How a simple cleaning business changed my life.

Hey, I'm Andy — an alias I use online — and I'm based in Australia.

When I first got into cleaning, I was a broke university student looking for a way to make money. I started learning about the industry and quickly realised it wasn't what I had expected.

Cleaning isn't exactly the sexiest business model. There's no flashy office or revolutionary new product. But what surprised me was the opportunity behind such a simple business.

I used to think cleaning businesses mostly cleaned people's houses for a few hours and charged a bit of money for it. I didn't realise how much businesses, property managers, builders and other organisations rely on cleaners every day.

I started with less than $100.

I went to my local hardware store, bought some basic cleaning supplies for less than $100 and, just like that, I had the beginnings of a cleaning business.

Of course, owning cleaning products didn't make customers magically appear. I had to go and find them.

I started doing outreach over the phone. Then email. Then I began approaching potential clients in person. Some people weren't interested. Some already had cleaners. Some conversations went nowhere.

I got clients, completed jobs and started making money. Instead of taking everything I earned out of the business, I kept reinvesting into it — a website, better equipment, uniforms, a van and better systems.

Bit by bit, something that started with a few cleaning supplies became a real business.

That changed the way I looked at cleaning.

What surprised me most was how much a relatively simple service business could grow in a short period of time. I began to understand that cleaning wasn't just about occasionally cleaning someone's house.

There were residential customers, end-of-lease cleans, short-stay properties, offices, commercial properties, construction projects and businesses that needed cleaning again and again.

I realised you don't necessarily need to invent the next big thing to build a business. Sometimes people simply need something done — and they're willing to pay a reliable business to do it properly.

Cleaning genuinely changed my life. Along the way, I learned a lot of things I wish somebody had explained to me when I was standing in that hardware store at the beginning.

That's why I created CleanBiz.

CleanBiz is designed to make starting a cleaning business less confusing. I wanted to take what I learned — getting set up, figuring out pricing, finding customers, doing outreach, quoting jobs, dealing with clients, completing cleans and actually running the business — and turn it into practical resources someone else could use.

It's not a promise that you'll become rich overnight. It's not a secret formula, and building a business isn't effortless.

Because sometimes the biggest difference between thinking about starting a business and actually having one is simply knowing what to do next.