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Imagine going from $153 in the bank to $58,000 a month in revenue. Well, that's what these two guys did. Carter and Brandon, running Pink's Cleaning Service, and started a business right here in Austin, Texas. Let's steal all their homework and get into how you can do it too. Let's break this down.
So, you started selling boots and you did live events. Naturally, you guys started a cleaning company. What happened?
That's right. So, we got laid off during COVID, and Carter and I went on a walk one day and we observed, you know, who's not laid off? All these service people. We saw 15 trucks in a half-mile radius of my house. And so we were like, let's start a service company. And they were recession-proof. We're watching these guys crush it in a time when supposedly unemployment was at an all-time high, and we're like, well, these guys definitely didn't get hit. And we just saw, hey, nobody's showing up on time, nobody's doing what they say they're going to do. What a low barrier to entry to just be the top guy by doing those simple things.
I love that because basically, you guys went from your first year, you did $200,000 in revenue. Then you did about $400, $500,000. Then this year, you'll do somewhere between $700,000 and up, is that right?
Be a million. Yeah, should be, should be over a million. Yeah.
So, basically, you've more than doubled every single year you started this business, and you've got some pretty crazy margins. What, like 37%?
Yeah, about 40. That's after paying our salaries. Yeah, two salaries, which maybe not every window cleaner would need.
Now, when you came into the business, you also didn't need that much. I think you guys started it with less than a grand. Am I right?
Yeah, I, I found a receipt the other day from Home Depot that was like $150. She got buckets, soap, squeegee, super simple. And we said, man, $150. We got a business. Yeah, that's all you needed.
Let's go from there. First of all, I own part of this company. Got to tell you that. The second is, you're not going to have the same experience and results as anybody. It's probably not typical. It's going to depend on your background, education, effort, application, and the probability of any business winning or losing. This is the "be an adult" section.
I think we should talk about the sexiest part of a service business in cleaning, which is revenue that keeps coming back to you. The recurring revenue model. We call it the magic of Pink's, the magic of the cleaning business. But essentially, we do restaurants weekly where they're every Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. cleaning. We have a card on file, so our guys in the field click done, it dings their card and sends a receipt to them. But the beauty about this, it's residential and commercial. So we're saying the same thing to residential clients. It's like, hey, I can save you money because your windows are going to get dirty again, and we'll probably be back here maybe one more time this year, maybe quarterly as the seasons change. Let's get you on the calendar, we'll cut you a little bit of a discount, and then we can plan for what's coming up. So Brandon likes to always say, your past self will thank your future self.
What makes it really great is for your teams. You gain amazing operational efficiency. Your teams, they know where to park, they know where the water source is, they know the customer. Your margin gets better 'cause you're doing them quicker. You know what to expect. Yeah, you're saving time, saving money. That's the really sexy stuff.
Mar, sexy stuff. While speaking of those uniforms, this is not what the guys who clean my windows look like. What's the deal?
This was the first thing we did. Was like, hey, if we're going to be doing this outside, we need to stand out. People are going to see us. We are our own billboards. We got to look our best. So if we dress the part, our work is going to reflect that. So if we get together, put on nice clean stuff, our work's going to be nice and clean.
So basically, the, the rule here is like, you make the money that people think that you're worth, and you have reoccurring clients because they trust you because you have a brand that doesn't look like everybody else's.
100%. Yeah, this speaks to trust. This says, hey, I think this is actually going to do what it says it's going to do. And when you have a uniform on, it helps get you places that you shouldn't be otherwise. So it's helped us sell so much. Um, walking into restaurants wearing the uniform and just kind of hustling with the general manager. People love, like, businesses that don't ever close. We can just blend into the environment. And honestly, a lot of, like, business owners enjoy us being there because it's like, hey, it's this little style piece. It doesn't look out of place. Guys aren't smoking cigs on the job. It's clean.
Does everybody have to have, do you get a haircut? Like, is there, those are just the people that apply? Surprisingly enough, it's like, mullet or mustache, and you're hired.
I love that. Let's get super tactical on brand. So you don't have to go out and get VC money, spend a ton in order to make millions. In fact, you guys started a logo for this company that's now being worn by rock stars. But it cost, what, how much money?
We spent like $50 bucks from a friend that needed some work. It was a buddy that he could like, do some sort of graphic design work, and we're like, you're the man for the job.
Turns out some of the best money you've ever spent was on brand, too, right? What was it?
It was the van wrap. A billboard that drives around town. Um, and it's parked in a central location in Austin. And what do you call it? We call it marketing. It's so brilliant. 4K. You get a branded billboard that goes all over. Best money we could possibly spend.
Then the vans. Do you guys have to buy that thing for $75k, or do you lease those bad boys?
We lease one, bought the other three. So for about $1,000 a month, you could lease one of those trucks, and then you basically can still be profiting every single month while you own a really expensive piece of equipment. It's one job. Yeah, pay for and one.
