Cold open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb life, the share economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.

SPEAKER_04 0:12

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Through.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

What is up, Micah?

SPEAKER_05 0:24

Man, it is up. Everything is up. This uh beautiful Friday even Monday evening. I'm sorry. See, I don't even know it's Monday from Friday. What's going on? It's a beautiful Monday evening, man.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

It's good that it still gets up. Um, we're gonna have some fun today, man. Micah, how you been? You've been doing good in your real estate short-term mental journey?

SPEAKER_05 0:42

Good, been going good. Got a couple projects I'm working on, got a new one I'm starting up, and uh yeah, it's been going good.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

How about yourself? Oh, hectic as always, man, like I always say. But it's a passion of love, right? It's uh it's a labor of love, as they say. So and uh enough about us, man. This is episode 267 of your favorite short-term, mid-term, long-term rental podcast in the world coming at you from Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas, Micah. Hey Hoss, what we got going on today, Steve? It was under 100 degrees today, so we're happy. Uh, we have a special guest, uh, Mr. Derek Ajiri. And I said it right because I asked him before the show, who's

Why Derek entered short-term rental cleaning by accident

SPEAKER_03 1:22

that? The founder of Cleanster.com, the number one short-term rental cleaning app in the world, according to the app store. And Derek, too. I'm sure he would agree with that. So we're excited to dive in, man. Um, it's an honor to have you on. And I'm excited to get into it. So, first question why short-term rental cleaning? What brought you into that world?

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Well, uh, thank you for asking, uh, Steven. Um, and thank you guys for giving us the opportunity to to help you um to speak on your forum. So, short-term rental actually started as an accident. I would say an accident in the sense that we started as a home service. Um, but the way we were able to vet cleaners and process the hotel style of cleanings, the idea was that cleanster was supposed to be like the hotel style cleaning coming to people's houses. And then what we realized is we fight we had our first big client after uh 500 booking. And the client came and said, You guys are doing an amazing job. Your vetting process is spot on, your your is your references are spot on, and your ability to execute and make sure the cleaner shows up is also spot on. Why don't you enter the short-term rental space? So he gave us all his 25 units right away. And so then Gloria and I, my co-founder Gloria,

Nine months at zero profit to learn the business

SPEAKER_02 2:46

she's in she's been in the clean cleaning uh industry for a while. We start we sat down and said, okay, how do we deal with this? That time we had nothing, no knowledge about the short-term rental space. The the owner was very, very kind enough to walk us through the whole process. We were even forced to get our own property management um property in Montreal. That's when we started. And so we had our own, and we also started managing the client's own. The app was built, but it was so scrappy, and and every everything that we were doing was like, okay, we're not gonna spend a dime on this project until we figure it out. Um, so Gloria and I sat down. Um, we we we looked at the process, we looked at the volume of bookings, and so then we realized that, okay, these are the things that people pay attention to, but these are the things that cleaners pay attention to. We had to literally have cleaners who knew how to do short-term rentals. We didn't make profit on any of the service that we offered for the first nine months just to understand the market. So that was when we built alongside with our CTO at all, we built um cleanster. So we asked the client, what do you want on the platform? They tell us what they want. We see how they are using the platform, and then we built it in. And the same thing for the cleaners, we started getting the cleaners understanding the process and the conversation communication they gave us. Some cleaners even went a step further by helping us document things that they needed to do on their side. So we actually used that to build the foundation of cleanster. So again, it's by accident, we started off, and um, after that, we took another unit, we we nailed it, we kept doing that,

COVID forces pivot from Montreal to Dallas

SPEAKER_02 4:32

and COVID happened, so we had to pivot into the US. Um, technically, we're supposed to actually launch in after three years in US, but because COVID happened, we had to jump ship into US, and then we started racking up cleaning teams to start off. So that's how clean strip came about.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Yeah, that's a great origin story, right there, man. Thank you. So many different directions. You want to jump in, Micah, before I got answered. I asked one of my thousand questions I wrote down.

SPEAKER_05 5:01

No, I was thinking he said you guys pivoted during COVID. You know, it's actually funny that COVID forced you to jump ship and keep your business alive by going to another country. I love how you guys did that, man. It's it it, you know, it's gonna what I think Steve says it all the time all the time. Uh it's either gonna, I don't know, it's the the the pandemic, either make you or break you, man. Because yeah, you guys made you guys, hey, let's go get it. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

It's either you survive or you die, so we have we have to go the way of survival. So US and Dallas was the only open um city that we love to to start off with. And one of our investors was actually in Dallas, the other was in Austin, but we we figured Dallas would be the best choice because that investor in Dallas had properties there already, so he gave us the opportunity, and so yeah, um, we came in, we partnered with some huge players in Dallas, and then we started racking up cleaners, and that was when we we noticed that the business actually works more in the US than in Canada. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

One thing that that stood oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. So one thing that stood out to me, man. Well, it was something powerful you said. Uh you you said for nine months you didn't you didn't make a penny off this thing because you wanted to learn how how it works, and so you sacrificed money for knowledge. Now, a lot of people won't do that, you know. A lot of people, maybe me included, maybe me and Micah, we're like, yeah, we got we need them, we need that money. Show me the money. But um, but to be to sacrifice for one month, that's that's asking something, but nine months, but yeah, just to gain all that knowledge. I'm starting to see the power in that to myself and my own business, because I will take on a property that might not, you know, be you know the best income-producing property, but I see potential there and I see something that could lead us to something bigger. So I'll take on something, knowing that I probably won't make the most amount, but I'm gonna learn a whole buttload. So that was really powerful. Why were you so patient and able to sacrifice money for knowledge?

