Neel Parekh is the CEO and Founder of MaidThis, one of the top-rated national cleaning franchises. MaidThis offers hassle-free house cleaning for busy individuals and vacation rental hosts (Airbnb, VRBO, etc.). MaidThis has been called “the franchise for millennials”, given its fully remote model and new-age spin on an old-school cleaning industry.
As he built his business to reach millions in revenue, Neel traveled for five years while managing a fully remote team — he is now on a mission to help others achieve the same! A renowned business expert, Neel mentors other entrepreneurs on the do’s and don’ts of managing a company, essential tips for franchise operators, how to be a successful digital nomad, and much more.
What is MaidThis all about?
One of the top-rated national cleaning franchises, MaidThis offers hassle-free house cleaning for busy individuals and vacation rental hosts (Airbnb, VRBO, etc.). MaidThis has been called ‘the franchise for millennials’, given its fully remote model and new-age spin on an old-school cleaning industry. The top factor that sets us apart from other cleaning companies is that we are the first and ONLY US-based vacation rental cleaning franchise that exists.
Our goal is make the customer experience super easy and super seamless – this is what a lot of people want but many local companies cannot provide. MaidThis meets the increasing consumer demand for websites that make online bookings and automated reservations a breeze. We leverage the newest technology and software to create a low-cost, fully remote franchise — this means it is easier than ever for entrepreneurial folk to become a franchisee. Because the franchise is fully remote from day one, it is a very lean operation from a business perspective. You will get access to our playbook and training on how to do it all!
Another factor that sets us apart is the cutting-edge software we use that automates processes for our clients, our vendors, and our team members — clients rave about the automation that our systems provide. On top of this, we train franchisees in these simple software applications until they know them backwards and forwards.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I was working in venture capital for a few years and knew I didn’t want to do that anymore — I was fascinated with the “digital nomad” lifestyle and wanted to quit and travel the world, and have a side hustle to support me while traveling. I tried out a lot of ideas (most of which flopped) and a local cleaning company was one of the endeavors that actually got some traction.
After 2 years of working on MaidThis as a side hustle, I finally quit my venture capital job and booked a one-way flight to South America. My initial plan was to backpack for a year, and that just kept going and somehow ended up becoming five years!
Another motivating factor for starting a business was that my parents were getting older and they had video rental stores (like Blockbuster) that weren’t doing well financially. I wanted to provide them with a source of income that would help them achieve financial freedom, all while working from home.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- The first skill is resourcefulness. Things are not always going to go right in entrepreneurship, and that’s a guarantee. Thus, having a resourceful mindset allows you to be nimble and solve problems quickly.
- You must also have a growth mindset. A business can only go as far as the leader, so constantly evolving yourself and striving for improvement will have a direct effect on your business too.
- On top of this, I think the business owner must know what they want — you need to have a clear vision for what you want your life to look like, and how your business can fulfill that. This will allow you to weather any storms and constantly evolve. A vision of your life is key!
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
Right now, we have two corporate locations and two franchise locations. Our goal is to get to 20+ franchise locations across the United States, and help those franchise owners achieve their own financial freedom. We’ll primarily expand via the franchise model.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
Luckily, we were deemed an ‘essential’ business by the government, so we never fully shut down during the pandemic. However, the travel ban really put a lot of our Airbnb clients out of business and, therefore, business went down quite a bit. A lot of residential clients also cancelled their recurring programs due to COVID-19 safety, so it was a rough time.
This is where we got back to our core roots of being scrappy and resourceful. Our team asked, ‘what customers ARE booking cleanings right now?’ As it turns out, a lot of people were moving because of the pandemic… a house NEEDS to get clean during a move, so we shifted our focus and secured a lot of move in/out business.
Since it was less busy, we also used the time to go back to our foundations and restructure the business, removing a lot of the old systems that needed upgrading.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
MaidThis is the first and ONLY US-based vacation rental cleaning franchise that exists. MaidThis is a fantastic franchising opportunity for aspiring business owners because it is low-cost, very lean, and fully remote, allowing you to live and work from anywhere. Because MaidThis uses innovative technology, game-changing marketing tactics, and advanced business process, it really is a new-age cleaning franchise — other cleaning franchises are very old school. Franchisees are able to follow our proven business model to build their own remote local business.
