In 2002, after a 20-year career, Gary Dennis decided that investment banking just wasn’t fun anymore.
So he partnered up with Chip Hackett and the duo founded Mammoth Holdings in Atlanta.
Gary Dennis, Co-Founder, Mammoth Holdings.
“There was just a lot of change going on and it was right after the dotcom bubble, so the rules changed a lot and the regional firm I was with got bought and became part of a commercial bank,” Dennis said. “After looking at a lot of different retail businesses, there were just a lot of things appealing about the car wash and it just checked a lot of boxes that made it a very interesting and unique economic model.”
The initial wash was a single self-serve location, which is ironic given the company name. But what came next makes all the sense in the world.
After talking to some of the early adopters of the express wash model in the United States, Mammoth Holdings went all in as part of the early wave of express car wash operators in the Southeast. “When we first started looking at it, there wasn’t a single express wash in all of Atlanta,” Dennis said. “So it kind of made it easy to make the decision to jump in full time. A market the size of Atlanta and not a single express wash; we figured we didn’t have to be that smart to be successful.”
The company did well serving the market and expanding and now it has shifted focus again to approach the consolidation happening in the industry in a slightly different manner.
Close to five years ago, Dennis was paying close attention to the start of consolidation efforts in the industry. He knew some of the players from his former life in the investment banking world and had a sense that something was different. “The capital coming into the industry was significant and had long legs behind it and was going to fundamentally change the business,” he said. “We were doing extremely well and that made me nervous because we didn’t want to get blindsided and we really didn’t want to sell out and start over again.”
The next logical step? Create a different model. Mammoth created what it views as an entrepreneurial partnership. The premise being that it’s a potential option for people who are trying to figure out next steps for their business in the industry. At the core, it’s about learning from each other, operating under a shared set of best practices, and creating value through scale.
“It took us some time to get it off the ground,” Dennis said. “We’re now 20 months into it and it’s working very well.”
Rob Buechner, Vice President of Operations for the Georgia Region of Mammoth Holdings
The element that Mammoth has tapped into, in some respects, is the spirit of those who are in the car wash industry. A community of entrepreneurs, it’s hard for someone with that background to step away from a business. There’s an underlying desire to be building something and to be part of something.
That’s exactly where Mammoth’s idea of an entrepreneurial partnership can make sense.
Take Rob Buechner. As part of Swifty brand car washes, his job was to help improve existing washes, and then help the then-owner work on his exit strategy. Over time, he came to realize that he loved the car wash industry and wasn’t ready to get out.
“It’s true what they say,” Buechner said. “You accidentally get a little car wash chemical in your blood and you can’t get it out!”
Now, Buechner is the Vice President of Operations for the Georgia region of Mammoth Holdings, overseeing 15 car washes.
“The most helpful thing for me was learning how to use and understand the expertise of the people around me,” he said. “I didn’t have to know everything. Being surrounded by smart people from across the country has been one of the biggest helpers.”
Mammoth also focuses on helping companies take the leap from a handful of locations to a fully scalable operation.
For a lot of wash operators, the model is building a wash, then build a couple more, and before you know it you are essentially a regional car wash manager. At that point, you can hit a wall in your ability to continue to move the business forward just because there’s added complexity to the business.
“Now there’s a complexity about the business that’s growing at an exponential rate and now I’ve got to invest in infrastructure and scale,” Dennis said. “And that makes it a completely different business than just going in and owning two or three or four washes. I no longer have washes that I can treat the same.”
For Mammoth, the benefit all comes back to the idea of partnership.
“We learn from each other. We all have different talents, but collectively as we put this together, it really enhances what we can bring to the table,” Dennis said. “And it seems to be something that seems to be appealing to other operators once they see the caliber of the people that have been involved.”
Mammoth Holdings currently includes 13 car wash brands in the U.S., representing more than 50 locations, with more on the way.