Gravy's Hustle Thread: $100k/mo or Bust!

[DavidL41]

in your opinion do you see value expanding your business to offer similar services?

For example, house cleaning(dedicate staff for this), gutter cleaning, deck and fence pressure washing and staining, car cleaning and car vacuuming, edging small lawns. You could throw a pressure washer, lawn edger, fence stain, shop vacuum, into the back of a van/truck/minivan and pitch clients these services too. Ideally, using the same employees to do these services where you can hire more people as it grows. Do you see potential in this approach? If not what is the approach?

 

[Cpatton88]

The main reason for this thread is because I'm sick of hearing excuses from people.

There is literally NO excuse not to do this and make $ TODAY. No virus, no shutdown, no nothing.

These times will pass. I'm seeing a reoccuring theme between action fakers / complainers. It doesn't matter what day it is, or what's going on in the world. There will always be an excuse not to take action.

What the f*ck else better do you have to do? Watch more YouTube? Read more business books? Listen to more podcasts?

Do you really thing you're just one video/book/podcast away from success?

Here's a tip: Cut the bullshit. Lock your business books away in a cupboard. Block YouTube and Instagram. Block your podcasts. Block any other dopamine hits that let your brain THINK you're taking action, when you really aren't.

Go start a home services business exactly like I did. Fall FLAT on your face. Fail. Learn. Fail. Learn. Do it again until you make money. Then repeat. And repeat again.

Then scale. Then build systems.

The beauty of what I'm doing is that it doesn't matter your background. It doesn't matter if you went to school. It doesn't matter if you've failed in business for the past 10 years. It doesn't matter if you've action faked your way to your current situation.

You can pick this shit up TODAY and make money TODAY. The first job you get pays for ALL of your startup costs.

You can float your AdSpend on Yelp for a month straight, 2 months if you know how to game the system. I did this. Made a bunch of money and didn't pay a dime till later.

There are just no more excuses. Every time I hear an excuse or complaint in other threads, I'm just going to start roasting.

I want people to skip YEARS of hardship, self doubt, udder failure, action faking, etc. I wanna see people quit their shitty jobs. I want to see that spark that hits when you FINALLY make something work. Do something that's PROVEN to succeed quickly, just to get some success under your belt. This will allow you TIME and MONEY to pursue another business, or scale this business if you so choose. Either way, the choice is yours.

I know this is over a year old but would you mind helping me with the floating AdSpend on Yelp thing you were talking about?
I just printed some flyers this morning to put out tomorrow. I desperately want to get started in the window cleaning & gutter cleaning business.

I am about to start watching your YouTube videos right now also.

 

[XxThelionxX]

Phenomenal proccess. I really enjoyed it. Even after all this time!

 

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[EmotionEngine]

Just found this thread today. Read through most of it. Incredible. Sorry for the loss and +1 like for your challenge video.

 

[Zane]

What's up Fastlaners!


I haven't posted on here in quite some time.


I joined the forum in late 2013, before reading MJ's book. I found the Fastlane Forum through a forum called Luxury 4 Play (about cars). Someone had posted a link in the "business" section. I always asked myself, 'how do people afford these crazy cars?!' So I decided to delve down the rabbit hole and find out.


In 2014, I attended the Capitalism and Bacon meetup in Houston, Texas. There, I was introduced to the world of entrepreneurship. We had a blast over the long weekend, and made some life long friends to boot.


I lived in Idaho/Washington for the vast majority of my life. From 2014-2017, I started several online businesses, all of which failed in one way or another. Either I didn't put in enough effort, or the products weren't viable. I learned alot about myself during this time, and don't regret "action faking," since it taught me many invaluable lessons. I also found myself growing stagnant, and comfortable during this time. I partied alot, f*cked around, had an IT job making around 60k/year (age 18-22).


One day, in late 2017, I found myself laying in my girlfriend's bed, Netflix blaring in the background. I was blankly staring at my phone. I wondered how I had gotten to my current position. I wondered what else there was in store for me. I would equate this to my "f*ck this event," only it was a long time coming. I packed up my few belongings into my 87 Honda CRX, called my boss and told him I was quitting on the spot, and decided to move to Southern California.


