How to start a cleaning business: 3 – Raising capital, buying assets

“There’s nothing wrong with being frugal. Great companies start in garages all the time. Yours can too”. – Jason Fried, Rework

Let’s be clear on capital. I had none. Nil. Zero. Nought. Don’t get me wrong, I had money in the bank and cash in my wallet, but I wasn’t willing to spend this money on building a cleaning company. I wanted to build something from nothing.

In my opinion, the easiest way to make a few quick bucks these days is to sell your excess junk online and this is exactly how I raised enough money to purchase my cleaning equipment. I scrounged around our closets and found a box full of old video games, a bag full of Lego mini-figures and some old camping gear. I listed the lot on eBay over the course of a month and netted around $700 after fees.

I knew I wanted to start off with some commercial cleaning work, and I had a market demographic in mind, so based on this information I purchased the following:

• A back pack vacuum cleaner
• Duster
• Mop & Bucket
• Catch mop
• Window cleaning kit

This came to a total of $571.12

I also picked up some cleaning chemicals, cloths, buckets etc. from the supermarket, which was another thirty odd dollars.

“Sweat equity is the best start-up capital” – Mark Cuban

I had everything I needed to physically clean a commercial premises. Now all I needed to do was find some customers….