Credit: Alex Evangelista

WSPN’s Edge Wheeler and Alex Evangelista shine light on sophomore Colin Moleux’s car detailing company.

As a freshman at a new school, some students spend their time thinking about grades or studying for their first ever midterm and final exams. At the time, sophomore Colin Moleux was busy starting his car detail company: Warrior Wash & Detail.

After months of research and investment into equipment, Moleux began to detail cars in June of 2024, at just 15 years old.

“I was inspired to start my business because people not much older than me were living the way I dreamed of living,” Moleux said. “Not having enough money to live the life I want is a scary thing to me. I like being able to support my interests and I knew I needed to work for it.”

Moleux felt that, at a young age, building trust with clients may prove to be harder than if he were older. He realized that he would need his details and relationships with customers to be flawless in order to retain clients.

“I would stay up watching videos on YouTube until 2 a.m. learning how to detail cars and what products to use,” Moleux said. “I tried all of the different methods I learned and equipment I bought on my brother and mom’s cars. It took a while until I saw myself becoming better as I slowly found the methods I liked.”

Although Moleux spent hours learning the best ways to fix up the cars, he initially struggled to get clients. Moleux went to a meeting of a group called Business Network International (BNI), with his dad. The group is made up of business owners, and Moulex’s father is in the group as he owns an entertainment company called Northern Lights Entertainment and a dance school called House of Dance. The group was impressed with Moleux’s commitment to starting his business and some of the members became his first customers, and spread word of his business to others.

“It was pretty tough,” Moleux said “[The clients] didn’t appear as quickly as I thought they would at first, but once I attended a business meeting with my dad, clients began flooding in and I was booking multiple clients a week. What I’ve learned the most through my business is that you will face unforeseen challenges, but it is less about what the challenges are, and more about how you work to solve them.”

Moleux is passionate about his craft hopes his business will continue to grow. He emphasizes that in order for this to happen, retaining existing clients gaining new clients is crucial. He has found that the best way to go about this is ranging forms of marketing.

“I made business cards, and passed them around to people who are interested in having their cars detailed,” Moleux said. “I also have tons of recommendations on Facebook. [The] Sudbury Bulletin Board attracts lots of customers for me.”

For Moleux, A challenging aspect of starting his business was gaining the capital to kickoff his work.

“I worked for the money by selling clothes, shoes and working for my dad’s entertainment company,” Moleux said.

With the money he made, Moleux invested in top of the line products to ensure a professional level job.

“I use professional grade tools and products,” Moleux said. “Each product I purchase is researched, and most brands that I use are P&S [Detailing Products], Adams Polish, and Koch Chemie.”

One of the hardest challenges Moleux faces is managing his business while being in high school, and using his time effectively so he can balance running his business with his school work. For Moleux, he turned an unfortunate circumstance into a beneficial outcome.

“I unfortunately had to stop playing sports due to concussions, but I ended up turning this into a positive thing,” Moleux said. “During sports, balancing school work was already tough, and on top of trying to run a business while playing sports, it became even harder. So when I had to stop, I used my time [that was spent on sports] to study and had more free time to work.”

Moleux is not done expanding, though. He has ambitious goals for himself and the future of his business.

“Throughout the rest of my time in highschool my goals for my business is to have a work truck strictly for detailing, I would like to expand into window tinting soon, and later on expand into wrapping cars,” Moleux said. “In the future, I see my detailing business becoming a source of income for me and my family. It’s something I am very proud of and would like to see how far I can take it.”