Nautilus

What do they actually do

Nautilus provides a SaaS platform for car‑wash operators that combines CRM, mobile checkout and membership sales, membership management, and automated email/SMS marketing in one system. It connects to common car‑wash POS and back‑office tools (e.g., Sonny’s, DRB, ICS, Micrologic, NXT Wash, Washify), so operators don’t need to replace existing hardware or workflows nautilus.co CarwashBiz carwash.com.

An optional AI layer, Compass, analyzes transaction and membership data to surface next‑best actions and revenue/retention insights. Nautilus also offers a customer‑facing mobile app and “Nautilus Sites” to drive online sales, geo notifications, gifting, and one‑click purchases. The core platform is publicly priced at $650 per site per month, with Compass available as an add‑on nautilus.co carwash.com LinkedIn The Car Wash Show listing.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Independent single‑site owner‑operator: Relies on spreadsheets and legacy POS reports; online checkout and membership sales are clunky, making it hard to drive recurring revenue and manage customer outreach effectively.
• Small regional multi‑site owner (a few to a few dozen locations): Needs consistent membership programs, centralized reporting, and repeatable marketing, but existing tools require manual work or custom engineering to scale across locations.
• Franchise or larger chain operations director: Wants faster onboarding and consistent data across franchisees while avoiding expensive POS replacements; needs a path to improve conversion and retention without replatforming.
• Marketing or retention lead at a multi‑site operator: Struggles to pinpoint churn drivers and which customers/offers to target, leading to guesswork and underperforming campaigns.
• High‑throughput express/wholesale operator or third‑party manager: Operates on tight margins and needs quick gains from memberships, gifting, and mobile purchases; current checkout and gifting flows underperform without changing onsite hardware.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Founder‑led pilots with nearby independent and small multi‑site operators, offering reduced‑rate trials and hands‑on onboarding that plugs into existing POS so no hardware swap is required nautilus.co YC profile.
• First 50: Leverage POS/vendor partnerships (e.g., NXT Wash) for co‑selling and intros, plus early case studies and repeatable onboarding templates promoted through trade shows and industry media carwash.com The Car Wash Show listing.
• First 100: Standardized per‑site rollout playbook for regional chains/franchises, staffed by inside sales and a small accounts team to run parallel deployments; emphasize no POS replacement and productized Compass playbooks as conversion hooks nautilus.co carwash.com.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Using U.S. car‑wash establishment counts around 58k–60k and Nautilus’ public pricing ($650/site/month for core; $750/site/month for Compass), the U.S. TAM is roughly $430M–$510M for the core platform and about $0.9B–$1.1B if every site also buys Compass CarwashBiz nautilus.co.

Bottom-up calculation:

At 58,938 sites × $7,800/year (core) ≈ $460M; combined core+Compass at $16,800/year ≈ $990M. A rough global view: global car‑wash services ≈ $34.3B; assuming ~$250k/site implies ~137k sites, yielding ≈ $1.07B (core) to ≈ $2.31B (core+Compass) annually CarwashBiz nautilus.co Grand View Research.

Assumptions:

• Every professional car‑wash site is a potential buyer of a $650/month SaaS (likely overstates practical SAM).
• Global estimate uses ~$250k average revenue per site to infer site count from market revenue.
• Compass attach rate assumed at 100% in the upper bound; real attach will be lower.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Rinsed: Car‑wash CRM and membership platform focused on selling memberships, automated decline/retention, and targeted campaigns; overlaps heavily on CRM and membership growth.
• DRB / Washify / Patheon (enterprise POS vendors): Incumbent POS/site‑management suites with built‑in membership billing, e‑commerce, mobile apps, and analytics; compete by bundling CRM/marketing tightly with the POS.
• NXT Wash: Modern POS and vehicle‑identification platform with white‑label apps and membership/churn tooling; overlaps on checkout, apps, and AI‑assisted retention and also partners with third‑party tools.
• WashMetrix: Analytics and membership management that consolidates POS data into dashboards, cohort tracking, and automated campaigns for operators who keep their existing POS.
• FlexWash: Integrated POS + CRM offering similar membership management and marketing automation for operators that prefer a single vendor for checkout and customer management.