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Yeah, so the reason why we did that was Gloria understood the cleaning space, I understood the property management space, but I didn't really understand it well. I mean, sometimes you need people who have the knowledge, and this guy that gave us the opportunity gave us 25 units. How did he start from one to 25? And so that is when we said, listen, we're just gonna be a pass-through cost. We're not going to anything that the cleaner you pay, you pay directly to the cleaner. We're just going to assess it, inspect the units, see how things are being done in the management of your units. And so Gloria and I, I mean, we started off, and when we started, we actually even went the further off to clean ourselves. And everybody in the founding team cleaned in cleanster. So we understood that and we learned a lot from him. So then we said, okay, this is a lucrative business. Let's have our own. So then we started having our own as well. So it's very good to have when you're starting a business, you have to first understand if you're spending money that is going to give you a return on investment. In our case, nine months seems to be longer, but that was when we actually build the product gradually whilst we were learning. So it was a cost to us, but a real good investment for all three of the team members that started with it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Now your turn.

How Cleanster differs from TurnoverBnB on pricing and vetting

SPEAKER_05 8:27

I was gonna ask. So cleanster, because I'm I'm on the website. So basically, how does it work? Like it's an app. So how does it work? Like uh would turnover BNB be one of your competitors?

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Uh they are the the number one competitor on cleanster's radar. Okay. But the differentiator between us and turnover BNB is that um turnover BNB tends to give the constraint on the supply side and let them do work on bidding tasks while we negotiate both demand and supply and give them a price that both parties enjoy. And if you get the price, it doesn't change, it stays the exact same thing. So it's the same way for the cleaners. They've seen the price that they want, they accept it, and then the connection happens. Um that's the main difference between us and turnover BNB. The other differentiator is turnover BNB mixes uh SARS model with marketplaces, but we separate the SARS model and the marketplace. Um we started off as a marketplace, and so we're very strong at the marketplace. Turnal started off at a um um SaaS model, and so they have more strength in that. So when it comes to the quality control, when it comes to the um background check, vetting process, cleanster has the upper hand on that because now turnal is now learning that part and now adding things on there. So that's a key differentiator between us and turnal. The other thing is Turnal has more connections, they've been in the business for seven years, like partners and whatnot, in terms of connecting with other PMS, but we are catching up as we go. So that's the key differentiator for us. But everything else that you see on Turnal, CleanStore already offers it, and we offer the only difference is that we offer the pricing that every both party loves, and then the connection happens versus going through a blood of beds, negotiating with them. Um, some interviews, cleaners are great. A cleaner can tell you everything to get a deal, but in all honesty, your cleaning is what will judge your service, and so that's what makes us different. We vet them, make sure that we give them the location to go clean. After that, we open the floodgate for them so you actually get the best service.

SPEAKER_05 10:49

So that's oh, so basically, there's there's you know they anyone can't just sign up and be on cleanster, you gotta sign up and go to a pro. Ah, okay. I love that. I love that because we've talked about that before with other platforms that can lead to, but let me ask you a quick what is what do you mean by SaaS model for people that don't know?

SPEAKER_02 11:07

So SaaS model means that just running the software as a service, and so you want to just run it um whilst others chart like uh for example, we charge um $6.99 per unit and Turner charges eight uh per unit. So it's basically the software management. And we've seen that clients love what we've built because uh it requires it, it actually has the quality control features they are looking for. The first thing is your cleanup usually comes to your property every time. So they they they have photos of the past jobs. Um, the other part is that the competitor doesn't allow you to upload, allows, sorry, the competitor allows you to upload any photo while we allow you to upload photos that are 12 hours old. We have a technology that reads your your photos and capture it so your cleaner cannot upload any photos in the past, and so everything that you're getting from us is quality, and we allow you to upload up to a hundred photos in one time, you don't have to upload seven at a time. Um, so those are the things that help the cleaner. We've made it easier for the cleaner side. Um, Jobber actually put us as part of the people, the client, the company that actually has done cleaning very well. So cleaners cleaners love our service. So if you go into our cleaners review, you see we have 1500 cleaners reviewing our app store on the clean store pro app, and you'll be able to see that we do it better than the competitor.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Yeah, what about what about do y'all allow video at all or just pictures right now?

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Videos, we allow video. Okay, so maybe I have to talk a little bit about that. We allow videos, we allow uh um photos, you can send audio message like your WhatsApp. Um, you can actually translate when you send your checklist in English and the cleaner speaks Spanish or any other language, they just hit the translation button and every single thing on your checklist auto-translates.

