Filip Boksa

Co-Founded BookingKoala and King of Maids. Grew his first business (cleaning service) to over 5 million and 100 workers by 22 with $6,000 and no outside funding. Today focuses on helping services through BookingKoala.

How To Start A Business (7 Steps To Freedom)

Coming from someone who started multiple businesses, I know from experience how incredible an entrepreneurial journey can be. I would be lying if I said it’s all positive 100% of the time, but even with the lows, it tends to be something that one can enjoy forever. 

Before you start browsing through business ideas, you must understand that business is a marathon and not a sprint. Anyone who tells you or tries to sell you a shortcut is not in it to help you but to help themselves. I’ve been there many times, and if it sounds too good to be true, it certainly is. To build a successful business, you need commitment, hard work, and a good plan. 

In this article, we will cover several vital parts of business most people aren’t talking about:

  • Commitment
  • Execution
  • Good plan
  • 7 steps to take to achieve complete freedom
    • Pick something that is easy to start
    • Outsource what you can and hire when you can
    • Focus on a particular niche
    • Start with free channels to kickstart your business
    • Focus on establishing your brand name
    • Learn, adjust as you go, and be patient
    • Build new streams of income
  • Some business ideas entrepreneurs are starting today
  • A few helpful resources to help you get started with your new business

Let’s get started!

Commitment

You need to be committed to your business as much as one be committed to a successful marriage. It starts with the day you decide to start a business. The moment you get the idea, you should know if you’ll commit to it or not. I remember starting my first business at 19 years old with my best friend from high school. My friend told me that there would be no quitting if he started this, and when I told him I was committing, I meant it. It wasn’t just excitement. It was knowing that I needed to make this work. This is my life, and I can’t just waste my time and his. I knew he felt the same way, and as a result, by the time I turned ~22, we hit over $5,000,000 in revenue, and my life was never the same since.

Commitment is critical, and if you’re not going to commit, you’re wasting your time, and if you’re doing it with someone serious, your wasting theirs too. If you’re committed, it won’t matter if you have no experience, no loans, no connections, no degrees. We sure didn’t have any of that, but commitment led to hunger, leading to execution, which then turns to results. We made plenty of mistakes, so if you think you need to know everything when starting a business, you’re mistaken. The important part is to learn from the good and the bad and keep executing.

Execution

If you’re not committed, you’ll know based on how you’re executing throughout your day. Don’t think you need to be passionate about something to perform well either. When I first started a cleaning business, it wasn’t a business I was passionate about. Not many 19-year-olds have a dream of owning a cleaning company. Yet, it didn’t matter because the goal was to achieve financial freedom, and the hunger to reach it was the motivator. 

Commit, and find a motivator that will help you execute every single day. I’m not going to say that taking a day off is terrible, but staying productive is critical, especially when you’re starting out. After a while, you’ll get good at things within the business, and you’ll start to enjoy a specific process. Once you do, you’ll wake up in the morning feeling excited, and work will become fun. Naturally, you will start to execute, and your business will grow.

Good plan

Your plan when starting a business should be to replace yourself within the company. Many people don’t realize how big of a goal this actually is. There’s no competitor more powerful than one who is motivated, doesn’t stress about income, and has the entire day to improve their business.

When we started King of Maids, I answered customer calls seven days a week from 8 am to 7 pm. My partner managed cleaners and helped with live chat and emails. These tasks are highly daunting and will burn you out if you’re doing them for ten years. I can assure you that no competitor is worried about a business owner that focuses on daunting tasks all day long. We had to do those tasks because we didn’t have much money to hire the help we needed, and I can speak from experience that those tasks were slowly burning us out. After a year, we reduced our business hours from ending at 7 pm to ending at 5 pm because we needed more time to focus on growth. We grew, and we finally had the money to hire the employees that would eventually replace us and give us freedom.

When freedom came, breakthroughs came. We were able to double the business the following year, and I eventually created BookingKoala, which now is home to thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide. It’s also the business I’m passionate about, and I love working and growing. This is the big secret of growing a large and successful business, and your plan should be to get to this level of freedom as soon as possible. From then, you’ll have time to do things that will take your life and your business to the next level. 

Keeping this in the back of your mind will also allow you to stay motivated. Keep telling yourself that you won’t be stuck working like this forever. Until then, keep working, and don’t let anyone discourage you from your goal.

Now that you understand your goal should be to replace yourself let’s follow a 7 step process that will help you do that. Once you get there, I bet anyone can develop creative ideas to take their business to the next level, especially if they are hungry and motivated to keep growing.

The 7 steps to reaching freedom

  1. Pick something that is easy to start
  2. Outsource what you can and hire when you can
  3. Focus on a particular niche
  4. Start with free channels to kickstart your business
  5. Focus on establishing your brand name
  6. Learn, adjust as you go, and be patient
  7. Build new streams of income

Step 1: Pick something that is easy to start

There are many businesses in demand, so pick something easy to start if you’re starting your first business. I got lucky I picked the right industry as my first business. I’m not sure I’d be where I am today if I didn’t because it was so much easier starting and growing a home cleaning business than any other company I started after. Home cleaning is an extremely popular industry because everyone needs a home cleaning once in a while and securing a few clients to get going is not that hard. It’s low cost to start, and things get much easier after you have some recurring revenue and profits coming in monthly.

There are many small business ideas out there that are in high demand. Don’t make the mistake of trying to be the next big thing unless your goal is to raise capital, and even then, no one will throw money at you without any previous background or growth to show for it. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but it will be much harder than starting your first business in an industry with a proven business model that is in demand and one that requires little money to start.

If there is a necessity for the product, it will be much easier to sell. People need to live somewhere, so selling a new construction home is a service that is always in demand. Food and water are something everyone needs. Those are absolute necessities. Then some products are more of a luxury but can be argued that are necessities for certain people. Those would be dog toys. You don’t necessarily need to buy a toy for a dog. However, owners will buy it no matter what because they want their pets to be happy, bringing an owner joy. There are also services like home cleaning where you can do the job yourself, but busy people or those that just can’t stand cleaning will pay for it no matter the cost. These would all be examples of products and services in heavy demand.

You established that there is a necessity. What about the cost of starting your business and the difficulty of getting it to product-market fit? This is something you have to figure out next because if you don’t have much money and it’s your first business, you need to pick something that isn’t that hard to start and has a low cost of entry. The home cleaning business was easy to start because it didn’t require a lot of money upfront, and providing value can be instant. You can start it for free if you really want to. Go knock on a few doors in the neighborhood, get a client for free, and clean the property yourself every week. Not how I started and not how we teach you how to start a home cleaning business, but it is possible to start that way. 

If you decide that you want to build out your own app, software, or a new physical product that no one has ever seen before, things can go wrong very quickly. I admit this can go both ways. You can get rich very fast because your product is an instant hit, or you never make it to product-market fit because either no one likes what you made, or you don’t have enough resources to reach product-market fit. It’s most likely the latter if you have no experience and don’t have much money. This isn’t a guess or an opinion either because it’s a fact that most people fail when starting a business. Pick something in demand and is easy to start. You can always find your passion or start something new after your first business takes off. 

I will give you 3 examples of real businesses I started over the years. The first, as I mentioned, was the home cleaning company which you already know was easy to start and low cost. After that first business took off and we had some free time, my partner and I started a dog subscription box as our next business. We sold it within a year, but I think someone failed at it, and that business is no longer active. If you’re curious about it, you can search ‘Surprise My Pet’ on Google, and you will probably find some history on it. 

That 2nd business wasn’t as easy, nor was the startup cost the same. First, we had to order things in bulk to secure discounts and make the profit margins work, which made the startup expenses very high. Second, it wasn’t as quick to launch and secure our first client. It took several months to get our products right and create our first box. Out of all the businesses I’ve been a part of, that one was by far my least favorite.

BookingKoala is the 3rd example, and it’s a business I run today. Originally I built out the software for my cleaning business, and the development started sometime end of 2013, early 2014 if I remember correctly. In 2017 we decided to turn that into its own business, meaning that we were already building it out for about 4 years prior to that decision. Then we launched mid to end of 2018, so another 1+ years to redesign it and let others use it. Time-wise, it took 5 years to develop the software with the budget and ESTABLISHED team I had. It’s by far the best business I’ve been in but the investment, both in time and capital, was massive. Definitely not something I could’ve done as my first business, nor without the help of outside funding.

Those are my personal experiences and why I believe that you need to start somewhere accessible if you have a low budget and no experience. If you have experience with businesses, have more money to invest, and the connections, you can begin somewhere more challenging.

