How Kai DeMoss Went From a Gig App Cleaner to Real Clients in San Francisco

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Introduction

Hello, everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean. And today’s episode, I am so excited for you guys. This is one of my consulting clients, Kai, and they own Kai Cleans in San Francisco, California. And as soon as I heard their story, I was like, I need them on the podcast because they have some very specific things that we have never talked about on Filthy Rich Cleaners that I cannot wait to dive into. So Kai, thank you for agreeing to be a guest. I’m so excited to have you.

Kai: Thank you, Stephanie. I’m super excited and super nervous to represent the first solo cleaner on the episode. Pretty big deal. So yeah, but yeah, thank you so much for having me. Super excited.

Stephanie: Hell yeah, absolutely. And that’s where I’d love to start is that Kai is a solo cleaner still. And specifically, their journey into getting to cleaning business ownership is very fascinating to me. And spoiler alert, it involves Homeaglow. And this is where I’m like, I need to pull this story out of you. Because as everybody listening has probably seen the Homeaglow ads on Facebook of like, get your house clean for $19 and all of that stuff. And we’re all like, is this a scam? What is this? What does this look like? So from the cleaner side of it, this is going to be an inside knowledge type of thing. So I want to hear it all. I want to hear the good, the bad, the ugly of your experience. But first and foremost, let’s start all the way back and talk about your career path in general. Where did you start and how did you get here?

From College to Cleaning

Kai: Yeah, so I actually started working in a cleaning company. Little did I know that this would be my career path. So I worked in a top startup in my hometown in Iowa for about three years. Then I went to college. I went to college for computer software engineering and I ended up graduating from Iowa State. I moved down to San Francisco without a job lined up. So I was working gig economy apps and doing job searching in between during that time. And then I briefly worked in tech and then I got let go. And then I went back to what was familiar to me, which was cleaning. And it just so happened to be that I was able to find these gig economy apps where I could use kind of the skills that I had learned from the cleaning company, but also just support myself. It was kind of like a way to survive. And so I started out with Angi, which was one of the apps that’s out there. And then I ended up working for Homeaglow a little more long term for a couple of years.

Understanding Gig Platform Structure

Stephanie: Okay, so Angi, formerly Angie’s List, that is the same idea, right? Where you’re an independent contractor for them, right? And you get jobs offered to you. So I assume that’s kind of like the Homeaglow software, whatever platform, I guess is what you would call it. What does that look like? Like the sign up process? What do they tell you as a cleaner? What information do they give you about these jobs? Can you describe the details about that?

Kai: So you don’t really get a ton of information. So I guess you sign up on their website. And I just happened to have found their website through Craigslist. They had posted in the San Francisco gigs. And I was like, okay, let’s give this a try. But yeah, my first thought too was like, is this a scam? Because Craigslist has so many kinds of scams. So I tried it. They did the background check and I was approved. And so I got on the platform. There’s not really any human interaction. It’s almost like all AI. They have an AI support agent that’s called like Emma. But all your emails are from this person. But yeah, I guess as far as what the platform looks like, it’s essentially just like a scheduling platform. So it’s kind of like almost like ZenMaid, except for they’re finding all your leads. And then because you’re an independent contractor, you have the ability to choose a job or decline a job. So essentially, you’re kind of building your clientele on that platform because you can get repeat clients and customers. But you’re really on your own in terms of figuring out how to work the platform and the system and to make it work for you.

How Pricing Works on Homeaglow

Stephanie: Okay, so basically jobs come up. And I’m assuming there’s a price. This is what’s interesting to me, I guess, is because in our the way we do things now is somebody reaches out, right? And they’re like, hey, I want cleaning. And we tell them the price. They don’t tell us the price, right? So I assume it’s completely flip flopped and Homeaglow, they’re going to tell you this is what this job pays. And you can decide if you want to take it or not, right?

Kai: So it’s a little different than that. So they have a starting rate. And so to start out, you want to start your rates out low, but over time, you’ll get, if you’re good and you’re working the system, you’ll get repeat clients. And then over time, you can increase your rates. And it’s good to get those reviews and get those repeat clients, because then they, you know, you build that relationship and that rapport, and then you’re able to raise your rates. But yeah, you get jobs based on your rates. On the client side, there might be some thresholds that they can set in terms of the price that they want to pay for cleaning. But ultimately, there’s a ranking system as well. So you get rated on this top cleaner profile and then I believe they’re able to choose based on the ratings and that type of information.

Stephanie: So it’s kind of also, it reminds me of care.com. Basically it’s just a platform to facilitate connections between. However, the difference here from my understanding, and I’m just going off of my very basic, because I’ve never interacted with this before, is it locks the clients into some type of contract where it’s very difficult for them to cancel. And that is like one of the biggest cruxes of the issues from what I understand. Is that correct?

Kai: Yeah. So there’s a huge variability in the, you’re not vetted as a cleaner. So you can get people that have literally never cleaned before, don’t know what they’re doing. There’s no interview. It’s just kind of like background check and then you’re there. So the threshold for quality is, it’s not there at all. So yeah, you do, you get locked into a six month contract. And so I think the disgruntled clients, what happens is they’ll probably get someone that it’s their first time ever cleaning a home and then they’ll be upset about it. And then they don’t know how to work the platform because it does take a level of tech savvy, both on the client side and on the customer side to be able to work the platform, so to speak. But yeah, so the thing is, yeah, you’re locked in. So you get that first cleaning for $19 and then I’m not sure how much it is to cancel. But yeah, there’s a pretty significant cancellation fee if you cancel before the six month period. In addition to that, there’s also a monthly fee. So every month you’re charged a set fee just to be able to use the platform and have access to the cleaners on the platform.

