While you're researching different markets, there are a number of things you can start working on that won't lock you into a specific city. As a general guideline, I like to look for markets where the average household income is around $130,000 to $140,000 per year. In my opinion, that's a strong target for the type of premium, online-first cleaning business I'm building. Again, this isn't a hard rule—you can absolutely build a successful business in lower-income markets—but higher household incomes tend to align better with the customer behaviour I'm targeting. That said, market research is a little more nuanced than simply looking at household income. What I've found is that the best opportunities come from combining two different types of research. The first is keyword research. I want to understand how many people are actually searching for terms like house cleaning, house cleaners, maid service, or cleaning service in the specific suburb or city I'm considering. If nobody is searching for those services, it doesn't matter how affluent the area is. The second is market research. This is where I look at the demographics of the area—average household income, owner occupancy, population growth, the number of families with children, and whether it's the type of community that regularly purchases recurring home services. Neither of these tells the full story on its own. You might find an affluent suburb with very little search demand, or an area with lots of searches but customer behaviours that don't fit the type of business you're trying to build. The goal is to find the overlap: an area with healthy search volume and the right demographic profile. When those two line up, you've given yourself a much stronger foundation to build a recurring cleaning business. While you're doing this research, there are also a number of things you can get started on immediately. One of the first is registering your LLC. Using one of the online LLC formation companies makes this a fairly straightforward process. If you're a non-US resident, it typically takes around four to six weeks to receive your EIN, so it's worth getting that process underway early rather than waiting until everything else is ready.