Geolocation confirms cleaner arrival within 100 meters

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Nice in your notes, when you go into your notes, yeah, save notes and everything, the cleaner just hit the translation, it translates everything. And now we in we just launched something called cleanster bots. We've done this for a long time. So we actually built a robot that actually walks the cleaner through things that usually they miss. So in the messaging, you have cleanster bots in there that will message them of the property information, uh, cleaning process, what you are required to be done, and whatnot. So it alleviates you from even messaging the cleaners back and forth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

Uh one thing, because we can go uh we have so many questions about cleaning, because that's like the number one thing in our business. The most frustrating part, you know, uh the thing we need to get the most right because people come to a place they want it spotless, right? So, so so many questions to ask about that. One of one of the questions that that stands out is okay, for example, turnover BNB. We're on turnover BNB. We've been using forever because that's like the that's been around forever, right? And so here's here's what always is funny to me about turnover BNB. A cleaner will show up and clean whenever they show up and clean, whatever, and they get the cleaning done, and then um they they can actually go to the app and say, uh, so-and-so, Maria started cleaning, and then like one second later, Maria's finished cleaning. You know, they can do that, and it allows them to do that. I'm like, okay, wait a minute. I I don't know when they arrived, unless you're staying, you know, having your people look at the cameras and they kind of I don't know when they left, but I just know that they could in the same like one second, they could go. I started cleaning, I finished cleaning, and then that that gives them the payout, right? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, so that's a that's a weird thing. I don't know if your app is the same way, and I know you're gonna say it, eh? That's good. So what we do, what we did so sorry to cut you off.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

What we did just like your Uber Eats, you see your rider coming. Oh okay, we added that feature in there, and your cleaner cannot tap, cannot tap arrive to get the information without getting a hundred meters off your location. Uh-huh. So if they tap arrive, it means they've arrived. I see. That's a game changer. That's something. And then the good part is you can actually, if your guest says, Oh, I need to check out late, you see the screenshot, you see the time that the cleaner might arrive. You can actually take a screenshot and say the guests and say, Hey, it might be here, the cleaner will be here in the next 35 minutes or something like that. So that's what we incorporated. The first thing was to look at the Uber style of thinking, location, geolocation. So we incorporated in our system to make sure that we deal with that. And the second thing is we hired 1099 cleaners whilst turno does it on businesses. So sometimes the business manager can just go pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum without checking what's given out. Because he wasn't the one executing the job, it's someone else. But this one, the person is responsible, the person is taking control, and the person has accepted to make sure their property is clean right.

SPEAKER_05 16:11

Yeah, now I have a question and I because I'm excited about that. I like a lot of the features you guys offer because, yeah, one of the things Steve said, yeah, that's one of the pain points. What cities are you guys in?

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Right now, we um we are in um all of Texas, we are in all of Florida now. Um, we're going to California and then we're going to New

77,000 cleaners across Texas, Florida, and Canada

SPEAKER_02 16:34

York. Um, in Montreal, we are all in Quebec. Um, we also have Toronto. We just launched Toronto last two months, and we have a bit of soft launch in Calgary. In overall Canada and US, we have about 77,000 cleaners on our platform as of today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:52

So I do have like places in like smaller towns. What are you guys looking for when you're looking to expand to a new city? I know this uh size, of course, is one of them. I can tell New York, California, Texas. So, what what are you guys all looking for when you're looking to go to a new city?

SPEAKER_02 17:09

First of all, when we what we look for is basically how much supply we have in our database, because most of these cleaners refer themselves. So we have a saturation of cleaners. If we have enough supplies in that location, if the supply crosses 300 in a location, then we'll be able to open that location softly. But if we don't have more than 300 cleaners, we don't open that location. So typically that's how we launch in a location. But to be strategic on that, we typically look at um partners like airDNA to get all the data as in how much the frequency. While you guys are looking at revenue, we are looking at how the turn happens because that's how we make money. If you go to a place where they have a long-term stay or mid-term stay, it's good, but that means you need to have more customers to get that versus um places that people just come for parties and something, or just comes in within a week, you clean the place twice. That's always lucrative for us. So that's how we look at a city to launch, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Now, another thing, another issue was sometimes they wouldn't send pictures, or they you know, especially video, that then they never do that. But then sometimes they wouldn't, oh, we don't have time, we left, blah, blah, blah. Sorry, sorry. Um, I was like, is there a way? And I told my VA's research turnover BB, is there a way we can like not pay them until those pictures are uploaded? And I don't think there is a way. What about with y'all? Uh do they get paid? You know, only if they send the pictures.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

No, so typically what we do is more managed service. So online turnover, they just give you and then figure it out. We give you a managed service. If the cleaner that comes to your property uploads the photos and they are leaving and they try to close the job, and you said you need a photo required, they cannot close the job. And when they close the job and they put in those um fingers, uh finger crossing the image and just uploading anything else. Our our team at the back office would flag it, have someone else come and inspect it and make sure it's done right. So this is how we check it. And so when it comes to quality, we really zone in. We prefer quality over quantity, and so we take our time to do it right so that when it's time for us to push further, we're able to do it. So we take our time. So let's say we have clients that come in and say, okay, out of 100 cleaning, we have one particular cleaner that will be like, I don't want to do this, I just want to make some money and get it out. But then our system really flags it. We really have a way of flagging photos because the team at the back office really vets these cleaners. If they don't have more than 50 jobs, we don't leave them for the flat gate. Because anytime they have more than 50 jobs, they are more disciplined and they understand the thought process of the business than when they have less than 50 jobs.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Wow, that's a game changer right there. So now that we're comparing you to turn over, and it's gonna be happening a lot this show. I'm sorry, because that's the only one that we really know. Um, a rating

Rating system, same-night payout at 9 p.m. Eastern

SPEAKER_03 20:24

system. Do you have a rating system?

