I’ve started a cleaning business. Here is why it failed and why validation is everything.
A live case study to testing your business idea and seeing if it sticks for you and your market.
Hi! I’m Viktoria, your 10-min a week business partner. I send you something weekly to help you figure out entrepreneurship without losing your mind.
This summer, we decided to test launch a family cleaning business. However, to see if this was even worth pursuing, we needed to validate the idea. Here's everything we did, what worked and what didn't, plus some numbers!
Goal: 5 paying clients in one month!
Service: Clean and repair baby gear (strollers, toys, etc.)
Plan: Mostly focus on the bigger items, have a twenty-four-hour turnaround, including delivery and pickup, to reduce the pain points for families.
Week 1
Called a similar company in Toronto, Ontario and asked the following questions:
How is the business going?
Where are you getting clients?
How much money are you making?
What is the hard part?
Opened an Instagram and Facebook account to have something to share plus to connect with potential clients
Opened a Google Business account to be searchable
Opened a WhatsApp Business Catalogue to have a way for people to reach us
Sent our business to our friends and family for traction and to get likes/shares on our socials
Sent emails/calls to local rental companies and daycares to offer our services
Wins: Local influencer with 93 000 followers agreed to partner to promote our business
Revenue: $0
Costs: $45 (cleaning products that we need and can keep using if this business idea fails)
Week 2
Created Reels and Posts on social to get traction and show we are available for hire
Asked questions on Facebook groups
Individually reached out to families to promote our service
Phone calls with circular economy businesses for cross-promotion opportunities
Wins: Phone call with baby gear rental company = they want to hire us!
Week 3
Small paid ad to get people to follow us on social media, specifically targeting parents with young children
Win: FIRST PAYING CLIENT who found us on Google Business.
Revenue: $100
Week 4
No new progress and no paying clients
Lessons Learned
Social media is for credibility and attention, not to get clients: There was a lot of enthusiasm and traction on social media for the business idea; however, no one was willing to pay for the service. This taught us that likes, shares, and comments don't equal customers. Social validation is not the same as market validation – people will cheer for your idea online, but may not open their wallets.
Reality check: If no one is willing to pay for it, it's not worth pursuing, no matter how passionate or interested in the business we are. This is perhaps the most brutal but valuable lesson in entrepreneurship – passion doesn't pay the bills.
Understanding the target market: As the weeks went by, we kept doing market research locally and abroad, and what we found is that most family-targeted services struggled to generate revenue. The reason was that families valued quick solutions, which for them meant throwing away what wasn't working and buying something new. Parents were not actively engaging in the circular economy, and if they were, they were doing it themselves instead of hiring and paying someone else to do it for them.
B2B vs. B2C: Cleaning services work in the B2B world and for very large items (carpets, cars, houses, walls, etc.). Our research revealed that businesses are more willing to pay for specialized services than individual consumers, especially when it comes to maintenance and repair.
Direct outreach: Our first and only paying client came through Google Business search results, not through social media. This highlighted the importance of being discoverable when people are actively searching for solutions, plus individual sales work wonders to book clients.
Validation timeline: One month might seem short, but it was enough time to see patterns emerge. Sometimes the market tells you "no" quickly, and that's actually a gift, as it saved us from investing more time and money in this idea.
Talking to competitors or similar businesses: Speaking directly with a similar business in Toronto provided invaluable insights that we couldn't have gathered elsewhere. It allowed us to receive direct and honest input on the realities of running such a business.
Some recommended resources
If you're interested in learning more about business validation and testing, here are some excellent books:
"What's Your Dream" by Simon Squibb
"The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries
"The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick