ONE year ago, Owen Johnson hit the brakes on his corporate career, shifting gears to pursue his entrepreneurial dream in the auto detailing industry.

Now, his company — Johnson’s Premium Finish — is revving up five-star reviews as he and his team service luxury motor vehicles across Kingston and St Catherine.

An entrepreneur at heart, the 28-year-old said he’d always wanted to start a business, but he was not quite sure what to do or where to begin.

At 19 years old, Johnson said he started working at a cambio in Kingston, saving his salary for a future business idea. Within a few months he mastered his job and received the top customer service award in the Caribbean from his company, which is an international brand.

“The workspace was going well. However, I reached a point where, number one, I felt like I wasn’t growing anymore, and also the income wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t bad, but even as a young adult I knew that I could have earned more,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

It was then that he brought his first business idea to life — a game shop. Johnson said for weeks he would bounce from the game shop during the day to his cambio job at night. However, after a few months of operating the game shop he realised that it brought in little income and shuttered it.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Jamaica in 2020 he was laid off, and he started selling clothes online to make ends meet. However, his income was still insufficient. After the pandemic subsided Johnson was called back to work at the cambio, but a reduction in his hours made it difficult for him to sustain himself.

One day, while collecting a package from a shipping company that was hiring, he applied for a job and was successful. However, Johnson said, while he was not fired, an unfortunate incident stained his image among the management team at the company as he was reportedly asked by another employee to, unknowingly, perform an unauthorised task.

“I decided that I needed to leave. However, as I said, I was always entrepreneurial-minded so I never wanted to go and look for another job. For me, I was thinking that I’ve had all these jobs — I’ve done great in all of them — yet I am still at a point where I’m always starting over. I thought, ‘This is the point where I need to build a successful business,’ ” he told the Sunday Observer.

The young business owner said, at this point, his partner became pregnant with their first child and he couldn’t risk leaving his job without an alternative that would provide a stable income, so he went back to the drawing board and started researching new business ideas, all while crunching the numbers.

Then came the idea to start a car wash, however, after assessing its profit margin and labour cost, he did not believe it was sustainable.

“The universe did its thing and [auto] detailing came across my thoughts. I thought, ‘Isn’t this interesting? This is something that I definitely could do.’ I went all in and I started doing a lot of research. I have thousands of YouTube hours in terms of starting to learn about [detailing], and I did a lot of reading. I made up my mind and I said, ‘This is what I’m going to enter into; I’m going to start a mobile detailing business’, ” he recounted.

Johnson said he had a Honda Fit motor car that didn’t provide much storage space for equipment, but he did not let that deter him from hitting the ground running with the vehicle. It also became the first vehicle he detailed after purchasing everything he needed for his business. To build his brand, he documented the start-up of his business on social media.

He continued saving as much as he could from his shipping company salary, accumulating enough funds to tide him over. Banking on promises of support from people he’d formed strong relationships with during his time in the private sector, the 28-year-old resigned from the shipping company and started Johnson’s Premium Finish in June last year. But the support did not come immediately. In fact, for weeks after quitting his nine-to-five, Johnson had no customers.

Hesitantly, he turned to rideshare apps Uber and InDrive, after encouragement from his girlfriend.

A few days later, he got a call from an old friend in the private sector who asked him to detail her luxury SUV, a Mercedes-Benz GLE. Johnson said he quickly called his brother, Rodane Murray, who was unemployed at the time, loaded up his car and the next day they were ready to work.

Offering three different packages that include a combination of services such as hand wash and wax, vacuuming, paint correction, ceramic coating, stain removal, leather conditioning, and steam cleaning, Johnson was happy that his first client opted to book one that went beyond the starter package.

“For me, this was a big deal because this is my first time getting a good interior detail. We confirmed the date and everything, and I went and did the job.

“Her brother came and saw us working and he said, ‘Hey, can you do my GLE also?’ and we said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ because we didn’t have any more jobs to do, so of course we could do it,” he recalled.

After he completed the job, the customer was pleased and promised to refer him to others. One by one, Johnson said clients with high-end vehicles whom he had met at his previous job and who’d promised their support started reaching out. Since his business was still in the start-up stage, he continued offering his driving services through the rideshare apps.

“Once I got a detail[ing job] I’d pack up the car, and if I didn’t have any jobs, I’d unload it. It was very tiresome…but I had to do what I had to do. At no point [did I feel] like I shouldn’t [have left] my work [resign from job]. I never felt [anything] like that because, at the end of the day, even with InDrive and me being tired, I still felt so relieved [compared to] my nine-to-five because if I felt like going home I can just say, ‘Alright, I’m going to go home,’ ” said Johnson.

“I had that freedom that I never had since leaving school and starting to work. I never had that sort of freedom, so as much as it was hard and it was tiresome, I was enjoying every bit of it. I never had any regrets,” he said confidently.

By December, he stopped using rideshare apps to earn a living and dedicated all his time to auto detailing, after building a clientèle of luxury vehicle owners. He expanded his team by hiring his brother, Murray, and a close friend, Shevon Robinson. He also purchased a van for his mobile auto detailing business and upgraded his equipment.

Johnson’s Premium Finish is rated five stars on Google reviews, with glowing feedback from satisfied customers.

“The feeling is beyond what I can put together with words — it’s a great feeling. I’m not only optimistic but I’m someone who believes in myself highly, and for me, a lot of people always reaching out to me to say, ‘Hey Owen, I’m proud of you.’ I’m now one of the biggest detailers in the country — just over a year in. I get messages like every single day from other detailers asking me, ‘How you do this?’ ‘ I want you to teach me to do that,’ so it’s beyond words to explain the feeling.

“I don’t want to take the credit for it because a lot of it is the help of the person above [God] because the thing is: A lot of stuff that I do, while it might be difficult for some, honestly speaking, I do it effortlessly,” said Johnson.

“There has never been a more fulfilling point in my life than what I am doing now, because every day when I wake up it’s like a new task, a new challenge, a new journey, and it’s a fun feeling,” he added.

Johnson encouraged budding entrepreneurs to keep pushing, no matter how many times they fail.

“Whatever you start, at first it might not always work but you just have to keep pushing. Once you have that entrepreneurial mind and you have that mindset that you’re going to make it work, then eventually you’ll find the right thing and it will work for you,” he said.