Free of overhead costs, entrepreneurs take to road to provide goods, services

One could call them modern-day door-to-door salesmen.

They have a ware, a service, a trick. They have a client base waiting in the comfort of their own homes.

The hitch?

The waiting client called them there and drove the ever-growing market for mobile businesses a little farther on the Las Vegas economic map.

Thousands of valley business owners call the road home. Services rendered range from car detailing and mechanic work to dog grooming, party starters and spray tans. Medical services -- and not your grandmother's house call -- even join the ranks.

PARADISE

For the owners, the overhead of a static address is eliminated, and for the clients, they get convenience, said Kamela Brewer, owner of Paradise-based Bold Body Bronzing.

For three years, Brewer and her staff have peddled their spray-tanning service through the streets of Las Vegas. She visits locals and tourists who want to stay tan but don't want the hassle of a salon.

"They can dry in the comfort of their home," she said. "It's saves them the time and the travel trouble, and it's not interrupting their day."

Brewer pegs her business as a "VIP Service" and said the feeling of special treatment drives many people to use mobile services.

"We are everywhere, and we come to you," she said. "People like to be catered to."

All mobile business have to pay for state and local licenses just like any other start-ups. Food- and human services-related operations are regulated by the Southern Nevada Health District, too.

Food trucks have made their mark on the mobile market in the past few years, hawking everything from sliders to gourmet sandwiches to snow cones. Dog groomers and car washes and detailing professionals in the mobile scene provide dense competition for each other.

Like any business, it's all about finding a niche, said Ashleigh Ngo, co-owner of a Games2U van. The custom vehicle is equipped with game systems, laser tag and a human hamster ball available for birthdays, reunions, weddings, corporate events and beyond, she said.

Ngo and her husband, Son, bought into the Games2U franchise a year ago and have brought the party to Las Vegas since.

"We live in a world of convenience," she said. "We're completely mobile entertainment."

Patrons bring their own food to their Games2U-hosted events but staff members take care of the rest, Ngo said. The setup is ideal for parents, she added.

"It's nice for us to come to them," she said. "They don't have to transport a group of kids and then worry about what to do."

Business has been steady, Ngo said, because Games2U constantly changes the games and packages available to patrons.

"We've been very lucky," she said.

Ngo, a parent, said she has sought out other mobile businesses, such as car detailing, in the past.

"That was very convenient," she said. "We didn't have to go anywhere."

For those whose mobility is limited or privacy is at a premium, one mobile service brings provides a doctor's office.

Mantro Mobile Imaging, 8778 S. Maryland Parkway, Suite 105, provides mobile X-ray, ultrasound and screening services, co-owner Ken Chapman said.

The business, co-owned by John Missig, Curt Castro and Shane Mantes, has two custom vans for X-rays and one for ultrasounds. The vans handle an average of 150 calls per week, Chapman said.

The vehicles are dispatched to private homes, skilled nursing facilities and acute care hospitals to perform health-care services. The trained technician then transmits findings digitally in the van and sends them to the appropriate medical care providers.

"Instead of them going to a facility and having to wait their turn, we come directly to them," Chapman said. "They can often find their results right away."

The software also accounts for error. If something went awry, the technician can go back inside and try again. In a traditional setting, the patient would have to make another trip.

The services are safe, and the amount of radiation is comparable to a long airplane ride, Missig said.

DOWNTOWN

In downtown Las Vegas, businesses on wheels have come a long way from their two-scoops-in-a-waffle-cone beginnings.

Even gourmet sandwiches are prepared fresh curbside. Some of the valley's best are showcased in the monthly Vegas StrEATS! food truck festival, which is a collaboration of downtown food vendors who camp out in front of the El Cortez, 600 E. Fremont St.

They're known as traveling retail outfits. That means they'll come to you.

Ken Farrington at American Mobile Drug Testing, 2810 W. Charleston Blvd., Suite 44, said mobile businesses are less expensive to run: no rent or overhead. He said the business is more efficient to customers with its "at your door" approach to customer service. Farrington, a field services supervisor, said he has conducted roadside drug tests, collected urine samples in portable toilets on construction job sites and administered middle-of-the-night Breathalyzers for truck drivers and manufacturing plant workers. Some are random tests, others he conducted after accidents on the job, driving hundreds of miles throughout the state.

"For us, it was an inexpensive way to get started," Farrington said. "We just needed a vehicle and a small amount of equipment to test. For the client, it's not having to coordinate all of your employees to show up to some place."

Usually, companies send employees to a clinic for testing. Drug testing becomes a low priority when up against broken bones, bumps, bruises and squirting blood.

"What should be a 15-, 20-minute ordeal could be hours," Farrington said.

The seven-year-old company is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to collect urine, saliva and hair samples for clients such as NV Energy, Southwest Gas and the state's transportation department. It wasn't until clients requested that the company open an office that the Charleston Boulevard location was created. The company's business license does not designate its mobility, though the city of Las Vegas' website shows a "mobile business operation" designation for some licenses.

A drug test costs about $50, alcohol tests are about $30 to $40, and a fee is charged for after-hours calls between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. The company performs random testing, reasonable suspicion and post-accident testing.

"Those are some of the interesting ones," Farrington said. "I had one guy, his boss thought he was under the influence of something. I asked how he was doing today, he was swaying back and forth. He blew a .172 on an alcohol test. I did a second test to verify. The problem was, it was 7 in the morning, and he was coming to work. He goes, 'What happens now?' I told him to go over and see his supervisor."

The mobility of the business calls for vehicle insurance with a higher premium to cover work-related incidents. The business also has general liability and a worker's compensation component included in its insurance plan.

Farrington's "wake up and hit the road" mentality doesn't work for everyone.

"I can have a manufacturing plant call me at 11 p.m. Friday night because a worker had an accident, and I have to go," he said. "Then I'll get home at 3 a.m., and they'll call me again."

Stephen Miller is an economics professor who chairs the business college at UNLV. Mobile businesses are a relatively new concept, and not much research has been conducted locally, he said.

Problems with sustainability could come from a reduction in capital investment because there is no rental space in a building. Mail delivery to the place of business might be difficult. And "with the services you're providing or good you're providing, is there something about the good or service that going to a person's place of business or house makes sense?" Miller added.

Contact Centennial and Paradise/Downtown View reporter Maggie Lillis at mlillis@viewnews.com or 477-3839; and Paradise/Downtown and North Las Vegas View reporter Kristi Jourdan at kjourdan@viewnews.com or 383-0492.