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How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

myclean.com

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Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#22

Post by orangethirty »

This is a classic case of removing purchase friction. There is a market that wants to hire cleaners. There are cleaners who want to be hired. The traditional way of hiring a cleaner or finding a cleaning job requires a lot of effort on both parties. myclean.com goes ahead and reduces that friction with a website. They allow both parties to meet without issue. No wonder they are doing well.

Now, can you do this too? Yes. Yes, you can. Go and research markets where there is a lot of interest in a service or product, but there is a lot of friction is purchase. Remove that friction and allow people to interact easily. No need to do much else, but market it directly (which is rather simple). You can even launch this without writing any code. A simple Wordpress blog with a free theme and some manual labor. That's it.

Edit:

Why does your logo link to your blog!?

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#23

Post by bkmartin »

mkbrody wrote: post #5
axusgrad wrote: post #2

Great :) My house is kind of dirty, have any advice on how to find a good cleaner outside of the NYC area?

I'm not sure where you're located, but you may want to try Angie's List. I know they have a relationship with quality cleaning companies in many areas: http://www.angieslist.com/cleaning/ . Thanks for reading!

I know in the article you say that outsourcing to third parties did not work out well for you. If you are willing to point other people to angieslist as an implied trusted source couldn't you use that as a way to vet your cleaners and expand to other cities rather quickly?

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#25

Post by premchai21 »

pjbrunet wrote: post #18
codegeek wrote: post #8

Good read. I recently became a father and suddenly the need for hiring baby sitters,nannies, house cleaners is critical and like the blog says "it is not rocket science but not as easy as ordering book on amazon", I totally concur. My wife and I have been struggling to find "good" and "reliable" cleaners, or babysitter even though we have tried craigslist, care.come (for nannies) etc. Basic household needs have many…

There's a company here in Austin (can't remember the name) that will deliver fresh organic groceries to your door in a plastic box. They have a form and you just click the interval you want for the "recurring" stuff.

You might be referring to Greenling (http://www.greenling.com/), though I don't recall whether they're the only one.

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#26

Post by MehdiEG »

codegeek wrote: post #8

Good read. I recently became a father and suddenly the need for hiring baby sitters,nannies, house cleaners is critical and like the blog says "it is not rocket science but not as easy as ordering book on amazon", I totally concur. My wife and I have been struggling to find "good" and "reliable" cleaners, or babysitter even though we have tried craigslist, care.come (for nannies) etc. Basic household needs have many…

In the same situation here. A couple of things that made a huge difference on the food and grocery front for us were:

- Ordering regular organic vegetable and meat boxes (we get a vegetable box once a week and meat once a fortnight). Find who does that in your area and give it a try. We use http://www.riverford.co.uk/ and I can't say enough good things about them.

- Online groceries. For the longest time, I thought people shopping for groceries online were weird. Now I understand. Give it a try - it will save you so much time and energy. The first shop is a bit of a pain but the subsequent ones are really quick as you can just go through what you bought previously and pick what you're running out of. In the UK, we tried ASDA (messed up every delivery - awful customer service), Tesco (can't remember why we don't use them anymore. Think they were neither really good nor really bad) and Ocado (absolutely wonderful in every respect. And, just as they say, not more expensive than ASDA or Tesco).

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#27

Post by skrebbel »

dualogy wrote: post #13
codegeek wrote: post #8

Good read. I recently became a father and suddenly the need for hiring baby sitters,nannies, house cleaners is critical and like the blog says "it is not rocket science but not as easy as ordering book on amazon", I totally concur. My wife and I have been struggling to find "good" and "reliable" cleaners, or babysitter even though we have tried craigslist, care.come (for nannies) etc. Basic household needs have many…

Wow... so first you choose "the family life", then proceed to outsource every last tiny aspect of (used-to-be) "normal" day-to-day ops? You guys must be very, very busy indeed!

Who are you to judge others like that? How much do you know about his situation and choices?

Re: How We Bootstrapped a $20K Website into a $4M/year Business

#29

Post by djsla »

dia80 wrote: post #21

Is 4 million breakeven? This is a business with lots of mouths to feed (3 founders and sweat equity engineer) and high variable costs...

A lot must depend on the average salary they pay cleaners. If it's around or under $20K/year, then probably doing quite well despite having 100 cleaners on payroll.
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