Today we’d like to introduce you to Armand Hindrichs.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Armand. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I have always been a car enthusiast but until I moved to Houston in 2011 I wasn’t able to really dive into a car scene since my college town (Ruston, LA) didn’t have one at all. I moved to Houston after getting my Mechanical Engineering degree from LaTech and worked an oilfield job until I was laid off in 2015. I had started working on my own cars and grew into working on friends cars which ended up with working on random cars from people I’d never met.
At this point, I had decided to make an LLC for the business and run it as a side thing to my day job. I really enjoyed working on cars since it gave me the opportunity to learn and experience new things. Lots of problem-solving and working with my hands which I have always been a fan of.
In 2015 when I was laid off I was presented with the opportunity to take my growing client base and go full time. It was an absolute success an for 2 years I operated entirely out of my driveway and garage. My neighbors were all very fond of me since I was super convenient and affordable. In July of 2017, I opened up doors to a 2500sqft shop location and hired in 3 employees to take on the rapidly growing demand for my services. I have a team of very dedicated and passionate employees that live for cars. I met all of them through car events and sought them out to work for me.
I have always had an attention for detail and a desire to work with my hands so it as only natural that I fell into wrenching and detailing together. We offer both mechanical and detailing work at my shop. One of my other hobbies is sanctioned racing with the various groups such as Houston SCCA and BMWCCA.
I love to tinker and modify my own cars and see how it affects the performance at the race track. for It brings me great joy to be able to live vicariously through my customer’s projects as well when we are doing performance modifications on their vehicles. Having this shop has allowed me access to cars that I wouldn’t normally have the privilege of putting my hands on and just taking the best care of them that I possibly can.
Has it been a smooth road?
My oilfield job paid for me to buy a house in which I was able to start this business and establish a client base before being laid off. I wouldn’t have been able to make the strides I have if it wasn’t for this. Social media presence has done wonders for me with advertising via word of mouth.
Simple tagging and commenting on Facebook and Instagram have spread my work to many others which have come to me. I have not had external funding at all for my business venture and I have no shared control over my business. Everything is entirely my own. My own making, my own doing, my own financial backing.
Throughout any business, there will be employees that come and go. You can’t predict if somebody’s passion is fleeting or infinite. You also can’t tell if a person will persevere with the tasks at hand and do what is right. I have gone through several employees and helpers along the way to find the right ones.
Any business will agree that you have your good and bad customers. It only takes the one bad customer to ruin it for the rest. We have had our first customer completely stiff us and ghost attempts to contact them. It will be our first legal adventure in the name of getting paid for work.
This is currently in the works as it was a former friend of a friend which turned sour during the work we had going on with their vehicle. Now the rest of our customers are required to sign legal documentation and pay down on work to reduce the risk involved in working on their vehicles. They say you grow thicker skin the longer you run a business and I can certainly see why. I like to be the nice person and help people out but lines must be drawn and rules must be put into place to protect my own.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Copied from my business website.
Our detailing services:
Exterior washing
Paint decontamination
Paint protecting sealant
Minor touch-up paint
Wet Sanding
Machine polishing/paint correcting
Semi-permanent paint protection coatings
Engine bay cleaning
Interior cleaning
Carpet shampooing
Leather cleaning and conditioning
Our mechanical services include but are not limited to:
Regular maintenance & tune-up work
Brake rotors, pads, shoes, lines, and fluid
Suspension component replacement
Exhaust headers & back
All fluids and filter replacements
Clutch replacement and service
Engine timing service
Intake system and head cleaning
Bolt-on performance parts & upgrades
Car audio systems
What sets us apart from other companies is that we didn’t set out as a high-profit margin company that price gouges and preys on the uninformed. I spend the time to educate customers on their car so that they know exactly what is going on. I send photos to customers that aren’t present during work so that they can see what exactly we are doing and let them know anything that we run across. There are no secrets or sketchy methods that we use. Everything is an open book.
Our pricing is beyond competitive in the first place but also we charge actual hours instead of “flag” hours. Flag hours are a system in which you look up the estimated time to complete a task in the reference guide for a vehicle and you charge the customer that amount of hours no matter how long it actually takes. This means if the job is quoted with 5 hours and takes actually 2 that the customer pays for 5. We will charge actual hours for these jobs and save the customer money.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
The sheer volume of people in the greater Houston area has lent itself to the growth of my business. I wouldn’t be able to do as well in a small town since I would need a greater percentage of the town’s business in order to maintain work. Here in Houston, I have people driving from Clearlake just to come get me to work on their stuff. Most recently we had a customer come down from Oklahoma to have me build a track car!
The only thing Houston can do to improve is to finish 290…
Contact Info:
- Address: 17100 Huffmeister Road #103
Cypress, Texas 77429 - Phone: 985-502-3701
- Email: armand.hindrichs@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/arhindrichsllc
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/arhindrichsllc
Image Credit:
Ian Michael Shexnider
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