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Scaling a window cleaning company

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Subsonic

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I was thinking about your problem with not having a legal entity. Can you not just delay invoicing until you are registered?

So it means that you will be working without getting paid initially, but once you are registered you just deliver the invoices for all work completed so far.

It's not uncommon in the UK for tradesmen to invoice months after they have completed the work.

I know that it sucks from a cashflow perspective, but it might be a way of buying you some time.
No problem I already got the legal entity.

I had no idea about anything legal but I decided to just act.

I walked into the local government representatives office and said "Hey I want to register a company".

15 minutes and 36€ later and now I am a ceo.

I'll get my tax number in a few weeks so in the mean time I can't send invoices over 250€. No issue tho as I am not doing enterprise deals just yet haha.
 
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Oh F*ck this went from 0 to 100 really quick.

6.3.

Today, while in biology class, I got a call from a prospect. I thought it would be a sweet grandma with a big home or something similar but nope.
It's my towns car dealership. They need someone to pretty up their storefront and tidy up inside one or two times a month.
So now I have 3 days to get a legal corperation registered and find out how to do formal invoices.
This deal could involve several hundred bucks!


I am really overwhelmed right now.
I'd love some advice on how to deal with this.
Man, this is really great stuff. Thanks for the thread.

I'm starting a home service myself in Switzerland and have a very similar launch path plan. This thread and all the great responses helps affirm my intuition on what to do first.

Where in Germany are you? Did you open a Gmbh, or some other entity type? Outstanding that it only costed EUR 36.

Best of luck to you! Grow, grow, grow!
 

Subsonic

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Man, this is really great stuff. Thanks for the thread.

I'm starting a home service myself in Switzerland and have a very similar launch path plan. This thread and all the great responses helps affirm my intuition on what to do first.

Where in Germany are you? Did you open a Gmbh, or some other entity type? Outstanding that it only costed EUR 36.

Best of luck to you! Grow, grow, grow!
I did a kleingewerbe. This has the advantage, among others, that I don't need to pay taxes.
I am in Hessen, so kinda the center.
 

Subsonic

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They say window cleaning has low entry...

11.3.2023


Today I finished the job for the car dealership.
It took 3.5 hours and payed 140€. That's ~40€ per hour. Thanks to the professional tool I got from my mom (as a startup gift for me) I was able to do this job in a reasonable ammount of time. Otherwise this would have taken maybe 6 hours and a extra ladder.

The owner was satisfied with my work and I'll be doing another job for him this month.


I also really realized that entry can also be replaced with difficulty. Sure, anyone can offer these services but you can't forget that they also have to do it. And trust me, it's HARD work.

This leads to the next objectives:

1. Get online ads going to remove the pain of handing out flyers.

2. Get a guy (one of my bros) hired at 15€ an hour on a minojob basis to help me with the jobs.

3. Secure deals with the other local stores here.


On a side note, I made some really decent money selling old pokemon games. They can go for up to 250€ if you have the original case and 1,6k if it's still sealed.
 
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I only just discovered that you had this thread. I had been following your old one about the vegan protein drink. It seems to me that you have made a lot of progress very quickly on this new initiative.
 

Subsonic

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I only just discovered that you had this thread. I had been following your old one about the vegan protein drink. It seems to me that you have made a lot of progress very quickly on this new initiative.
Yeah the other one had too much entry for me to make valuable learning experiences quickly.
The goal here is to build a real business that I can sell in a few years.

Also thanks for following my journey.
 

Subsonic

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Another quick update.

A friend of my dad is running a online web business and I got the offer to write seo blog posts for him.
It would be 40€ per text. It's obviously going to be difficult but he provided a really in depth guide on how to do it properly.

I can look at this two ways. 1 is to see it as a distraction from the main business. 2 is to see it as something to do during the waiting times of the window cleaning and also to learn a really valuable skill I can use for my own business down the line.

I'm inclined to see it as 2, especially since it's going to be pushing my comfort zone a lot.

What do you guys think ?
 
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Another quick update.

A friend of my dad is running a online web business and I got the offer to write seo blog posts for him.
It would be 40€ per text. It's obviously going to be difficult but he provided a really in depth guide on how to do it properly.