Step 2: Outsource what you can and hire when you can

The most crucial part of any business is making sure that money is coming in and your business is growing. If money comes in, problems get solved quickly, and when money is tight, issues arise. Your goal should always be growth, and the most effective entrepreneurs are the ones that are stress-free and have the entire day to think about that one specific goal.

To reach that goal, you need to have a set of smaller goals, one of them being a focus on outsourcing and hiring. When you start a business on a low budget, you don’t have the luxury of having an open day to think about growth. Instead, your day is juggling 20 different tasks at once, ensuring everything is completed by the end of the day. It’s chaos, and I’d argue that the startup days are the most challenging days in terms of the hours and the daunting tasks you have to perform. If you work such a schedule for years, it will burn most people out, and they will think that being a business owner isn’t worth it. That is why it should be your goal to get yourself out of that situation as fast as possible, and then entrepreneurship will get much easier.

When you start your business, know your financial situation, outsource what you can, and hire when you can. Also, realize what you want to accomplish with your business. When I started, I knew I wanted to own a big company, so I needed to keep learning skills to make me a better entrepreneur. My realization was clear, and I made each decision after that to get closer to that goal. I understood our budget and my situation, so we started to outsource what we could.

Our first decision was before we ever launched our website and opened the doors for customers. We knew early that we wanted to go after the online market, which meant we needed specific website capabilities. This required development and development was and still is expensive. This required a decision to be made. Do we want to learn development, or should this part be outsourced to someone. We decided not to learn it because we weren’t planning on using this skill in the future, and we didn’t have the patience to learn development.

This is where most of our $6,000 budget went, and if not for development, we could’ve quickly started the business for under $1,000. Today because of BookingKoala, you have a better website and better tools than when we started, and all you have to pay is $27 per month. You also have the privilege to get up and running in a day versus waiting months for development to finish. That was the hurdle that we were facing, and it could’ve been a better decision short term to learn and save the money, but long term, it was definitely the better decision not to learn development, especially since it would’ve been a skill neither founders would use later on.

The next decision was to either do the cleanings ourselves or outsource them to someone else. Neither of us wanted to clean, and it wasn’t a skill a founder needed to know, so we found cleaners to do all the cleaning. We’ve now completed over 100,000 jobs, and I personally never cleaned a home before. It’s not possible to do that for everyone, but do it if it’s in your cards.

For us, it was easy because we lived at home with our parents. They paid for our food, living, etc., so we could break even and focus on building our brand. For someone who needs to make money right away to pay bills, you would have to do the cleaning yourself. It’s essential to realize the opportunity before you and go from there. I can’t tell you which you should do, but if you can outsource something, then do it.

For those thinking we had it easy, we didn’t. We both went to college full time maintaining good grades, which means we put in the effort. My partner had a job, and I also had a full-time job. We didn’t have much money and were young, so we didn’t experience much out of life. We got lucky that we lived with our parents and realized the opportunity, but there were other things that we didn’t have. Some of you might not be living with your parents, but you may have more money you’re willing to invest or have already gained different life experiences that may give you an edge when starting.

If we had more money when starting, we’d outsource customer service and hire someone to help with onboarding new cleaners. We didn’t, so we had to do that part ourselves and work our way up a bit of revenue and profit at a time. I answered phone calls from 8am to 7pm 7 days per week for over a year straight without ever missing a day. During that time, my partner managed all the cleaners, and together we worked on emails and live chat. Then after hours, we worked on marketing and the growth of the business. This was extremely daunting, and lots of hours were involved initially. After a year we reduced our hours and closed at 5pm instead of 7pm. Those 2 hours gave us extra time to focus on growth.

A larger startup capital would’ve allowed us to outsource this part of the business, but it wasn’t in the cards. It was also the only task that made sense for us as Founders. Since these tasks were the easiest to learn and understanding customers and management was necessary as an entrepreneur, it made the most sense to do these tasks instead of learning how to clean or development. Eventually, when we grew, we entirely replaced ourselves, and then we gained the freedom to focus on the big picture.

Step 3: Focus on a particular niche

One small niche at a time is what you should be focusing on. Don’t expect to come into a brand new business and be good at several things at once. It takes time to learn specific parts of the company and expand. Usually, those who start targeting everyone end up targeting no one. Paint a picture of your perfect customer and go after them by providing the most value and the best product and service to that specific customer. It’s the only way that you’ll win.

