The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Scaling a window cleaning company

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Chet Shen

Bronze Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
137%
Jun 6, 2022
299
410
16
Sydney

Subsonic

How you do anything is how you do everything
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
279%
Aug 16, 2022
916
2,557
19
Germany
The End of a Journey

It may have been a few days so I'll post one more update here to show what I am up to.

The window cleaning hustle was a great one but honestly I cant see myself building a home services/window cleaning company for the next bunch of years. It is a rather easy to start opportunity with a moderate to low need in my market here. Yes I know there are ways to make this better and to stop being a comodity and whatnot but lets be real here: I started to make some money and to collect experiences. I did archive both these objectives (though the money one less than the experience haha). If I go into this space then purly to make money and if thats the goals I would much rather be in a good market with people that love to spend money, while not being confined to my location here.
Moreover I really dislike this business since each sale causes pain to me and because even just scaling to 10k a month runs into opperational complexity for my situation, since I want to finish school and cant work that much.

The results

I made 1027€ in total value created.
I took home 143€ in profit...
Lets break down why I made so little money. I was running about 20% margins between taking workers with me and the cost of advertising (when factoring in my own time at 15€ per hour).There were two other big factors that cut down the rest of my profit (and all the money I payed myself as a working in theory): 1. Fixed overhead expenses. Since I went out of my way to operate this hustle legally compliant I had to pay a bunch of fees in the range of 50€ to 150€. This wouldnt be significant if I was making more money but since I did not make more money it ate lots of my income. 2. A failed advertising project with the local newspaper. I had them hand out flyers with their newspaper and I got nothing from 3k flyers. Boom 237€ down the drain.

The other thing I gained were some valuable experiences that one only gets when engaging a market.

1. The formular to making the first money is the following: Make an offer and give as many people as possible a chance to pay you. The reason most wantrepreneurs never make their first € is because they never actually get their offer in front of people who can pay for it or better yet, never actually make a concrete offer.

2. Service with a smile makes a huge difference. I suck at cleaning windows and always did a poor Job, yet noone got mad at me or even told me they were not satisfied since I was always kind and did everything the customer asked me to.

3. TIME is important. Its not just so you can be lazy on the bahamans but also so you can actually deliver to customers throughout the day(and night). Since I go to school I could only work on weekends, which created problems and limited the ammount of people I could work for.

4. Website and ads stuff. Its all great and good to read about these things but actually doing them with a purpose is huge and easily teaches 10x more effectivly. I learned how to take calls, I learned how google ads work and how you actually make money with them, I learned how to run facebook ads, I learned how to build and host a website using templates, vs-code and google web servers.


Lastly, I learned that I need to get into something with the plan of solving a problem, not to make money. Despite what @MJ DeMarco told me, I consider this venture somewhat money chasing. While I did work with a market need I never gave thought to what problem I am solving. If I were to start again I would think which problem I am solving first. If that was dirty windows, I can think of better ways to solve that problem than to just clean them for people.

The lesson here is to not focus on what you want to do but instead of what problem you are solving. This goes for everything. No, dont start a marketing agency because you want to do it. Think of the problem (spa owners want to get more customers) first and then work out a solution. Now you can be much more creative and not just limited to one way to solve that problem. (You can do ads for them, license them a great working business model, build them affiliate programms, develope a robot that goes door to door for them...)


Overall I would rate my experience here 6/10.
For now I am focusing on expanding my Skills. I dont want to become a freelancer but I do want to have Skills that allow me to build solutions to problems. Currently I am taking a great course on Web-Development on udemy. Its not the end in itself to be a webdev but its a means to an end. The money invested into this course and the few weeks it takes me to get through it (~70h video material and probably 100 hours in coding exercises if they keep getting more difficult) will give me a Skill that will, for one, make sure that I will always be able to work somewhere in a nice office or from home for more than minimum wage when I need to work. It will also save me thousands for every business venture I get into, since I can build a website with advanced funcitonality myself.
I already have a thing I am working on, as I am learning how Webdevelopment works. Its going to be a while untill I start a progress thread again so I want to thank all the people who gave super valuable advice in here.