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Yeah, we have a rating system and a tipping system. So you can rate your cleaner and tip your cleaner. Um, if they are good, when you read them as your favorite, they become your primary cleaner. So every single time you use them, we give you that, and you can actually put your primary and backup up to a hundred primary and backup cleaners. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Damn. Now the the hosts get rated too, like in the Uber. Hey, this guy don't tip, man. What's up?

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Exactly. So hosts also get rated. But what we do is after both parties done, we do send an anonymous anonymous message for both parties and tell us how we did, okay, as a platform on their own. So the cleaners will come and tell us what they went through, and the client will come and tell us. So this is what helps us build the educational process. So some client will say, Okay, why am I not getting this particular cleaner? I love that cleaner. But then we'll sit down and review everything and say the cleaner might not be available. It might not be true that the cleaner is not available. Maybe the cleaner was uncomfortable at the first time of the um the property. So the cleaner has already told us, and that's where we gather enough information. So all the other information is all confidential on both parties. We just make sure that both parties are happy. And so if your service was not done right, we either refund you full or we come and re clean it for you, or we come in and make sure that the quality is done right at the beginning. And so on the cleaner side, too, we pay them every night. The reason why clean star is. Powerful is that we don't hold their money for seven days, we pay them every night. We build the system in there 9 p.m. Eastern time, they get their money.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Yeah, I love that because there are some good cleaners out there, but they want that Zell money, man. They want that hit.

SPEAKER_05 22:17

Yeah, that's like the that's the uh what is it? The DoorDash model. That's the true app model. I love that. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

And then one more thing, but we allow cleaners when you pay cleaners' expenses. Like let's say you want them to buy toilet paper and whatnot, we have an expense button for you to actually pay cleaners for the expense.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Oh my god. See, that's one thing that we've been pulling our hair out about because there's you can't do that turnover. Sorry, we're bashing turno. We love you guys because you know you got us all started. But I'm like, we have we're over here paying cleaners outside of the app, you know, which makes everything just a freaking mess when it comes to accounting. And and and you're sending it through, oh, send it to me Zell, send it to me, Cash App, send it me the god, it's such a headache. But I was like, there's no way to just pay him through turno. No, there's no way.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

So I guess another another one more thing to add on. If your cleaner gets to the unit and you usually pay me, you pay them $80. And let's say the cleaner goes in there and there's a party and you want extra time, you're not doing create another booking. You can actually add hours on the platform. You can add and take out hours as you want, so you can just have everything, and after that, you can share the link with Airbnb or booking.com as a if you have a report on that. They look at the photo with the stamp and everything, and they will be able to. Yeah, so that we really thought through the whole process of actually people doing this. So that's the difference between us. We took our time to understand the market in both angles.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Yeah, I love that so much.

SPEAKER_05 23:54

I love that. That's dope. I'm loving that now.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Now, you see, you did you mention hourly, and is that is it possible to pay cleaners hourly through your app? Yes, it's possible. Mike Michael wants the hourly, man. He always talks about the hourly.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

If people usually come and say, I want to do a fixed project, but I always say fixed is not really good. Hourly is more better, in my opinion, because typically you you give the cleaner a timestamp to finish something on time. Sometimes they want to speed up things and do it right, but they also know if they go over, they can come to you to have some conversation. Because if you some cleaner will just leave your property, like if you've had a problem with them, you just come in and say, Okay, there was a party here, and you have a check-in coming at 4 p.m. The cleaner will look at you and say, Listen, I'm leaving because this is not a two-hour job. And so, how do you solve that problem? So that's why we put that system in where you can add time, add expenses, make sure the cleaner is happy. Because if the cleaner is happy, your business

The 20% commission that drops to 5% after 500 jobs

SPEAKER_02 25:01

grows better. You don't you don't think about the cost when the cleaner is happy.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Man, love that. And what kind of what kind of percentage do you take from the cleaners?

SPEAKER_02 25:12

We take 20%.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

Oh, that seems high.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

It sounds high. Yeah, so we take 20%. The reason being that we eat the background check. So the other parties don't take the background check and we have to do it every year. We have to eat that, and we also pay out without charging the cleaner. So the cleaner, every time we charge, we take that $2 and pay because of the instant pay. We eat all those costs. So technically technically, it brings it down for us to charge about 12%, which is the actual amount that we are making. So the reason why we're charging high is because to make sure this is facilitated better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

And why and why are they cool with that when turnovers is a lot lower?

