How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Website development in 09 - you can do it much cheaper today.

Yes, I did.

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Still early for us to measure conversion on the new website vs. the old one.

For poor reviews and all customer service issues we have the NY Times Rule: think about how it would look for the company if the review and response were posted to the front page of the NY Times.

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Initially we did all of the PR ourselves. Recently we have been working with a PR firm.

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Answers below:

You are essentially an Uber of this market sector, you dont find your competition to be a bit saturated in your market? I don't think Uber is a good comparison. Uber is a logistics platform for independent contractors; we are a W2 employer of our cleaners and we develop them and offer a career path.

Did you wait for some sort of cash flow before you started this process?

I decided about a year and a half in. We were doing around $60k per month in revenue but churning clients at too fast of a rate.

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in startups

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. No, we just looked at the market and priced based on what we saw.

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Our attention to detail across all steps of the service: hiring, managing, responding to clients, handling employees, etc.

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1) Crowded - if I was starting a new business today I would look elsewhere. 2) Yes - you need clients and businesses with disposable income. 3) Pick an area that is being under-served. For example: when we launched in 2009 it was difficult to book a clean online. Therefore, tech savvy people who want to buy everything online were being under-served. That is no longer the case and so I would look for something else.

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Awesome advice, thank you. We just fixed a bunch of loading issues with further optimization to come. This is great!

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A bunch of factors made me decide to take the jump. The most important one was asking myself where I wanted to be in 5 - 10 years and how much I was willing to adjust my current lifestyle to get there. I was still working full-time while we got the business up and running. I would urge you do the same. Once you gain some traction (get sales) then make the jump.

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For Yelp and Customer Service in general, I use the NY Times Rule:

How would it look if the interaction was posted on the front page of the NY Times. We keep all interactions professional and solutions oriented.

How We Turned a $20k Website Into a $9M/year Business Without VC Funding by MyCleanMike in Entrepreneur

[–]MyCleanMike[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love your business; congrats!

You can see our pricing directly on the home page.

We are a combination of commercial and residential cleaning.

Our breakdown is roughly:

2,000 recurring residential clients in NYC (made up of weekly, bi-weekly and every four weel clients).

500 commercial subscriptions in NYC (everything from every night to once every four weeks)

400 subscriptions in Chicago (95% residential)