 Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Condo Insider. And my name is Jane Sugimura. I'm your co-host for the show. And today, we're going to be talking to an owner of a small company, new company, and with a new service that's going to be available to condominiums and townhouses and HOAs. And thank you. I want to introduce Donovan Morgan. Yes. Thank you for being my guest today. And your company's name is software. Wash away. Yes, soft wash away. Soft wash away. Right. Why don't you first of all, tell us what soft wash is. What is soft wash? Well, soft washing is an alternative to pressure washing. We use specifically designed cleansing agents to emulsify dirt. And also, eliminate mold, mildew, algae, and other contaminants that may be on your roof or exterior surfaces. It uses one third of the water, consumption of pressure washing. And it also sanitizes all of the surfaces that we do clean. And one of the main purposes of a condominium association is to maintain their properties. And so this is an area that they spend a lot of time and money dealing with. And so if you were going to be talking to a board about their maintenance issues, how does soft wash fit into their plants? How would you tell them that it would help them? I would say for soft wash away, the services that we do provide, we can get a surface to be clean. But the more I would say a cost-saving part would be that we are a maintenance program type service, meaning that we're able to come in with not only clean a surface, we're able to allow the surface to be cleaner for a longer period of time, which, in essence, becomes a smaller budget for maintenance costs and thus being able to reappropriate those funding towards other projects that you may have. And so what areas? What areas when you're talking about this soft wash, what areas of a building are you involved in cleaning? OK, it's a long list. We do roofing, all types of surfaces, exterior surfaces of buildings, townhomes, single family homes, walkways, gutters, exterior windows, just about any surface that would not be damaged by water that may be exposed to outside elements. Well, all of these buildings, they have roofs. So all of the associations and one of the items in their reserve study is replacement of the roof. I don't think anybody's got cleaning of a roof in their reserve study. Why should they be cleaning their roofs? Well, for one point, it's what grows on your roof is an allergen. It's a bacteria that actually decomposes your roof for asphalt shingles. And so when you look up at a roof, if you start seeing the black streaking or if you see a roof that's black and then you see a portion of the roof where you'll see what the shingles look like there or new, that's telling you that your roof is in decomposition. And that's when you start seeing the little limestone granules when it rains and see it out at your gutters. We're able to come in there with little pressure, basically sanitize the roof, eliminate the bacteria at its roots, and get the roof to be completely sanitized and clean. And what that does is allows your roof to have a longer lifespan or a blank. So it basically allows the roof to, for a longer lifespan, it keeps your home and your family healthy. OK, so when you say a longer lifespan, I mean, typically, I mean, these roofs are replaced maybe every 15, 20 years. I think that's better. So you're saying that if this roof were regularly maintained, it might even extend those 15 or 20 year lifetimes? Correct. Correct. So the way I explain it to people is that when you buy a car, does your dealership tell you that your car is only good for five to 10 years? It would be probably less than that if you never maintained it. Same thing for roofing. If you don't maintain your roof or the exterior surfaces, in a shorter amount of time, you will have to replace or restore that surface. For roofing, it's exponential how long you'd be able to last. There's other elements that are involved in roofing that may cause it to fail. But bacteria is one that you physically can see and watch it deteriorate your roof. And so your product, if it's used on a regular basis, would extend the life of this roof. And how long does it take to clean a roof? An average, I would say a 4,500 square foot roof probably take us 16 to 90 minutes, maybe, if that. And how often would they have to have the roof cleaned? What we do is, once we go into our initial cleaning, we get it to where it's a 100% kill rate. And then we come back over the next three to five years just to do spot checks, to do spot treating if it comes back. At minimum, three to five years in between treatments. And so how much would it cost to have your roof cleaned? In Hawaii, well, that's a tricky one. Because most people go on Google and they'll if you pull up soft wash and roof washing, the numbers that they show online are all up in the states. Hawaii's first to get the chemicals to Hawaii is just crazy. Bleach, which is one of the major components that we use in our solution, is almost 20 times more expensive than it is in the mainland. And so an average roof, 4,500 square feet, you're probably looking about $11,000, $1,200 for a roof. Well, what we say, it's in a $40,000 to $50,000 that they take to replace your roof. You could probably pay that just off the interest earned if you kept that money in the bank. OK, well, why don't we go on to gutters? We all have troubles with gutters. Why don't you tell us how you go back to the gutters? And so what you usually see is nobody looks at a gutter and says, I've got to clean my gutters. And so if you ever looked at a gutter, you always see these, we call them lion stripes. And if you try to pressure wash them off, you'd never be able to get them off. And so what we do, we apply a cleansing solution onto it, which helps remove that. And it's just a rinse. We're able to do both the outside and the inside of the gutters. We also flush to make sure that the