Thanks @BizyDad for kicking my a$$ to actually do shit and for helping me get my first real customer.
Thanks @savefox for all your tips and actionable advice.
Thanks @piano for being competition :)
Thanks @jclean for your insightful reply.

And sorry for all the great advice I got and never implemented. In my next progress thread I will actually impement the advice I am getting.

Subsonic out.
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
This is what the entrepreneurs hero's journey looks like...

You started.
You overcame obstacles.
You learned.
You grew.
You gained confidence.

Ultimately you made the empowered decision to change the direction of your life, twice. First by starting this business, then by ending it. You're closing one chapter of your life, and starting another.

Good for you Subsonic. You are on your way and I look forward to hearing about your next adventure.
 

Chet Shen

Bronze Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
137%
Jun 6, 2022
299
410
16
Sydney
The End of a Journey

It may have been a few days so I'll post one more update here to show what I am up to.

The window cleaning hustle was a great one but honestly I cant see myself building a home services/window cleaning company for the next bunch of years. It is a rather easy to start opportunity with a moderate to low need in my market here. Yes I know there are ways to make this better and to stop being a comodity and whatnot but lets be real here: I started to make some money and to collect experiences. I did archive both these objectives (though the money one less than the experience haha). If I go into this space then purly to make money and if thats the goals I would much rather be in a good market with people that love to spend money, while not being confined to my location here.
Moreover I really dislike this business since each sale causes pain to me and because even just scaling to 10k a month runs into opperational complexity for my situation, since I want to finish school and cant work that much.

The results

I made 1027€ in total value created.
I took home 143€ in profit...
Lets break down why I made so little money. I was running about 20% margins between taking workers with me and the cost of advertising (when factoring in my own time at 15€ per hour).There were two other big factors that cut down the rest of my profit (and all the money I payed myself as a working in theory): 1. Fixed overhead expenses. Since I went out of my way to operate this hustle legally compliant I had to pay a bunch of fees in the range of 50€ to 150€. This wouldnt be significant if I was making more money but since I did not make more money it ate lots of my income. 2. A failed advertising project with the local newspaper. I had them hand out flyers with their newspaper and I got nothing from 3k flyers. Boom 237€ down the drain.

The other thing I gained were some valuable experiences that one only gets when engaging a market.

1. The formular to making the first money is the following: Make an offer and give as many people as possible a chance to pay you. The reason most wantrepreneurs never make their first € is because they never actually get their offer in front of people who can pay for it or better yet, never actually make a concrete offer.

2. Service with a smile makes a huge difference. I suck at cleaning windows and always did a poor Job, yet noone got mad at me or even told me they were not satisfied since I was always kind and did everything the customer asked me to.

3. TIME is important. Its not just so you can be lazy on the bahamans but also so you can actually deliver to customers throughout the day(and night). Since I go to school I could only work on weekends, which created problems and limited the ammount of people I could work for.

4. Website and ads stuff. Its all great and good to read about these things but actually doing them with a purpose is huge and easily teaches 10x more effectivly. I learned how to take calls, I learned how google ads work and how you actually make money with them, I learned how to run facebook ads, I learned how to build and host a website using templates, vs-code and google web servers.


Lastly, I learned that I need to get into something with the plan of solving a problem, not to make money. Despite what @MJ DeMarco told me, I consider this venture somewhat money chasing. While I did work with a market need I never gave thought to what problem I am solving. If I were to start again I would think which problem I am solving first. If that was dirty windows, I can think of better ways to solve that problem than to just clean them for people.