I can look at this two ways. 1 is to see it as a distraction from the main business. 2 is to see it as something to do during the waiting times of the window cleaning and also to learn a really valuable skill I can use for my own business down the line.

I'm inclined to see it as 2, especially since it's going to be pushing my comfort zone a lot.

What do you guys think ?
It'll give you a chance to practice time management.

You'll learn a lot of skills. But writing text for a website is selling your time for money. Whereas whilst window cleaning is selling your time for money at the moment, it seems to me it would be easier to hire staff into that business than into this website text writing business.

I think I would prioritise the window cleaning. Are you still at school / college? If so, then that is fairly important. Then put this website work as third priority.

You will likely learn a lot by working closely with an entrepreneur and the website skills will be relevant for marketing your window cleaning business. You may also get a chance to network if you come into contact with entrepreneurs that your Dad's friend knows. If you can't cope with the three activities then you can always drop one of them at a later date.
 

Subsonic

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Just got another client at 80€ next weekend. If I do her home and the mopping job I'll be at 160.
Granted, her house is a 3 story building so I'll be doing some ladder acrobatics haha.
 

piano

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Another quick update.

A friend of my dad is running a online web business and I got the offer to write seo blog posts for him.
It would be 40€ per text. It's obviously going to be difficult but he provided a really in depth guide on how to do it properly.

I can look at this two ways. 1 is to see it as a distraction from the main business. 2 is to see it as something to do during the waiting times of the window cleaning and also to learn a really valuable skill I can use for my own business down the line.

I'm inclined to see it as 2, especially since it's going to be pushing my comfort zone a lot.

What do you guys think ?
Well, are you working on Sundays? It's kinda weird legally to work on Sundays in Germany, so I would prolly do that at home. What you learned you can also apply to your own business.
 
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Been following this thread for a while now and it's great to see you pushing yourself and making progress.

Congrats & well-done man, I look forward to your future updates!
 

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Love this thread. If you want a website dm me and I'll build you one for free and help you target some low competition keywords. I hand-code my websites so they score between 98-100 on PageSpeed Insights (Core Web Vitals is a key SEO metric) which will give you an edge over your competition using WordPress.

You will just need to buy your own domain name.
 

Subsonic

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Hey young man, do you really want to do this for 50€...

15.3.

Two big lessons for today. The first one is that I need to be more confident in charging more money. This grandma that called today has a huge mansion or something and I was gonna do it for 50€. That would have been so bad that even she didn't want to take the deal and insisted I take more. So we settled on 80€. Imagine getting roasted by a client for charging too little money.

The other one is that my "50% off for new customers" on my flyers is pointless because nobody wants the discount or even mentions it. Also because doing it for 50% less would be stupid for obvious reasons.

In therms of finances, between pokemon games on eBay, crypto and business I'll probably be making over 700€ this month and ~ 600€ profit.

That's more than a quarter of my one year goal of earning 2k this year.


As a bonus lesson, I really understand "pay yourself first" now. The reason I can make 50€ per hour with no qualifications is that I get paid first, not last.
The guy I'll hire next month (if things work out well enough) will be paid 15 per hour.
Still I don't have to pay taxes yet.
 
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Subsonic

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Wtf is this.
I just got sent letters saying "hey your a handwerksbetrieb (which I clearly stated I'm not) so you need to join this insurance for 130€ a year and also pay ~1k to get registered this kind of company".

They also want my tax ID which I have not been sent yet. "Please fill this out and respond within a week". Screw you.

This is going to be such a pain in the a$$ to deal with and will most likely cost me all my profits and then some if I get unlucky.
Ffs they want to charge me for some many thing I am not and have clearly stated I am not.
This is on the level of a guy driving a money truck being called a finance company and charged for that.
Heck their questionnaire doesn't even have the option of saying it's a side thing.

Wish me luck that I don't loose all the money I made from this.
I don't think anyone here has experience to help me
 

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Wtf is this.
I just got sent letters saying "hey your a handwerksbetrieb (which I clearly stated I'm not) so you need to join this insurance for 130€ a year and also pay ~1k to get registered this kind of company".

They also want my tax ID which I have not been sent yet. "Please fill this out and respond within a week". Screw you.