Stephanie: With the cleaner, are charged a fee or the client is charged?

Kai: The client is charged a monthly, a set monthly fee on top of the cleaning.

Managing Scope of Work and Expectations

Stephanie: Okay, that’s interesting. So what about when it came to the scope of work itself? Can you describe how was that communicated? Because one of the issues people most often have where complaints occur is there is a discrepancy between expectations of what is about to occur, right? And when I think of a platform of wildly diverse cleaners, when it comes to their experience, and when I say go clean a house, you and I could be talking two different languages, right? So what did that look like with the scope of work?

Kai: So there’s kind of a checklist on their website. It’s a very general checklist. So essentially, those are the tasks that when I would go into homes and I would explain to clients that this is what we do. So it’s kind of standardized in that way, but it’s really each cleaner is going to be able to kind of go in and kind of make it up themselves in a certain respect. But yeah, so it’s kind of standardized in that they have a checklist that’s about as standardized as you can get when you have an independent contractor employee. But yeah, otherwise, it’s just really up to the cleaner to put a personal touch on the cleaning. And that’s kind of where I was able to distinguish myself on the platform as well. Oftentimes, people that would get these cleaning services were people that had never had cleaning services in the past. And so kind of having that experience of working in a cleaning company previously, I knew kind of what the standard was for the industry. And I was able to kind of explain this is what I can do. This is what I can’t do. Just being able to communicate to clients what you can do and what you can’t do and what’s kind of standard in the industry, kind of gave them a little more confidence in you as a cleaning technician, I guess.

Key Takeaways from Platform Work

Stephanie: Now that, you know, looking back, obviously you probably learned a ton from interacting with these various platforms and good and bad. So I’d love to hear in general, what your takeaways were from working through these types of platforms before moving to how you get clients now. What were the positives in your mind of going through a platform like this?

Kai: Yeah, totally. So the positives were, you know, I was in an unfamiliar city. And so just having that job and having that way to make money that, you know, I can kind of do things on my own terms as well. So I had that freedom and that peace of mind. So that was huge. But also just the skills that I developed over time was I noticed there’s just small tweaks that you could do that could drastically improve your experience and the client experience. And that would get them to book with you and not cancel. So the platform sends out automated reminders and whatnot. But I noticed if I just added a personal touch, just because the quality of the cleaners is so, it’s so not standardized. So you could really stand out just by texting them ahead of time and letting them know, hey, I’m really looking forward to your cleaning. Here’s what to expect. And just the little touches of just being like, hi, I’m a human. I’m a real human and I care about what I’m doing. And just that will set you apart. It’s just little tweaks over time that I did. Just learning to explain kind of what they could expect. You know, so it’s, of course, it’s people that have never had cleaning services before. So as a cleaning tech, you could be like, oh, my gosh, these people are so ridiculous. They expect their whole home to be cleaned in this amount of time. Or you could go in with the mindset of explaining them, hey, this is what I can do with this time frame. I can clean, I won’t have time to clean the whole house, but we can either prioritize kitchens, bathrooms and maybe do the floors on the home. Just different things like that, that you just kind of find out what most clients want and you’re able to communicate that you can do that for them.

Stephanie: Do you feel that you had to have lower rates on a type of platform like that to be competitive or to get jobs? Or were you able to charge comparable to what you’re able to charge now as a cleaning company? Obviously you were an IC, you were a cleaning company of sorts. But it is obviously now different how you get your clients. So what did you feel about pricing?

Kai: Yeah, so there’s definitely a cap on that platform I found. So I kind of, I used it until I could get, you know, there’s a certain threshold that, you know, people weren’t willing to pay. And I think that’s just because of the marketing. If you look at the marketing for Homeaglow, it’s not very, you know, they’re not selling you on the value. You can tell it’s marketed towards cost conscious clients. And so, you know, I was able to do a couple price increases and then I would have some loyal clients. But I did notice at some point there was a threshold. And so it was kind of an interesting time where I’m like, OK, am I going to go off on my own and experiment with this? And am I going to go pursue my other career path? But ultimately, yeah, yeah, there’s a threshold.

Stephanie: So looking back, would you do it the same? Would you go, if you were to behave differently related to either Angi or Homeaglow? Is there anything that you would do differently?

Kai: There’s nothing that I would do differently because I did everything the best that I could, that I knew how. And it just took a lot of creativity and influence from my partner who also does sales and marketing. It’s in a different industry. But I just kind of was picking up things from her. And I was like, you know what, I could actually get market rates if I just level up my sales and marketing skills. And so, yeah, I’ve slowly done that over time. I’ve gotten as far as I could by myself. And obviously, recently I reached out to you, Stephanie, because you’re the sales and marketing guru. And so, yeah, highly, highly recommend. I’m going to be your little salesperson here today.

Stephanie: It’s funny because I feel like I just say the same things I say on the podcast, but I just say it using your guys’s names, like Kai, do this. And then all of a sudden, there’s something psychologically there about like, yeah, I’ve heard everything that you’ve said in every episode, but then in a one hour session, you can break it down and kind of tailor it to us as individuals. And that’s super helpful, especially that little checklist you get at the end. I’m like, okay, this is my new to do list. It’s so helpful.

Recommendations for Using Gig Platforms

Stephanie: Yeah, no, I am a big fan of Fathom AI. If you guys don’t use a note taker in any of your meetings, side note completely, there’s several that are wonderful, Fathom, Otter. But basically what she’s referencing is it transcribes and records your meetings, and then it gives you action items after it in a summary of the call. So for me, if a meeting is not recorded, it’s like it did not occur. I have no idea what was said. So if anybody does any types of meetings, highly recommend an AI note taker. So that’s side note, a little recommendation for you guys there. And so wrapping up the before we move on to the other things I want to cover with any of those types of platforms, if somebody is listening and they maybe wrote them off, right? Because I’ve always been like, no, I think that’s a scam because it looks like a scam to me. So, you know, that’s not something I ever considered. And in my really rural area, it’s not something I think is really used. However, if somebody is in a city or they’re in your kind of situation where they move to a new area and they don’t have those local connections yet, what would you recommend to them if they want to try these platforms? How do they actually win at that and get the most bang for their buck? Maybe they are going to move towards as you did, I’m going to have my own thing. And once I get my sales and marketing, but this is the leg in the door of the industry. What recommendations do you have for our listeners?

Kai: Yeah, I definitely would highly recommend it if you just, if you’re looking to get started, it’s a great way to get started without, I mean, you can do free cleanings, but you can get paid to technically do cleanings. It’s not a ton, but it’s something. If you need the income, these are options. But highly recommend Homeaglow is great for starting out. There’s Facebook groups specifically for Homeaglow. There’s a mix of people. A lot of people are kind of complaining in it. But there’s also people that are there that can help you through that. You know, I’m available. I have a lot of experience on the platform. So you can always reach out to me if you need any support with that. But yeah, I highly recommend it for getting your foot in the door.

The Challenge of Taking Clients Off Platform

Stephanie: Okay. And what about, okay, you get these clients who like you. You’re an independent contractor. All right. The elephant in the room right now is, can you take them with you? And how do you do that if you can? Is there any rules against?

Kai: There’s a non-solicitation. I believe there’s a non-solicitation. So yeah, I guess that would be a no-no. But I, yeah, also it’s a no, no, a no, no. But it’s also that, yeah, but these clients are used to that system. So you’re going to have better luck kind of finding a niche that your story is really going to resonate with. And those people are going to pay you more than the Home, because of Homeaglow, it tells the price conscious clients. And so you’re honestly better off just going off the platform and getting your own clients.

Stephanie: Yeah, the market. I agree. That’s the thing that comes to my mind too is even if you could get these clients to be just your independent clients, the problem is that they’re going to be your lowest paying clients. You could probably literally double or at least add a third or quarter onto what you’re charging compared to through that platform. So that is one thing to consider. But it is a good way for practice, getting your feet wet, that type of thing, getting you comfortable doing this type of work. And, you know, maybe I don’t know. I’m curious, and you may not know the rule to this of like, can they leave you a review? So say, I try to think how much, how can I get value out of this situation in all ways possible? So if I were somebody cleaning for Homeaglow, and could I ask that client to leave me an independent review? Is that a no-no as well, you think?

Kai: That’s a good question. I don’t really know what the legal boundaries are there. I would say that, I would say that that would probably be fine because what’s, you did clean for them. I don’t know if you would have to clean outside of the company technically to ask for that review. But yeah, I just want to be very careful.

Stephanie: This is all hypothetical. We’re making all of this up. This is not legal advice. But this is it just the way I see even after you stop working for them or whatever, reaching out to that person as an independent person and asking for that potentially just because it really would be such a shame to basically build a clientele list through one of these platforms, you walk away like you did in your situation, you start your own thing and then you can’t use all of that social proof. It’s just sitting there waiting to be plucked from the tree and you can’t take it. So that would be very difficult for me because I’m like, no, I have all these happy customers and I can’t do anything with them, right? So that would be very frustrating.

Kai: Yes, yeah. I mean, I personally did. I asked them, but I don’t know. That’s legally. Yeah, but yeah. I mean, there are ways that you can kind of integrate it into your marketing though because they do leave reviews on the platform. You can screenshot it, take a picture of it, you know, and then add that to some of your own marketing content. You can still leverage the reviews that you do get on the platform. So that’s something that that’s another value add from that situation.

Transitioning to Independent Business

Stephanie: Just to get some traction basically to take to your own stuff. So, okay, talk to me now about transitioning away from Homeaglow. And what did that look like for you to get clients? And I want, you know, I kind of want to go into what you and I talked about during our first consult call, obviously the things that have come from that. And you just, you have a lot of momentum right now, which is very exciting. And I want us to talk about all of those things. So yeah, talk to me about those first few clients that you got. How did that happen? How did you feel that now that you were kind of, you had the safety net of Homeaglow away? Obviously you were already very independent. You’re an IC for them, basically. So what did that look like, that first couple experiences?

