We’re back again, and this time we have a framework you can steal for any side hustle or business you have. We’re here so you can copy my homework. R&D = rip off and duplicate.
Today in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:
- Some vids you can’t take your eyes off (it’s not just me, right?)
- How power washing is a proxy for any service biz side hustle
- How to get started, differentiate, market, and power up your cashflow
- How to scale your boring biz to $40M and beyond
THE POWER OF BORING
Ok, I’ve done every side hustle imaginable.
I’ve also turned them into 6 then 7 then 8-figure businesses. Which is how I now have a portfolio of businesses that does more than $50M a year in revenue. But alas, it was not always that way.
So, let’s start with power washing as a side hustle.
Why power washing?
Because this idea for our business is going to cost you $0 to start. Yes, $0 to start. And also because…
I Love Watching Porn
Ok easy, this is a special type… maybe you too have watched hours of r/powerwashingporn on Reddit.
Get your head out of the gutters, Contrarians. I said Power Washing porn. Jeez.
I don’t know what part of the brain tingles when it sees before and after photos of pressure-washed houses, but I think it’s the same part that tingles when I sense a good money-making opportunity. Right now, just FYI… I’m tingling.
Power washing as a side hustle:
(PS, this works for any type of service biz)
- $0 Cost – You can pre-sell washes with $0 in materials.
- Low Failure Risk – Your only cost is your labor. If you decide to scale up this business, you have no inventory, no big expenses, and no shipping expectations. The risk of bankruptcy is tiny.
- No shipping or supply chain nonsense – I hate e-commerce companies 9 times out of 10. The costs are too high, shipping is expensive, order values are high, and it’s largely over-saturated.
- B2B Option – There is demand in both commercial and residential spaces. A house is easy to close the deal, but a commercial company may pay you $5,000 every month on contract. UP FRONT. If you can keep a business free from gum on their sidewalk, or with clean windows, or clear sidewalk lines, they’ll pay.
- Beginner friendly – You don’t need to be an expert or licensed. Because we aren’t. 😉
- Finding clients is easy – You live next to them and most of them need this service.
- It’d be fun to sell – Wait until you see my ideas for how.
How much would it cost to start?
Let’s start with the equipment. You can buy a high-end gas-powered pressure washer on Amazon for under $350.
Or you could go high-end and get a fancy $35,000 truck setup (I wouldn’t advise that up front), or you can go Unconventional Acquisitions style and buy an entire pressure washing business that cashflows $220k a year…
If you want to go the biz buying route… ya’ll already know where to go to learn biz buying… here.
But let’s say you’re going to start this biz because you want lower risk OR you’re going to make your kid, Tommy, pay for the college education that’s really just expensive propaganda by his damn self.
Ok, starter version
Where to begin? Well, you’ve already bought your fancy little machine for $350. Next, you’ll want to trick out your pressure washer with some additional accessories, and that can run you about $40.
Then we’ll need some pressure washer cleaner. Most cleaners run about $20 and will cover 6500 square feet.
Breakdown:
$350 Power Washer
$40 Accessories
$80 Ladder
$40 Hose
$20 Cleaning solution
= Total of $530
So, for about $500 in start-up costs, you have what you need to make money.
How much money can be made?
You can charge around $350-500 to pressure wash a driveway. With only two driveways, you have paid for your pressure washing business.
The best part? Rarely does someone just need their driveway pressure washed. To pressure wash a 2000 sq foot home, you can charge $800-$1000. If you add in their front or back porch? That’s another $400. So, a single home can bring in $1500 – $2000.
Great, with one home you’re at breakeven+ and with two you are in the money.
But let’s say you are like me, and you don’t want to do the actual labor.
Let’s outsource it. The average technician in Texas makes $44,276 a year. That’s working 40-hour weeks. Let’s say you go premium at $50k a year + $300 a month in benefits (which would be unheard of).
That means:
Let’s say we could get one customer a day each month. With the marketing we’re going to show you later, that should be absolutely doable. That’s $547,500 a year. Now imagine you add another contractor or two, each only doing one house a day. That’s $1,642,000 a year.
But how much money do we actually take home?
For every new contractor you add, you get another $413k profit. So with you, two contractors, and a VA for scheduling and customer service, you would be bringing in $1.23M in PROFIT in one year. You add five and you’re at $2.06M. Now you’ll have some increased costs for sure, but you can very safely keep around a 30% margin business.
LET’S SCALE
How would I differentiate this $2M+ business?
#1 Show-Me-Don’t-Tell-Me marketing
I’d have a blast with the marketing. I’d have posters with this on them.
I’d do non-stop social media highlighting this:
And the marketing would change with every season:
#2 Never sell just one thing… bundle, bundle baby.
I’d be a one-stop shop, so I’d add:
- roof cleaning
- pool cleaning
- wood/deck fence restoration
- gutter cleaning
- window cleaning
- exterior painting
That’s probably another $500-$1M in additional revenue a year.
#3 Re-occurring revenue – sell it once, charge it continuously.
- 3 options on my upsell: Big package, medium package, small package. Highlight medium in the middle.
- Everyone works too hard. They sell a pressure washing job once. They don’t try to get them on subscription. YOU are not going to be that. I’d sell annual or biannual power washing just like this: https://www.mtrcontractors.com/plans. Then I’d schedule all the neighbors on the same dates. No one ever needs a last-minute re-occurring power wash.
#4 SEO that bad boy. How?
