Edwardsville High School Student Operates Car Detailing Business

EDWARDSVILLE - A local high school student has enjoyed a meteoric rise as an entrepreneur.

JD Vacca, 17, started Metro East Auto Spa last year. The car detailing service is taking off, and Vacca is proud of his hard work. It’s challenging to be an entrepreneur and a high school student, but that balance is a big part of his accomplishments.

“I just like how I’m kind of fully in charge of my success,” Vacca said. “Everything is based on me. It can be hard sometimes because some days I’ll have a lot of homework and then we’ll be pretty booked that day…It’s a lot of work, so it’s kind of hard to balance it all, but it’s great.”

Vacca, a junior at Edwardsville High School, first started a business cleaning out trash bins. For $10 a bin, he and his friend Max would clean out the bins. But Vacca wanted to take things a step further — and, he added, cleaning out trash cans “really sucked.”

He started teaching himself how to detail cars. He practiced on a few friends’ and family members’ cars, then felt skilled enough to begin offering his services to the Edwardsville community.

“I got good at it, good enough to where I was confident to offer it as a service and I wasn’t going to mess anything up,” he said. “I just graduated from YouTube University.”

At first, Vacca went door-to-door. When Max joined him on his third outing, they had six sales in a few hours, which is when Vacca understood that “this is something we could do as a real business.”

Max has since left the business to focus on another job, but Vacca is committed to seeing Metro East Auto Spa grow. It’s a little difficult with his high school schedule — he is juggling AP and honors classes alongside the business — but Vacca is proud of how his work has paid off.

In addition to basic detailing services, Metro East Auto Spa offers add-on services like engine bay cleaning, shampooing the carpets, and trim restoration. Vacca can also do ceramic coating services and basic paint correction. He added that he recently started working on boats, too.

He has a few friends who help him, but it’s Vacca doing most of the work. The business is mobile, so Vacca will come to your house to provide his services, which is a major convenience factor for customers.

As the business continues to expand, Vacca is thinking about his future. He wants to attend college and might pursue a degree in business, though he is still deciding.

In the meantime, he hopes Metro East Auto Spa continues to grow. He has seen the need in the community and is eager to provide that service for Edwardsville and beyond.

“We’ve never had a bad review,” he added. “We’ve never had anybody unsatisfied.”

For more information about Metro East Auto Spa, visit their official website or their official Facebook page, or contact Vacca directly at metroeastautospa@gmail.com.

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