Kai: Yeah, so it was slightly terrifying because I kind of, you know, it’s kind of like a burn the road type of situation where I’m like, okay, you know, I’m raising my prices on this platform and I’m going to get my own clients. And so once I kind of raised a certain threshold, no one was booking on the platform anymore. And so, yeah, it was very scary that I’m like, OK, I have to do my own marketing. And so, yeah, I had a booking form. This was before I had ZenMaid, but I did kind of plug in a different booking form into my website at the time. And I remember I was just posting in all kinds of different Facebook groups. I’m like, OK, I don’t know what’s going to work, but it’s really just kind of a spray and pray thing. I was doing the door hangers. I’m too introverted to do door knocking. I know you just had an episode to door knocking. I’m like, that sounds terrifying. Maybe someday, but right now I’m just going to do my little digital marketing. And so, but it did work. I did eventually find one niche in particular that was working really well for me. And so it’s just on a social media app. I’m in the LGBTQ community. And so that’s kind of where I really got my initial early adopter clients that kind of really got, are starting to get the business off the ground. And so yeah, so it’s just been, it’s just step after step. And it’s kind of crazy because it’s like I had a price that I had in mind, and then it took several months. You kind of have to price based out, I mean, you want to sell at the market rate, but when you’re doing this for your main income, you have to kind of just, you know, the way I sold it was that you’re getting this big discount, right? Because it’s not the price that I wanted to sell it at. So selling it at a discount and letting people know, hey, you’re getting this early adopter rate. That’s kind of a sales tactic that I use, I guess.

Stephanie: Yeah, it’s very techie to say that, early adoption rate. I love that.

Kai: It’s my tech background coming in. So, yeah, so on the invoice, it reflects that too. I just reflect a discount. So they know at some point it’ll go up. But, you know, it’s like everyone loves discounts. I love discounts. So it’s a good way to kind of you feel good, they feel good. But yeah, and then it’s interesting because it’s like the things that you have to do at different price points change. So I’m at the point where now I’m at the, I’m taking on clients at the rate that I need to be to be running a sustainable business. And so it’s just changing. And so, honestly, before this month, I was just a few days ago, I finally got a recurring client. And I was just having such imposter syndrome. I’m like, oh, my gosh, I’m gonna go on this podcast. And I haven’t even had a client in a whole month or two. And so I finally got a new client. But yeah, it’s just trying different things. It’s like, now I’m starting to have some more success in the moms groups and just really telling your story. The way we connected was that we had both gone to Iowa State, and now we’re living in San Francisco. So it’s just all those key little details about your story are really important for just making that personal connection. And yeah, that’s what it’s all about.

Finding Your Niche and Building Momentum

Stephanie: Oh, it really is. And that’s, as I, you know, I say over and over again, it’s just lean into who you are. And that was kind of my biggest, I feel like takeaway from our very first conversation was, you were kind of floundering on, where do I take this? Do I go to the general public? Do I, what do I do here? And it’s like, I just, I didn’t mean to keep calling you a cow, but I was like, be a Purple Cow, be a Purple Cow, right? Lean into who you are. So people stop and be like, oh, what makes them special, right? What makes them unique? And it’s like, it is your story. It’s your community. And so I was like, how can we lean into that? Right. And so talk about some of the things that you did since our conversation that you discovered, specifically with the Golden Gate Business Association.

Kai: Yeah, so the Golden Gate Business Association. So in San Francisco, it’s so culturally rich and diverse. There’s so many ways that you can connect. So we have the Chamber of Commerce and actually from going to this one. So I joined the, it’s like the first LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce in the world. They’re very proud of that. So but there’s also, if you get, if you’re lucky enough to be in a bigger city, they have, I found out they also have Asian American Chamber of Commerce. They have the Black Chamber of Commerce, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. So just me being, I definitely lean more towards introversion. So being able to find communities where we have at least one thing in common, it makes it easier for me to connect. And so, so yeah, I joined the GGBA Golden Gate Business Association, aka LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce. And yeah, so now I’m just slowly building relationships in there. And it’s a long game. It’s a slow burn. But I’m making, I’m building relationships with the president. We had a good conversation and he’s connecting me to the communications committee because I’m really, I let him know that I’m really working on building my marketing and sales skills this year. And so I thought that that would be the best place for me to serve to kind of implement everything I’ve been learning and to learn a little more. And so, yeah, it’s just getting out of my comfort zone. Now that I kind of have built that foundation, I’m ready to just kind of keep leveling up and doing those kind of new things that you have to do as you grow as a business owner, changing my identity. My first year of my business was kind of just seeing is this going to be viable? And now I’m really taking all the, I guess the first major step was getting a business coach, getting, talking to Stephanie and, and it’s helping me build confidence in my identity as a business owner. So yeah, it’s super exciting and slightly terrifying, but ultimately fun.

Overcoming Early Business Challenges

Stephanie: Yeah, I love that. And you know, that just, it reminds me of a conversation I just had actually last week with the ZenMaid design team because every week I meet with their team and we go over new features and things like that. And I was actually just talking about what you just made me think of because something about new owners is that when something goes wrong, for me now, if something goes wrong, it has to be fairly cataclysmic for me even to react, right? Because I’m so used to, it’s just steady. I mean, I might swear a little whatever or freak out a bit or make a podcast episode about it. But really, truly, it’s like, I know it’s going to be okay. I have 100% confidence in that. But when you start out, when I started out, are you in your new journey here, it feels crushing when something doesn’t go the way that you were hoping. Because it’s like, not only is it is that failure, their failure right there, it also is attack, attacking this brand new baby identity that you have as an entrepreneur. And there’s so much pressure that we put on ourselves because it’s like, if I fail at this, I look like a loser to everybody. It feels like, and that may, that’s not true. Because that’s truly not true, but it’s what it feels like, right? The pressure we put on ourselves. So when any little bitty thing is a struggle, it’s so much more painful because we’re just, we’re so ashamed and embarrassed. Can you relate to what I’m describing here? Does that entail what you’ve, what you have experienced?

