It took me a while to appreciate the beauty of business. As most of you already know, when I started in the cleaning industry, it took me a long time to start enjoying the entire process. Being in the cleaning industry as a teen wasn't something I wanted to do, but it didn't matter, I had a goal. I wanted to make money, and I saw an opportunity to start in that industry.
Once we started to build out our website, I enjoyed that process. I loved picking the name, the colors, and putting things together for the site. I learned a lot, and when it was time to start building out more technical components of the site, I already fell in love with that specific part of the business.
The more advanced the software got, the more intrigued I got. I knew that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. After our impressive growth, King of Maids started to go viral in the marketing world. We were praised everywhere, and people wanted to copy the entire company, including our software. Eventually, people found the software to be as unique as we did and started to make offers to purchase it for their businesses.
Instead of selling it, I teamed up with my head developer (today he is one of my closest friends) to open up BookingKoala. I was around 23-24 when I made that decision, and it took over one year to redesign and re-structure the software in order to let others use it.
Launching BookingKoala in 2018
By the time we officially launched the software in 2018, we had a massive list of users waiting on its release. Many of the users loved the software, but some found it hard to use, and some wanted more features. Others who started, quit months later because growing a service was too hard.
All this was fuel. Our idea was validated and as predicted special, but not yet perfect. At first, it was hard to believe that people found it hard to grow a service business or needed more features. When I started, I was 19, had no experience, no degrees, no resources, no good software options, and went to college all at the same time.
But, instead of getting upset about it, I listened to the customer. It became a personal challenge to give the people what they wanted. After all, that is how you change an industry and make an impact. We went to the drawing board, developed a 5-year plan, and we decided that we're going to accept the challenge of disrupting the service industry.
On top of that, I decided to inspire other entrepreneurs by taking the company to a billion without funding. So many people don't want to start a business because they believe that you need to raise capital to succeed. I always believed you don't, and that is why I never went the route of raising capital. One entrepreneur I have so much respect for is Ben Chestnut because he took his company to billions without an outside investor. His team funded the entire project, and in my opinion, he's a genius. No one will ever be able to take that away from him, and I'm sure he knows it as well. I'll admit funding a company from within is frustrating at times, but it makes it that much more special.