The coolest part – franchisee owners can start this franchise as a side-hustle and eventually quit their jobs and manage it full time, which means there is lower risk.
There is explosive growth in the in-demand, fast-paced vacation rental market, fueled by Airbnb® and other popular short-term vacation rental websites. Franchisees are able to follow our proven business model and tackle the growing short-term rental market.
MaidThis also leverages location independence in our internal team, as we use a global labor pool to create hiring efficiencies in pay. Our Los Angeles location, for example, has support staff based in Honduras, India, Mexico and South Africa, among other countries. Thus, there is no need to settle for the limited candidates in your neighborhood… you can get the best talent around the world with our system. We have also pioneered innovative ways to network and create goodwill in individual communities.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
- My first mistake was trying to figure it all out by myself — in doing this, I made way too many mistakes that could have been avoided if I had simply hired a business coach who could steer me clear of the possible pitfalls. A cleaning business isn’t a new business, and there are many coaches out there who already have run successful cleaning companies who I could have leaned on for expertise. I didn’t want to spend the money on advice early on, but in hindsight, it would have accelerated my company’s growth so much. Now, for any new endeavor, I always work with a coach or mastermind group.
- The next mistake was not firing quick enough. A bad apple can wreak a lot of havoc in your business. I tried to be way too accommodating in the beginning, and it slowed us down a lot.
- One last mistake was not investing heavily enough at the beginning. This slowed down our growth, as I didn’t have a set plan for our growth and didn’t exactly know what I was doing. In hindsight, I would have built an aggressive growth plan (with the guidance of a coach) and put it into action much quicker.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
Local businesses are typically pretty old school and not the best at marketing, especially digital marketing. That said, we’re bringing new-age marketing tactics into this old-school industry. Currently, our best lead source is SEO, with ranking on Google. Before SEO kicked in, I tried it all with local marketing. There are so many online platforms where you can advertise, such as Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor, Google Adwords, Yelp, etc. The list goes on.
The real secret for local business marketing is to learn which 1-2 marketing avenues work best for your specific local market and hone in on those. Once you optimize those, then move on to the next and the next and keep going from there.
For example, Yelp works fantastically in Los Angeles, whereas Angie’s List isn’t great in that area. However, Angie’s List is apparently way more popular in Chicago. Google Adwords is also insanely expensive in New York but can be super affordable in San Antonio.
There is one rule that remains constant no matter where you are: online reviews are king. If you sacrifice short-term gains to keep your online reviews pristine, good things will happen (assuming your target audience is shopping online). Thus, we focus heavily on Google and Yelp reviews. The online review platform you pick is going to be dependent on what marketing avenue is working best for you.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
It was a big challenge to figure out how to find the right cleaners and team members. It took us years to figure out what we are looking for, how to find them, who is right and who is not right, etc. The right cleaners make the entire difference between a good product and a bad product. Its constantly a work in progress but arguably the most important part of the business.
What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?
When I was working in corporate, my goal was to start a side hustle and eventually quit my job… I wanted the digital nomad life of working remotely. Therefore, I focused on the traditionally ‘remote’ business model. This included creating an eCommerce website, blogging about pet hair vacuums (yeah, seriously), and more… none of it really took off at all. Eventually, I stumbled across a post on Reddit by someone who started a cleaning company — the rest is history!
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
As your company grows, your role shifts from Operator to Leader. I’m now managing people more than doing the work, and my main focus right now is on how to become a better leader and make the tougher decisions to grow my company. So a lot of my learning right now is on people-related skills and how to become a better leader and manager.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
One quote that really stuck with me is ‘Success loves speed’. If I started the business again, I’d shoot higher and aim to go bigger even sooner. Being able to go faster isn’t always the best option, but you can test things faster and get to your end goal sooner. Thus, I would reinvest all profits from the company back into the business earlier on — instead of taking it out of the company — and see how quickly we could grow.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- The most important part of our business is its technology infrastructure. We are fully remote with team members in eight countries, and we work so efficiently together using an extensive quiver of top-end applications.
- Slack is the backbone of team communication and collaboration. Integrations with other apps and Zapier are an absolute life-saver. We wouldn’t be able to work as efficiently as we can without Slack.