The lesson here is to not focus on what you want to do but instead of what problem you are solving. This goes for everything. No, dont start a marketing agency because you want to do it. Think of the problem (spa owners want to get more customers) first and then work out a solution. Now you can be much more creative and not just limited to one way to solve that problem. (You can do ads for them, license them a great working business model, build them affiliate programms, develope a robot that goes door to door for them...)


Overall I would rate my experience here 6/10.
For now I am focusing on expanding my Skills. I dont want to become a freelancer but I do want to have Skills that allow me to build solutions to problems. Currently I am taking a great course on Web-Development on udemy. Its not the end in itself to be a webdev but its a means to an end. The money invested into this course and the few weeks it takes me to get through it (~70h video material and probably 100 hours in coding exercises if they keep getting more difficult) will give me a Skill that will, for one, make sure that I will always be able to work somewhere in a nice office or from home for more than minimum wage when I need to work. It will also save me thousands for every business venture I get into, since I can build a website with advanced funcitonality myself.
I already have a thing I am working on, as I am learning how Webdevelopment works. Its going to be a while untill I start a progress thread again so I want to thank all the people who gave super valuable advice in here.

Thanks @BizyDad for kicking my a$$ to actually do shit and for helping me get my first real customer.
Thanks @savefox for all your tips and actionable advice.
Thanks @piano for being competition :)
Thanks @jclean for your insightful reply.

And sorry for all the great advice I got and never implemented. In my next progress thread I will actually impement the advice I am getting.

Subsonic out.
It's like what @BizyDad said, it's a new chapter in life where you got firsthand experience. Learnt a lot and improved a lot. I wish you all the best man!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

piano

Trying to find the right notes
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
252%
Sep 21, 2022
459
1,155
Germany
The End of a Journey

It may have been a few days so I'll post one more update here to show what I am up to.

The window cleaning hustle was a great one but honestly I cant see myself building a home services/window cleaning company for the next bunch of years. It is a rather easy to start opportunity with a moderate to low need in my market here. Yes I know there are ways to make this better and to stop being a comodity and whatnot but lets be real here: I started to make some money and to collect experiences. I did archive both these objectives (though the money one less than the experience haha). If I go into this space then purly to make money and if thats the goals I would much rather be in a good market with people that love to spend money, while not being confined to my location here.
Moreover I really dislike this business since each sale causes pain to me and because even just scaling to 10k a month runs into opperational complexity for my situation, since I want to finish school and cant work that much.

The results

I made 1027€ in total value created.
I took home 143€ in profit...
Lets break down why I made so little money. I was running about 20% margins between taking workers with me and the cost of advertising (when factoring in my own time at 15€ per hour).There were two other big factors that cut down the rest of my profit (and all the money I payed myself as a working in theory): 1. Fixed overhead expenses. Since I went out of my way to operate this hustle legally compliant I had to pay a bunch of fees in the range of 50€ to 150€. This wouldnt be significant if I was making more money but since I did not make more money it ate lots of my income. 2. A failed advertising project with the local newspaper. I had them hand out flyers with their newspaper and I got nothing from 3k flyers. Boom 237€ down the drain.

The other thing I gained were some valuable experiences that one only gets when engaging a market.

1. The formular to making the first money is the following: Make an offer and give as many people as possible a chance to pay you. The reason most wantrepreneurs never make their first € is because they never actually get their offer in front of people who can pay for it or better yet, never actually make a concrete offer.

2. Service with a smile makes a huge difference. I suck at cleaning windows and always did a poor Job, yet noone got mad at me or even told me they were not satisfied since I was always kind and did everything the customer asked me to.

3. TIME is important. Its not just so you can be lazy on the bahamans but also so you can actually deliver to customers throughout the day(and night). Since I go to school I could only work on weekends, which created problems and limited the ammount of people I could work for.

4. Website and ads stuff. Its all great and good to read about these things but actually doing them with a purpose is huge and easily teaches 10x more effectivly. I learned how to take calls, I learned how google ads work and how you actually make money with them, I learned how to run facebook ads, I learned how to build and host a website using templates, vs-code and google web servers.