So I think a lot of times people see all these numbers stack up and they get freaked out at the cost of the van, but they don't realize there's this thing called a loan, and you could use it. All right, Alfred of the day, fit check. People are always asking, man, where do you get that? We're about to tell you guys. 'Cause you know, we'll start at the top. We got the hats. Port Authority. Check them out.com. New.com. We got the shirts. This from Dickies. Shout out Dickies. With the pants to match. Thank you, Dickies, for hooking these full outfits up. Oh, don't forget. We got the big pin for closing deals. You always got to have one on you.
You guys are trading on the fact that for dozens of years, if not hundreds of years, people who officially did things, they looked official. They wore uniforms. So talk to me about why did you start this and what does each item cost for your guys?
100%. Well, first of all, we pay for everything. Mmm. From hats, shoes, socks, the full getup is always paid for. But we looked at people like the Milkman, so tightly dressed, these like nostalgic characters, like the Body Shop mechanic, and we're like, dude, there's something to that. It looks pro, and you produce pro work. First things first was making an incredible uniform that we wanted to wear and feel comfortable going to work in. And then we had people reaching out wanting to buy stuff. So we were like, oh, I think we need to make a shop. We need to put this stuff online. And that's kind of what led to making a bunch of this stuff.
I think the best cleaning joke wins gear from Pink's. Comment your best cleaning joke. We'll send you a little something. You guys are walking billboards. When people see you down the street, you look a certain way. You got these outfits on. You're young guns. You're bringing respect back to a trade while also being a, a business card. How many times do you guys get work just because somebody goes, "What's, what's this?"
That was the only business model at the get-go. It's like, if we were wearing the uniforms and we were walking up and down prominent streets, we were getting business. It's because we looked the part. And I think at the end of the day, nobody knows any window cleaning companies, and we just wanted to be the only person you could think of. And we thought the best way to do that was to look the part. Our strategy was simple: whatever everybody else is doing, let's do the opposite of that. Yeah. So every other window cleaning, they're wearing cargo shorts, flip-flops, and an oversized polo. We're like, let's have fitted uniforms that look different. And that goes for our social media as well. Like, we're not posting before and after pictures 'cause that's what everybody else does. Um, rather, we want people to be engaged in our content and then think, oh, wow, I've never thought about window cutting, but now all of a sudden I'm thinking about it because of this fun brand. We want them to see our face, see our guys' faces, instead of just a clean window. And we want them to resonate with the personalities behind it rather than just a clean window. We're in the people business.
How many of your people are chicks? A lot of your clientele, women?
A lot of the clientele was women. A lot of our employees are dudes. We had, we one girl. We're not opposed to it. It just hasn't happened as well. I think we could change that today. Don't you think? We have our first female Pink's. That's an, yeah. Let's do it. You're hired.
Oh, are you guys ready? This ready to go clean some houses? Guys, what you think? Let's go, baby. Get to work. Come on. Let's do this.
Next step, let's get you guys some clients. We are right now in a spot where there's a bunch of businesses that you can potentially sell. And you told me this brilliant way that you guys think about getting sort of an an anchor client.
Yeah, we love doing a free clean for someone. We think, hey, that's probably an influential person in this, say, gated community, or they have the premier corner lot. And it's like, if we can get into a neighborhood just by doing this for free, and they can tell our story, it'll unlock the whole place for us.
So give me an example. It's like a gated community, and you see like a nice corner house, and you're like, man, we couldn't get in there unless we cleaned that house. If you're especially early on, it's like, hey, I need more business. I'm not wasting time by going and giving a free clean. What takes us an hour just to do the exterior? I'm going to go, hey, do you mind if we just come in? We're going to knock out all these windows. We'll clean them for you. And then maybe we can leave a sign at the end. We did a good job. Don't pay us. They always ended up paying us, but like, we didn't ask for it. And just, hey, maybe you can tell our story. Yeah.
Well, it's so good because one, they're like, look at these young hustlers. They get excited. And two, then you could leave your sign, but also your van's out front for part of it, too. Yeah. So, yeah, strategic location for people driving by, and then getting to put that sign up. So it unlocks the rest of the neighbor for us. Whenever we have a client, um, let's say it's that corner lot, what we'll do is, is we will go to the neighbors. Our van's already out front. They see the van, they see us in our uniform, and we say, hey, we're cleaning your neighbor's spot. Why don't we clean yours as well? We can come at 1:00, or we can come at 3:00, or whenever. It's less salesy. It's more of a warm intro because their trust in neighbors is already using us.
Next step, marketing like Beyonce. Let's talk about how to get free marketing dollars. Basically, one, I love the idea. You do for lunches. Talk about that really quick.
Yeah, we pay for all of our crew members' lunch every day up to $15. We want them out and about at the cool lunch spots, wearing the getups, um, because so many people go up to them and they're like, hey, what do you guys do? And they're all equipped with business cards. They all know how to sell. So it's, yeah, generating tons of leads for us. We don't call it marketing spend. We call it a marketing investment.
