A year ago, soon-to-be Staples graduates Dylan Bobrow and Max Reznik wanted a summer job. The critera: make decent money, be outdoors and have flexible hours. They started a car detailing business — “Squeaky Clean” — and achieved their goals.
This summer — as students everywhere scramble to find any job at all — Squeaky Clean begins its second year. Thanks to lessons learned last year, and at Lehigh University, Dylan and Max sit as pretty as the cars they clean.
Their hard work and attention to “detail” last summer served them well. Customer satisfaction was high; word-of-mouth strong. Clients liked seeing 2 teenagers start their own business and perform manual labor. One customer compared them to her own Xbox-obsessed 20-year-old son.
At Lehigh, Max took a leadership role in a class in which students started their own business. Drawing on that experience, the current economy and their own experience last summer, Max and Dylan devised a lower pricing structure for this year.
The 19-year-olds think about Squeaky Clean all year long. They were named Thalheimer Fellows in a young entrepreneurship contest, and won a grant to expand.
That was encouraging. So was the reaction of a 1980s Mercedes owner: She cried. Her father passed the car on to her, she said — and she’d never seen it look so good.
(For more information, email squeakycleandetailing@gmail.com; call Max at 203-981-2770 or Dylan at 203-216-5350.)
