Context Drives Behavior: Interview with Tom D’Eri, Co-Founder of Rising Tide Car Wash

I recently went one on one with Tom D’Eri, co-founder of Rising Tide Car Wash.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth? 

Tom: Thanks Adam, it’s exciting to be speaking with you today. My journey really started soon after I graduated from college. At this time my brother Andrew was about to graduate from high school. Andrew has autism and at this point we were worried about what the future would hold for him. 

It became very clear very quickly that my family was going to need to take action in order to lead the full adult life we knew he was capable of. So my father and I set out to build a business that could employ Andrew. My dad, who had been an entrepreneur for 20 years at this point, didn't shy away from a big and bold vision. He wanted to build a business that not only could employ Andrew but would create a community for him and would be purposefully built to empower individuals with autism. So we set the goal of employing people with autism for 80% of our staff.  This goal would guide everything else we did. 

Adam: How did you come up with your business idea? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with great ideas? 

Tom: We were looking for businesses that could leverage the strengths that we thought many individuals with autism had. To that end we were looking for things that were process-oriented and required attention to detail. We also wanted to find an industry that chronically struggled to find good employees and that had limited brand differentiation as we felt our employment model could address both of those issues. Car washes met all those criteria so we decided to test this idea out. 

Adam: How did you know your business idea was worth pursuing? What advice do you have on how to best test a business idea?

Tom: We felt that it was really important that we test our key assumption which was if we could recruit and train a competent staff of employees with autism. We spent a summer testing the concept at a car wash in Florida City, Fl which was owned by our mentor Paul Fazio who is the President of SONNYs Enterprises, the largest manufacturer of car wash equipment in the world. By the end of the summer we had proven that we could meet industry standards and had learned how to effectively recruit this talent pool. 

The best advice I can give is to identify your riskiest assumptions and then find the cheapest and quickest ways possible to test them. As you can see from our example, it is also a great idea to try to create partnerships with existing businesses and mentors so you can leverage existing infrastructure. If you have a social mission you can generally find people who will help you. 

Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level? 

Tom: We’ve really focused on trying to design the business around the needs of our team members, specifically our employees with autism. We think of our employees with autism as “extreme users” who have the same needs as everyone else, just more apparent. By designing for and with our team members with autism we’ve identified and solved a ton of issues that plague most businesses. We’ve built an objective hiring process that keeps us fully staffed with values-aligned talent, driven clarity into every aspect of our business and created a deliberately developmental culture. 

My advice to others is to look for the members of your team who are struggling the most and instead of writing them off as incompetent, ask yourself “are they failing the business or is the business failing them?”. Most of the time there are tremendous insights garnered by looking at your business from the perspective of people who are struggling with it. By designing for these team members you’ll build more reliable and scalable systems for everyone.  

Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips? 

Tom: When we test ads that tell the story of our brand mission we get much higher engagement than when we try to give away services. I think this is indicative of a broader point, that customers want to know why they should support your business over another one that is selling seemingly the same type of service. Doing this through features of your business is much less effective than telling an emotional story about what you stand for.

Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level? 

Tom: I think the best leaders are humble and curious. These qualities help leaders continue to learn, prospective take with the teams and are seen as approachable and competent. 

The first step, in my opinion, to cultivate these skills is building the mental model that context drives behavior the majority of the time. Regardless of outcomes, we need to understand that there are generally environmental factors that have a significant impact on how we perform (good or bad). Once we default to this viewpoint it becomes obvious that we A) don’t really understand why someone acted a certain way and B) that we need to ask questions and observe what's going on to get a more complete picture.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?

Tom: To me there are a few key points. On building teams, hire for shared values instead of skills you can teach people. On leading teams, look at your role as a barrier breaker. Your job isn’t to shield your team from doing hard things or not hold them accountable. As a leader you should be focused on removing unnecessary obstacles from your team’s work experience so that they have the best chance to meet your objectives. On managing teams, remember Brene Brown’s adage “Clear is kind”. Your job as a manager is to set clear expectations and candidly let people know where they stand on meeting them. 

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders? 

Tom: That context is king, to be 10x more clear than you think you need to be and to always frame failure as learning.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Tom: My dad always tells me “That there is no magic, just hard work”. This piece of advice has always helped me take personal responsibility for everything that I want. If I want something to happen, I have to put in the work necessary. From the outside looking in, success might look like magic but there is generally a ton of hard work, dedication and perseverance that lead to it.

Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?

If you want to learn more about anything I’ve talked about in this interview please check out our website: www.risingtidecarwash.com or go to Amazon and pick up a copy of my new book, The Power of Potential.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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