Getting Started 3 min read
From Detailing Cars to Metallic Epoxy Floors: The Alchemy Enterprises Story in Boston
A pandemic car detailing business led one young entrepreneur to epoxy. A year into installing floors, he is chasing the high end metallic market in New England.
Key takeaways
- Alchemy began as a mobile car detailing business during the pandemic. Detailing cars in garages with epoxy floors sparked the move into coatings.
- About a year into installing floors, the owner is targeting high end metallic designer floors in the greater Boston area.
- Every estimate is done in person, so he can test the slab for moisture and measure it himself.
- He believes better moisture barriers and prep products are opening up colder, older markets like New England.
The name was chosen long before the first floor. Alchemy, as its founder explains it, was “science before we had science.” The old dream was to take something ordinary and turn it into gold.
“Back in the day, everybody wanted gold, so they wanted to create something of value from nothing,” he says.
Today Alchemy Enterprises installs epoxy floors in the greater Boston area. But it started somewhere else entirely.
A detailing business, and a floor that caught his eye
About six or seven years ago, during the pandemic, Alchemy began as a mobile car detailing business. “I was just a kid during the pandemic, actually,” he says. “I said, okay, we’re gonna be transforming cars.”
Detailing high end cars meant working in some very nice garages. Many of them had epoxy floors.
“I started to be like, wow, I love the way that floor looks,” he says. “I’d love to have an epoxy floor at my house someday.”
Being an entrepreneur, the next thought came quickly. What goes into installing one? Could he do it?
To him, the two jobs had a lot in common. “You take a slab of concrete that most of the time is pretty ugly, beat up, whatever, and then you make it look beautiful,” he says. “It’s a similar installation process as what I was doing before.”
“You take a slab of concrete that most of the time is pretty ugly, beat up, whatever, and then you make it look beautiful.”
Chasing the luxury floor
He started installing floors only about a year before this interview, and he says it has really taken off. Flake and solid color floors are, in his words, “the bread and butter of the whole industry.” He installs them. But his goal is more specific.
“One of my major goals right now is to become the premier metallic designer floor guy in the greater Boston area,” he says.
Metallic epoxy floors use metallic pigments moved through wet resin, so every floor has its own pattern. They are some of the most design driven floors in the trade, and they suit the high end clientele he is going after. He says the company is already doing well at reaching that audience.
Venetian plaster for walls is next, so Alchemy can offer a complete designer interior finish. Polished concrete is further down the road map.
Every estimate in person
For now, Alchemy does every estimate on site.
“I like to see the job site before I’m gonna give anybody a number,” he says. “I like seeing the slab in person, obviously, testing for moisture. I’m gonna measure it myself too.”
That last part comes from experience. Some clients, he says, have been great people whose measurements were “a little bit off.”
For homeowners, that is a useful thing to look for. A contractor who tests your slab for moisture and measures the space themselves is pricing the job you actually have.
A one man operation with big plans
Right now Alchemy is basically a one man operation. On larger jobs, cousins and other family members come in to mix and help with the odd jobs.
Within five years, he wants four or five crews, at least handling prep work, while he focuses on design. He would like one other trusted designer who can work under the Alchemy brand on metallic floors.
“I see us growing in size, obviously, but also targeting that luxury finish,” he says.
Why New England is ready for epoxy
Asked whether resin flooring will take a major share of the flooring market, he says yes, and he points to the technology.
Boston is not Texas, Florida or Arizona, which he calls the “epoxy hotbeds.” New England has all four seasons, and many homes are old and not built on slabs.
What is changing, he says, is the systems: better moisture vapor barriers, better prep materials for crack filling, and coatings that can go over wood, not just concrete. He points to installers in Toronto, where the weather is harsher still, who are running big epoxy operations.
“I would credit it more to how far the systems are coming with what they’re able to do and the substrate that they’re able to work with,” he says.
For a business named after turning ordinary things into gold, a cold, old city full of tired floors looks a lot like opportunity.
Watch on Epoxy Growth Guy
Clips from the interview
See Alchemy Enterprises tell it in their own words, on Instagram.