Car wash software built with a real Nairobi car wash

Like many car washes in Nairobi, the wash we started with was run on an exercise book, a calculator and the owner's phone. Cars were written down at the gate, M-Pesa messages arrived on one phone, cash went into a drawer, and at the end of the day somebody tried to make the three agree. Some days they did. Many days there was a gap of a few hundred or a few thousand shillings that nobody could explain.

The washers had their own frustration. Commission was counted by hand from the book, and when a page was smudged or a car was forgotten, the argument started. The owner, who also had a day job, could only find out how the day went by calling in the evening and trusting the answer.

So we built software around that one car wash. We sat at the counter on busy Saturday mornings, watched how cars actually moved from the gate to the bay to the parking, and changed the app every week based on what the staff told us. Check-in had to take seconds. M-Pesa had to be matched to the right car without typing codes. Washers had to see their commission without asking. The owner had to see the day on their phone from anywhere.

Once it worked there, other owners started asking for it. CarwashManage is that same system, opened up to every car wash - from a two-person roadside wash to an owner with several branches across different towns.