Kai: You learn from each, each time like that. But yeah, there’s a thought spiral process that happens. Get supportive people in your life, surround yourself with them, because they will help you through that. But yeah, I know there was this time where I was super excited. I had my first what I thought was going to be, you know, a really big commercial client. And really big for me is just, you know, it would have been a consistent weekly, five hour clean, which is as a small business, that’s pretty huge at my full rates. And so I was super excited about that. And then, and then it was, it just it didn’t work out. So it ended up being, and I was able to verify that it was them and not me, which made it better for me, because there was another, I knew, I know another business owner who had the same experience. They actually didn’t get paid for their work. I at least got paid. But I was definitely, until I had talked to them, I was spiraling and then I was like, oh okay. It’s them not me. But yeah, there’s, there will be those times that you just, you learn from it. And that’s after I have that experience, that’s when I really was like, okay, it’s time to get the terms of service in place. I know you advocate for having those in place at the beginning. But for those of us that it takes a hard lesson to learn from, you know, if you don’t have them in place now, something like that will happen and you’ll, you’ll get it in place.

Stephanie: Exactly, you gotta, you gotta touch the hot pan, as I say, because no matter how many times I scream it from the rooftops, have, have credit cards on file, have people sign higher policies or new hire documents, as well as the client guidelines. Frankly, you guys just got to fuck up and learn that lesson.

Stephanie: Pain is a very good motivator. And sometimes things that, a lot of times we’re not really always, we don’t change until staying the same is more painful than the change, right? And so are the work that’s going to be involved or the discomfort really, even you describing yourself as an introvert. It’s like, that makes it, you know, there is challenges associated with this type of work when you’re, when you are introverted. It’s like you have to really work on those skills and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Because even me, I get nervous going into a chamber of commerce thing or anything like that. And that’s me. So if you’re introverted, then you probably really don’t like that stuff.

Kai: Yeah. And again, I’m fortunate I have, my partner is as far extroverted as you can be. They’ve been going to the meetings with me, that makes it easy. We can just kind of bounce off of each other a little bit.

Stephanie: Yeah, no, that’s fantastic. I love that. And just having that support is so important, especially in the beginning, because it is so fragile feeling.

Goals and Future Vision

Stephanie: So for you, what is, what do you envision for your business? What is your ultimate goal? I mean, or even this year, what kind of goals do you have? I’d love to hear and then if there’s anything I can, any wisdom I can provide, I’d love to.

Kai: Yeah. So the biggest thing for me is getting my sales and marketing off the ground because eventually I do want to hire, ideally by the end of this year, I would like to be in a position to hire. So I, there’s some infrastructure that I need to do, but the biggest thing is sales and marketing. So I need to continue pushing myself out of my comfort zone, you know, making, building those in-person relationships, building those over time. And just, yeah, there’s, I mean, there’s so many things that I can do that you’ve been pumping out fire episodes. Just, wow, that sounds like something I should do. But am I gonna do it? I might need to schedule another session with Stephanie to push me to do it.

Stephanie: Yes, I do enjoy that. And what you reminded me, the episode with, I just, Masail from Time Made Cleaning in Tucson, he talks about that basically of the, that networking and neat, why that was so important, especially I feel like when you’re smaller, you don’t have the ability to get a bunch of reviews and compete and you’re in a really competitive market, right? You’re in a large city. So there’s a lot of noise, right? There’s a lot of benefits because you have so many customers available to you. But, you know, there’s just a lot of noise. There’s a lot of established companies. So it’s having a strategy in place in order to stand out from that and really lean into, again, who you are, your story, and what makes your cleaning company different from the rest. And you kind of touched on already, the things that you can do to really stand out with little behaviors, even the little personal touches that you can do, especially when you are still an individual cleaner, you can really experiment with a lot of stuff, which is very exciting. You don’t because you don’t have to think about, is this going to work when I have 30 cleaners? Well, it doesn’t work now. Okay, that’s all we really need to focus on because we’re trying to build a clientele list. So I love that you highlighted that. And is there any, you know, what are some of your ideas for standing out when you do go to these in person events? What are the things that you want to work on?

Exploring Niche Markets

Kai: Yeah, that’s a good question. So I guess, I’ve only been to one networking event so far, they have them about once a month. But so something that I’ve been thinking about is adding on commercial, smaller commercial, but niching down. So potentially focusing on gyms, just because it’s such a big part of my life. I do a lot of, I probably train for 10 to 15 hours per week between martial arts and working out. And so I did make a connection with someone who does sports rehab. And so maybe kind of leaning into the, again, this is my introverted brain talking.

Stephanie: Yeah, we’re friends on Facebook and do you do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or what do you do?

