Today marks the first day I am recording my internship progress, although, I have been working lightly on this project since early 2019. Over the past two years, I accomplished three things. 1: I recognized the need for a car wash on the West side of Alameda. 2: I scouted the ideal location for the car wash. 3: I researched the process of starting a business in Alameda, which begins with a business plan.

    Over Winter break I partnered with Aidan Ladenburg. We hope that together we can truly pursue our dream of opening our own car wash. Today, we determined that we need to complete a full-scale business plan as opposed to a Plan for Personal Use. The first step in this process is to create a title page and executive summary.

    Today is Friday and Aidan L. and I completed another substantial chunk of our business plan. We wrote a company description that includes our mission statement, principle members, and legal structure. This was easy though, compared to the market research, which required several paragraphs about the industry, customers, company advantages, and regulations.

    After a successful first week, we decided to maintain a schedule of Tuesday and Friday moving forward. Unfortunately, we have begun to realize the unattainability of opening a full-service car wash at our age. Getting a $50,000 loan didn't sound as drastic when it was our only worry. Now, we have to focus on pleasing the city, county, water usage officials, developers, and much more.

    I am able to maintain the passion for car washes that I have exhibited the past two years, but Aidan is much less invested and is considering other options of businesses to open. While I am not opposed to this, I don't expect us to produce an idea better than a full-scale car wash.

    Today is Friday and we have produced an idea better than a full-scale car wash. We will now pursue a... (drum roll)... Mobile Car Wash. After coming up with the initial idea, we didn't get an enormous amount of work done but rather fleshed out the idea and prepared to shift gears.

    After missing a week's worth of work I found myself feeling inspired late last (Friday) night. I created a new spreadsheet and produced a detailed list of every item we need to create, buy, or research. This includes a pressure washer, t-shirts, and 12 other items in that vein. Then, I did a base-line level of research on each item which gave me a pretty good idea of the cost of the project overall. The total is now $400, which seems extremely manageable considering I'd split it with Aidan L.

    I write this current paragraph on Sunday now, after working extensively last night once again. First, I contacted my uncle who has experience owning a small business and he brought up several points of oversight in my $400 plan. From purchasing a business license to paying an accountant for our taxes, it became clear we would need to spend more than just $200 each. I have now revised my spreadsheet and estimate we will spend $1350 in upfront supplies and services. Obviously, Aidan and I don't have $675 lying around, so we will likely need to look into getting a bank loan once again.

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    Today is Friday, so I write this in reflection of the past week. Starting with Monday. I worked alone on Monday to create a pair of schedules. First, I compiled an extremely detailed list of everything we needed to accomplish in order to complete the Car Wash dream, including minute sub-steps of each item. Next, I assigned a date to complete each step. Finally, I organized this schedule by date and we were left with an intense but reasonable outline to strictly abide by. On Tuesday, We worked to finalize the schedule and we agreed that it was the perfect outline to keep us focused.

    Today (being Friday), we worked to complete the first item on the schedule which is designing our business cards. Typically, graphic design comes relatively naturally to me and Aidan, but for this task, we had to extensively research the company we are purchasing the cards from as well as research effective qualities of business cards in general. In the end, we produced the card below and we are both extremely happy with this result.

Monday:

   This week we plan to design and research all of the promotional items such as flyers and car-magnets.

 

Wednesday:

    However, we became extremely productive yesterday. Rather than split up the designing process into two weeks, we completed everything in one go. Pictured below is our design for flyers, a car-magnet, and uniforms.

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Friday:

   Today, Aidan and I researched every item on our list of supplies. Below are pictures of the exact products we will purchase.

   Today is Sunday which means I am writing this reflection as I remember the events from the week. First, on Tuesday, Aidan and I intensively discussed the method by which we would amass the necessary $1350. We considered a bank loan, sourcing investments from the community, asking family and friends, and dipping into out college funds. However, we ultimately decided to source the money from CCEF. Given that our project was initially school-based and would benefit the community in the form of a fundraiser, it seemed reasonable to ask CCEF.

    On Friday, Aidan and I planned to ask Kris Atkins, the president of CCEF, what could be improved about our proposal. Which prompted us to create a comprehensive slideshow detailing our idea. Our argument wasn't complicated. CCEF would give us $1350 to purchase all of the necessary supplies to run our car wash. In return, we would complete our internship, be a potential partner in future ventures, and most importantly - we planned to run a three-day fundraiser in which 100% of the proceeds would go to CCEF. In theory, both parties would make money.

    Unfortunately, Ms. Atkins found quite a few issues with our proposal. The largest of these issues being that CCEF can not legally fund a for-profit business. Instead, she proposed that we ask CCEF for the supplies necessary to run a car-wash fundraiser. Then, rather than give 100% of the proceeds to CCEF, we only give 25%.

    On Saturday, Aidan and I met once again to rework our slideshow in hopes of satisfying all parties.