After two decades of involvement in European automotive culture, I came up with the idea of creating my own brand. With so many close friends lending their ears, I noticed that there really wasn’t an “enthusiast” car care line on the market and I wanted to fill that niche. Attacking the problem from several angles, I slowly built up the brand through giveaways; clothing and skateboard decks that would be handed out at a few dozen car shows every season.

After establishing a sizable following (this was before Instagram mind you), I worked with several manufacturers and created my own array of various organic and chemical free car care products from scratch. Then it was on to bottling and labeling, with the goal of keeping costs to a minimum and ease of fulfillment as a top priority. At the end of the day, I just wanted to see how big the project could get and when it was all said and done, I succeeded at creating a self-sustaining brand for less than $500.