A Business You Can Start with $153

Imagine going from $153 in the bank to $58,000 a month in revenue. Well, that's what these two guys did. Garter, 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 booths 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 obs. 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 a million? Yeah.

Should be over a million.

Yeah.

So basically you've more than doubled every single year you started this business and you got some pretty crazy margins. What, like 37%?

Yeah, about 47.

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, yeah. I found a receipt the other day from Home Depot that was like $150. She's got buckets, soap squeegees. Super simple.

And we said, man, 150 bucks. We got a business.

Yeah, that's all you needed.

Let's go from there.

First of all, I own part of this company. Gotta tell you that. The second is you're not gonna have the same experience and results as anybody. It's probably not typical. It's gonna depend on your background, education, effort, application, and the probability of any 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 pinks. The magic of the cleaning business. But essentially, we do restaurants weekly. We're there every Tuesday at 9am 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 catch you a little bit of 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 because you're doing them quicker. You know what to expect. Yeah, you're saving time, saving money.

That's the really sexy stuff.

That's the sexy stuff. Not these uniforms.

Profitability.

Well, 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, we're going to put on nice, clean stuff. Our work's gonna be nice and clean.

So basically, 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 gonna do what it says it's gonna 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. 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. Our guys aren't smoking cigs on the job. It's clean.

Does everybody have to have. Do you get a haircut? Like, is there a.

Those are just the people that apply, surprisingly enough. It's like mullet or mustache. And you're hired.

Love that. Let's get super tactical on 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 you cost what, how much money?

We spent like 50 bucks from a friend that needed some work. It was a buddy that he could 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 Vayner app. A billboard that drives around town and it's parked in a central location in Austin.

And what do you call it?

We call it parking.

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 you lease those bad boys?

We leased one, bought the other three.

So for about a thousand bucks 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.

Pays for in 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, Outfit of the day. Fit check. People are always asking, man, where do you get that? We're about to tell you guys because, you know, we'll start at the top. We got the hats. Port Authority, check them out. Got them on. We got the shirts. This from Dickies Shout Outs. Dickies with the pants to match. Thank you, Dickies, for hooking these cool outfits up. Oh, don't forget we got the Bic penny 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 from hats, shoes, socks. The full get up 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 make 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 pinks. 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 your young guns. You, you're bringing respect back to a trade while also being a business card. How many times do you guys get work just because somebody goes, 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 really 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. 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. We're not posting before and after pictures because that's what everybody else does. Rather, we want people to be engaged in our content and then think, oh, wow, I've never thought about window cleaning, 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 clean windows.

We're in the people business.

How many of your people are chicks? A lot of your clientele women.

A lot of the clientele is women. A lot of our employees are dudes. We had one girl supply.

We're not opposed to it. It just hasn't happened.

Well, I think we could change that today, don't you think? Our first female pinks.

That's an honor. Yeah, let's do it. You're hired.

Oh, are you gu. Ready?

We're ready.

Ready to go clean some houses.

Guys, what do 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 could potentially sell. And you told me this brilliant way that you guys think about getting sort of 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. 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.

What do you get? 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. Yeah, I'm gonna go, hey, do you mind if we just come in? We're gonna 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.

Exactly. They get excited.

And two, then you could leave your sign, but also your vans 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 neighborhood for us.

Whenever we have a client. Let's say it's that corner lot. What we'll do 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 o', clock or we can come at 3 o' clock or whenever. It's less salesy. It's more of a warm intro because their trusted neighbors are 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 guys do for lunches. Talk about that really quick.

Yeah. So 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 get ups 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 generated 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's expensive to do. People get freaked out to do a bunch of Instagram and you guys are kind of like actors. 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. Compton of the week Comp plan 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 how 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. And 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, or you can get slightly riskier, slightly more asymmetric, do some creative takes that might not work out in the beginning, but they feel human authenticity. 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 Latino American woman. I've started many businesses, sold some businesses, and now I'm with two ambiguous guys. Great looking guys. Two guys. Are they brothers? Are they not cousin us?

No brothers.

No either. Also, whenever you guys want us to shut the up, you guys can tell us.

So you started 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 thousand dollars from doing different large scale sites, right?

We could say that, like this place generates enough business to just run one van out of it.

How do you get a commercial client?

They found us on Google and we answered 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 gonna do, you're gonna 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 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 workflow force that can move back and forth between the two.

And then we have a little rule we call the 2:30 rule, where if you wrap up in that 2:30, 3 o' clock range and you want to stay on the clock and keep making money, we'll send them out to different neighborhoods and just start doorknob. 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 amazing. And they get part of that ongoing.

Revenue 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 believe that for, like, most of our life until we started Pincks, and even when we started Pinck'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. And so these jobs are essential. And, like, that's why we started Pinks 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 a 9 to 5 is really hard, too. You'll sit behind a desk for eight 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 f ing windows.