Thankfully, one of my friends from the 2014 meetup was in a similar position. We ended up getting a house in San Diego, which we deemed the "Entrepreneur Hustle House." Since, we have had 2 other Fastlaners live with us, and countless others come to visit.


I had absolutely no money when I first moved here. We're talking maybe 3 grand saved up. I should have had alot more, but I was still in sidewalk mindset at the time. I started a drop shipping business, which ended up making a few k/mo, and sustaining me for a while. This didn't last, and before I knew it, I had maxed out several credit cards trying to keep this business, as well as others, afloat, alongside paying my rent.


I tried running an ad agency for other businesses as well, but realized it was inauthentic to myself. This floated me for a few more months, but came to a screeching halt one day when I realized I didn't even have enough money to pay rent.


This was possibly the lowest point in my life that I had experienced. I had crushing anxiety, defeating depression, and was overall underachieving in every aspect. I knew I could do much better, which is the reason why I felt so terrible.


The year before, I had met a guy in LA who owns a window cleaning business. I remember posting about it here long ago, he was actually trying to sell it. I asked him if he would let me work for him for a few days (another time where I didn’t know if I was going to be able to pay rent.) Thankfully, he let me, and in doing so, taught me the ropes of what he does. I soaked up information, asked lots of questions, and tried to gain clarity on the situation.


Last year, I decided to bite the bullet, swallow my pride, and start an offline service business, just like he had.



I set up a Yelp page, made my Google listing. Printed out thousands of door hangers and flyers. Spent my last few bucks on a squeegee, mop, and bucket, and began hitting the doors. I had a fire lit under my a$$, and nothing to lose, so I went as hard as I could, every day, until I started getting jobs.


Due to the low startup costs, and low barrier to entry, and insane work ethic driven by necessity, I was profitable within about 48 hours of deciding to start this business. I haven’t let up the gas since. By the end of 2019, I had grown the business to over 20k/mo revenue, around 80% margins. My only expenses were marketing, and a little gas to get to the jobs. I threw two ladders inside my sedan, used a hose, bucket, mop, and squeegee to perform home services for customers.


I realized in order for this business to scale past 20k/mo, I need systems in place. I have since hired a full time secretary to deal with all day to day, and help me create systems. I implemented a CRM, accounting software, and automated lots of daily tasks. I also became legit, finally got insurance, and a business license (LOL). I have also hired another employee to work in the field.


I have done alot of “soul searching” in the past few years. I took alot of time for myself, and really dug deep. What kind of person do I want to be? If I could do anything in the world money aside, what would I be doing? What is AUTHENTIC to my character, and what are things I really love doing?


I realized my gifts are along the lines of helping others. I genuinely want to push other people along to achieve their goals and dreams (especially when it relates to my personal story). My long term goals include blowing up my “entrepreneur hustle house” concept, only this time, I will own the houses, and rent them to young people who didn’t go to college, as a sort of “incubator tank” for businesses. I want to push young guys especially, just like myself, because I’ve seen the power of it.


My current goals, in line with my larger goals are:

Scale the offline home service business

Create YouTube videos helping others do the same thing I have done

Network with those people

Get them to move in together

Invest in their businesses (once I have more capital)


I want to create an ecosystem for myself in the future. So I am taking steps to get there today.


I will use this thread as a place to hold myself accountable, but mainly for a place to be able to look back and see my story over the next few years. I miss posting on the Fastlane Forum. It was a huge part of my childhood, and has led me to meeting some really cool people. I owe it to other readers and members to document my journey.


I hope other people can relate to countless business failures, action fakes, and losing lots of $ in the process to find something that actually works for them.


Comments/questions/concerns welcome.


David

@GravyBoat I appreciate your post. Major congrats on diving into a business that makes sense to you and that resonates with your inner-being.

Your goal to create an incubator spot-on and one that I've considered, too. Being involved in a community that focuses on a single purpose is powerful.

I can relate to your story in the sense that I've had several action fakes and business failures. While I'm in finance now and work 9-5, my ultimate aim is to provide a service and/or product of value and transition out of said environment.

Well done, GravyBoat! Looking forward to hearing more about your progress in life and in business. Cheers.