This is going to be such a pain in the a$$ to deal with and will most likely cost me all my profits and then some if I get unlucky.
Ffs they want to charge me for some many thing I am not and have clearly stated I am not.
This is on the level of a guy driving a money truck being called a finance company and charged for that.
Heck their questionnaire doesn't even have the option of saying it's a side thing.

Wish me luck that I don't loose all the money I made from this.
I don't think anyone here has experience to help me
I think the insurance is normal, however I'm not too sure on the Handwerksbetrieb.

Who sent you this? The IHK?
I'd also see what their definition of "Handwerksbetrieb" is.

But hey, either way, if it's "only" a one time payment, it's not too bad I'd say.
Although it's kinda bad considering you don't have much money yet.
 

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Wtf is this.
I just got sent letters saying "hey your a handwerksbetrieb (which I clearly stated I'm not) so you need to join this insurance for 130€ a year and also pay ~1k to get registered this kind of company".

They also want my tax ID which I have not been sent yet. "Please fill this out and respond within a week". Screw you.

This is going to be such a pain in the a$$ to deal with and will most likely cost me all my profits and then some if I get unlucky.
Ffs they want to charge me for some many thing I am not and have clearly stated I am not.
This is on the level of a guy driving a money truck being called a finance company and charged for that.
Heck their questionnaire doesn't even have the option of saying it's a side thing.

Wish me luck that I don't loose all the money I made from this.
I don't think anyone here has experience to help me
Who was the letter from? This sounds like one of those scam companies that immediately sends letters to newly registered businesses/businesses with new online presence.
 
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Subsonic

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Who was the letter from? This sounds like one of those scam companies that immediately sends letters to newly registered businesses/businesses with new online presence.
Haha I wish.

Sadly it's official.

On the better side, I can change a wording in the activity description and that will probably solve the problem.
If not then oh well, I'll be paying 500 to 1.2k this week and then ~100 - 200 a month for insurance that's mandatory for this kind of company I am accused of having.
 

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If it is a genuine letter from a legal entity - and only you would know, then they must think you are what they have described you as.

So either it's an Admin error on their part or on your part which should be easily resolved.

When I Googled the word and translated it, the definition seems to be craft work. So a Stone Mason is a craftsman for example.

Can you not stop the next window cleaner you see in the street and just ask him what he is registered as or phone one up or ask on a German Business Forum which has a legal section?

The needing insurance would probably be legit as in UK you would need something called Public Liability Insurance which does not cost much but covers you up to £5 million.

Dan
 

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If it is a genuine letter from a legal entity - and only you would know, then they must think you are what they have described you as.

So either it's an Admin error on their part or on your part which should be easily resolved.

When I Googled the word and translated it, the definition seems to be craft work. So a Stone Mason is a craftsman for example.

Can you not stop the next window cleaner you see in the street and just ask him what he is registered as or phone one up or ask on a German Business Forum which has a legal section?

The needing insurance would probably be legit as in UK you would need something called Public Liability Insurance which does not cost much but covers you up to £5 million.

Dan
I know that professional window cleaners here in Germany use that company form since they often have a bachelor level education (Yeah ik it's strange). My thing is that I don't qualify for that kind of company since I have no formal education in the advanced and incomprehensibly complex art of cleaning windows .
Like I said it's gonna be fine most likely.
If not then I'll see from there.

My lesson is that sometimes one just can't know what issues could arise untill they arrive in the mail.
 
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Your last line is correct and incisive. :thumbsup:

Dan
 

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I've been thinking about your problem and I've found a solution to get enough money in case what they're saying is true.

My city has a facebook group (just like your's probably) and if I were you, I'd might make a post like "Hello people! I've finally opened my window cleaning company, and to celebrate this, I'll be doing 20 homes for only 50€!"

20 · 50€ = 1000€

Just as a worst case scenario, although you'd still need enough time to do all the homes.
 

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I've been thinking about your problem and I've found a solution to get enough money in case what they're saying is true.

My city has a facebook group (just like your's probably) and if I were you, I'd might make a post like "Hello people! I've finally opened my window cleaning company, and to celebrate this, I'll be doing 20 homes for only 50€!"