Kai: So I do mixed martial arts, but yeah, that’s one of the things that’s part of it. So it’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, wrestling, kind of mixing all of those things together, boxing too. So yeah, I’ve been doing that for a while, gonna, planning to do my first cage fight this year. It’s exciting. It’s a lot. But yeah, running a business and then, you know, building my personal brand and this as well. But yeah, I think that that’s an area that I can tap into, especially as I kind of prove myself to be an asset to the gym, maybe kind of working, doing cleaning. I don’t know. It’s, I’m open to creative possibilities, I guess is what I should say. I don’t really have any big plans. I need to do that. You’re helping me realize.

Stephanie: I mean, I didn’t have a single goal in my head when I opened Serene Clean other than, I don’t know, have a couple cleaners eventually, having some part-timers. That was going to be the bee’s knees if I had that. So I, I’m not going to tell you guys not to have goals, but really it’s one foot. I found it a lot more useful for me to just keep pushing at the thing right in front of me and not, I think I would have overwhelmed myself if I was like, I want a million dollar cleaning company. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing to not have big goals, but I just don’t think it would have been particularly useful to me at that size, honestly. And honestly, when I think of all the people that you train with, I mean, if they have disposable income to be dedicating all of this time. And a lot of times, at least from what I’ve seen, when people are into martial arts, it tends to be a lot of, I’ve seen husbands and things like that. And so it’s they probably, you know, any of them that have children at home, their wives are probably very frustrated. So giving them a specific discount and being like, hey, one of the people I train with cleans, here is a discount because I know them from the gym, that could be a really good, and just mention, you know, the gym name or whatever, and you get the special discount, again, utilizing the discount and, and leaning into that network of, okay, yeah, that’s a very niche group of people cleaning gyms. I’ve actually we’ve never got a gym. I don’t think we’ve ever even bid one now that I think about it. They can be kind of nasty. So I’m curious if anybody cleans gym, leave it down below in the comments. And what is your experience been because I had never even bid one, we’ve never even even got a request. So that would be very interesting to lean into that, honestly.

Kai: Again, that’s just coming from, it’s kind of out of my comfort zone, but it’s in my comfort zone type of thing. But yeah, so that’s, that’s where we’re at. Definitely need to start setting some more concrete goals rather than these general goals. But yeah, thank you, Stephanie.

Stephanie: Of course, of course. And it’s just, it’s exciting because it’s the world is kind of your oyster at this point. And there’s a lot of different things that you can experiment with and try different things. And, you know, just making sure you’re getting reviews where you can. But just leaning into your story, leaning into the communities that you already inhabit, because they already know and like you, right? So it’s, hey, do this thing. And as you as you know, my story, it’s, that’s where I got my first free cleaning clients was at the gym I went to, right? The community center, because there was a bunch of moms of, you know, wives of rich husbands who, Hey, let me clean your house for free. And that’s how I got my foot in the door. Right. So I just love a, I love a gym for, for making those kinds of connections for sure. So yeah, that’s, that’s so exciting.

Lessons Learned and Mindset Shifts

Stephanie: So yeah, I mean, I guess I just love to hear what about outside of marketing and sales? Is there any other big lessons that you feel like you’ve learned over this journey as you’ve kind of gone through this interesting pathway to get here? If looking back, you’re like, gosh, that really, that changed me. Or I really learned when I fucked this thing up. What would those be?

Kai: Yeah, so I guess, I mean, you just talked about this recently, but I think the price increase was definitely my first time adjusting my prices was huge for me and just kind of the mindset for me was I had such a scarcity mindset and it’s something that I’m still working on is, you know, I love that you add, you guys added in your in the ZenMaid podcast where you read fewer questions and, yeah, it’s really that mindset be behind pricing is just, oh, I’m afraid they’re going to drop. But it’s just kind of shifting to, okay, if I raise my price by this much and they drop, well, you know, I have that much more time freedom. You can get rid, you know, you can, you don’t, if you don’t, yeah, you might have less clients, but you’ll have the same amount of money. So just kind of having that mindset of, okay, yes, I am providing this value, I am worth it, you know, just kind of having that positive mental self-talk is huge. And so just realizing that you can do that. And just I think one of my favorite parts about owning a business is that I can always be in that mindset of there is no ceiling. You know, when you’re working a job, you’re kind of cat, but it’s there’s endless possibilities. So it’s just, you know, you ebb and flow. I find myself to, I kind of have periods where I’m really working on the business so hard. And then I’m like, oh my God, where’d my social life go? And so it’s an ebb and a flow. You kind of have to find a balance that works for you. So I guess I’m kind of representing the slow burn community of solo cleaners out here where, you know, I feel like if you build a really solid foundation, there’s plenty of things you can do if you don’t have a ton of cleans but you have free time, you can start building the foundation for your business and then kind of prepare for that. But it’s just pricing is super important to me for the way that I run my business. I guess, I just, yeah, that was fundamental for me is just learning that you can set your own prices that you are worth it.

