CarwashManage — From Client Build to Multi-Tenant SaaS
Live multi-tenant SaaS for car wash businesses, grown from a single client build
The Challenge
Most car washes in Kenya run on cash books and WhatsApp, with no reliable record of washes, staff commissions, M-Pesa payments or stock across branches. BGO Shine Hub, a 24/7 multi-branch wash in Nairobi, needed a system to run the business, and other car wash owners had the same problem.
The Approach
I started with a client build for BGO Shine Hub: active-wash tracking, staff roles, inventory, memberships and loyalty, expenses, reports, M-Pesa STK Push and WhatsApp notifications. I then turned it into CarwashManage, a multi-tenant SaaS. Each organisation gets branches and role-based access (owner, manager, cashier, staff); each branch collects M-Pesa into its own till, so money never passes through the platform; plans are billed monthly in KES with a 14-day trial, referral commissions and a Super Admin console for running the business. The same core was adapted for a nail salon and a barbershop.
The Result
CarwashManage is live at carwashmanage.com with a self-serve free trial and a public demo that resets nightly. Customers track their car by phone number and plate without logging in, and owners see washes, revenue, M-Pesa share, queue and low-stock alerts across branches from one dashboard.
Field Lessons
A good client build is a product prototype
Solving one owner's problem well surfaced the workflows every car wash shares. Generalising them into tenants, branches and roles turned a project into a product.
Don't touch the money if you don't have to
Routing payments straight into each branch's own M-Pesa till removed a whole class of trust, compliance and reconciliation problems.
Design for the hosting you actually have
Merging backends into a single Node process to fit shared-hosting limits kept running costs low without compromising the product.
Deliverables
- Multi-tenant organisation → branch → role model
- Wash check-in, live queue and no-login customer tracking
- Per-branch M-Pesa collection
- Subscription billing with trial, referrals and reminders
- Super Admin console for operating the SaaS
- Marketing site with prerendered SEO pages
Tools Used
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