Lastly, I learned that I need to get into something with the plan of solving a problem, not to make money. Despite what @MJ DeMarco told me, I consider this venture somewhat money chasing. While I did work with a market need I never gave thought to what problem I am solving. If I were to start again I would think which problem I am solving first. If that was dirty windows, I can think of better ways to solve that problem than to just clean them for people.

The lesson here is to not focus on what you want to do but instead of what problem you are solving. This goes for everything. No, dont start a marketing agency because you want to do it. Think of the problem (spa owners want to get more customers) first and then work out a solution. Now you can be much more creative and not just limited to one way to solve that problem. (You can do ads for them, license them a great working business model, build them affiliate programms, develope a robot that goes door to door for them...)


Overall I would rate my experience here 6/10.
For now I am focusing on expanding my Skills. I dont want to become a freelancer but I do want to have Skills that allow me to build solutions to problems. Currently I am taking a great course on Web-Development on udemy. Its not the end in itself to be a webdev but its a means to an end. The money invested into this course and the few weeks it takes me to get through it (~70h video material and probably 100 hours in coding exercises if they keep getting more difficult) will give me a Skill that will, for one, make sure that I will always be able to work somewhere in a nice office or from home for more than minimum wage when I need to work. It will also save me thousands for every business venture I get into, since I can build a website with advanced funcitonality myself.
I already have a thing I am working on, as I am learning how Webdevelopment works. Its going to be a while untill I start a progress thread again so I want to thank all the people who gave super valuable advice in here.

Thanks @BizyDad for kicking my a$$ to actually do shit and for helping me get my first real customer.
Thanks @savefox for all your tips and actionable advice.
Thanks @piano for being competition :)
Thanks @jclean for your insightful reply.

And sorry for all the great advice I got and never implemented. In my next progress thread I will actually impement the advice I am getting.

Subsonic out.
Man, this is making me feel odd somehow.

I thought that if you quit, I'd feel relieved (since less competition) however I don't feel that way. I can't put it into words quite honestly.

I've been struggling to write something out for minutes now, so I'll just write what comes from my brain randomly.

Something you don't seem to understand is that all you need is:
-1-2 good workers
-decently paying jobs and enough (through ads, mouth to mouth, productocracy, etc)

Let's say you pay them 15 bucks/hour. Add another 5 bucks for their dumb insurances and whatnot and you pay each one 20€/hour.
Now let's say you have 4 150€ jobs for them each day.
4 · 150€ = 600€

Now let's say they work 8 hours a day.
8 · 40€ (for both of them) = 320€
600 - 320 = 280€.
Let's be kinda pessimistic and add -30€
=250€ profit a day.

5 · 4 · 250€ = 5000€ a month.

Of course it's not very easy to get to those numbers, but likely possible. You could also likely secure all-year work with 'every-x-months' subscription services.
This is what the entrepreneurs hero's journey looks like...

You started.
You overcame obstacles.
You learned.
You grew.
You gained confidence.

Ultimately you made the empowered decision to change the direction of your life, twice. First by starting this business, then by ending it. You're closing one chapter of your life, and starting another.

Good for you Subsonic. You are on your way and I look forward to hearing about your next adventure.
While writing, I read this ^ by BizyDad.
I was like "Oh, he might be right. Maybe I should just discard what I've written till now"
However, I think that Subsonic should hear as many perspectives as possible to decide or reflect from.
Especially from me (as cocky as it might sound), since I met him IRL and broke traffic laws together.

Anyways,
und in der Tat,
I wish you much luck regardless how you decide and continue your journey.
 

jclean

Bronze Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
165%
Dec 9, 2016
169
279
The End of a Journey

It may have been a few days so I'll post one more update here to show what I am up to.

