This grad student built a $100k/yr business

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• 📞 Exclusive: Hereford Johnson Interview

• 📉 Market Watch

• 😂 Meme of the day

HEREFORD JOHNSON JOINS WORK "AFTER" WORK

Alright, boys and girls. We’ve got a special guest in the house.

Today, we have an interview from Hereford Johnson.

Who is Hereford?He’s a kick-ass entrepreneur who came from nothing and built a cleaning business doing over $100k in revenue while working as a full-time consultant and part-time grad student.

He started out as a scrappy hustler and now runs a private equity firm. Talk about a glow up.

I had the opportunity to interview Hereford about his cleaning business days and give you guys the inside scoop on how it all came about and how it grew into a passive business that’s still in his family today making over $100k.

Disclaimer: Hereford says he wouldn’t start a cleaning business today. It’s a hassle, super saturated, and easily removable from households when times get tough (like right now), but he gives what he would do today to stand out in the industry.

So let’s wash away all the mysteries of starting a cleaning business grossing $100,000.

Hereford: Thanks - good to be here.

Hereford: Let’s do it.

Hereford: Well, for one because I knew I could make money quickly.

At the time I was working full-time as a consultant, getting my masters in engineering part-time, paying off undergrad loans, and my wife was working as a psychiatric nurse.

She would come home crying every day and one night I just couldn’t bear it anymore. We needed more income and the next day I started the company (Marvelous Maids).

We started off super scrappy. It was just my sister and I going gig to gig cleaning homes or commercial offices - pretty much anything we could get.

Hereford: Ha. I only laugh because my first employees never cleaned a single house. They actually stole my cleaning supplies and I had to hunt them down asking nicely for them to return my supplies.

Thumbtack is how we found a lot of people but you can use any of the big sites to get people.

Hereford: I’d run paid ads on Google, Thumbtack, and Facebook. We got most of our leads from there in the beginning.

All the things people tell you like door-to-door selling and printing out flyers/door hangers don’t work so don’t even waste your time.

Paid ads were the way to go. Now, you need a bit more social proof to stand out. So getting customers to write reviews in local Facebook groups or apps like NextDoor go a really long way.

Hereford: Luckily, cleaning supplies are cheap - another reason I wouldn’t start this business again, it’s too easy for others to jump in.

It cost around $1,200 for the website and the supplies needed for the jobs.

Hereford: I’d niche way down and focus on specialized cleanings. Here’s a few examples:

#1 Specialty Sanitation Cleanings

Focusing on companies that require high standards for sanitization or cleaning, but don’t have the capacity to do it themselves can be a great niche. Think public transit (buses & trains), gyms, or schools.

#2 Post Construction Clean Up

After big projects there are huge messes and it’s hard to get employees to clean it up. Nobody wants to do it.

#3 Commercial Real Estate Partnerships

If you can find, say, a real estate mogul in Chicago (or in your area) that has multiple units or large specialty office footprints, and needs cleanings and you can provide anytime on-demand cleaning.. this could be a real advantage to companies that have a labor constraint. It blocks out all the competition that’s doing the cleaning themselves because they can only clean so much per day on their own.

Hereford: Hmmm. If you’re a minority, woman, or veteran cities have to set aside a considerable amount of contract money for MBEs (Minority Business Enterprises) or WBEs (Woman Business Enterprises)

Something like a pipeline inspector or sewage inspector where equipment costs are low and if certifications are relatively cheap this could be a great do-it-yourself way to make a lot of money quick.

That or immediate need services do really well. Something like partnering with movers or a locksmith (where someone can’t unlock their car) would be a quick and dirty way to $100k.

MARKET WATCH 📉

With so much going on in the markets right now I thought I'd share some interesting stories.

First up is the AI arms race between Microsoft's AI-powered Bing with ChatGPT vs Google's AI Chatbot "BARD".

In a Google Ad unveil two days ago, its new Chatbot BARD made a mistake about who took the first photo of a planet outside our solar system and its market cap dropped $100 billion... yeah I said billion 😮

Then yesterday it dropped another 4%...

MEME OF THE DAY

If you're ever having a bad day.. at least you didn't lose your company $57 million 😭😭

That's a wrap for today! Enjoy the weekend :)

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.