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Um, the first thing is one, they get paid on time, two, their rate also increases. So it's not just going to be 12%. So we've had cleaners, if you cross a hundred jobs, you get a dollar added on per hour. The client doesn't get any increase. So at some point, we will be charging 5%. So based on your performance, you're able to make more money and we get less commission. So it's just what we've done is basically build the trust within the system so that when someone comes and they have 500 um um what do you call it, bookings under their belt, it tells you that we've already paid them $4 extra. So when you do that $4, it even brings our rate so down to almost 6-7%. So eventually the idea here is to charge just about 5%. That's the whole thing here. But when someone comes in the first time, the risk level is very high and you might end up refunding people. You might insurance also, we cover the cleaners. All the cleaners don't pay insurance on our platform. They don't have to do any other insurance. We cover them with insurance. We have intact insurance that covers them with accident and death insurance. And we also have our insurance that liberty insurance that also covers the owners on the property of up to 2 million. So we are paying for all of these. And so we're alleviating that problem so that 1099 cleaners can come in, register, go through the vetting process, and start working. So that's the difference between us and turn. Turnal, on the other hand, will just allow you to pay $15, ask you to bring in, put get your certification by doing something and paying something. These guys, these cleaners are suffering already. Some people just want money and they have a good work to do. So why give them so much cost to actually get there?

SPEAKER_05 28:03

Yeah. I I love that you guys are basically you're incentivizing the cleaners. You're basically taking their paid, you know, your commission out by incentivizing them to be a good cleaner. Exactly. Because, you know, other platforms, you know, they do you have to kind of rate them, and then you know, people's rating scales are different, and it just kind of turns into a mess instead of you guys kind of controlling like this is a good one, this is a good one. I love that. And so by the way, people in Dallas, sign up for cleanster if you're a cleaner. That sounds like a good plug.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

I think Dallas, we have 1,250 cleaners so far in Dallas alone. Um, the reason being when we launched, um we started off very well and they loved it and they like the fact that they're able to take their own time. And one thing is that whenever you pay your cleaners' expense to do something, some of them will come to us privately and say we don't have the money. So they text us, we have a hotline at cleaners text us, and then we pre-fund the money for them for them to actually buy your expense for you. So no awkward conversations at all. So we really, really are the true when it comes to marketplace. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

It's funny. It makes me it makes because we asked you why they would allow you know 20% to come out, and you and you explained it great. You know, it goes further down the more cleaners they do, the greater job they do. But but to me, I was like, I bet the number one choice, and let's keep it real. I I go back to the marshmallow test. You heard of the marshmallow test with two kids that the two little or the kids that you know they put one marshmallow in front of them and said, We're gonna leave the room for 10 minutes. And if you if you don't eat it, we're gonna give you two marshmallows. And most of the kids they they can't wait, they need it now, they eat it, right? So they don't get the two marshmallows. And I think most people are like that. They they want to get paid immediately, even if you're gonna take 20% from their money, they still want it immediately.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah, so yeah, that's that's basically how a business model works. But um, eventually, when we raise enough VC money, that is when we'll go the turn route because turnal is really funding your business with VC money, that's why it's cheaper now. But when it gets to that point where they cannot raise funds, they will start to hike prices because you can't have so many employees just spending money on 10 and not enough volume, it doesn't make business sense.

SPEAKER_05 30:34

Yeah, makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

Wow, wow. Um, so building an app that that must have been pretty

Building four apps including a PayPal competitor

SPEAKER_03 30:40

easy, right? Uh okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

This is actually my fourth project. I'm I'm actually and I like building apps. My CTO and myself, we've worked together for almost 12 years, and this is not my first platform. I built uh a P2P um telephone transfer um paying each telephone number. It was more like a PayPal, but for telephone. Um it was called Zero Pay. I sold it out to um a company in Nigeria. Um, I also build fast.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

I was gonna I was gonna ask you you you're from Nigeria.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

No, I'm actually not, I'm actually Ghanaian. Ghana, yeah. Nigerian, yeah, but but I everybody sees me and like the way I I'm hot, I get things done. It's like, are you Nigerian? Like, yeah, you you gotta get that Nigeria blood in you because you pay everything cash, right? Right, my guy. Yeah, so yeah, I did, I did, I did do um I did build actually four projects, and then the last one before I built this was called Ace Buy. It was actually to to um um um um be a competitor for um what do you call it app work. And the reason why I didn't go the bidding routes was because Ace Buy was built like that. Ace Buy was built that the client will post the job and the team will just um bid, bid, bid, bid. And in the end, we realized that if the project is not huge enough, cleaners or the team or the whoever is managing it will tend not to bid anymore. So if they we had writers that came in, they would do a quick job for $50, and they're like, I don't want to, I don't want to bid for a $50 job. Or they'll have um developers that were doing maybe $1,500. That's worth having a secretary to sit down and do all of those things. But if you're doing the cleaning job and you have to bid for something under $50 or $100 or something like that, you can't hire a secretary to do that. It's like you're eating into your profit, so it becomes very, very expensive real quickly. So that's why that Ace Buy project, it really helped us understand the fact that the bidding system, if you don't have a large product project, it doesn't work in the long run.