The window cleaning hustle was a great one but honestly I cant see myself building a home services/window cleaning company for the next bunch of years. It is a rather easy to start opportunity with a moderate to low need in my market here. Yes I know there are ways to make this better and to stop being a comodity and whatnot but lets be real here: I started to make some money and to collect experiences. I did archive both these objectives (though the money one less than the experience haha). If I go into this space then purly to make money and if thats the goals I would much rather be in a good market with people that love to spend money, while not being confined to my location here.
Moreover I really dislike this business since each sale causes pain to me and because even just scaling to 10k a month runs into opperational complexity for my situation, since I want to finish school and cant work that much.

The results

I made 1027€ in total value created.
I took home 143€ in profit...
Lets break down why I made so little money. I was running about 20% margins between taking workers with me and the cost of advertising (when factoring in my own time at 15€ per hour).There were two other big factors that cut down the rest of my profit (and all the money I payed myself as a working in theory): 1. Fixed overhead expenses. Since I went out of my way to operate this hustle legally compliant I had to pay a bunch of fees in the range of 50€ to 150€. This wouldnt be significant if I was making more money but since I did not make more money it ate lots of my income. 2. A failed advertising project with the local newspaper. I had them hand out flyers with their newspaper and I got nothing from 3k flyers. Boom 237€ down the drain.

The other thing I gained were some valuable experiences that one only gets when engaging a market.

1. The formular to making the first money is the following: Make an offer and give as many people as possible a chance to pay you. The reason most wantrepreneurs never make their first € is because they never actually get their offer in front of people who can pay for it or better yet, never actually make a concrete offer.

2. Service with a smile makes a huge difference. I suck at cleaning windows and always did a poor Job, yet noone got mad at me or even told me they were not satisfied since I was always kind and did everything the customer asked me to.

3. TIME is important. Its not just so you can be lazy on the bahamans but also so you can actually deliver to customers throughout the day(and night). Since I go to school I could only work on weekends, which created problems and limited the ammount of people I could work for.

4. Website and ads stuff. Its all great and good to read about these things but actually doing them with a purpose is huge and easily teaches 10x more effectivly. I learned how to take calls, I learned how google ads work and how you actually make money with them, I learned how to run facebook ads, I learned how to build and host a website using templates, vs-code and google web servers.


Lastly, I learned that I need to get into something with the plan of solving a problem, not to make money. Despite what @MJ DeMarco told me, I consider this venture somewhat money chasing. While I did work with a market need I never gave thought to what problem I am solving. If I were to start again I would think which problem I am solving first. If that was dirty windows, I can think of better ways to solve that problem than to just clean them for people.

The lesson here is to not focus on what you want to do but instead of what problem you are solving. This goes for everything. No, dont start a marketing agency because you want to do it. Think of the problem (spa owners want to get more customers) first and then work out a solution. Now you can be much more creative and not just limited to one way to solve that problem. (You can do ads for them, license them a great working business model, build them affiliate programms, develope a robot that goes door to door for them...)


Overall I would rate my experience here 6/10.
For now I am focusing on expanding my Skills. I dont want to become a freelancer but I do want to have Skills that allow me to build solutions to problems. Currently I am taking a great course on Web-Development on udemy. Its not the end in itself to be a webdev but its a means to an end. The money invested into this course and the few weeks it takes me to get through it (~70h video material and probably 100 hours in coding exercises if they keep getting more difficult) will give me a Skill that will, for one, make sure that I will always be able to work somewhere in a nice office or from home for more than minimum wage when I need to work. It will also save me thousands for every business venture I get into, since I can build a website with advanced funcitonality myself.
I already have a thing I am working on, as I am learning how Webdevelopment works. Its going to be a while untill I start a progress thread again so I want to thank all the people who gave super valuable advice in here.

Thanks @BizyDad for kicking my a$$ to actually do shit and for helping me get my first real customer.
Thanks @savefox for all your tips and actionable advice.
Thanks @piano for being competition :)
Thanks @jclean for your insightful reply.