At the start of my journey, I had no experience. I was young and very ambitious, which sometimes led me into trouble because I wanted to go too fast, much faster than our resources allowed. My partner and I both read many times from people much more ahead in business that getting specific into a niche is the only way to go, but we both didn’t listen. We thought we could do better because even though I like to learn from others, at the same time, I believe that sometimes their advice might not be any good. The part I didn’t realize at the time is that every successful person always said to narrow down on your audience. It wasn’t just one person. It was everyone, which was a good indicator that I should’ve listened to their advice. Instead, we ignored the advice and started by going broad.

Our home cleaning business opened up to all customers that wanted to book with us. Small homes, large homes, residential cleaning, commercial cleaning, post-construction cleaning. We serviced you if you lived in the suburbs or in the metro area. We covered it all. I was young and inexperienced, making a mistake, but luckily I was smart enough to understand feedback and adjust quickly based on that feedback. It wasn’t very long before we started to get complaints from customers and cleaners. Customers didn’t like when we sent 1 cleaner to do larger homes or if 1 cleaner was sent to do office cleanings or post-construction cleanings. The job would be too difficult for one person, taking too long. The cleaners didn’t like that either because they were assigned more than they could handle, they made more mistakes, and we received more complaints. When we started hiring teams, that was another challenge because now groups would argue and quit on each other. They also made less money working in teams. There was also the problem where one team member would be sick, and 4 jobs would need to be canceled for the day versus 2 if an individual was ill. The more cancellations, the more unhappy customers. It was just too much to focus on for a startup.

A few months in, we stopped doing anything over 5 bedrooms, and we focused on hiring individual cleaners ONLY. We also decreased our working areas to cover only the metro area and its closest suburbs. We also became very transparent with our customers if someone wanted to book for office cleanings and post-construction. We told them that an individual would be coming to the job upfront and that we mainly specialize in home cleaning so that they understood what they were getting themselves into if they still wanted to book the service. This was a game-changer for the customer and us because we dealt with nearly no complaints after the changes, and overall, everything was easier to manage. We also increased profit margins and figured out the best approach for a specific client.

Later, when we opened up our next business, Surprise My Pet (the one I mentioned earlier), we dealt with the same decision. Do we want to open up to dogs, or do we want to open up to dogs and cats right away? This time around, we decided to only open up to dogs, but we still made the mistake of not going narrow enough. We opened up to all dogs, but we should’ve focused only on small dogs right from the start. Small dogs and large dogs are entirely different, and it made it much harder to make the subscription box for both of them from the start. We needed to test more products and spend more money upfront targeting both small and large dogs. Smaller dogs also resulted in fewer complaints overall because larger dogs destroyed their toys a lot faster.

Then when I started BookingKoala, we didn’t make that mistake again. We went as narrow as possible and focused on the home cleaning industry first. Since the software was initially built for home cleaning companies, we focused on that industry only. There was also the decision to target those who want to start a company or those already in business. Again, these are 2 separate owners, just like small and large dogs. Both have different problems they are facing, and by targeting both, you’re making it harder on yourself as a startup. Then as time went by, we started to gain resources and broaden our target to those who are already existing business owners in the home cleaning industry. After that, we went after the mobile car wash industry since it was closest to our primary industry, and users were already using the software.

Going narrow makes it a lot easier to market your company as well. You can target a particular group, and it’s easier to find them and speak to them when you understand the very pain points they are facing. When you have limited resources and little to no experience, you need to figure out the best and easiest way to get started. Don’t expose yourself to failure and burnout. Get to the point of getting 1 client at a time and growing a bit of revenue at a time. Then there will come a time to add in other audiences you want to target.

Step 4: Start with free channels to kickstart your business

One sure way to fail as a new entrepreneur starting your first business is to start with paid advertisement. If you have a limited budget and spend it all, you’re closing doors right after. It’s easy to read about how great Facebook ADs or TikTok ADs are and how they made people multi-millionaires but trust me, it’s not as easy as most people make it out to be. Usually, the people who cracked the code are experienced marketers and/or have a very appealing product and offer that allowed them to become successful. In most cases, you’ll learn that it takes a lot of money to find a winning product and offer when running paid advertisement. Some businesses test 20+ products and offers before finding a winner. What makes you think you will be the one entrepreneur with no experience to crack the code on your first try and with your first $1,000. It’s unlikely, and I’d recommend staying away from anything paid unless you have experience, money, or help from someone trusted.