The second thing that you guys do that's totally unique is your Instagram is banana. So talk to me about that.
It's expensive to do. People get freaked out to do a bunch of Instagram. And you guys are kind of like actors. Like, what's going on? How fun would it be if, like, we just kind of started performing? And we put a face behind the brand and started. Yeah, Brandon had this idea of doing comp cleans. Was originally how all the videos started. Back at it again. Comp clean of the week. Comp clean of the week. Comp clean of the week. Hey, let's go to a local business that's just legendary, and let's give them a free clean because, hey, man, you guys are doing things right. You've been doing it for a long time. We'd love to highlight you. And those are all like the morals that we want to assimilate with as well. So that's kind of it. All started. Yeah, we just wanted to bless a local company, and that was the heart behind it.
Can we talk about my favorite video? In which I don't know which one's my favorite. I feel like this one. Oh, that's so good. Okay. Then second favorite is the baby one.
The lesson here is you can either spend a bunch of money on doing the things everybody else does. You can get slightly riskier, asymmetric, do some creative takes that might not pan out in the beginning, but they feel humanity. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's something about the service industry where we have taken all the humanity out of it with all these private equity firms owning everything. They suck out all of the margin, they insert a bunch of automation, and all of a sudden, every company looks the same all over the country, and none of them care about you. You're just a number. And you guys are doing the opposite of that.
Imagine I'm a Latina American woman. I've started many businesses, sold some businesses, and now I'm with two ambiguous guys. Two great-looking guys. Two guys. Are they brothers? Are they not? Nobody knows. Nobody knows either. Also, whenever you guys want to shut the, you guys. So you're starting from the bottom, now you're doing arenas. You guys do a bunch of commercial sites like this. You guys can make 20, 30, a couple hundred, from doing different large-scale sites, right?
We could say that like this place generates enough business to just run one van out of them. How do you get a commercial client like this?
They found us on Google, and we answer the phone. The beautiful part about the service business is it's simple. If you answer the phone, you show up on time, you do what you say you're going to do, you're going to have a great business.
Scaling up from zero to now doing millions in revenue. How do you stair-step your way into this?
You buy a van, you start doing jobs with that van. That van hits capacity, or it's when it's about to hit capacity, buy another van, hire two more guys, get another van, and have that as your sales van and picking up odd jobs. And then once it's busy enough to like, not have as much time selling, yeah, you roll it right into the fleet and you're good to go. So it's something we kind of did early on. If we hit a slow season, or we really wanted to like see what we could ramp, get that extra van before maybe you need it, and just throw them out in the field selling.
So every single one of your guys is trained on both selling and doing. So you have a really efficient workforce that can move back and forth between the two. And then we have a little rule. We call the 230 rule, where if you wrap up in that 2:30, 3:00 range, and you want to stay on the clock and keep making money, we'll send them out to different neighborhoods and just start door knocking. So they stay on the clock, they're selling, and it's like a way for them to get their 40 hours they need.
And do you give them a cut of the commissions if they close something?
Exactly. We give them 10% of everything they sell. So we have a few guys that are making like a few extra hundred bucks a month because they've sold monthly maintenance plans. Oh, that's. And they get part of that ongoing revenue. It's mailbox money to them. Wow.
I love that model. We want to take care of our employees. And two, if they do leave, we get a 10% pay raise on those jobs. Amazing.
We had to get over ourselves because I think growing up, the narrative was, is if you work in a doctor's office, or if you're a lawyer, or a commercial real estate guy, or a finance guy, that's a good job. And if you're a plumber, a window cleaner, a lawn care maintenance person, then you are less than, and you are secondary. And I think like, we believed that for like, most of our life until we started Pink's. And even when we started Pink's, it took us, it took us some time to like, really believe that, like, that truth. That one, without the window cleaner, without the plumber, without the lawn maintenance person, our city would be a disaster. Disaster. And so these jobs are essential. And like, that's why we started Pink's to help tell that story.
You know what I learned here today? Entrepreneurship is hard. You'll lose money and time and employees and have to clean windows. But working at 9 to 5 is really hard too. You'll sit behind a desk for 8 hours. You'll have a terrible boss. You won't like what you do. And at the end of the day, you won't be able to pass down your 9 to 5 to the next generation. And you might get fired. So it's really up to you to choose your hard.
I think these two guys are doing a really rare thing, which is telling the next generation of young men that, no, actually, you don't have to raise millions of dollars in Silicon Valley in order to make a ton of money. That Main Street millionaires are actually all around us. That the millions are often found in the boring. And that in fact, you shouldn't listen to what everybody is telling you on the news each and every single day, that you have to go work for somebody else in order to have an extraordinary life. In fact, maybe you should just clean some windows.
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