Don The Window Cleaner

I originally built this as a paid membership site, but it was not possible for me to do that idea justice AND keep up my own window cleaning business. So, I have kept the mission of helping people who are new to the window cleaning business or are thinking about getting into it, but I have changed the means of doing so. As I have time, I will write material and create videos that give advice and comfort to those of you are struggling through the start-up phase. I will also be creating products for sale, like more brochure templates and graphics for use in promoting small service businesses like ours. My aim will be to create templates that relieve you of the burden of creating these things from scratch at a reasonable price.

I started my window cleaning business in 1981 while I was giving blood plasma and we were on food stamps. I was 22 years old, was only a high school graduate, and had a wife and infant son to support. We were a month behind on the rent, the bills were getting higher and higher on top of the refrigerator, and I had no real prospects during the recession that saw unemployment hit 10.5%.

I had been reading old Mother Earth News magazines about how people bootstrapping their own small businesses with little or no money, when I realized that this was my only chance to get a decent paying job: start my own business! I had seen someone cleaning windows in a shopping center a couple years before, and I saw how he sold my boss. It seemed pretty simple, and I knew I could do the same thing.

I had no money, but I did have a checkbook. I went to an Ace Hardware store in my little jerkwater town and wrote a bad check for a squeegee. I went back home and started practicing on our shabby single wide trailer when my wife asked me where I got that squeegee. I told her I wrote a check for it. She told me the check was no good, and I had to defend my business plan on the spot. I told her I was sure I could get enough to cover the check the next day, and she told me she didn’t think I could make $20. I bet her I could, and we named the stakes: if I lost, we had to move back to a real city where I could find a real job; if I won, I could stay in the business and she would be supportive.

The next day I drove into Gainesville on my motorcycle with the squeegee, a bucket, and a broom handle, and an old windshield washer, and not enough gas to get home. After 3 hours of hearing shop owners say “no”, I finally heard “yes” By the end of the day, I had made $21. I put a buck in my gas tank, went home, spread out the cash and declared myself the winner. I have been in business ever since…

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