaper ones before and they don't work well - you can really tell the difference.

There’s still plenty to learn to become faster and better, but this way of cleaning is working well for now.

Since this whole project is about learning, I thought it would be good to explain what I’ve used to build the Adam Auto Care website, in tech terms this is known as the tech stack. All the tools and tech behind the scenes.

Here’s what I’m using:

• Frontend (what you see):
  I wrote the pages using HTML, CSS and a bit of JavaScript. I’m doing it from scratch because I want to understand the basics first. The dark-mode layout, calendar, booking form and blog are all custom-coded.
• Backend (what runs in the background):
  The backend is built with Python and Flask. Flask is a tool that lets my website run code, send confirmation emails, save bookings and check availability (which is in a small JavaScript Notation file).
• Database:
  I’m using Supabase, which is like a secure online spreadsheet that saves all the booking data, available time slots and email signups.
• Email:
  I use Zoho Mail to send confirmation emails when someone books. It should help avoid emails going to spam (but that's still not working so well 😅). I also had to set up something called DKIM, SPF and DMARC to prove my emails are real and not junk.
• Deployment:
  The whole site is hosted live using Render, which pulls the latest version from GitHub whenever I push updates. I also use Git to save versions of my code locally.
• Extra tools:
  I’ve also used ChatGPT to help write code and debug errors.

Still a newbie but I’ve learned a lot just by building and fixing stuff as I go. There’s still loads more to figure out, but this tech stack has taken me from an idea to a working site in just a few weeks.

I only managed to complete 2 of my 4 booked washes today because of heavy rain in the afternoon. The other bookings have been re-arranged for next weekend.

I guess weather is always going to be a potential problem living in the North of England 🤷‍♂️. One idea I’ve had is to connect the booking availability to a weather forecasting website, so it could automatically block slots when rain is expected. It looks possible because there’s a site called openweathermap.org that has an API we could use to get their weather data for free.

Techy bit 🤓:
API stands for Application Programming Interface. In simple terms, it’s like a waiter in a restaurant, collecting and delivering information between the customer and the kitchen. It would let my website talk to the weather forecasting app — telling it what I need and bringing back the info.

Maybe that’s an idea for the future. For now, I’ll just focus on the fundamentals: cleaning to an excellent standard and making customers happy!

When I first set up the booking site I thought 30-minute slots would be enough time to give a car a good clean. But now that I’ve done a few cleans I’ve realised it’s not.

On average it’s taking me about 45 minutes to get set up, clean the car properly and take payment. I don’t want to feel rushed, I want to do a good job every time. So I’ve decided to change the booking slots to 45 minutes and see how that goes.

Here’s the techy bit 🤓:
This update was actually pretty simple to make. It’s just one line of Python code that tells the system to create a new slot every 45 minutes instead of every 30:

                current += timedelta(minutes=45)
                  

I'm still relying on AI to help me write the code, but I’m starting to understand more of how it works as I go.

Three mornings a week I go for a jog with my dad and lately all we talk about is the business.

This morning he asked me what I knew about my customers? All I could really say was: I know where they live and what car they have.

I actually don’t know very much about the people I'm posting flyers to or what they really want.

I set up the booking site to make things easier for me (so I didn’t have to knock on doors anymore) and I thought it would also be easier for customers.

The main idea is to make car washing more convenient — so people don’t have to drive somewhere and can get it done at home.

But I’m starting to realise there are a few things I don’t know yet:

• Is booking in advance convenient for them?
• Do the days and times I offer work for people?
• Is £8 a fair price for a car wash?

The only way to find out is to ask. So I’m planning to speak to people when I wash their cars, and I’m going to try and set up a short survey on the site.

Getting answers to these questions will help me make improvements that work for customers, not just for me.

I did my first flyer drop 2 days ago, and now the first car wash bookings have been made — so it's actually happening 😅

It was amazing to see the first booking emails pop up on my phone. That felt like a really big step for the business.

I've already learned a few important things from the site analytics (I'll write a separate post about that), but here's one thing I now have that I didn’t before: baseline metrics for my conversion rate 🤓

Why does that matter? Because I’ve got loads of ideas for improvements but until now I had no way to tell if any changes made things better or worse. Now I do:

• I posted 100 flyers and got 5 bookings — that’s a 5% conversion rate.

I’ve read that 5% is actually pretty good but it was lower than I expected. My next step is to figure out why and how to improve it. But before I do to that my main focus over the next few days is to do a really good job on the bookings I already have.

I’m working in a small area, so getting repeat customers is going to be really important. If I don’t clean well and build a good reputation that could be the end of it.

Time to go to work!

Flyers printed, cut, and packed—ready to deliver!

I’ve decided to drop 100 flyers to start with. That covers the houses closest to where I live and keeps the maths simple! One thing I’m slightly worried about is that there aren’t loads of booking slots available because I only have time for car washing on weekends. Plus, we’ve got holidays coming up in July.

To help with that we added a new feature to the site: if someone can’t find a slot, they can leave their email address. That way if I get more friends to help or have more time in the school holidays, I can email people to let them know.

My guess is that about 10–15% of flyers will turn into bookings (so 100 flyers = 10–15 bookings), but we’ll have to wait and see if I’m right.

I just really hope the site doesn’t break — that would be the worst result 😭

One last thing! The confirmation emails sometimes go to Junk, so if you book and don’t see the email check your Junk folder. You can add me to your safe senders list to fix that 🙏

This project is all about learning, so I think it’s important to show my workings — including the mistakes (and there have already been plenty!)

That’s why on this page I’ve decided to be completely open about how the business is doing. I’m sharing my revenue, costs, profit and how much I (and any friends helping me) make from it.

The first thing you’ll probably notice is the costs are quite high. That’s because they include everything I’ve invested to get started: the domain name, hosting, business cards, a custom t-shirt and most expensive of all is the proper car washing kit and supplies. It added up faster than I expected!

I plan to pay the start-up costs back over time by only taking part of the revenue from each wash as earnings at first. So even though the total costs will keep growing the profit should start to improve.

I’m also trying to track all the stats I can, like what you can see on this page in the Funnel Metrics part. I want to know how many people who get a flyer actually visit the site and make a booking. This is called a Sales Funnel 🤓 and the percentage that moves through each step is called the conversion rate 📉. I’ll be sharing those numbers and how I try to improve them. 💡

I had the idea to set up my own car washing business about 2.5 months ago. I’d been going door-to-door with my friends cleaning local cars and I knew it was something I enjoyed and could make money from. But I kept thinking: there must be a better way to do it.

The idea was simple: let people book a car wash online. But getting it set up has taken way more time, money and effort than I expected (even with loads of help from my dad and AI for coding!).

The main aim of the whole thing is to learn more about coding and business. I planned to write everything I’m learning on this site so I don’t forget it all—but I’ve really fallen behind! I could probably write 100 pages about the past few months, but I don’t have the time right now.

Hopefully I can catch up… if I’m not too busy washing cars 🤷‍♂️😂