This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features 20-year-old college student Jacob Shaidle, founder of Ontario-based grill cleaning business, Shaidle Cleaning. Answers are edited for length and clarity.
Courtesy of Shaidle Cleaning. Jacob Shadle.
What was your day job or main job when you started your side hustle?
I was 15 years old in high school when I started my own business, Shaidle Cleaning. I’ve always loved physical activity, so this was a natural fit. Before I started my business, when I was 14 years old, I worked full-time in the summer at a tree farm, but when my parents told me I had to pay for university, I wanted to make more money than my salary to make sure I could. pay tuition fees. I was shocked to find out how expensive the school was! Today, I am a full-time university student during the school year and a full-time business owner during the summer. I plan to pursue Shaidle Cleaning full time after graduation.
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When did you start your side hustle, and where did you get your inspiration?
I started Shaidle Cleaning in the summer of 2021. My mom asked me to clean our barbecue at home and suggested I go knock on the street after doing such a good job. My parents talked about cleaning the neighbors’ grills to make more money than I was making on the tree farm. I would never have thought of starting a grill cleaning business if they hadn’t suggested it!
What are some of the first steps you took to get your side off the ground?
I needed the right cleaning supplies to get Shaidle Cleaning off the ground. Luckily, I already had a pressure washer at home from my dad, and I spent $400 on other equipment (100% of my savings at the time). That first summer in the business, I put everything in two grocery bags and walked half a mile from my house to clean the grills – I didn’t have my driver’s license or a car, so walking was my only option. The second summer, I earned enough money to buy my own car, which allowed me to expand my service area and double my income.
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What were some of the biggest challenges you encountered while developing your side hustle, and how did you navigate them?
My three biggest challenges with the business have been ensuring amazing quality even after hiring people, maintaining a good online presence and handling a large volume of clients. To ensure the quality of service, I found that good, well-organized training was very important. More importantly, however, was hiring hard-working, passionate people – people who had the same goals and ideas as me and who could work towards the same goal. Having an amazing team has been the key to the success of our business.
Maintaining a good online presence is really challenging as a small business competing with all these “sharks” who have a lot of customers and money to spend on ads. With the help of my friend Aran Giffen, we were able to establish a good online presence, selling people on the story and our youth, passion and drive than the actual service we offer. We want to make it clear that we are all students with the goal of helping other students, and that is how we express ourselves.
Finally, going from handling 100 clients in the summer to over 700 was a huge leap. As the owner, I want to have personal conversations with each client, make them happy with the service and make sure they have the best experience every time. Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough time in the day for me to do that. Instead, I used the great personalities of my staff to message, track and ensure customer happiness. We’ve also simplified client management with Jobber, which automatically stores all of our client information, sends automated messages and keeps everything organized for me as the owner.
How long did it take you to see monthly income? How much did the side hustle earn?
Since this is a seasonal business, I work hard every summer to make sure I increase my income from the previous season. In my first two months of work in 2021, I made $5,000. The following summer, when I had my own car, I doubled my income to $10,000. This was a two-month summer for grades 11 and 12. My first summer of university, I hit my first $10,000 month and finished the summer with about $30,000.
This summer, which was my fourth summer in business, we did $100,000 in revenue in 75 days, ending the summer with about $150,000 in top revenue. As a solopreneur, it hasn’t been too challenging to see a steady income over the summer. This is because I usually knocked on doors for a day or two to fill my weekly schedule. This past year, we had seven technicians and 20 people in total, so it was very challenging to keep up with the revenue. We had to quickly learn how to train staff, manage our sales team and deal with hundreds of additional customers. My good friend, Aran Giffen, has been a huge help in making sure our income stays the same by managing our website, classifieds and online ads.
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What does growth look like now?
I was able to grow my one-man hustle into a thriving business that has allowed me to hire dozens of high school and university students, helping them pay for their education. With a growing, passionate and hard-working team, we aim to eventually break seven figures in revenue. Automation is a big part of being able to grow a business. We recently automated our customer communications in partnership with Jobber last summer, which has helped us tremendously. This partnership has allowed us to expand our customer base to reach cleaning 1,000 grills and six figures in revenue this year. Before Jobber, I spent most of my time scheduling cleanings and sending reminder messages to clients about their appointments — it took up a lot of my day. Jobber captures that perfectly by allowing clients to book appointments online, automated reminder messages and invoicing at the end of our service, freeing up my time to focus on growing the business. We wouldn’t be able to hit six figures in revenue or hire employees without this partnership.
What do you enjoy most about this chaos?
By far, the most rewarding part of owning Shaidle Cleaning has been enabling my employees to pay for their tuition and university fees. I’m proud of my team and happy with what they’ve achieved so far, and I honestly only want the best for them. We built a company on hardworking, dedicated and passionate students, and I value their work and effort more than anything else. My business is more than just cleaning grills – we build a close-knit community of students and help them build and grow as people.
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What is your advice to others hoping to start successful side hustles of their own?
Find good people to surround yourself with. I used to think that it would be great to reach my big dreams on my own – very rewarding, practical and impressive. But I was completely wrong. One of my favorite parts of my job is meeting new people who can help and empower me in different ways. It is more beneficial to gather a group of people around a common goal and lead them to success than to do it alone. It’s much faster to build amazing experiences of others to propel yourself forward in business, and it’s much more impressive to stick to a plan with the people around you than to hike a mountain alone, leaving people behind.
With this message, there are four very important people I would like to mention who have helped me do amazing things in business. Aran Giffen, Brendan Quinlan and my parents. Aran has joined the ride for the third year and has become one of Shaidle Cleaning’s biggest assets. Brendan has been my mentor for just over a year now and has given me more knowledge, skills and advice than anyone else in the business. Along with my mom and dad – who have always been by my side encouraging me no matter what and have had the pleasure of watching this growth since the first BBQ – I am eternally grateful to these people and wish to continue growing with them.
This article is part of our ongoing Young Entrepreneur® series that highlights the stories, challenges and triumphs of being an entrepreneur. young business owner.
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