15d • General discussion
Start Building While You're Researching Your Market
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.
One thing that many people get stuck on is choosing the perfect business name before registering the company. Personally, I don't think that's necessary.
I look at the LLC as the holding company for the business. The name of the LLC isn't necessarily the brand your customers will ever see. You can always register a Doing Business As (DBA) or trading name later once you've decided exactly how you want to position your cleaning company.
In fact, I'd recommend not overthinking the name in the beginning.
My strategy is to choose a super micro-local name that's tied directly to the suburb or neighbourhood you're targeting. This gives you a strong advantage for local SEO because your business name naturally contains the keywords people are searching for. Early on, that can help you start ranking in Google much faster than choosing a generic or creative brand name.
As the business grows, you can always introduce a different trading name or additional brands underneath the same LLC. The legal entity stays the same while the customer-facing brand evolves.
It's also worth remembering that you don't need an LLC to start building your business. You can purchase your domain name, build your website, write content, and begin working on your SEO before the company is officially registered.
However, if you're a non-US resident, you'll generally need your LLC and EIN before you can properly set up payment processing and begin accepting customer payments.
If you're a US resident, the process is simpler. In many cases, you can begin operating using your Social Security Number (SSN) before deciding whether to form an LLC, depending on your circumstances.
The important thing is not to wait until every decision has been made. There are plenty of foundational tasks you can complete while you're researching your market, and by the time you've chosen the right suburb and validated the opportunity, you'll already have much of the business ready to launch.
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Start Building While You're Researching Your Market
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