Another reason why you should stay away from it is that your brand new business might not have reached a product-market fit. What I mean by that is that you may have a cleaner ready to go and clean a home but what if that first cleaner is horrible. You just spent $500 securing several clients for the cleaner, and now they all cancel, and you have to provide refunds because of the poor quality service they received. You’re then in the same spot. $500 spent on ADs, and if that was all your money, you’re done or at least on pause till you make more money from your current job if you have one. What if you’re selling a physical product, and everyone gets that product, and it’s not what they’ve expected because you don’t know how to create an excellent descriptive landing page. You’ve overpromised and underdelivered or maybe didn’t put enough information on the product’s landing page. If not enough information was provided, perhaps someone bought it in case it was something they potentially needed and returned it later after realizing it’s not what they hoped it would be. Yes, paid ads can be a fantastic resource, but only if you know what you are doing. You should find a free channel to kickstart your business if you don’t.

When I started, we used Craigslist to kickstart our business. Craigslist was free at the time, and we posted an AD every day, most days multiple times per day. The AD advertised our services and always included a coupon code to ensure that we were the cheapest priced service on there. Understanding Craigslist, we knew that the platform’s viewers cared about the price more than anything. It was essential for us to give them what they wanted. It was also crucial that we didn’t lower our original prices on our website but offered a large coupon such as 50% OFF all services. This made it look like we are a good service with a significant discount. There was a deeper strategy than just obtaining clients at a considerable discount.

One objective was to secure some of these clients and get them to stick with us on an ongoing basis. A lot of them did not since they truly shop based on price, and if the next cleaning is full price, they rather just go on Craigslist again and find someone cheaper. However, a very few of them did, and after doing that for a few weeks, we got enough recurring clients from Craigslist to start making a monthly profit. That was important because it gave some security and peace of mind that money was coming in each month.

Our second objective was to rank on the first page of Yelp. Since, at the time, Yelp was in the beginning stages with far less competition, we knew that getting to the first page of Yelp could be very good for us. We began studying their algorithm, and at the time, it was evident that the more reviews and the better company rating, the better chance of being listed on the first page. Today as I write this, the algorithm has changed, and that is no longer the case, so be careful when studying a platform’s algorithms as it often changes. To get reviews, we again leveraged those same Craigslist customers. We were getting them at a massive discount for a reason, and this was the second objective aside from objective one. The goal was to lock in as many Craigslist customers as possible and get them to leave a review on Yelp. It took several months, but the strategy worked, and Yelp ranked us on page one of their search results. Once that happened, the business took off, and customers booked full price. A bit later, we stopped looking for clients on Craigslist.

During that time, with the bit of money we had coming in each month from the Craigslist clients we secured, we also started advertising with Yelp. It was a big mistake because we had nearly 0 reviews compared to some of the established businesses there, and with no online presence, we were getting 0 leads. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Why would someone go with a business with 2 reviews when they see the following 5 on the same page with many reviews. This is why one should not start with paid ADs when they have no experience. Luckily for us, we had some money coming in already, but you’re out of luck if you don’t. It’s also easy to fall for this trap because when we signed up for Yelp, the sales reps were very aggressive, promising all sorts of stuff. To a person with zero experience, you will likely fall for the trap. We certainly did, and to make things worse, at the time, Yelp made you sign a 12-month contract which we did. Yelp ADs are excellent, just like Facebook ADs, but you have to understand how to use them effectively and when to use them.

We also didn’t realize it at the time, but Craigslist allowed us to reach product-market fit for free before we went onto Yelp. During those months, we were turning jobs from Craigslist while figuring out our service. Those early cleaners that were no good were quickly being filtered out. We were also figuring out our prices and our customers and improving our service. By the time we started to receive a wave of clients from Yelp, we had many great cleaners while all the bad ones were already gone and filtered out.

Step 5: Focus on establishing your brand name

Well-established brands win in the long run, and you should do whatever you can to ensure your reputation is the best of your competitors. A well-established brand allows you to charge higher prices and sell to customers with much less effort. Also, if you didn’t know this already: all great companies make most of their profit on the back end. That means that if you’re not focusing on establishing your brand, your customers won’t be with you for as long, you will have fewer returning customers, and you won’t be able to weep the significant rewards.

