Today we’d like to introduce you to Wash That Fur Company
Hi Wash That Fur, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Carlos and Kassio meet – 2019 Carlos & Mark thew a house party and Kassio came as a friend of a guest. They hit it off right away and became bff’s almost straight away. Soon they were discussing how cool it would be to launch a business together, but then the pandemic hit so it would take another 3 years (2022) to pick the idea back up again.
With 4 bulldogs and a Pomeranian Carlos was struggling to find dog groomers (fixed or mobile) who would bath our bulldog and groom our Pom. The experience was severely lacking, with difficult unreliable booking processes and availability of appointments. By this time Kassio had also collected a rag tag bunch of 4 dogs and was asking Carlos’s advice on grooming options. This was in Oct 2022 and the lightbulb went on with both of them realizing good dog grooming was hard to find in Austin, and they could be the solution.
They decided early on that they wanted their service to be mobile, and initially focus on a premium luxury dog bathing experience to fill an existing gap. While Carlos began searching for a grooming trailer and costing the launch of the business, Kassio was looking for grooming courses where they could learn their trade, along with the very best grooming products that would set them apart. Mark (Carlos’s husband and Global Brand Exec.) was co-opted in to think about their name, brand and booking experience. By the beginning of 2023 Carlos and Kassio had qualified from their grooming courses in Florida and Brazil, purchased a brand new grooming trailer, entered a partnership with Hydra dod grooming products based in Brazil, landed on the name of Wash That Fur (WTF for short!) and set up www.washthatfur.com with a simple online booking experience.
So with everything on the line Wash That Fur officially launched in May 2023. Not surprisingly the first few weeks were crickets, but after setting up Facebook and Instagram pages, along with handing out a lot of business cards all over Austin the customers slowly started to trickle in. Within 6 months the bookings were at about 30% capacity and starting to pay the guys a salary, enough that Kassio could give up his part time Uber job. What was surprising about the initial clients is many were coming from areas north of Austin where many groomers would not travel to. Even today north Austin makes up about 60% of bookings.
In December while on a trip to Fredericksburg Carlos suggested to Kassio the possibility of adding Fredericksburg to the area they cover following a conversation with some dog owners that shared how difficult it was to find groomers. After spending $150 to advertise on a Fredericksburg Facebook page they had over 20 clients interested and planned their first weekend trip which appointments booked all day. Even today Wash That Fur continue to do a weekend every month.
When they initially started the business they were inundated with ‘partnership’ requests and initially tried to experiment with some of these to see if they could be a source of bookings, but it soon become clear that many of the partnership requests were more focussed on how Wash That Fur could help grow their businesses. Today Wash That Fur only parters in a few well researched opportunities.
As we started creating the business plan for 2024 it was clear that the focus needed to be on scaling the business much faster. Again with some help from Mark we started the first google ad campaign and started to see new clients coming in thick and fast. Almost overnight they went from 30% capacity to over 50% and now are at 85% and still growing. The business is now on track to triple 2023 revenue and planning is already underway to finance another grooming trailer. At the start of 2024 it was also becoming clear that many clients did want basic grooming (fur cuts) services, so Kassio and Carlos blocked out time to attend grooming courses and added this service at the start of the year, significantly expanding their client base.
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?
Like all small businesses we didn’t have a loan or investor to cover our start up costs. By using our savings and borrowing some money we were able to pull together the bare minimum we needed to get off the ground, but even today there are things we’ve still struggled to invest in such as a wrap for our trailer and other marketing initiatives were keen to launch. We’re still in the early stages and have to plan month by month based on priorities, and always praying that something expensive doesn’t break down.
Learning to groom was the first challenge, made a little bit easier by first focussing on bathing and later grooming skills. The courses were expensive and money was tight so it took some time to find high quality courses at a price point we could afford. We solved this problem by traveling back to our home country of Brazil for many of our corses.