gutters are free and free flowing. And it's a simple process for us, but it's something that most people never take a second look at. And what about, you know, and one of the jobs I know recently is exterior windows. I mean, do you get much call for cleaning exterior windows? I would say most people never clean their exterior windows, aside from shooting them down with their water hose. And so our process that we have is we use ultra pure water. So we have a reverse osmosis unit on our truck that creates ultra pure water. We go in, we lay down our cleansing solution, we agitate it on the window and then we do a full rinse. Once we rinse it because the water is ultra pure, it'll dry with no spots on it. And so we're able to reach from the ground, we're able to reach up to a three-story building from the ground with the equipment that we do have. And so most people, you look into three stories up, they never reach outside of their window to clean the outside because it's, for one thing, it gets really dangerous doing something like that. So have you tried with, you know, what about a high-rise building? A high-rise building, something like that, you'd have to get access. I'm not sure if our services would be able to provide exterior window cleaning. That's a whole another realm of work. Okay, so we're basically talking about single family homes or townhomes. Correct. For a building, maybe up to five stories, we'd be able to do something like that, yes. And one of the other areas you mentioned was decks and fences. Yes. And so with fences, we can do wood. You'd be amazed what we can do at wood. I see a lot of fences that are, they look dry-rotted, they turn black. When we do the cleaning, the solution that we use actually brings out the color that really bright brown color for natural wood. That's not hazard bed stain. For vinyl fencing, most people never think about cleaning their vinyl fence until it gets just, you know, the red stains that we so much love in Hawaii. And so we're able to come in, we spray our solution on it a little bit of agitation and we're able to get the fence to a near brand new look. And like I said before, when we started this program, that a lot of condominium boards, I mean, their main function is to maintain their properties. And so, I mean, a lot of this deals with how often to schedule repairs, painting of the building and doing spa repairs. So how do you factor in the fact that they should use your product with the soft wash? So what we do, what we asked our customers to do is we do free estimates and we do free site walk-downs or walk-throughs. And that's just to be able to get in front of the client and then have a conversation to understand where their challenges may be. And during the site walk-down, we don't try to find something or sell them or we can do this, we can do this, we do this. We try to help our clients identify areas that may be potential, areas that they may be looking at, may not be looking at. We also look into their maintenance programs for the different areas that they're responsible for. With my background on which Chevron very heavy into routine maintenance. I bring that experience into soft wash away in identifying and having experienced many different scenarios which include run until it breaks or just fix it when it needs fixing. What, you mentioned, so what is your background? Why don't you tell us? In my background, I worked for Chevron for 28 years, 15 years out here at the Hawaii refinery and the last 13 of my career in Kazakhstan. And so in Kazakhstan, it's a multi-billion dollar facility and I was there from construction to commissioning up into operations. And so when you talk about money, if you're working in a multi-billion dollar facility that's making multi-million dollars per hour, you can imagine what it costs for anything to go wrong. And if it ever came down to routine maintenance being the corporate, somebody is gonna be held responsible for that. And so the dollars were a lot higher, the consequences were extreme. And so the maintenance programs were pretty intense. And that's what I bring into soft wash away. When we do our walkthroughs, I don't mean to pry when we were having the conversation, everything is sincere. I'm trying to help, I'm trying to share my knowledge to help them become better at what they do or improve. And it's not something where I come into the property trying to sell our services. I'm happy to help, just to help them become better, to help the property become more prosperous, more perceived values and such. And why don't you just kind of, with a hypothetical, if you have, let's say a condominium townhouse project, maybe 140 units, and they ask you to come and do an inspection. I mean, what can they expect in terms of a proposal that you would make to them for a maintenance program? For a maintenance program, I look at, I try to understand what their existing maintenance programs were, put all of what they communicate to me, put everything that I would propose in a maintenance program, and then sit down and have a conversation. As far as putting together an estimate for the property, that's pretty straightforward. But really what I'm trying to do is get property managers, owners, to understand what routine maintenance does. It's not an expense. And expense is a one-way trip for money. It goes, you spend it and it's gone. When you invest in a routine maintenance program, you spend the money, but you get a return in the longevity of the property, in the perceived values that people see within the property, the pride of ownership. There's many different things that come in when you explain ROI as an investment in routine maintenance. And so that's kind of what I would bring. I would bring my past experience into the conversation to help maybe help them build out a more robust maintenance program. Everybody's got budgets and we understand that. But it doesn't mean that you have to kind of wait till something