- We also use a software solution called Launch27 as our online booking platform, which is mostly specifically for house cleaning. It’s great for managing, scheduling, and handling the financial transactions of house cleaning (Stripe).
- HelpScout is our shared ticket handling software of choice. This helps our remote team hand off support tickets and keep everything organized.
- ActiveCampaign is our CRM, where we store customer leads and send out email marketing campaigns.
- Finally, Google Suite is the heart of our email, calendar, drive, meetings, etc.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
Plan your day out the night before. Seriously, just taking 5 quick minutes to plan out your next day’s schedule does WONDERS for productivity. Oftentimes, we just go through the day and work on whatever fires come up. However, having a plan for your day provides purpose and guidance, and you know which main 1 or 2 tasks you NEED to get done. The biggest plus of this productivity tip is that you feel more fulfilled by the end of the day because you achieved what you said you would, instead of just working on whatever and not measuring your progress.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
As I was dreaming of location freedom in the early years of my business journey, I became a frequent listener of the Tropical MBA Podcast that is about lifestyle design and location-independent entrepreneurs. I eventually got involved in their entrepreneur group, which has been a game-changer for me.
One really impactful book for me wasThe One Thing, by Gary Keller. The premise is that the tasks you devote your time to are not all equally important. If you focus on the ONE single thing that can make the biggest impact on your goals, it will have outsized returns.
Another book that really helped me was Getting Things Done, by David Allen. I am not an organized person by nature at all. Getting Things Done is THE productivity book that helped me create my own productivity system. I’m now able to prioritize my time and get a lot more impactful things done in less time.”
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
First, I’d figure out which relatively inexpensive local services business I could start. I’m picking local services because you can have cash flow rather quickly, and your competition in a local market is oftentimes not as sophisticated compared to competitors in eCommerce, for example, where you’re competing against the world.
I’d use the money to spin up a quick website, get basic legal documents together, and put the rest into paid ads to test out whether the market is there or not.
I’d constantly reinvest the profits from any booked jobs into marketing and growth. When I could afford it, I would start SEO and other long-term marketing tactics, where I don’t need to see the ROI for cash flow immediately because I know it’ll pay dividends down the line.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
My end vision of what I want my lifestyle to look like. I believe in lifestyle businesses and think that your business should support your life, not the other way around. I have a clear vision of what I want my future to look like and can see how my business can help me achieve those goals. That vision, and my care for the wellbeing of my team members and MaidThis Franchisee owners, keeps me going.
What is your favorite quote?
My favorite quote is:
‘Well, what can you do now?’ – my Dad.
Any time a situation or problem comes up in life, he just says ‘well, what can you do now?’ and carries on with his day unperturbed.
It’s the equivalent of ‘no use crying over spilt milk’. Can’t do anything about the present situation? Cool, don’t sweat it then. Deal with it and move on with your day. This helps keep me present and more stress-free in my business journey.
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
Figure out a loose vision of your future and how much money you need to achieve that vision. Next, figure out what sort of business you can start to support that vision. Is it a franchise operation? Is it an eCommerce business? Whatever it is, make a plan and just get started.
I’d highly recommend getting a coach or joining a franchise system that provides the blueprint, if that fits your vision. You can time collapse your journey and avoid a lot of trial-and-error.
With any first product or service launch, you’re almost guaranteed to get some aspect of it wrong. You might be priced too low, not address the right target market, or have the packaging all wrong. So it’s important to know that there is a 99% chance that your first product or service will not be the same forever. Thus, just launch with what you got, because you’re going to have to fix it later no matter what.”
Who should we interview next and why?
“Is Elon Musk an option?”
What is your definition of success?
My definition of freedom is being able to comfortably live out your purpose. Having financial freedom, where all life expenses are paid for by passive income, can help people achieve the time freedom needed to pursue whatever life brings.
I love that I can help others achieve their own sense of financial, time, and location freedom with the MaidThis Franchise, and that is my current goal…. to impact the lives of our team members and franchise owners so they can achieve their own sense of freedom. Doing this is my definition of success.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Acknowledging consciously that fear exists, and pushing myself to move forward anyways. I believe that the simple act of recognizing the fear in your brain and loosely analyzing why it exists helps you remove yourself from the emotion. The tough part is making awareness of emotions a habit!
Random Interview: Antonio Martínez – Overcoming Fear & The Definition of Success