SPEAKER_03 32:59

Yeah, so I like that, man. I like that. That's and this brings me to and I and I heard uh some some guys on this on the podcast the other day. I listened to entrepreneur uh podcast and it inspires me. But like they said, investing in people might be the the wave of the future, and you know, buying stock in somebody that you see potential in. And I was like, man, I didn't I'd buy stock in Derek right now because because they said here's the thing, you know, you invest them for the long run because you see some potential and not to the point and you and you kind of help you can help them coach them, you can help talk to them, and and and too, because a lot of people will go all in on the first project, and if they fail, they're not even they're gonna they're not gonna do nothing no more. But a true entrepreneur will fail and fail and fail and learn every time and it leads them to that big project.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Yeah, yeah, it really helped what we learned here. My my knowledge in the financial platforms, building that platform with the speed of payment helped our payment system and payout system. And then my knowledge in the part where we come to the bidding and the management system and operating the either the Uber style or the app work style, we figured that the reason why Uber style works better is because people don't have time to bid. Imagine if someone is requesting for a ride and you have to bid for $50, it doesn't make sense, so it's the exact same thing. People want instant gratification, and so instant gratification requires that the person comes in piching, everything is everybody is happy, business started off. So that is the model that really works better than uh bidding project, but app work for some reason, they figured it out, and so what they are doing is they they really take large projects and you are focusing more on the web developer side, and so that's how they are making their money, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

Yeah, nice. So, how much does it cost to build an app like like yours, man?

The $950,000 software cost and Morgan Stanley backing

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Um, so far, we the total cost of our asset is currently the the software alone was around 950,000. We're getting $2 million, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Um, so it cost us a lot um just to get that done. Um we had some huge investors like Morgan Stanley on our cap table, we have uh Zimu Capital, and we have Sputnik um um joining us, and then we had um Angel Investors, one Angel Investor in Canada, Tim, um Dominic, and then we we really have people who are supporting us. So when we started this, we're like, you guys are very scrappy, but what you're building is really unique, um, and you see seem to be listening to the clients more and more. So every single month, if you go to our app store, you see that almost every week there's a new release, and so we are really spot on. And the funny thing is, we don't have 150 employees, we're just under 20. Um, yeah. Yeah, it's it's that simple because the team that I've worked with, the development team, I've worked with them for almost seven years. And so when I start with one, they know it's two, three, four. And so the rhythm is always there, and everybody knows what part to play. And so that's how we're able to build better than any other person.

SPEAKER_05 36:22

Yeah. Man, you it sounds like you, man, you've done a lot. You've been in software, you you've done it all, man. You've been you even have Airbnbs now. Do you do you still have Airbnbs or how does that work?

SPEAKER_02 36:35

I still have Airbnbs. I have um three of them. One I own, the two I do arbitrage. Um, but yeah. Okay, and then like are those all managed through cleanster? Yeah, automatically. The funny thing is, I don't do any when I connected my PMS and I put the property information and I set everything for success. All that I used to do was when a guest complains that okay, this was not done right, then I add it to my checklist and request for photo. This was not done right, I add it to my checklist and I request for photo. That was it. And then after a while, the only thing I asked for in my in my auto, I added in the in the cleanstop bar. That's why I actually introduced the cleanster bar. I asked, do you check for supplies and make sure that we have enough supplies? And then we added in the box, is the place smelling good? Is the place um um um is the laundry and in the laundry machine empty, empty? Um we we've added a few things that really resonate with property managers. Is the door locked? Um, did the TV turn on? Did this do this? All these questions is very, very important for us. So that's why I'm building the whole thing based on my feedback as a property manager and able to be a one property manager that can manage it all without having to hire anybody else.

SPEAKER_05 37:59

Yeah, I love that. That's why it's easier for you to use some of your clients because you have the same paying point. So it's you're staying close to the fire. I love that. Okay. So this cleanster bot, because I'm loving this because it sounds a little bit like AI. Is that how is that kind of how it works?

SPEAKER_02 38:16

No, we actually built it with if and what. Okay. Okay. So that's what we built it with. The reason being that we tried to use chat GTP, but what was happening was with the if and but it usually goes into our app with the data and also goes outside the world and bring outside data in there. And we didn't have control over that. But eventually, we're actually doing a little bit of things like when you want to build a checklist and you're having your cleaners that are creating problems after the job is complete. What we are trying to do is actually create a checklist and send you a copy for approval because based on the conversation that you had, these are the things that are missing on your checklist. But it's going to take some time, you know. So everything that we're doing, we're focusing more on the simplicity and ease of the property manager having one operation agent to be have to have one app that will be able to communicate with every single thing. So that is what we're doing right now, and um it's it's it's challenging because it's a it's a very large machine

Cleanster Bot auto-messages and checklist translation

SPEAKER_02 39:24

learning, and to bring them into the zone of actual property management, especially in operations, um, you gotta do a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:33

Why don't you create your own PMP? PMS.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

No, it's too much for me. Um, I I think the PMS market is it's amazing, but it's too much for me. Um, I can't I can't get into it. Plus, I have some good people who are already doing the PMS. Um, so I don't want to who do you use?