20 · 50€ = 1000€

Just as a worst case scenario, although you'd still need enough time to do all the homes.
Bro do you have any idea how long that would take and how bad of a deal that would be haha.

I do 80€ per home and customers are worried that I'm taking too little money.

Advertising in a Facebook group is a great idea tho.

For the money, I have 5k laying around so it wouldn't kill me but it would suck.
 
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Bro do you have any idea how long that would take and how bad of a deal that would be haha.
Bro stfu, you recommended me Wix, be happy I'm even trying to help you :rofl:
I do 80€ per home and customers are worried that I'm taking too little money.
Wasn't that a "mansion" you were talking about?
Advertising in a Facebook group is a great idea tho.
Of course it is, the idea came from me after all.
For the money, I have 5k laying around so it wouldn't kill me but it would suck.
you have WHAT??
Lol and here I was prepping the absolute emergency plan haha.
 

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Scaling the Business

Covered in this post
  • MRR system
  • Ads
  • Getting workers
MRR System

I have a few deals behind me and a few more scheduled. Now its time to level up this business. Inspired by @Johnny boy ill go implement a MRR System to charge/upsell clients to.
This would allow me to drastically increase the profit and revenue of the business and have a compounding effect on new clients. It would also give me consistent jobs, which is going to be essential for hiring workers down the line.


Ads

Since I dont want to carry out 10k flyers I will have to pay some money for ads. The first thing I am going to do is give some of my broke friends 30€ each to carry out the rest of the 1k flyers I have.
Next thing is buying @Andy Black 's course on google ads and learn those while google is procesing my aplication. I suspect that ppc ads will be the most cost effective and time effective way to aquire customers. The necesary landing page is also in the works.
My goal is to keep the cpa below 30€ when starting out. Otherwise its going to suck to fulfill orders for effectivly minimum wage.


Getting Workers

Germany has been a pain in the a$$ for me so far. Yet 2 good things are the small company law and the minijob law: Both are exempt from tax. That means I can scale to about 2k a month without a need for paying taxes (profit btw).
The current prospects I have are 2 pothead looseres and a friend who is not a looser.
However they could potentially be enough to make me 2k a month if the cpa stays low enough and the margins dont get squeezed by paying 15 per hour.


Conclusion

This is going to be the hardest thing I have done so far. My parents really dont want me to turn this essentially mini job into a real business. Well, they dont need to know about that stuff anyways. Its also going to be hard because I need to leave my comfort zone on so many levels.

The question is have now are the following:

  1. What can I charge clients 80 to 150 a month for that they would be happy to pay ?
  2. How do I manage the invoices ?





    P.s. I hope you like this new formating. After seeing @Fox post the "I want to B rich" thread I resolved to put more effort into the posts.
 

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Absolutely love this post. Nothing better than seeing someone get out there and win. Be persistent friend!

For the charging, chance your arm. You could always negociate.

Remember value skews too. How could you sweeten the deal? Could you add in cleaning the windows around the back too? Could you sweep some of the porch? Rake the garden? Jetwash the driveway? Offer a deal? Just some thoughts.

This kid is killing it for what you're looking to do.

As for the invoices, I have no clue. I went to our good friend ChatGPT because I'm lazy like that (plus I'm curious too).


1679523632938.png

Keep at it man, don't be discouraged from the admin error.
 
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Subsonic

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Absolutely love this post. Nothing better than seeing someone get out there and win. Be persistent friend!

For the charging, chance your arm. You could always negociate.

Remember value skews too. How could you sweeten the deal? Could you add in cleaning the windows around the back too? Could you sweep some of the porch? Rake the garden? Jetwash the driveway? Offer a deal? Just some thoughts.

This kid is killing it for what you're looking to do.

As for the invoices, I have no clue. I went to our good friend ChatGPT because I'm lazy like that (plus I'm curious too).


View attachment 47861

Keep at it man, don't be discouraged from the admin error.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions. Jetwashing the driveway and doing garden work are 2 things I'll try to upsell my client on Saturday to.
 

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Wtf is this.
I just got sent letters saying "hey your a handwerksbetrieb (which I clearly stated I'm not) so you need to join this insurance for 130€ a year and also pay ~1k to get registered this kind of company".

