A site manager and an attendant reviewing a tablet together on a car wash lot

IgniteDrive Labs · A field-first advisory and product studio for professional car washing

We help multi-site car wash operators make better technology and growth decisions.

We get close to the operation and the people running it, understand where the friction really is, and turn that understanding into better technology, revenue systems, research and products.

Friction is where the opportunity is. It isn’t always where you think it is.

See what we’re working on Bring us a problem →

On the bench · Autumn 2026

What we’re working on right now.

Current work falls in three places: the technology an operator runs on, the system that creates revenue, and the frontline behavior that turns strategy into performance.

01 Client work Vendor-neutral

The technology system

Car Wash Tech Stack Advisory

Tech Stack Design · Migration Readiness · Implementation Advisory

Reduce the risk of choosing, changing or implementing the wrong technology.

The technology around a modern car wash is getting more complex, not less — and most stacks were never designed. They accumulated. We map the system the operation actually runs on, identify where the friction is, and help determine what should connect, change, disappear, get built in-house, or stay exactly as it is. When a change is needed, we can help define requirements, prepare the organization for migration, evaluate vendors, sequence the transition, and stay involved through implementation. We don’t sell the software, so the advice stays independent.

Map the real stack → Find the friction → Explore the options → Sequence the decisions

02 Developing New discipline

The revenue system

Revenue Engineering

Engineer the customer lifecycle — not just the campaign.

Revenue Engineering is about taking the next leap in sophistication — moving beyond member count and simple conversion toward a system for creating more durable revenue.

It connects frontline sales, pricing, promotions, incentives and retention with cohort analysis, churn reduction, experimentation, save strategies, winback and true lifetime value. The goal is to understand not just whether customers convert, but which customers stay, what behaviors predict value, and which interventions actually improve the economics of the customer lifecycle.

Pricing · Conversion · Onboarding · Engagement · Save flows · Active, involuntary & trial churn · Winback · True LTV

03 In the field 90-day engagement

A frontline revenue system

The 90-Day Sales System

Fix the system around the salesperson — not just the script.

The tool is rarely the whole problem. Teams plateau for want of focus, priority, coaching and management discipline. Ninety days building the operating system around membership sales, and the chain that has to hold it: CEO, operations, regional, site manager, salesperson.

Offer · Frontline behavior · Management routines · Coaching · Measurement · Accountability

Underneath the work

Platform Building IgniteDrive product

Car Wash Sentinel

Independent intelligence on the companies, technology and changes shaping professional car washing.

The research layer behind how we understand the industry — and a product in its own right. Nobody can say precisely how many tunnel washes exist, who owns them, or what changed last quarter. Sentinel is building the model that can.

LocationsEvery site, operator and market, over time.

TechnologyMajor platforms researched in depth, clarified with the companies, then verified through the workflows that matter. Vendors don’t pay to participate.

SignalsOpenings, acquisitions and changes as they happen.

Coming Q4 2026

US map of illustrative car wash operator density by state, with metro clusters and recent acquisition callouts (Mountain-West entry, Sunbelt roll-up, Southeast add-on)

              Sentinel · location intelligence, work in progress
              US · operator density
            

Different problems. Same way of working.

A system built A decision made Performance that moved

Get close to the operation. Understand the friction. Find the leverage. Build a better system.

Every engagement is bounded. An artifact is only worth something if the operation is measurably better for it. We agree up front on what should move, and we go look at whether it did.

Bring us a problem →

The Lab notebook

Where the thinking gets worked out in public.

Site visits, operator interviews, data studies, things we learned building Sentinel. Writing is how the ideas get tested before the work does.

All Field Notes →

POS & technology landscape 8 min read

The car wash industry isn’t behind — we’re thinking about it wrong.

“Ten years behind retail” is a comparison, not a diagnosis. Underneath it are three specific frictions, and only one of them is about software.

The constraint isn’t technology. It’s absorption.

Read the note →

Membership behavior 5 min read

Do rejection streaks hurt sales performance?

Rejection fatigue is a myth — the real streak effect runs the other way.

Sales systems 8 min read

Sales performance is a system problem, not a talent problem.

The best teams aren’t better at selling — they’re better at running a system.

Membership economics · LTV 7 min read

Membership health is about LTV — but not the way we’re calculating it today.

One average LTV can hide two completely different businesses.

Why this Lab exists

Kyle Doyle — Founder

Car washing since 1994 Built car wash POS Enterprise operator Product builder

Kyle Doyle

inConnect on LinkedIn →

Three decades, one habit: find a messy car wash problem, understand it properly, turn it into a system, build something around it.

Kyle grew up in the car wash industry, attending trade shows and working alongside his dad starting at 16. Since then his career has moved between operations, technology, product, customer behavior and revenue. That range is what IgniteDrive Labs is built around: seeing the whole problem, not just one piece of it.

Compuwash CEO · Built the first cloud-based car wash POS · Sold to Sonny’s

Russell Speeder’s → Summit Wash Holdings VP Marketing & Customer Experience · Joined pre-PE · Helped navigate the transition and growth from 18 to 40 locations

Salespath Founder · Built the industry’s first frontline sales enablement platform · Sold to Rinsed

Rinsed VP · Salespath & industry strategy

Kyle works directly with operators and technology companies on advisory engagements, alongside building the Lab’s own products. The Lab is small on purpose. You work with Kyle, and with the specialists the problem calls for.

Bring us a problem

What isn’t working as well as it should?

If something important is creating friction — technology, revenue, customer behavior or the operation itself — we’d like to understand it. Operators, technology companies, suppliers, investors: it always starts the same way.

No scope required. First call is a conversation, not a pitch — and if we’re not the right people, we’ll say so.