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Who do you use? I I can't say you can't say who your PMP or PMS, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

I I say it's right. No, I do have I do have one that I'm working with, um, but I can't say because it might hurt others, you know.

SPEAKER_03 40:09

Um, okay, off the air, we'll ask you. Yeah, out of the air. I'm always looking for a good one, man. I'm always looking for a good one.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

PMS systems that I've seen is if you have a PMS system that does it all, it's good, but it's also a disadvantage. They have to specialize, and that's where I see the value. If you're a PMS system and you do it all, specialization is is very required, in my opinion. Um, like communication has to be spot on because that's the main pain point because you're building a channel manager that has to work. Everything else is a it's an is it's it's an eyesid or the cake.

SPEAKER_05 40:50

So I might ask a question, it's kind of rhetorical. Are you looking to partner with the PMP right now?

SPEAKER_02 40:57

Uh which one PMS or PMS? Are you looking to partner with one? We are connected with actually we have all the PMS, including Airbnb. Really? Uh yeah. Okay, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_06 41:09

I didn't know you were connected.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

We're connected with everything, all the PMS. We we have hospitable, we have hostaway, we have guests.

SPEAKER_05 41:18

Ah okay, that's why I don't want to say okay. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Okay, good. Now I didn't know that, so I'm now about to be looking for you guys. I'll be looking for you.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Yeah, we we connected before before our competitor announced that they were connected with Airbnb. We were already connected on our side through our facility, one of our partners in PMS. Yeah, so we already had the connection before they even announced yes. Uh, are you guys connected with hostfully? Hostfully, yes.

SPEAKER_05 41:46

Okay, cool. Check you guys out.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

He said hospitable. I'm using hospitable, so yes, and and and I can me and Mike can talk about it, you know. I I use it, I I kind of inherited it in my business. And it's just so it's so slow, man. It's so slow. And I and Micah mentions this growing pains because they be they came from they were for messaging, they were built for messaging, and then they transitioned into being uh full a full-blown PMP or PMS, whatever whatever you want to call it, property management platform or software. Um and and so with that comes the growing pains, and we have over 50 properties, so it's it's just it's just it's just slow, man. And then when you're working with VAs and in other countries, it's even slower for them, you know. I'm saying wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

I I think I think most of this these PMSs, if you are able, I mean, if you want me to connect you to Pierre, I know Pierre personally, I will be able to listen to your pain. Um yeah, if you have any concern, I would I would reach out to Pierre right away. He's a very, very nice guy. I typically don't like to choose any PMS, um, because I know all of them. Um, um, what do you call it? Um, hostfully, I know the the founder. Um, a very, very nice person. Um Margo, right? Yeah, Margot. Yeah, she's actually on my LinkedIn. We connected, very, very nice lady. Um, I like the vibes. Our co-founder and CEO is actually a lady. I'm supportive for women founders, so I I really stand for that. Um, so yeah, um I do I do not encourage moving from one PMS to the other because all of them have their strengths and their weaknesses. If you find one that is working and makes your life easier, you just talk to the property, you just talk to the support team or give them your pain point. And if you have a problem, just reach out to me. I'll be able to connect you to any of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

Beautiful. Yeah, it's been a great show, man. I I'm so happy you hopped on. And it's so cool. Um you created something because you were you were doing it yourself and and you you learned what what needed what it needed to be. you know you you from the inside out and that's pretty cool not not somebody that's never you know been in the business and decided to make an app but but you learned it by being hands on cleaning cleaning yourself cleaning toilets scrubbing things man and saying this is how you know this is the way to build the app and so I thought you're a funny story I thought you're running before we leave you know I used to