The Value of Pricing Well

Stephanie: No, I totally agree in that, you know, when you look at solo cleaners, solo cleaners can charge darn near as highest companies. Honestly, I’ve seen in our area, it’s not that far off just because that’s what the market will bear. And especially if you’re bringing your own tools and supplies, that type of thing, there’s costs associated with that. And I’m really also glad that you highlighted just the slow burn of it all of, it doesn’t have to be this god awful rush. I know, you know, people may listen to me or other guests on the podcast. And it’s like, oh, that’s what I need to be doing. Or that’s where I need to be at. And you start to compare. And it’s like, we have completely, that, it’s irrelevant. My path and your path are totally two different things. And it’s okay if it doesn’t always happen at the speed that maybe you envisioned, you know, there may be a very good reason for that. And as you said, it allows you to build that strong foundation and learn in a really manageable way. And also, as you said, as an example of people wondering about what do you mean you get your free time back, it’s like, okay, if we do a price increase and you have 10 clients and two of them drop because of that price increase, but because you did the price increase, everybody else is paying for that lost income. And all of a sudden you have two new slots that you can replace with now your market rate, the higher rate or you don’t book them at all. And now you have eight more hours a week or whatever it is, and you are making the same amount of money. And so that’s why it’s important to charge high prices because it’s every single time slot of yours, especially when you’re a solo cleaner, you need to optimize and make as much as money as possible off of those. Because you only have, you have a finite amount of clients that you can take on as well, anybody, but especially as a solo cleaner, you got this much time, right? And so you have to make as much money as possible out of that time. And so doing, you know, it’s funny to use the word burn, because it reminds me of a controlled burn of a forest. You know, my great grandpa, he was a firefighter in Northern California, actually. And so they he would, I would always hear stories about how they would do controlled burns so that which seems crazy, burn down the forest, but it’s, no, you’re making all the brush go away so that the actual main trees can grow stronger and new growth can occur. So wow, what a metaphor here for life. But I feel like that really applies is right now you’re doing the control burns and you’re getting the brush out so that the new higher paying clients can come forward for you.

Kai: Yes, yes, exactly.

Final Advice for Solo Cleaners

Stephanie: Awesome. Well, any other final thoughts before we wrap up today, Kai?

Kai: Well, I guess my two cents for people that are like me if you’re hard on yourself, I literally just yesterday, I sat down and I’m like, okay, I need to be as intentional with my social life as I am with my business. I sat down and I got my calendar out and I’m like, okay, I’m gonna do, you know, you just have to plan the social events that you’re gonna do. I guess I live in San Francisco so there’s a ton of events but even if you’re not, you can do that and then just make sure you’re balancing, yeah, because it is a lot. There’s so many things. There’s so many jobs you have as a solo, you know, a solo business owner. It’s just, you know, you have marketing, you have sales, you have your website, you have customer service, you’re doing the cleaning, you’re doing everything. So it’s just, I guess, just learning to also kind of prioritize yourself as well as the business and then realizing that that can help you build a better business. It sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s so true.

Stephanie: It may make you feel robotic, but I find it gives me a lot of freedom. For example, I’m like, okay, it’s been several weeks since I talked to my brother on the phone, because if it’s not on the calendar, it’s not happening. So I’m like, do you have time at 8am Friday to talk on the phone? Awesome. It’s in the calendar, just to call my fucking brother. But it’s, if I am not intentional about those things, they don’t happen. Because it’s just as a business owner, it’s, it’s like you’re in this weird snow globe, and you can’t see anything outside the snow globe. And so you don’t want the snow to settle and realize that you haven’t talked to your friends or family for months at a time because the time just flies really fast. Time is a different beast when you own a business, I swear to God. And so, yeah, I think if you also have ADD, you hyper focus on, it’s, you’re, okay, if I don’t do this, I’m going to get so hyper focused. I’m going to forget to do this until burnout hits. And I realized, oh my God. What am I doing?

Kai: Yeah.

Stephanie: Oh, yeah. I literally had to for a long time have a reminder in my to do’s to eat breakfast. Otherwise, I didn’t eat. And then all of a sudden I’d get shaky halfway through the day. And so it’s, yeah, just, I think not judging yourself for making life easier on yourself. If that means making, don’t expect yourself to remember everything, right? Don’t, don’t be hard on yourself or feel like you’re a failure because you have to use different tools in your toolbox to manage yourself, right? And, I mean, just little things, even, okay, every day I have to send a, I have to reply to my assistant, I have a task every day, Monday through Friday, remember to reply to your assistant. That may sound stupid, but it’s, that’s what works for me and what I need to do. So, don’t, I think we’re all very hard on ourselves or feel like everybody else has their shit together. And let me promise you, one, they probably don’t. Two, if they do, it’s because they don’t, they’re not hard on themselves. They put the tools in place. They help themselves make it easier. Right. So whatever life we want to live, we have to, we have to build, build it around to make it as easy as possible. And so with you describing having a social life, talking to the people that are important to you and doing the things that you care about, it’s very easy to go into one track mind with a business, which I’m not arguing. Sometimes you have to get down and just, you know, laser focus. But if you want to have a life and not have everybody hate you, I highly recommend listening to Kai here and make time and schedule it be very intentional, right?

Celebrating Progress and Staying Positive

Kai: And give yourself credit, give yourself credit for every, you know, celebrate those small wins, those big wins, and saying that energy. And then, you know, I have to remind myself when I get so hyper focused, you’re not gonna have immediate results. Some of the things that you’re doing now, it won’t, you won’t see the effects until maybe a year or two later. And so just remembering, reminding yourself that and staying in good energy. Just, I feel like I get into these modes where I feel like I need to force things. And then I have to remind myself that no, just keep my energy good. And it’s a little woo woo, but the law of attraction, just, you just start attracting. I said, I was so frustrated. I’m like, oh, I’m doing all these things. I’m changing my marketing messaging. I’m doing everything. And I’m not getting any clients. And then all of a sudden, you know, your dream client sends you an email and you’re like, oh, I just need to relax a little bit. You know.

