Today we’d like to introduce you to Austin Pruett.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
In fall of 2019, I graduated with three master’s. I was excited to pursue teaching and to pass my love of learning on to those at the high school or community college level. Unfortunately, I, like the rest of the world, did not see COVID coming. As I was searching for a teaching position the marketing company I had been working at for the past five years laid off 50% of its workforce, including myself. Enrollment was down across schools due to COVID. This led to budget cuts and fewer teaching positions. Schools began piling on more courses for existing teachers rather than offering a new class with a new teacher. COVID created the perfect storm where I was unable to find a teaching position. But our first child was due the month after I was laid off, so I knew I had to do something to help provide for my family and for my daughter. When we bought a new (to us) vehicle in early 2019, I had never owned something so nice and wanted to take care of it. I stumbled upon the world of car detailing and realized it was an area I really enjoy with a large market opportunity. So, I decided to turn my personal passion into a business that could help support my own and hopefully others’ families.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not by a long shot. It has been a grind physically and mentally. In the beginning, it was just myself doing everything. A single car could easily take me 8 hours’ worth of work. 8 hours of physical work plus the Texas summer sun was a recipe for some brutal days. One day after a particularly hard day of work, I ended up in the ER due to extreme chest pains. Turns out I was just dehydrated, and my body was shutting down. While the physical is hard, the mental game is probably more difficult. For months I went through debilitating anxiety attacks. It took a while to figure out what was going on because I had never experienced anything like this prior. Once we did figure out what was going on, I started going to counseling, working on breathwork and meditation, and really leaned into my faith. You add these things on top of the normal challenges that every business owner faces with employees, clients, payroll, inventory, marketing, etc and it has certainly not been a smooth road. However, we have great people who have made this shop what it is today. I am so proud of what we have built and are continuing to build.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Fort Worth Auto Detail?
We are a detail shop that specializes in paint correction and ceramic coatings. To give a little context on what that means most modern-day vehicles have two-stage paint with a layer of what’s called clear coat on top. Clear coat is designed to protect your base coat or the color of your vehicle. Now the clear coat is very soft and flexible. It needs to be because as your vehicle heats up, the paint underneath will actually expand, and so the layer about that needs to have a little flex with as well. The problem is since your clear coat is so soft, it is easy to scratch. Once you have scratches and swirls in your paint which typically look like spider webbing in the sunlight, your paint becomes dull to the eye. What is happening is the sun is coming down and being dispersed by all of these swirls. So, what we do is polish the clearcoat of the vehicle to make one true flat surface. That way, when the sun reflects off your paint, it comes back true to your eye and looks like a mirror. Then what we do is we seal that perfect paint in with a ceramic coating which is essentially a wax on steroids. Whereas a wax typically will only last you a few months, the coatings we offer come in 3-, 6-, and 10-year options. These give you greater protection than the manufacturer clearcoat, greater gloss, and ease of maintenance. What sets apart is really a culmination of factors. One we are one of the best-reviewed detail shops in all of Fort Worth with over 60 five-star reviews. We were named one of the best detailers in Fort Worth by expertise.com. We are one of two IDA (international certified detailers) in Fort Worth. We have a brand-new climate-controlled detail shop. We offer professional-grade ceramic coatings that we had to go through specialized training to get access to that come with guaranteed longevity and that get uploaded to your vehicle’s Carfax. Perhaps one of things we are most proud of is that 10% of all sales go to the Fort Worth pregnancy center. We knew very early on we wanted a way to give back to our community, and we love being able to do that.
We love surprises, fun facts, and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something surprising about me, I guess would be that I am a pretty big introvert. Which can be difficult when you are running a business between networking, engaging with clients and new people constantly. I much prefer to be alone polishing a car for hours as opposed to meeting new people. But as a business owner, you just have to take a deep breath, put a smile on, and go for it.
Pricing:
- Services range from $199 to $2899
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fortworthautodetail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortworthautodetail/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fortworthautodetail
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7rnqzCvdqVeFOLJq7rxZQA