To establish yourself as a great brand, you have to care first. To me, it’s as simple as that because by caring about your company, decision-making becomes easy. Go on Google or Yelp and search for some of your competitors. You will see how many don’t care about their brand image. To me, it’s sad, and it takes them out of the game instantly without them even knowing it. The way they respond to customer reviews, how their website is made, all of that matters, and if you want to establish yourself as a key player, you have to pay attention to those things, no matter how tiny they may seem, because they really do make a HUGE difference. Some of these owners think they are winning when they are not. The better the image, the more you can charge, and every customer wants to come to you. At the end of the day, it’s easier to find amazing employees because you make higher margins, and everyone wins.

Even things that the public cant see make a huge difference. For example, we have clients who’ve had so many cleanings totaling well over $40,000 in billings. These are not commercial clients. These are clients who need their homes cleaned multiple times per month. Imagine being a business owner who doesn’t care. When an issue arises, they take 4 days to answer. If a cleaner breaks a small shelf that costs $100, they argue about fixing it or buying a new one, and so on. If that’s the service someone provides, how long do you think someone will be your client? Imagine losing a $40,000 client because you’re arguing over a $100 mistake that your company made. This exact customer will pay extra to ensure their needs are met right away, and they don’t have to deal with such a business owner. It’s all about changing your company message and procedures. Next time your customer service team answers, all they have to do is try and help the customer ASAP instead of ignoring their calls and playing the blame game. If they can’t do that and are answering like they just woke up, grumpy and brushing off the customer so they can go back to playing on their phone, you fire them because they are hurting your brand.

When you focus on your brand, your company grows automatically. If you can keep a $40,000 client, you’re doing a great job. That also means you’re focusing on the things that matter most: your existing customers. Happy existing customers lead to referrals, reviews, and testimonials, and your business continues to grow. That’s how a brand grows, and that’s how you grow a large and successful company that flourishes for a very long time.

Another thing you’re doing when establishing yourself as a great brand is growing an unstoppable asset. These assets are worth a lot more because someone is buying a company that performs well and is a key player in the space. When the time comes to let go of this asset, you can leave with a comfortable exit.

It makes absolutely zero sense to come into an industry and not focus on building a well-established brand. You may think you’re winning because you’re saving $100 by not giving a refund or buying a customer that new shelf. But in reality, you don’t know if that customer will be your next $40,000 customer that refers 5 more customers that then refer more customers. I think you understand how valuable caring can be for your brand.

Now, what happens when you don’t care. Well, the exact opposite occurs in the long run. People start to leave poor reviews and bad testimonials. Some go on Reddit, write posts about your company, warn others not to do business with you, etc. Then it becomes harder and harder to sell to the next client.

Here’s a personal experience: In 2021, my wife and I started to look for a company that would build us a brand new home in Florida. She was the one in charge and found 20+ builders. Buying such a large purchase is a significant investment, and you better believe that a lot of research went into it. We both read our fair share on each builder, from reviews to Reddit threads. The ones that had poor reviews were immediately skipped over. On top of it, I want to move my parents over and my wife’s parents over to Florida, and they will most likely build a new home as well. If the experience is positive for us, guess who would be building their new homes. Also, guess how much acquiring them as a customer would cost that builder. Yup, $0. They simply have to do the job right and care about building our new home, and they’d potentially get 2 free referrals. There’s also a great chance this won’t be my only home, and I will need them again in the future.

Now that I have shown you what happens when you care about your brand versus what happens when you don’t, it’s up to you how you’d like to grow your business. As I mentioned before, I believe that the only thing required when establishing yourself as a critical player is caring about your customer and caring about your brand.

Step 6: Learn, adjust as you go, and be patient

Business is a learning experience, and as long as you’re executing your plan daily, you’ll continue to grow. No one is ever fully prepared to start a business because it’s a forever-changing thing. What worked yesterday may not work today, the industry is constantly evolving, and new competition is always entering the market. Yes, it’s beneficial to go into a new business with experience, but even then, you still have to figure things out. For each business I started, I had more experience coming into it. However, they all took some time to learn and figure out, and even then, the jobs never finished. I’m always learning new things and adjusting as we continue to gain more experience.