Cleaning toilets under the alias Frank

SPEAKER_03 44:23

I used to call myself Frank as an alias on the cleaner side when we started we didn't have a lot of cleaners and the demand was getting so rough gloria was also called like momia in the in the app we actually um did do some service we went there we actually cleaned ourselves we actually did clean and i i think i learned something from brian chesky being the photographer in umb so i'm like hey screw it there's even a video of me stalking in the sneeze in the what do you call it in the mirror saying we're gonna be a billion dollar company is i love it it was like i would not be doing this i'm my profession is actually an accountant i've done with my american accountant by profession um but i'm mostly in the foundation accountant you come to me and you're starting your business i build a foundation so yeah that's that is um what what i loved i did do a lot of service but yeah i went into this wholeheartedly with my co-founder like it's a do or die let's get it done and let's get it right you know that reminds me you're what you're willing to do in your business's valleys is how high that your business will peak so if you're willing to do that and go in the valley when you guys are just starting to go clean you guys will peak you know you know Steve I had to pull him out of the bathroom though he kept standing there I was like man you gotta quit cleaning the bathroom man you gotta get it clean I had to like drag him feet scratching he wanted to clean cleaning that toilet dude yeah we had a case we had a big case where the client's toilet just flooded out and then we're like looking for cleaners and no cleaner every cleaner that went there was declining so I'm like screw this let me put on some gloves so I went there aka frank and I made sure the place was cleaned you know so it was it was more of a hustle um yeah I I did I did a lot and I learned a lot and I'm still learning and when we go to cities sometimes I just want to to do it I'm I'm intended to go in as a cleaner and then my co-founder Gloria was like we've passed that level stop doing that Derek that it's funny you said say that though you you gave yourself an alias frank and and I would you know even after that he pulled me away from uh Michael pulled me away from the toilets man stop cleaning the toilets bro I was helping my wife damn it she wanted to clean and make some extra money and I which means I had to go home so so anyways so anyways after that happened then like things will come up like a like a toilet clog toilet or whatever whatever you know a maintenance thing and I'd be like you know I'd tell them hey okay I'm gonna send the maintenance man out there you know sending them a message we'll send a maintenance man out there right away boom boom boom I was the maintenance guy so I show up I didn't want them to know I'm the founder of the company so I'm over there unclogging a toilet or fixing uh whatever needs to be fixed you know but I did just I didn't want that I didn't want to be known as then I might have got a bunch of questions oh so you're the you're the owner of no well this and this and this I didn't want to hear all that hey I'll go tell the I'll go tell the owner man I'm just I'm just the main it's guy yeah it's very very important that when you're starting a business you start off and like we were we're getting it covet was in there was growing very fast and we didn't have a lot of team so it's like Laura's like yeah let's do this but yeah and then we said okay if we do this are we going as founders or are going as quick so that was when the conversation started so yeah um we learned a lot on the field and we really did do a good job yeah get your hands dirty yeah we have a podcast actually called don't be dirty so oh yes we got one we got a podcast called do be dirty do be dirty oh we get dirty on this show we get into it man so so I'd like to uh appreciate you hopping on man and I guess where can people find you I know cleanster.com yeah so you can go to cleanster.com slash lp I think that's the page for um what do you call it um um property managers because we still have a chunk of our home service clients so when you go to the main website you're not gonna have the effect as just going slash lp and you'll be able to see our landing page for short term rentals dedicated for short term rentals and cleaners hey if you want to be a cleaner out there listening to the show make some extra extra money so you can save up for your first um arbitrage yeah hit up cleanster man go make that money get that same the good thing the good thing for cleaners is we don't penalize cleaners we don't if the cleaner makes a mistake we take care of the cleaner because after 50 cleaning they have a bad day and they are not able to execute on one day that doesn't mean you should charge the cleaner so this is why I again it comes back to the commission the peace of mind for the cleaners knowing that they're gonna get paid at the end of the night and we making sure that your place is spotless in case something happened and you're not happy we pay for it.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

So the cleaners are not penalized on ourselves so that's one of the things that really cleaners love about us.

SPEAKER_03 49:46

Yeah I see I see I see it you know I don't know I get all these uh stories in my head but like a cleaner a lot of them sometimes you know they bring their son along or their daughter to come you know teenage daughter to help them clean and stuff like that and I could just picture that man hey hey mom I want this you know can you hey you want that uh it's gonna be four cleaners today let's go let's go hit it and you get the money and in the night you can get that thing I like I mean damn that's powerful right there come on let's go let's go get that money yeah it's it's and we've we've seen a lot of companies come to us and say we love the way your platform is cleaning companies come to us and they want to use our platform so we do have cleaning companies that reach out to us with multiple properties mostly in California area so we've had that um experience that cleaning companies come to us and love the platform but we've not had any problem when it comes to our quality control measures so far. That's awesome man an enlightening show about cleaning man yeah it's the most important thing about Airbnb is you're getting it clean.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

Yeah and I will definitely be reaching out um definitely be reaching out you should um yeah we we again we will hit you off very very nicely and the team actually works with you so what we do is we do a lot of hand holding at the beginning so when we set you up we will ask you do you have a checklist? Do you want us to migrate it for you? Do you want everything to be done? We take you we take care of you you just have to just connect your PMS or anything or Airbnb directly and then we will do the research when I click you the first one we connect you with our billing at cleanstore.com which is the support team they will help with the communication see what is working and then add on to your checklist and after one month we let you run yourself typically clients stay with us for almost 12 months before they leave and when they leave it's either they've lost their unit or they are going into a different business or going to the hotel style business and some of them would want to have owners some owners don't want to use 1099 especially when it's hotel um yeah okay interesting cool man thank you so much for hopping on Derek and we look forward to talking to you again and talking to you off air because we want some more answers man we want answers thanks uh Steven and Mike where can people find you in your app um go to cleansta.com slash LP or just cleansta.com and then click sign up when you click sign up the same thing that you're looking for you get the same magic we ask you do you want to manage your cleaner or do you want to use cleansta cleaners? So then that's it.

SPEAKER_03 52:25

Intriguing thank y'all for watching thank you all for listening live let thrive at gmail.com livelet thrive.com all that fun stuff we will see you next week yeah yeah yeah follow us in on Instagram tick tock live let thrive and we are out peace later thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails by the way