 

[DrWumbo]

@PaulAaronBaker This is actually a great concept! Although not coming from a place of experience, you're exactly right. I should divorce myself from this business as soon as possible, and hire out/automate every aspect. Hiring a "CEO" might be a little overkill, but a "manager" might be right on point.

I need to build it a little bigger before I hire any more though. This biz is still paying my salary, and in order to fund many more, we need more revenue, which means more marketing $. Slowly bootstrapping my way there.



@DrWumbo nice to see someone in the same industry. When you say "season," what are your seasons like? Probably depends on where you live, I am in San Diego, so we don't really have winter like most places. We do have slow season though, which is Jan/Feb. Had a bit of a dip during this time but it allowed me to focus on YouTube, which was much needed. Just today I booked 4 jobs, 2 of which are over 1k. So I think it's safe to assume that "slow season" is over...

As far as door hangers. I think I dropped around 5k of them total, and got maybe 1 phone call. I haven't dropped a hanger or flyer since the beginning. That shit did not work for me, and after your third week of beating the pavement, you realize there are a LOT better ways to market your services.

I'll make some more posts on this to accompany YouTube videos I create. Yelp, Thumbtack, Home Adviser, Porch, word of mouth are my primary streams of customers, as well as repeat customers.

Feel free to ask any questions in here or post your experiences.

It's still fluctuating between below freezing temperatures (about 70% of the time) and about 50 degrees here. We are supposed to get snow tomorrow!

Great to hear that you are booking jobs!! Keep it up.

 

[miraman]

Why not?

Let's math it out:

- 30 days in a month
- $666 per day
- Let's assume he does 4 houses in a day
- That's $166 per house.

This.... doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

In his youtube video he offers some numbers as well:

Basic washing service - $175 per house (above my $166 estimate)
Upselling additional services - $275

He also finds houses where he can hit that $275 number in 45 minutes worth of work where possible.

He also says he was working non-stop with no weekends and it took him 8 months of grinding to get there.

He was also spending roughly $3k per month on adspend.

So.....

Why is this impossible?

Maybe not impossible but- not likely. I mean who can work 30 straight days -all day long, with no hiccups, you would need around 120 customers just for one month in your example, and not sure if everyone needs windows washed monthly, so you would need a ton of customers. It just seems unrealistic to me as a solo operation anyway.

 

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[GravyBoat]

My man Duke what you been up to?? Remember me from 2017 Summit in AZ?? We talked for a while.

 

[21elnegocio]

What's up Fastlaners!


I haven't posted on here in quite some time.


I joined the forum in late 2013, before reading MJ's book. I found the Fastlane Forum through a forum called Luxury 4 Play (about cars). Someone had posted a link in the "business" section. I always asked myself, 'how do people afford these crazy cars?!' So I decided to delve down the rabbit hole and find out.


In 2014, I attended the Capitalism and Bacon meetup in Houston, Texas. There, I was introduced to the world of entrepreneurship. We had a blast over the long weekend, and made some life long friends to boot.


I lived in Idaho/Washington for the vast majority of my life. From 2014-2017, I started several online businesses, all of which failed in one way or another. Either I didn't put in enough effort, or the products weren't viable. I learned alot about myself during this time, and don't regret "action faking," since it taught me many invaluable lessons. I also found myself growing stagnant, and comfortable during this time. I partied alot, F*cked around, had an IT job making around 60k/year (age 18-22).


One day, in late 2017, I found myself laying in my girlfriend's bed, Netflix blaring in the background. I was blankly staring at my phone. I wondered how I had gotten to my current position. I wondered what else there was in store for me. I would equate this to my "F*ck this event," only it was a long time coming. I packed up my few belongings into my 87 Honda CRX, called my boss and told him I was quitting on the spot, and decided to move to Southern California.


Thankfully, one of my friends from the 2014 meetup was in a similar position. We ended up getting a house in San Diego, which we deemed the "Entrepreneur Hustle House." Since, we have had 2 other Fastlaners live with us, and countless others come to visit.


I had absolutely no money when I first moved here. We're talking maybe 3 grand saved up. I should have had alot more, but I was still in sidewalk mindset at the time. I started a drop shipping business, which ended up making a few k/mo, and sustaining me for a while. This didn't last, and before I knew it, I had maxed out several credit cards trying to keep this business, as well as others, afloat, alongside paying my rent.


I tried running an ad agency for other businesses as well, but realized it was inauthentic to myself. This floated me for a few more months, but came to a screeching halt one day when I realized I didn't even have enough money to pay rent.


This was possibly the lowest point in my life that I had experienced. I had crushing anxiety, defeating depression, and was overall underachieving in every aspect. I knew I could do much better, which is the reason why I felt so terrible.


The year before, I had met a guy in LA who owns a window cleaning business. I remember posting about it here long ago, he was actually trying to sell it. I asked him if he would let me work for him for a few days (another time where I didn’t know if I was going to be able to pay rent.) Thankfully, he let me, and in doing so, taught me the ropes of what he does. I soaked up information, asked lots of questions, and tried to gain clarity on the situation.


Last year, I decided to bite the bullet, swallow my pride, and start an offline service business, just like he had.



I set up a Yelp page, made my Google listing. Printed out thousands of door hangers and flyers. Spent my last few bucks on a squeegee, mop, and bucket, and began hitting the doors. I had a fire lit under my a$$, and nothing to lose, so I went as hard as I could, every day, until I started getting jobs.


Due to the low startup costs, and low barrier to entry, and insane work ethic driven by necessity, I was profitable within about 48 hours of deciding to start this business. I haven’t let up the gas since. By the end of 2019, I had grown the business to over 20k/mo revenue, around 80% margins. My only expenses were marketing, and a little gas to get to the jobs. I threw two ladders inside my sedan, used a hose, bucket, mop, and squeegee to perform home services for customers.


I realized in order for this business to scale past 20k/mo, I need systems in place. I have since hired a full time secretary to deal with all day to day, and help me create systems. I implemented a CRM, accounting software, and automated lots of daily tasks. I also became legit, finally got insurance, and a business license (LOL). I have also hired another employee to work in the field.


I have done alot of “soul searching” in the past few years. I took alot of time for myself, and really dug deep. What kind of person do I want to be? If I could do anything in the world money aside, what would I be doing? What is AUTHENTIC to my character, and what are things I really love doing?


I realized my gifts are along the lines of helping others. I genuinely want to push other people along to achieve their goals and dreams (especially when it relates to my personal story). My long term goals include blowing up my “entrepreneur hustle house” concept, only this time, I will own the houses, and rent them to young people who didn’t go to college, as a sort of “incubator tank” for businesses. I want to push young guys especially, just like myself, because I’ve seen the power of it.


My current goals, in line with my larger goals are:

Scale the offline home service business

Create YouTube videos helping others do the same thing I have done

Network with those people

Get them to move in together

Invest in their businesses (once I have more capital)


I want to create an ecosystem for myself in the future. So I am taking steps to get there today.


I will use this thread as a place to hold myself accountable, but mainly for a place to be able to look back and see my story over the next few years. I miss posting on the Fastlane Forum. It was a huge part of my childhood, and has led me to meeting some really cool people. I owe it to other readers and members to document my journey.


I hope other people can relate to countless business failures, action fakes, and losing lots of $ in the process to find something that actually works for them.


Comments/questions/concerns welcome.


David

Very motivational post David, my question to you is what made you want to choose the window cleaning business and stick to that one instead of something else? What made you say this is it and this is what is what i am goig to scale ?


Do you have fulltime employees at the moment ?

 

[Captain Hoodie]

Very interesting thread. Thanks for documenting your story.

I was wondering how many houses do you have to knock on before you get a job?

Also, when someone answers the door, what is your pitch like?

Thanks

 

[Panda__]

First off, congratz on your venture. That's a leap most people will never take. So props to you.

The issue was you couldn't produce enough income to replace coorporate America salary in time, and had to go back.

The cleaning biz, commercial and residential, has to be one of the hardest service businesses to run right now. I have multiple friends that have gotten out of the cleaning business (commercial and residential). Some last year, more this year.