That is why it’s so important to commit to your business because when you start a business, you’re in it for a long time. Each day is an opportunity to learn something new and improve your company. By learning, I don’t mean reading books every single day either. I actually hate when entrepreneurs try and throw books in your face, making it seem like that’s the only way someone can learn and be successful. I personally don’t enjoy reading books, nor do I read them. Find a way to learn daily, and you will soon realize that it’s much easier than you think. By living life, you’re learning something new. It’s very hard to let a week go by and not learn something new. Once you commit to the business and you’re constantly working on improving, you’ll learn new things about business daily, and it will add up after 365 days.

It’s actually straightforward when you think about it. When you start, you’ll look into registering your business. That day you’ll learn about the different companies you can form. Then next day, you will go open up a bank account and get a credit card, and you’ll learn a bit about banking and how to leverage points in certain situations. Next, you’ll start writing a marketing strategy, and for a week, you’ll study competitors learning a ton about your industry. Next, you’ll hire some employees, beginning to learn basic hiring and management skills. Then at the end of the year, you will have a chat with an accountant to file taxes, and you’ll learn some more stuff about taxes. That is how you learn, and the more you do daily, the more it will add up after 10 years.

One of my favorite basketball players was Kobe Bryant because of his work ethic. He mentions how he approached getting better at his craft and what he said always stood out to me because of how simple it was and how much it made sense. He said something along these lines: If you wake up at 7am and work till 7pm, you put in 12 hours. If someone else wakes up at 9am and works till 5pm, they put in 8 hours. This doesn’t seem much in a day because you only worked 4 more hours. However, when you continue to do this 6 times per week for 48 weeks out of the 52 weeks, it gives the first person 1,152 extra hours of learning in just 1 year. When you continue to do that for 10 years, that one person learns so much more, and the other person won’t ever be able to catch up. The first person can do so much more in the following 10 years because of the extra learning and experience they gained in those initial 10 years.

It’s not about reading books. It’s about executing daily towards your goal and learning whatever you need to learn that day to hit that goal. If you’re starting Facebook ADs, you may be learning that specific task for 4 months straight. You can learn in many ways, whether by getting a book, hiring a consultant, watching YouTube videos, reading a blog post, or combining all. There are tons of ways to learn today. Also, you may think you’re only learning Facebook ADs, but you are learning so much more. You’re learning how to analyze data, branding, create landing pages, develop better ADs, etc. You’re getting better at being a marketer, a valuable skill that one should know when growing a business. Later if you decide to learn SEO or TikTok ADs, you will start with much more experience. Even though they are not the same exact thing, there are many things that they all have in common. Many of the previous lessons you gained from learning Facebook ADs will be used when setting up TikTok ADs or when doing SEO. Even if your Facebook ADs campaign failed, you learned something, and if you don’t think you did, you need to analyze and look harder to see what you did wrong and take away some lessons from the experience.

You have to start and keep executing as much as you can. You don’t have to work 7 days per week to reach your goals. You can maybe even work 3 or 4, but I know that the more time you put in, the more you will accomplish over 10 years. I went to an extreme when I started, but I didn’t want to leave anything on the table. That is my mentality today, and that is how my partner and I approached business.

Step 7: Build new streams of income

Multiple income streams is how you stay wealthy, but it’s not how you get rich. To get to a level of freedom and wealth, you have to focus on one thing and double down on it. Your focus can’t be split across multiple businesses and ventures when you have $1,000 to your name and very little to no experience. This is the same as going broad and advertising to everyone instead of narrowing it down to a specific niche (lesson 3 from earlier). You’re most likely targeting no one and adding too much stress and work to the table by targeting everyone. The same goes when you’re focusing on too many businesses and streams of income. By spreading your focus and resources, you’re hurting yourself. Instead, you should focus on one thing, double down on it and get the most out of it.

I recently posted this on Twitter, and someone went all crazy on me, telling me about Elon Musk and using him as an example. I laughed because people are quick to comment without doing their research. In short, he proved my point. Elon Musk today, who runs multiple companies, is not the same Elon Musk that started his first company. When you track down his career, he started one company that he sold and then started his next company, which he sold as well. He focused on one thing at a time, and when he had more resources, time, and capital, he then started multiple companies at once. You can’t look at someone’s entrepreneurial journey after they succeed and compare it to where you’re starting. That’s how you get overwhelmed and fail.