- YouTube shorts. I’d start a channel on pressure washing in my local city. https://www.youtube.com/c/ForeverSelfEmployed I’d rack up a lot of views. I’d tag them ‘Austin’ and ‘local’ to drive more customers to me.
Getting Customers:
Start low pressure
If you remember one thing from this, it is to go get your first five customers before you sell anything. I’d go knock on all my neighbors’ doors and tell them:
“Hi KAREN – I live down the street and own a power washing business. I just started servicing this area so I’m giving a limited offer for this neighborhood for this month since I’ll be here already.”
I’d show them your ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots (taken from the internet) and lock up as many as I can. I’d document this entire process so I can outsource it next.
The second I got one customer, I’d ask them to post about it on Nextdoor while I sat there with them. I’d tell them how important reviews are and make them feel like they are helping a small business. Most people won’t do that. TUG ON THE HEART.
Why?
Nextdoor is perfect for two things – complaining about kids shooting fireworks in your neighborhood and asking for recommendations on small businesses.
Go to Nextdoor right now and search for pressure washing or power washing. I did and just in my neighborhood, there are plenty of people asking for recommendations:
Harass your local realtor
If you’ve ever sold a house, you know the first thing your realtor asks you to do is pressure wash the entire exterior. Why? Because it washes 10 years of age off your house. If you can get in good with 4-5 realtors, you’ll be busy for months.
New house who dis?
New home buyers are in BUY mode. Look up recently sold listings and attack.
Now, let’s talk brand
You aren’t just a power washing company.
You are a surprise-reveal company, a make-my-old-thing-new company. Times are tough. Most people can’t afford a new house, or an entire paint job, or a new fence. But you can give them that for a fraction of the cost. Remember, people pay premiums for feelings.
We are cleaning up old things as a company, our delivery method just happens to be power washing. But our brand and promise is that we help you live better. We make houses homes.
That’s the American dream. That is a big promise. Here’s how we make them feel something.
Create a magical moment
I’d do something ridiculous for every home I pressure-washed. I’d pick a corner somewhere and PW the initials of the family in the cement. Then I’d have them come out and tell them a story about it. Maybe even a little calling card like the one below. Tell them if they ever want to surprise their kid or loved one, you’ll come spray a lil message on the house. Just get that Instagram tag.
Reviews – but don’t suck
In Austin, the very top businesses only have 200-400 reviews. I’d go ham on reviews.
Use review software like NiceJob with your CRM, so you send an automated SMS text immediately after their job is finished, leading them to Facebook/GMB to leave a review.
If that goes unanswered, follow the SMS text with two well-timed follow-up emails. But I’d make them fun… for the first one I’d have a funny meme:
For the second one, I’d send them the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures. I’d include a one-liner like:
“Your review actually keeps me in business, our love language is good reviews. 😉 Thank you for taking the time out of your day to support a small biz. Most people won’t but you did!”
Influencer campaigns:
Remember when I mentioned power washing porn? It’s an entire phenomenon with 1.64M subscribers on Reddit. I’d get local “influencers” in my area to let me come power wash their place or business and film the ‘before’ and ‘after’. In Austin, I’d be hitting up, ahem, Codie Sanchez, Tim Ferriss, Noah Kagan, and local business owners who have real estate. Then offer a bunch of micro-influencers some free services and cool content in exchange for them posting about us. We’ve talked about micro-influencers before, as that’s how Isaac would pay about $500 to get $20-50k in value.
How does this value shake out?
- Let’s say we get 50 influencers doing this hyper-locally. We get 50 clients from each of them over the course of a year. That’s $100k each, which is $5M in revenue.
- Let’s say we let them keep 10% of the revenue as an affiliate fee. That’s still $4.5M. At 30% profit, it’s $1.35M to our bottom line.
So, between influencers, reviews that jack up SEO, more clients, adding services, etc., we’re looking at a $3-5 Million EBITDA or profit business.
Now here’s the cool part. This business has magic in it when it comes to sales price because it has these 7 things:
- Systems and process – reviews, scheduling, etc.
- Re-occurring revenue – subscriptions and contracts
- Reviews, online presence, and trust
- Protected margins of 30+%
- Client acquisition strategy
- Moated strategy
- Opportunity for scale and efficiencies
This is the exact type of business private equity companies buy just like these guys:
So what would this company be worth after you’ve done this?
A $4 Million profit (EBITDA) business would be worth 6-10X its profit, or $24M to $40M, to a private equity company.
You just turned a side hustle people laugh at into $40 Million. It isn’t easy, but it’s definitely not rocket science.
Or you use all your newfound social media followers like Bin Blasters did and create a franchise. Those sell for even more money.
You still think my businesses are boring?
Main Street over Wall Street,
Codie
Written by Codie Sanchez. Edited by the Contrarian Thinking team.
CONTRARIAN EXTRAS
The Not So Boring Section:
Literally everyone’s a VC: in a recent release, Dick’s Sporting Goods announced DSG Ventures, a $50m fund that focuses on companies serving athletes in their communities.
A bet that paid off: Mattress Mack, Texas furniture salesman, recently cashed in on a $75m bet won on the Astros world series victory, the largest payout in history. That’s a lot of mattresses…
Small biz, big problem: Nearly 1/3 of US small businesses couldn’t pay their rent because of inflation. Think it’s only an individual’s problem. Not quite. But here’s your chance to learn biz acquisition and not only create a legacy for yourself but save small businesses and the communities in which they serve.