And sorry for all the great advice I got and never implemented. In my next progress thread I will actually impement the advice I am getting.

Subsonic out.

The End of a Journey

It may have been a few days so I'll post one more update here to show what I am up to.

The window cleaning hustle was a great one but honestly I cant see myself building a home services/window cleaning company for the next bunch of years. It is a rather easy to start opportunity with a moderate to low need in my market here. Yes I know there are ways to make this better and to stop being a comodity and whatnot but lets be real here: I started to make some money and to collect experiences. I did archive both these objectives (though the money one less than the experience haha). If I go into this space then purly to make money and if thats the goals I would much rather be in a good market with people that love to spend money, while not being confined to my location here.
Moreover I really dislike this business since each sale causes pain to me and because even just scaling to 10k a month runs into opperational complexity for my situation, since I want to finish school and cant work that much.

The results

I made 1027€ in total value created.
I took home 143€ in profit...
Lets break down why I made so little money. I was running about 20% margins between taking workers with me and the cost of advertising (when factoring in my own time at 15€ per hour).There were two other big factors that cut down the rest of my profit (and all the money I payed myself as a working in theory): 1. Fixed overhead expenses. Since I went out of my way to operate this hustle legally compliant I had to pay a bunch of fees in the range of 50€ to 150€. This wouldnt be significant if I was making more money but since I did not make more money it ate lots of my income. 2. A failed advertising project with the local newspaper. I had them hand out flyers with their newspaper and I got nothing from 3k flyers. Boom 237€ down the drain.

The other thing I gained were some valuable experiences that one only gets when engaging a market.

1. The formular to making the first money is the following: Make an offer and give as many people as possible a chance to pay you. The reason most wantrepreneurs never make their first € is because they never actually get their offer in front of people who can pay for it or better yet, never actually make a concrete offer.

2. Service with a smile makes a huge difference. I suck at cleaning windows and always did a poor Job, yet noone got mad at me or even told me they were not satisfied since I was always kind and did everything the customer asked me to.

3. TIME is important. Its not just so you can be lazy on the bahamans but also so you can actually deliver to customers throughout the day(and night). Since I go to school I could only work on weekends, which created problems and limited the ammount of people I could work for.

4. Website and ads stuff. Its all great and good to read about these things but actually doing them with a purpose is huge and easily teaches 10x more effectivly. I learned how to take calls, I learned how google ads work and how you actually make money with them, I learned how to run facebook ads, I learned how to build and host a website using templates, vs-code and google web servers.


Lastly, I learned that I need to get into something with the plan of solving a problem, not to make money. Despite what @MJ DeMarco told me, I consider this venture somewhat money chasing. While I did work with a market need I never gave thought to what problem I am solving. If I were to start again I would think which problem I am solving first. If that was dirty windows, I can think of better ways to solve that problem than to just clean them for people.

The lesson here is to not focus on what you want to do but instead of what problem you are solving. This goes for everything. No, dont start a marketing agency because you want to do it. Think of the problem (spa owners want to get more customers) first and then work out a solution. Now you can be much more creative and not just limited to one way to solve that problem. (You can do ads for them, license them a great working business model, build them affiliate programms, develope a robot that goes door to door for them...)


Overall I would rate my experience here 6/10.
For now I am focusing on expanding my Skills. I dont want to become a freelancer but I do want to have Skills that allow me to build solutions to problems. Currently I am taking a great course on Web-Development on udemy. Its not the end in itself to be a webdev but its a means to an end. The money invested into this course and the few weeks it takes me to get through it (~70h video material and probably 100 hours in coding exercises if they keep getting more difficult) will give me a Skill that will, for one, make sure that I will always be able to work somewhere in a nice office or from home for more than minimum wage when I need to work. It will also save me thousands for every business venture I get into, since I can build a website with advanced funcitonality myself.
I already have a thing I am working on, as I am learning how Webdevelopment works. Its going to be a while untill I start a progress thread again so I want to thank all the people who gave super valuable advice in here.