They also want my tax ID which I have not been sent yet. "Please fill this out and respond within a week". Screw you.

This is going to be such a pain in the a$$ to deal with and will most likely cost me all my profits and then some if I get unlucky.
Ffs they want to charge me for some many thing I am not and have clearly stated I am not.
This is on the level of a guy driving a money truck being called a finance company and charged for that.
Heck their questionnaire doesn't even have the option of saying it's a side thing.

Wish me luck that I don't loose all the money I made from this.
I don't think anyone here has experience to help me
Germany tries to deter you from becoming a millionaire before even starting, because the first things you get as soon as you register are taxes and expenses. You can try to argue that you do not qualify for membership, but then they will put you in another chamber - German burocracy. In any case, you will not be paying because they usually do not charge upon request if you are just starting - just ask for a "Freistellung" if you have to be a member. The same goes for the insurance, this is to pay your salary and pension for a lifetime when you fall off the ladder :)
And don't forget to save for the taxes, because it will take a wile before you have to pay them.

On another account, if you have saved your receipts for the materials you and your mother bought, you can substract that from your income, even if this was before you started.
And sorry to say, it would probably be a good idea to have an insurance in case you scratch someone's car or destroy their Ming vase while cleaning. That costs along the lines of 11-15€ a month, maybe less.

And with the minijob, there is likely a bit of burocracy involved as well.

Good luck though, you seem to be on the best path to make things work and don't give up!
 

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My parents really dont want me to turn this essentially mini job into a real business.

The top window cleaning business in Germany is at 500 million a year

I'm sure something might change their opnion in the future. Like you even getting 0.1% of this would make them see things differently.

And this would not even be the entire market, just the dominant player.

If you said to yourself I will aim to take 0.1% of xyz business off of them by 20xx does that sound achievable? 0.1%?

Dan
 
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2,557
19
Germany
Germany tries to deter you from becoming a millionaire before even starting, because the first things you get as soon as you register are taxes and expenses. You can try to argue that you do not qualify for membership, but then they will put you in another chamber - German burocracy. In any case, you will not be paying because they usually do not charge upon request if you are just starting - just ask for a "Freistellung" if you have to be a member. The same goes for the insurance, this is to pay your salary and pension for a lifetime when you fall off the ladder :)
And don't forget to save for the taxes, because it will take a wile before you have to pay them.

On another account, if you have saved your receipts for the materials you and your mother bought, you can substract that from your income, even if this was before you started.
And sorry to say, it would probably be a good idea to have an insurance in case you scratch someone's car or destroy their Ming vase while cleaning. That costs along the lines of 11-15€ a month, maybe less.

And with the minijob, there is likely a bit of burocracy involved as well.

Good luck though, you seem to be on the best path to make things work and don't give up!
Thanks a lot for the input.

I currently am exempt from taxes because I earn below 50k per year and for that chamber I only need to pay 130 as a one time payment now. Insurance is something I will check off end of next month when I have some more profit.

Thanks for the tax warning as well, I might have forgotten about that.
 

Subsonic

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Aug 16, 2022
916
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Germany
Employees are the Best Thing Ever!

Contens
  1. Short Update
  2. Why the Title
  3. What this means for the future

Short update
I had a great week with 2 Jobs on satureday, totalling 160€. Well it would have but the heavens had different plans. That caused the second Job to fall flat in a furious thunderstorm. The first one was a floor Job but took way longer than expected. In the future I will price that in and take more for floors.

Why the Title ?
Since the 2 Jobs had rather little Buffer in between each other I got scared that I would be too slow by myself. So I called up my buddy Michail and offered him to work for me for 25€ per Job. He accepted and got up at 5am on a Saturday to be in my Village on time. Unsuprisingly the doubled manpower cut the time for the Job in half. Since this "half" turned out to be 3 hours I was really F*cking glad to not be there alone.

What this means for the future
I will go and file a minijob thing for my buddies. This comes just right since I am starting to do more advertising. A ad in the local newspaper costs 230€ for about 50k impressions as they claim. I am going to take a tenth of that and say 5k impressions is the real number. Still, at a 0.1 conversion I would double my money. If my math is off and I get way more than that I really need some employees if I dont want to make the customers wait 3 weeks or more for service.
 

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