Way to wash

Entrepreneurs nationwide have been quick to call their startup “the Uber of” fill-in-the-blank.

A new app called WashMapp that's launching in Tampa, Miami and Houston has joined the party. It calls itself the “Uber for mobile car wash companies.”

The app links customers with mobile car detailers through live GPS. A WashMapp agent app allows detailers to receive on-demand requests and accept them as they come in. The app is free for customers and the agent app sells for 99 cents a week. Both apps are available for iOS and Android devices on the Apple App Store and Google Play store.

WashMapp co-founder Brandon Masidonski tells Coffee Talk the company chose the app's three launch cities because all of them represent large population areas with nice weather for a good part of the year. “There's a large opportunity to increase the number of mobile detailers and car washes in these areas,” he says.

Masidonski, based in Ohio, says there wasn't a good way to connect clients and detailers before his app. Other apps, he says, take a percent of the transaction fee from detailers or don't facilitate on-demand car wash requests like WashMapp does. He says so far they've signed up 30 detailers throughout the country.

Masidonski and his cofounder Jags Gill plan to expand WashMapp's presence soon to more cities, such as Los Angeles, where Gill is based. Other possible future locations include: San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Dallas, San Antonio, Atlanta and Austin, Texas.

The founders started work on WashMapp in 2015, and Masidonski says it cost $100,000 to $150,000 to develop the app. Profits will come from the weekly fee detailers are charged to use the app.