Thanks @BizyDad for kicking my a$$ to actually do shit and for helping me get my first real customer.
Thanks @savefox for all your tips and actionable advice.
Thanks @piano for being competition :)
Thanks @jclean for your insightful reply.

And sorry for all the great advice I got and never implemented. In my next progress thread I will actually impement the advice I am getting.

Subsonic out.
I'm glad you learned a few things, my instinct says you might be quitting a little too soon...
good luck with your future ventures!
 

jclean

Bronze Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
165%
Dec 9, 2016
169
279
Let's say you pay them 15 bucks/hour. Add another 5 bucks for their dumb insurances and whatnot and you pay each one 20€/hour.
Now let's say you have 4 150€ jobs for them each day.
if labor in germany is so cheap then i better move
in all honesty the wage cost of a window cleaner is 32 euros per hour.
+ material
+insurance
+vans
+work clothes
+marketing
+ accountant fees
+ warehouse rent
+...

the minimum that we have to charge to cover overhead is 50€ per hour

the moral of the story is, calculate enough even if you still work alone because the larger companies have to do this too.
this is something I didn't do in the beginning either and in the long run this will cost you a lot.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Spenny

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
377%
Nov 16, 2022
647
2,440
22
United Kingdom
I thought that if you quit, I'd feel relieved (since less competition) however I don't feel that way. I can't put it into words quite honestly.
the-dark-knight-heath-ledger.gif


On a serious note, well done @Subsonic. You've taken action here!
 
Last edited:

Subsonic

How you do anything is how you do everything
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
279%
Aug 16, 2022
916
2,557
19
Germany
Never thought I would post here again but I got like way too many calls to not mention it.

2x 130 from a landlord with two medium houses

1x ~350 from a grandma with a mansion I can't clean.

1x 100 from the monthly job at a car dealership (-60 making a friend do it for me)

1x 120 from another homeowner.

With no ad spent. That means if all those (that I can do) go through I am taking home close to 500€ this month, not counting in my actual venture lol.

Btw I will not get back into this biz. It's horrible, I don't have the means to scale it and I don't want to spend the next ten years of my life cleaning windows or managing people who clean windows.
 

BizyDad

Keep going. Keep growing.
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
416%
Oct 7, 2019
2,885
11,989
Phoenix AZ
Never thought I would post here again but I got like way too many calls to not mention it.

2x 130 from a landlord with two medium houses

1x ~350 from a grandma with a mansion I can't clean.

1x 100 from the monthly job at a car dealership (-60 making a friend do it for me)

1x 120 from another homeowner.

With no ad spent. That means if all those (that I can do) go through I am taking home close to 500€ this month, not counting in my actual venture lol.

Btw I will not get back into this biz. It's horrible, I don't have the means to scale it and I don't want to spend the next ten years of my life cleaning windows or managing people who clean windows.

What are you doing with your time that is so valuable that you can afford to throw away free money like this?

Dude, if nothing else, find someone to buy your website.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Subsonic

How you do anything is how you do everything
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
279%
Aug 16, 2022
916
2,557
19
Germany
What are you doing with your time that is so valuable that you can afford to throw away free money like this?

Dude, if nothing else, find someone to buy your website.
Oh, no I am not throwing this away haha.

I am doing all of those and am very grateful to have the chance for this. I just won't go out and start advertising, d2d and all those again. Most of these are word of mouth of people hearing that I do this.
 

Spenny

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
377%
Nov 16, 2022
647
2,440
22
United Kingdom
2x 130 from a landlord with two medium houses

1x ~350 from a grandma with a mansion I can't clean.

1x 100 from the monthly job at a car dealership (-60 making a friend do it for me)

1x 120 from another homeowner.
They are SCREAMING at you to help them! Shout at the market & sometimes it echoes back!
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top