I still know a few that are functioning in the commercial sector, but they have pivoted. They're doing COVID cleans, window cleaning, pressure washing (exterior cleaning) which is what we do.

Like anything, you just have to adapt to the current climate. There will always be changes that destroy businesses. Most don't survive because they get lazy.

If you're intent on running the cleaning biz (I think you can still make tons of $ here, more than enough to replace salary), I would first focus on hiring. Because you can do the back end work (scheduling, customer back and forth, quotes etc) from your coorporate job. Then you can send employees on the jobs and collect the $ off top.

You're actually in a further ahead position than I was when I started, because when I started, I had zero dollars to my name. I literally could not afford to hire someone to do the job for me, I had to do it myself. I would have failed if I had hired off the bat. But you can use your coorporate salary, ESPECIALLY if you're working from home, as a sort of "passive income" to work on your cleaning biz. You can easily multi task.

Get on Google Guarenteed (Local Services). Get on Yelp, start running Yelp ads @$750/mo. If you can't close jobs in the first month there's something wrong. You should go in the green within a few weeks.

If you can't, I would pivot to exterior cleaning in your city. Basically the same biz I'm doing. We have not had an issue with COVID at all this year. In fact, if anything, it's helped us immensely. People are home. Working on projects they've put off for 2, 5, 10 years. We wear a mask when greeting the customer, or do a contactless service (person stays inside, communicate by phone). Either way works for us! Collect the $ through check under door mat, cash, or in your case, Venmo, PayPal, Credit Card (stripe). Use whatever you can to figure it out. If you need more help let me know. Go watch my YT vids on how to perform the services so you can make sure your contractors know what they're talking about.

Best of luck. Hope you crush it. Time to get this biz off the ground once and for all.

David

First, thank you for taking the time to respond. Since COVID, do you think that people are still not wanting people in their homes cleaning? Now that people are home more, would they really want to pay and have someone come in and clean? So what you're saying is that I should hire immediately and I do the backend work?

I am definitely going to check out your YT channel.

 

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[reedracer]

First, thank you for taking the time to respond. Since COVID, do you think that people are still not wanting people in their homes cleaning? Now that people are home more, would they really want to pay and have someone come in and clean? So what you're saying is that I should hire immediately and I do the backend work?

I am definitely going to check out your YT channel.

If you offered to clean and make safe AirBnB type rentals starting right away you could grow your business as people start using these units again. Anything to support AirBnB owners should be viable.

 

[GravyBoat]

Truly remarkable.
So when do you think that you will have enough clients for a monthly retainer and not have to worry about getting new clients anymore? When do you think it can all done remotely so that you maybe just have to check in 1x a week or less?

That’s the issue with this business and one of the main reasons my brain still wants to FOMO out this far in... barely any customers repeat service.

For one, most residential customers that call to get cleaning haven’t had them done in 5, 10, 15+ years sometimes. They only call when there is flooding or growth seen (big issues).
The ones that call about preventative maintenance are able to be repeated. But not every month, maybe once every 6 months at the most, usually once a year is more standard.

So the goal is to get them on repeat contracts. But barely anyone repeats because we haven’t pushed actual contracts where it automatically pulls from their bank account every month or every year etc.

I am still stuck in the mindset that if I pitch this, I will lose the job to someone that doesn’t lock them in etc. For commercial.

Because commercial, as we saw with the past 2 years, sometimes doesn’t know if they’ll have extra money to spend each year.

Maybe I should offer a huge discount for getting them to pay up front...

I honestly just went through and blasted every previous residential customer and I would say about 5% of them repeated service in a years time.

Definitely something I need to work on.

As for your other question about checking in once a week... it was never really my goal to “check out” of business and go sit on a beach. I already have plenty of vacation time as it is, so I would be spending that “free time” on another business or other investment ops etc.

Any ideas for repeat would be much appreciated because I’m 100% leaving $ on the table here.

 

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[BD64]

That’s the issue with this business and one of the main reasons my brain still wants to FOMO out this far in... barely any customers repeat service.

For one, most residential customers that call to get cleaning haven’t had them done in 5, 10, 15+ years sometimes. They only call when there is flooding or growth seen (big issues).
The ones that call about preventative maintenance are able to be repeated. But not every month, maybe once every 6 months at the most, usually once a year is more standard.