After you’ve doubled down and reached a level of freedom where you replaced yourself at your company and have an income coming in, you can now start to decide your next move. This is where you want to make that move because you have everything automated for yourself while making passive income. You have all the time in the world to make it happen. If you want to keep your freedom, don’t waste it by doing nothing. Use this opportunity to your advantage and secure your wealth by creating a second, third, and fourth income stream. One is not enough because it can be taken away from you at any moment. If you want to enjoy your freedom for the rest of your life, build several more of them.

Your next income stream doesn’t have to be as challenging or time-consuming as the first one. If you’re passionate about your business, you can keep growing it while saving your next $100,000 and investing it somewhere else. The less you’re involved, the less of a return you’ll most likely make, but it’s one way to start securing yourself. There are numerous ways to invest your money without doing anything, and you’ll have to do your research. Again, this may not be much after year 1, but it will start to compound year after year. Entrepreneurship requires lots of patience, and the earlier you realize it, the better off you’ll be.

Some popular small business ideas entrepreneurs are starting

If you’re ready to start a service business that is low cast to entry and easy to start, here are some popular small business ideas entrepreneurs are starting within the BookingKoala platform.

Home cleaning

Starting a cleaning business doesn’t require a significant upfront investment, and it can be a fantastic idea for any new entrepreneur. This is the same business I started when I was 19 years old with my best friend from high school. Together, we invested $6,000 and grew the company to over $5,000,000 in just three years. 

Today the home cleaning industry is the most popular industry on the BookingKoala platform, and new entrepreneurs are launching a home cleaning business every day.

To help you get started in the home cleaning industry, check out these helpful blog posts:

Below are some fantastic success stories of entrepreneurs who started a cleaning business as a business idea:

The first one is my story of how I started a home cleaning business when I was 19. Together with my business partner, we invested $6,000 and grew the business to over $5,000,000 in combined revenue. That first business changed my entire life and kickstarted my career as an entrepreneur.

To view the entire story click here.

Sergio and Johnny started Mary & A Mop in Orange County, California. They opened the business with $0 out of pocket in January 2022. Within four months of opening their fully remote home cleaning company, they are on track to $150,000 in revenue for the year. In the first month of January, they secured $12,000 in revenue with $4,000 in profit.

To view the entire story click here.

Kacper, who works remotely for a tech company as his 9-5 job decided he wanted to start Stress Free Maids as a way to earn extra income for his traveling endeavors around South America. Living in Buenos Aires, he started his business with just under $1,500 and put that towards marketing, business formation fees, website and branding as well as BookingKoala as his maid service software.

Stress Free Maids generated $4,000 in revenue in the first month and currently have $9,000 in booked cleanings for their third month. What Kacper has done by starting a service business remotely is not uncommon. In fact, more and more people are learning how to start a cleaning business remotely because it gives you the freedom to work from anywhere in the world.

If you’d like to learn more about his story, you can click here.

Mobile car washing

It’s already proven that people go and get their cars washed at a car wash place. I know I have many times before, and the chances are that you have as well. Recently the business model has shifted, and many folks would rather pay an extra charge to have their car detailed at home. As proof, you can find such businesses advertising on Yelp and Google. The demand is there, and it’s growing in popularity very quickly.

Currently, it’s also our 2nd most popular business model, and ironically the first person that ever signed up for BookingKoala in 2018 started a mobile car wash and detailing business.

To help you get started in the mobile car washing and detailing industry, check out these helpful blog posts:

Below are fantastic success stories of entrepreneurs who started a mobile car wash and detailing business as a business idea:

David Bui, an entrepreneur from Sydney, Australia, started a mobile car cleaning service to help those who don’t have time to clean their vehicles. In less than 24 months, Schmicko managed to reach $20,000 in monthly revenue.

To view the entire story click here.

Mobile pet grooming

If you love being around animals, this might be a great fit as a business you can start. It’s a great business because, typically, an owner will use the same person to service their pet. If you’re good with animals and are a people person, you can gain a client and keep them for a lifetime, making this business’s ROI (return on investment) a fantastic opportunity.

Another fantastic thing about this business is that it can be quickly grown through referrals. Since you’ll be servicing an owner for many years, they will love you and refer you to many of their friends and loved ones.

These ideas might not be for everyone, but I’d figured I share the most popular ones that entrepreneurs are starting on the BookingKoala platform.

Helpful resources

Here are some other helpful blog posts to help you get started:

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