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.
The hard part of this business isn't "reducing the friction".
It's hiring people that you can trust, that show up for work, that you can get at a price and still make a profit.
Obviously many people run mom and pop 1 or 3 person cleaning services in local markets and that's been going on forever. What you typically do is get a suggestion from a friend, see an ad or respond to a flyer put in your mailbox or door.
"The traditional way of hiring a cleaner or finding a cleaning job requires a lot of effort on both parties."
Finding a cleaning job is actually pretty easy. If you are good you can get a job doing this getting hired by an established company. Or, as many have done simply put flyers in peoples doors in neighborhoods that you want to work in (or in office buildings for that matter).
In short this is not a web or technology play at all. It is simply running a business (and that part is fine obviously) the secret sauce of something like this is managing people and quality control. If you can handle that there are a multitude of business opportunities where you can make money. But that part is not easy at all to do. Plus if you are competing with larger companies that offer an upward path to employees starting at the lower level and have economies of scale.
Thanks for the post larrys. You make some excellent points and the companies you have pointed out are all excellent companies. The large national franchise model is slightly different form our tech oriented urban based model however. We plan to expand soon and want to continue to contribute positively to the economy through job creation and opportunities for growth and advancement for our employee's.
Your comment confused me a bit. Do they actually hire full-time cleaners, or do they just act as a middleman where cleaners, acting as independent contractors, can find cleaning jobs?
Hopefully they'll fix the blog thing when they roll out the new site. You're right though, linking to the main site is generally what someone naturally expects a logo to do.
You're welcome Medell. If your friends live in the NYC area we'd love to clean for them! Our rates are competitive with certain "off the books" cleaners and we are fully insured and bonded. We'd be happy to offer a $25 first time credit as well. Have them reach out to us at contact@myclean.com.
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!?