Entrepreneur Bought Self-Service Car Wash For A 'Passive Side Hustle': Now It Brings In 340K Per Year

When looking for a semi-passive income stream, one entrepreneur came across the idea to buy a car wash. After cleaning up the first location, she bought two more, and now what started as a side hustle has turned into a flourishing full-time job.

What To Know: BreAnna Nixon and her family own three car washes that generated approximately $340,000 in profit last year, according to a Business Insider report.

It all started in 2017 when they identified a run-down self-wash location and approached the owner, who agreed to part ways with the car wash under lease-to-own financing terms. 

Nixon and her husband put down $16,000 and her brother and his wife matched the investment. The car wash was valued at around $400,000, and it generated about $8,000 in profit each month. 

For the first two years, Nixon and her family worked on revamping the car wash in addition to their full-time jobs. The location needed somewhere between 20 and 40 hours of work per week, largely due to renovations. Some of the upgrades included turning coin-operated machines into credit card systems, painting and improving signs.

"Our initial goal was to have a nice, passive side hustle, making around $12,000 a month. But once we started improving the location and learning more about the industry, we saw the possibility of making the car wash our full-time job and changed our cash-flow goals," Nixon said. 

See Also: Vending Machine Side Hustle Turns Into $360K Business: Now This 28-Year-Old Entrepreneur Works Just 6 Hours A Week

About two years into the venture, they used profits to buy out the lease, and then they began actually paying themselves. The car wash was making $20,000 a month at that time.

Nixon and her family then decided to buy two more locations, one was an old building that used to be a car wash and needed to be restored. The other was a small wash attached to a gas station. 

"The additional locations nearly doubled our gross income," Nixon said.

Now Nixon works between 20 and 30 hours per week managing the three locations. She pays herself $80,000 per year. Just a few months ago, the original car wash was valued at $1.8 million and the second location that was restored was valued at $3.1 million.

Read Next: 22-Year-Old Bought Coin-Operated Car Wash That 'Basically Runs Itself' And Generates More Than $65K A Year In Pure Profit

This story is part of a new series of features on the subject of success, Benzinga Inspire.

Photo: Shutterstock

Some elements of this story were previously reported by Benzinga and it has been updated.