Housekeeping Homa

After graduating from a diploma of business administration in Vancouver, Homa got hired as an executive assistant to Fred, the director of operations at a local tech company. She has been working at the job for the past three months. Her role includes scheduling and attending meetings, sending emails, and booking travel and entertainment for visitors to the company headquarters in Vancouver. She works part$-$time $5$ days a week from $8$ am to noon and is paid about $$30,000$ a year.

During her free time, Homa volunteers as a cleaner for a non$-$for$-$profit organization called Keeping It Clean. The organization supports people with mental and physical disabilities by helping to keep their homes clean. The organization is run by donations made possible by large corporate donors and community partners, as well as volunteers like Homa.

Although she enjoys the hustle and bustle of the corporate environment, Homa feels much more satisfied by her volunteer work with Keeping It Clean.

Sensing that she may not be happy, Fred has offered Homa a full$-$time position with the company, upping her salary to $$65,000$ per year plus benefits.

At the same time, due to her enthusiasm and great effort at Keeping It Clean, the President of the non$-$for$-$profit organization has offered her a position as Head Coordinator. This position would entail working more complex jobs and scheduling$/$coordinating the other volunteers within the organization.

Even though Homa is excited about both offers, she has always wanted to pursue entrepreneurship. Hence, she is contemplating starting her own cleaning business. To kick things off, she has done some research and gathered some numbers. Admittedly, accounting was her worst subject in her diploma, so she is seeking your help in analyzing her options.

Homa sees a trend of individuals getting busier, and consequently, lacking the time or energy to keep their homes clean and organized. With her home cleaning$/$organizing business, she could help people maintain tidy and organized homes. Also, due to the pandemic, corporations and larger residential complexes are seeking more frequent cleaning in an effort to reduce pathogens, viruses, and bacteria.

With the help of her parents, Homa has saved $$7,500$ to invest in her business.

If she were to start her own housekeeping business, Homa forecasts these figures:

Type

Cost

Frequency

Average Time

Tasks

House cleaning for individuals

$$60/$hour

Once a week

$2$ hours

General Housekeeping, dusting, bathrooms, kitchen deep scrub, mopping floors, and vacuuming.

Common Areas of Residential Building

$$40/$hour

Twice a week

$4$ hours

Vacuuming hallways, spraying down windows and doors, cleaning walls and floor of elevators, cleaning gym or common facilities in apartment buildings.

Corporate Cleaning

$$35/$hour

Five days a week

$2$ hours

Daily dusting and cleaning floors, cleaning surfaces, and restocking supplies and emptying trash cans. Cleaning individual offices, restrooms, break rooms, and common areas.

Special Projects

$$75/$hour

As needed, likely once a season

Minimum of $16$ hours $($usually spread across a weekend$)$

Specialized cleaning or organizing projects, such as deep cleaning carpets or organizing files.

CloudBnB

$$100$ per job

Higher frequency during tourism seasons $$ winter and summer

Flat $$100$ per cleaning. Varies from $1$ hour to $3$ hours

Vacation short term rental properties that need to be cleaned between stays.

For the CloudBnB, Homa plans to find short$-$term rental property owners in the local vicinity and directly market her cleaning services. She has seen job postings for CloudBnBs located in Whistler. Although these would be a bit far to travel to from her home in Coquitlam, they could offer lucrative opportunities to generate sizeable profits. However, Homa is aware that CloudBnB rentals depend on tourism and usually spike in the winter for ski season and the summer for hiking.

Homa estimates that, based on her existing connections and some word of mouth marketing, she can generate some quick success in her first year. She believes she can book $15$ individual houses on a weekly basis, $5$ residential buildings, $4$ corporate cleaning clients, $10$ special projects, and $4$ consistent CloudBnB contracts in the summer and winter.

She informs you her ideal workweek includes $30$ hours of work $($including commuting$).$ She wants to continue volunteering one day a week with Keeping It Clean. She is wondering about her company$$s service mix and how it can be used to maximize revenues in relation to the work hours invested. She is also wondering if it$$s better to charge per hour or on a per project basis.

To get her business started, Homa will need about $$500$ in supplies including gloves, masks, cleaning material, dusters, garbage bags, liquid bleach, and the like. She will likely need to replenish these supplies once a month.

She currently uses public transport but wants to purchase a gas vehicle to drive to and from various places