Case Study: Undrdog Surface Products

What They Do

Undrdog is a Texas-based brand specialising in auto and marine cleaning and protective chemicals and tools, built specifically for professional detailers and serious enthusiasts. The brand was launched from scratch during the pandemic.

My Role

I was brought in by the founder before the brand existed — he and I had a successful history together and he wanted to build something new. I assembled the team and we built everything from the ground up: brand identity, copy, website, e-commerce infrastructure, CRM, and community strategy. This wasn't a consulting engagement — it was a co-founding role where I owned the tech and marketing operation end-to-end.

The Challenge

Zero. No brand, no website, no customers, no infrastructure. The challenge was to build a recognisable brand in a scattered, blue-collar industry — professional detailing — during a pandemic, with a limited advertising budget, competing against established chemical brands with better distribution and more resources.

The industry itself is fragmented: mostly micro-businesses of 1-3 people, many new detailers entering the market, many also going out of business. It's a luxury-adjacent service — making cars look better isn't fixing a roof, it's discretionary — which means customer loyalty and community matter more than in commodity markets.

What We Built

Brand, Site & E-commerce Infrastructure

Built the entire brand from scratch — identity, copy, positioning — and launched on Shopify Plus. The tech stack included several non-trivial custom integrations:

Carfax VIN integration: Detailers could log the vehicles they'd worked on by entering the VIN, and we'd publish that service record directly to Carfax. This was technically complex — Carfax has limited integration capabilities — but critically important for the industry. Detailers needed verified accounts to participate, which we approved manually. A standard agency would have skipped this entirely or said it wasn't possible.

Pro detailer verification system: Built a registration flow where detailers could apply for Pro status by uploading their business documents. We reviewed and approved manually. Approved Pros got access to trade pricing, exclusive products, and dedicated support. At peak, we had several thousand verified detailers in the database.

Lead map with matching and real-time notifications: Custom-built tool connecting consumers with local detailers in the Undrdog network.

CRM & Community Strategy

The retention strategy was built on a non-traditional foundation: community first, CRM second.

Facebook Group as CRM infrastructure: We built and ran a highly engaged Facebook community for detailers — not as a social media play, but as relationship infrastructure. The CEO would get on calls personally to support newer detailers, answer questions, and explain products. This wasn't scalable in the traditional sense, but it built a level of loyalty that no email sequence could replicate. A Facebook group isn't CRM in the software sense, but the function is identical: you're building relationships with customers, tracking engagement, and marketing to people you actually know.

Non-promotional SMS: Three times a week, we sent short, inspirational text messages to our subscriber base. No links. No promo codes. No CTAs. Just a "we see you, keep going" message directed at detailers running small businesses. The response was overwhelmingly positive. You can't attribute revenue to it directly, but the brand affinity it built was real and measurable in retention rates and community engagement.

Klaviyo automation: Classic CRM infrastructure running in parallel — segmented flows, Pro pricing triggers, abandoned cart sequences tuned to the Undrdog customer (we removed browse abandonment entirely because Pros already knew the products), and a diminishing discount cart recovery sequence that cut the sales cycle from 7 to 3 days.

Results

• Scaled from a blank page to a recognised brand in the professional detailing industry
• Several thousand verified Pro detailers in the database
• Strong community with high organic engagement — referrals and word-of-mouth became a meaningful acquisition channel
• Carfax integration deployed and operational — first of its kind in this segment

What This Project Taught Me

The best CRM isn't always software. Undrdog's most effective retention mechanism was a founder who picked up the phone and talked to his customers. My job was to build the infrastructure that made that approach scalable — verification systems, community tooling, SMS, Klaviyo — while keeping the human layer intact.

The non-promotional SMS programme is something I'm genuinely proud of. It went against every "best practice" about measurable ROI, and it worked precisely because it wasn't trying to sell anything.

Stack

Shopify Plus · Klaviyo · Custom Shopify Apps · Carfax API · Facebook Groups · SMS (non-promotional) · Manual verification workflows