breaks until you fix it because that's always the worst case scenario. It's always the most expensive and it never happens at a good time. Right, and so, you know, so why should a condominium sign up for your services? I would say the friendly service from the clients that we've talked to that we have so far. The one thing that we bring to the table is we are there when you need us. A perfect example was we got a call yesterday, immediately went, got in touch with the person requesting an estimate, came out to the property. She was ecstatic because she had mentioned, she had reached out to three other companies over the last couple of weeks and nobody responded to her. So with that type of service, could you imagine what would happen when you really needed them if there wasn't maintenance program in place? For us, we try to over deliver on every job that we do. And it's not always about, you know, making more money. It's always about making sure that people are well-taking care of and that they get what they deserve as a service. You know, and you know, in doing this soft wash, what kind of products do you use and where do they come from? Well, we source our, one of our major components is bleach. We source that from a local company here in Hawaii and the other surfactants and soaps that are special to soft washing we bring in from Florida. One thing about bringing chemicals into Hawaii is very difficult. It's very costly. And the company that I purchased my equipment from, they do, all of their chemicals are not hazardous. So it changes the game as far as being able to overnight, you know, cleaning solutions that I would need. Well, the majority of the other companies that you could purchase chemicals from, even if you paid the freight they will not ship to Hawaii. And that for me was frustrating at the beginning of my, you know, going on my journey, getting into soft washing. But the support that I get from the company that I purchased my equipment from is phenomenal. And you mentioned the soft washing, you know, is something that, you know, is done on the main one. How long has it been offered as a service to homeowners associations? Well, the company that I work through that I purchased my equipment from, they've been in business for 30 plus years. And so they actually develop the equipment that I have. They are leaders in industry and they actually support everyone who purchases their equipment. And so myself being on this little island in the middle of the Pacific, I actually have a network of other companies that are within, that have purchased the same type of equipment that there's kind of like a Huey. So I've got people in the United States, stateside, I've got people in the UK. And so we collaborate. If somebody comes across something that they don't quite understand what to do, we reach out to the group and then everybody helps everybody in hopes that somewhere in the world somebody's come across that problem or something similar and you've actually got a baseline to start from rather than starting from scratch and trying to figure it out. And in Hawaii, is there something about the climate or the environment that affects how often they should do this cleaning with softwash? Well, with the climate in Hawaii, it's perfect, right? We grow everything here, including algae moths and all the other yucky stuff that grows on the exterior surfaces of our home. With the moths and algae, I would say up in the mountain areas, Manoa, Belilani, Maoka, Wahiwa, Kanioi, Kailua. We walk through those neighborhoods and you can see that people wanna take care of their properties. You can see where they've pressure washed and they meant good, but with pressure washing, when you talk about mold and mildew and algae, it actually comes back faster and more full. Meaning that when you pressure wash, you're cleaning the surface, but you're just moving it around. You're making it clean, you're not killing or eliminating the mold, mildew and algae at its root. And so what happens is you actually spread it and then it comes back fuller. We look at it like cutting the grass. You cut your grass and it comes back fuller. The more you cut it, the tighter it gets, the more fuller it gets. Until you kill it at its roots, it'll keep coming back. And that's where softwash Hawaii comes in, is we kill the bacteria and contaminants at the roots, thus providing for a longer clean in between cleanings. And so... And besides killing these molds and algaes, you mentioned that your product creates a healthier work environment for the people who have to live and work around the condominiums. Correct. And so what we do, because we use bleach, the bleach is a sanitizing agent. The solutions that we use are higher than what is recommended because to sanitize, I've got a lot of information on that on our website, but it's just a minute percentage that you need that the EPA would say would be considered sanitation. And so we're able to get to a 99.9% kill rate with our services. And so we're able to come in and say, and we've done a couple of them playgrounds where we come in and it's not so much for a clean but a sanitation, just to clean up, get it all clean and get it good and healthy. So that sounds like a good deal. I mean, you kill the bacteria and mold that's on the buildings. Meanwhile, you create a healthier environment for people who have to work and do the work cleaning and for the people who have to live and work around the building then. Yes, more importantly for your children when they're out playing, what they check into the house. Hey, that sounds like a good deal. So if someone wants to take advantage of your services, how do they contact you? And how do they set up an appointment? I mean, what do you do on an initial appointment and what's the drill, so to speak? So we're pretty versatile. A lot of people call me, most people come off of Google, they can call me at my direct number, speak personally to me. What I would