So the goal is to get them on repeat contracts. But barely anyone repeats because we haven’t pushed actual contracts where it automatically pulls from their bank account every month or every year etc.

I am still stuck in the mindset that if I pitch this, I will lose the job to someone that doesn’t lock them in etc. For commercial.

Because commercial, as we saw with the past 2 years, sometimes doesn’t know if they’ll have extra money to spend each year.

Maybe I should offer a huge discount for getting them to pay up front...

I honestly just went through and blasted every previous residential customer and I would say about 5% of them repeated service in a years time.

Definitely something I need to work on.

As for your other question about checking in once a week... it was never really my goal to “check out” of business and go sit on a beach. I already have plenty of vacation time as it is, so I would be spending that “free time” on another business or other investment ops etc.

Any ideas for repeat would be much appreciated because I’m 100% leaving $ on the table here.

Commercial customers:

You mentioned the primary pushback for commercial as being future uncertainty around money but I imagine it also depends on WHO is the one actually paying for the gutter service...

If it's the tenant paying, chances are they don't put as much consideration or priority into budgeting for maintenance costs. The building is not theirs and so any $ that goes to upkeep is seen as a waste. Going back to the objection: You may try to rebuke by showing them how, if they plan on staying in that location, it will be worth it in the long-term. Spending a little bit of money every year will prevent an expensive, large issue down the road. If uncertainty is an issue then surely the former option is preferable since it's easier to budget for?

On the other hand, if the landlord pays for expenses like maintenance and Capex then ideally your service should already be budgeted for as these are critical expenses that can make or break their yield. It's just a matter of showing them why you are the best option. If they don't already include gutters into the equation then it may be as simple as showing them why they should and then sliding yourself into their books as a line item.

Residential customers:

I think the 2 buckets, tenants and landlords, still hold true as they did with commercial but in this case the residential tenants are probably really hard to sell on reoccurring services. Most of them won't be sticking around long-term and even if they do, most people don't care to think about future expenses. Maybe just focus on the landlords, if they are business savvy then you should be able to make a similar case as with the commercial ones.

 

[GravyBoat]

This is really motivating. Thanks for sharing! Good luck & keep grinding you seem to be on the right path. What is your youtube channel?

From The Gutter on YT I think it’s in my signature somewhere. I took all my old videos down because a customer actually pointed it out and I got worried but I might put them back up soon cause now idgaf

 

[faust]

Hey David, been following your thread for a bit. Congrats on the success with more to come.

The other question that always pops up when scaling... why is there no big household name doing this? Is scale at that level possible? What hurdles have they ran into that I’m not foreseeing?

After seeing how well things were going for you, I had the same question. Found a large gutter cleaning company on the east coast called Ned Stevens Gutter Cleaning that seems to be everywhere from Georgia to Massachusetts. So it does seem possible.

Unfortunately looks like they were also fined over 100k total by OSHA for cases of inadequate fall protection. From what I can find, it seems like OSHA wants a roofing anchor to be installed to be up to their standards. Obviously isn't good for quick jobs, and could open you up to liability if your guy messes up their roof when he installs it or removes it after.

By the time you're operating in 11 states, 100k probably won't sink you. But seems like even the big guys haven't found a quick, cheap way to solve the fall safety problem.

 

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[Hampus]

Awesome video @GravyBoat !!!!

Again, if you want your online presence to come across as professional and someone who knows what they are doing - would suggest having a look at some of the previous videos on your Youtube acct and cleaning up the junk:



Cheers to the #ragstoricheschallenge going viral and hope we get to see some vids from other hustlers here on the forum sometime soon (even if they don't include a chopper)

 

[GravyBoat]

I know this is over a year old but would you mind helping me with the floating AdSpend on Yelp thing you were talking about?
I just printed some flyers this morning to put out tomorrow. I desperately want to get started in the window cleaning & gutter cleaning business.

I am about to start watching your YouTube videos right now also.

Hit me up on IG brotha. I can help you out. I respond there ASAP.

 

[dru-man]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[Parks]

How's business gravy? Killing it? Good thread, deserves bump