Stephanie: It’s so true. And I agree. I’m celebrating. I just got an email from a former guest, Zyla. And she just had a really, she, you know, hit a good great milestone for 2025. She really grew from 2024. And I’m like, girl, post this in the in the mastermind so that people we can celebrate you because I don’t know if she will or not. We’ll see because this will go live. You know, we’ll see if she actually listens. But I’m like, don’t be afraid. It’s not to brag on yourself, but say, hey, I did this because a lot of our work gets it. There’s no, you know, it’s invisible work. Right. Nobody is seeing or what you’re describing is the delayed gratification of it all. Right. There’s so much. Sometimes we do not get instant gratification. Sometimes it’s the exact opposite and we get pummeled for something. I’ll give you an example. Yesterday I made a video for Serene Clean calling out we had, you know, a record number of first time cleans and we were still on our 11 week complaint streak. And literally then later that day we got our first complaint in 11 weeks. And I’m like, fucking it. It’s every time I do that we get a complaint. So we’re just celebrating. Yes. Yes. And don’t. That’s the takeaway. Don’t jinx anything by celebrating. And it’s kind of the running joke. Every time I make a video calling out our no complaint streak, we get a complaint within a few days. So it’s kind of bizarre. Yeah, exactly. It was a doozy one too. We had to, yeah, we had to comp, but they did turn into a reoccurring client. So it all worked out okay. But either way, I’m just like, what the hell is going on here? But all of that to be said, you know, squirrely Stephanie here, all that to be said is don’t be afraid to celebrate. And I would say even track, track the wins, not just from a, you know, how I am about KPIs and the numbers of it all. But it’s, okay, I did this price increase and this happened, or I implemented this and this made it easier. So it’s there is, I think it feels like the finish line is here and we can’t celebrate until we reach that. Although, you know, it’s going to keep moving. But it’s there’s so many little things. Every single step of the way that we, progress is progress. And so we should celebrate those things. And it’s, I also think that sometimes business owners have a bit of a Massachusetts streak in them. And they’re just, no, it has to be hard. It has to be painful. I chose this path. I’m a lone wolf kind of thing. And it’s, okay, everybody get over yourself. You don’t have to be so dramatic. We can have community. We can celebrate little things. And what may feel like a little win to you, or something, oh, I shouldn’t, this isn’t anything. There’s companies that are bigger than me. It’s, no, don’t, don’t do that to yourself. Right. Celebrate every step of the way. Right.

Kai: Yes. You got me all amped up. I’m all, now I’m in a good mood.

Stephanie: We’re going along the personal development path. I love it. Yeah, it always comes to that. I feel like I love episodes where you can kind of sprinkle in both because it’s just enjoying the journey and not, that would be one of my things looking back. I was on such a hellfire, go, go, go, go, go, that I never took the time to just say, holy shit, this happened, this happened. And I really wish that I had enjoyed the process more, a lot more, and just realized what was happening and just celebrated things a lot more along the way. And not take it for granted, because looking back, I’m like, gosh, I hardly even remember, there’s some things I don’t even remember until somebody else brings it up. I’m like, oh, yeah, that happened. And even the bad things, the bad things always turn into funny stories later. I promise you that. And the faster that you can have a silver lining thought process. I always think, oh, this is going to be a funny story. Maybe not right now, but this is going to be good.

Kai: So we love the funny stories, Stephanie. You got to keep them coming. I just remember when I first started listening to this podcast, I’m like, what is this edgy little bootstrap SaaS company podcast? I’m like, okay, obviously I need to get ZenMaid because they have this fiery little young podcast host who just has a cleaning empire. What is this? I love it.

Stephanie: Yes, we’re not trying to be boring over here. That’s for sure. Nobody wants to listen to that. So I appreciate it. In my pink and, that’s funny. Oh, that’s amazing.

Connecting with Kai

Stephanie: Okay. If people want to connect with you or follow you, where are you online? What kind of profiles do you have?

Kai: Yeah, so I’m on LinkedIn. I’m also on Facebook. I kind of post a mix of business and fitness and personal development content on my Facebook. Just yeah, follow me, add me open to connections. Kind of one of the things that I get from martial arts is you need three types of training partners. So you need someone that’s ahead of you on your journey. You need people that are at the same level and and you need people that are, you know, that you can teach. And those are kind of, they say that about martial arts, but I think that’s the same thing with business. You need all types of people. So yeah, I’m open to any and all connections. And yeah, I just love the ZenMaid community. I love how positive and supportive everyone is. And yeah, I would love to connect.

Stephanie: Oh my gosh. I feel like that was just a golden nugget of, I’ve never thought about that before that you need those three, three people in your life or three types of training partners, but in business too, that’s, that’s so true. Really just all aspects of life. That’s, I’m going to have to think about that. Honestly, who is all these people? That’s amazing. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for joining me. This has been awesome. Everybody leave Kai some love down in the comments, please. Hit that like, hit that subscribe, go friend them on Facebook and make connections, guys. Say hello in the ZenMaid Mastermind. If you’re not a member there, join. You don’t have to be a ZenMaid customer, though you should be a ZenMaid customer at all times, of course. And we’ll see you on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye, guys.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• Fathom AI
• Otter.ai
• Homeaglow
• Angi (formerly Angie’s List)
• ZenMaid Mastermind
• Golden Gate Business Association (GGBA)

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