Unlike many small businesses who start on spreadsheets and calendars, we wanted to do it right from the start to make scaling easier later. Fortunately there are now many great online tools to support with accounting, banking, CRM (managing customer relationships), communication (google suite) and building our website from scratch just using freelancers. Initially learning and managing all of the technology was overwhelming, and we often cursed ourselves for doing it right, but 18 months on we’re now reaping the benefits both in terms of our ability to manage all aspects of the business easily, but also the experience we have provided to our customers.
When we purchased our trailer we thought it was the bees knees, but soon realized as we scaled that we need to upgrade almost all of the trailer, including larger water tanks, better water heaters and upgraded AC to cope with Austin summers. As well as the fixed equipment, as we learnt and gained experience we were also constantly upgraded our equipment to professional grade. We’re now on our fourth upgrade of dryers and there are new ones coming to the market all of the time.
One of our biggest challenges as a mobile groomer is route planning. The trade off between letting people book there on exact appointment times and having days where we are traveling long distances between appointment, greatly increasing our already largest expense which is gas. We are currently implementing a new platform that will enhance our clients booking experience whilst also providing us with the ability to provide a better service with tools like smart scheduling to reduce travel time and allow us to fit more appointments into a day.
Having to rely on a single truck and trailer also poses challenges and risks for the business. Austin roads are not the best and a single puncture on the trailer can mean rescheduling a day of appointments. When our generator broke down we lost 4 days of business, and even then had to buy a new generator as the repairs would take over two weeks. At least we have a back up now!
We’ve been impressed with Wash that Fur, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Wash That Fur is a premium mobile bathing service for dogs, that also offers basic grooming (using clippers) as an add-on. Carlos and Kassio always work together which means each dog has four fully dedicated human hands to carry out the service, but also support and calm nervous dogs. We have many dogs we see regularly that their owners told us had failed at any previous grooming attempts, but to-date we haven’t found a dog we can’t bath and groom. Part of the dog experience is that we never use a cage, before or after the service, plus dog parents are always welcome to join their dog in the trailer – please note we do not bath humans!
We love our brand, and so do all of our clients who constantly comment (and snicker) on the acronym. We did this intentionally as we wanted a brand that would make people smile. We love pink, who doesn’t love pink, so it was a natural choice as our core brand color, but ititss not just about making people smile its about making our brand memorable. We’re proud of our Google reviews, many of which mention the cologne we use on their dogs, and many also mention us – how we always bring a smile and a positive attitude.
We’re proud of our Brazilian heritage and being part of the LGBQT+ family. We understand how daunting it can be for people to invite us to their homes, so we do our best to ensure our dogs humans feel relaxed and at ease with us visiting their homes. Brazil is also where we source our products, but don’t be fooled they are generally more than the cost of american products, but Brazil take their dog bathing every seriously. Our products are not tested on dogs, only humans and we offer a wide range of products to suit every type of dog and fur, we even offer a full Brazilian Vegan Detox to deeply cleanse and protect the coat.
We offer a range of add-ons from bulldog blueberry facials to de-shedding and de-matting. All of which you can select when you book.
We found early success in North Austin; Cedar Park, Round Rock, Georgetown and Pflugerville, but we actually do our best to cover most of Austin. We’ve recently started spending one weekend a month in Fredericksburg which has been huge success, and we’re currently considering other areas on the outskirts of Austin that we may add next.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Everybody wants to support us, which usually means many invites to turn up to a vineyard, local market, and even office building, but while we’re sure people think this would be good for us it’s often not as don’t get enough dogs.
What does work well for us is when groups of people get together and plan a full day of clients for us, that way we’re not waiting around when we could be earning money.
As we look to the future we’re very keen to find investment so we can purchase a second grooming trailer or van which will allow us to expand further and more aggressively. We’re also open to allow select investors to advertise on our trailer and online properties.
But perhaps one of the best ways people can support us is by becoming a member of our family, or sharing our details with friends and family that may be looking for the best dog bathing and grooming experience in Austin.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.washthatfur.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/washthatfur
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092511471833&mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Yelp: https://yelp.to/T67FCiYDsL
Image Credits
Valaria Ortega