suggest is to visit our website at www.softwashaway.com. Lots of information, probably more information than you would need but on every page we have a contact form where you can just fill out, get it, it'll come to me, it'll ping and we'll get to you within two to three hours. And so we'll be able to, if the schedule permits it, it will come out the same data to your property walkthrough if you're available. And you will, after the walkthrough, you will give them an estimate and maybe some suggestions on what kind of a maintenance plan they can set up for your services. Yes. And for some, we had one today where we went out to do a walkthrough and they requested a demonstration, which is fine. We love demonstrations. The more people, the better. I always say, as far as attendees, the more eyes that see what we do, the more people are gonna wanna talk about what we do. So when you do a demonstration, I mean, can you describe what you do? When someone says, I want a demonstration. So when we asked for demonstrations or demonstrations are requested, I always ask for the dirtiest example because that's how I was taught. When I went out for training in Florida before I purchased my equipment, they went to the dirtiest house that's never been maintained since it was built and then we clean it. And so I do the same thing. And I always ask what would you like us to demonstrate on? Pick the laundry list that you wanna do a roof, you wanna do windows, you wanna do siding, you wanna do vinyl fencing, wood fencing, you wanna do walkways. We can do a little bit of everything if you've got it. And it's at no cost. And again, it's just to show, rather than me telling you what we do, I feel it's a lot better to have people actually experience what we do and see firsthand. And so with your service, is it just like a one-time cleaning or is this something that has to be done on a weekly or a monthly basis or is it quarterly or does it depend on what surface we're talking about that is being cleaned? I would say it depends on what you're trying to do. Is it a property? Is it a playground? How clean do you have to have it? And then we build out the maintenance program from there. We customize everything to the needs of the customer. And that's part of the conversation when we do our estimate and our walkthrough is to understand where their maintenance program currently is and where there may be opportunities to help improve or maybe just build one because it just isn't there, which we've come across also. So you said you've come across places where they don't have a maintenance program. I mean, so how do you persuade them that they should now adopt one? I don't like persuasion. I basically share my knowledge with them. And if need be, I can put a number to the costs if it's something that's under my expertise as far as the surface is and show them with data. And that's what I got. One of the biggest takeaways I got from Chevron is that you should always back up your decisions with data, not just say so. And if you can build data, which again, this is one area where some majority of the properties don't do is documentation of what is being maintained, how much you spent, what was the failure, what's gonna fail. And again, I always leverage my background with Chevron is when we built maintenance programs, it was very detailed, down to the nut and bolt. And that was because things we were in a remote location, it took weeks, if not months to get equipment if it completely failed. But to the effect of a maintenance program for a condominium, if you're not looking at areas or certain areas that may have a lot of potential for failure and then the repairs may be long lead items, if you don't identify those ahead of time, then it'll happen at the worst time and you're gonna wanna get it back and you're gonna throw money at it, hoping that you can get it fixed. And that's very, there's no ROI in that. I think those are the list, my listeners who are here kind of recognize a scenario that you're talking about, you all live through it about letting things go. And all of a sudden, you're stuck with, oh my God, we have a problem. Now we have to go repair. And so you go out for bids and then the figure points, figure pointing starts. Well, how come you didn't do this and that and we could have avoided this repair? So what you're basically advocating for is a regular maintenance program so that we don't have these moments where you're faced with this repair situation. Well, if you do your maintenance program properly, you can predict the failure. You can predict how much it's gonna cost. You can predict when it's gonna, when you're gonna have to spend money on it to prevent the worst case scenario, which would be an unplanned event. Cause in an unplanned event, in a property management scenario, your customers, your clients are gonna want whatever it is that's broken, fixed yesterday. And so you get the phone calls and the stress and trying to line up contractors. And especially now, trying to line up a contractor now, you might get the contractor, but then the materials you need might not be, that might be a long lead. And so that's all part of what we bring as far as the maintenance program. We like being, coming along, helping out, making sure everybody's good, happy and don't have to see that type of event occur. Well, you know, it's been very refreshing talking to you because this is a different type of maintenance resource that we've had to deal with. And so thank you for being on my show and we've run out of time. And so I wish you and your company well and hopefully that you will get calls as a result of this show. And thank you for being on our program. And for our listeners, I want you to, you know, I wanna thank you for, you know, listening today and joining Donovan Morgan and myself talking about, you know, maintaining your buildings. And I hope you join us next week for another episode of Condon Cider. Aloha mahalo.