Pete Codes · 2022-10-03
Making $1.8m from maid software
High Signal community AMA with Amar Ghose, co-founder of ZenMaid (scheduling software for maid/cleaning services, ~9 years old, ~40-person team). Covers first 100 customers via cold email/calls, Google Ads from day one at $100/month, content marketing and paid info products (not working), an annual virtual summit used to recruit industry influencers, shared-audience partnerships, a free-for-life plan that lifted trials ~40%, cutting New Zealand spend after starting to track data, and what he'd do differently (80% marketing, find 1-2 scalable channels, other people's audiences).
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Numbers mentioned
| Subject | Metric | Value | Quote |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZenMaid | revenue | USD 1.8M/year approximate | “It's a SaaS which is doing $1.8 million in annual revenue.” |
| ZenMaid | mrr Milestone reached after 3+ years | USD 10K approximate | “Like for ZenMaid, it took us over 3 years to get to $10,000 a month, right?” |
| ZenMaid | time to milestone Launch to $10k/month ('over 3 years') | 36 months approximate | “Like for ZenMaid, it took us over 3 years to get to $10,000 a month, right?” |
| ZenMaid | time to milestone $10k/month to $100k/month | 48 months approximate | “And then in the 4 years after that, where we went from $10,000 a month to $100,000 a month, right?” |
| ZenMaid | time to milestone Time to 'generate a million dollars' (unclear whether cumulative revenue or $1M annual run-rate) | 72 months approximate | “I think it took us 6 years to generate a million dollars for ZenMaid” |
| ZenMaid | customers First 100 customers acquired mostly via cold email and cold calling | 100 customers approximate | “So the first 100 customers were essentially cold email and cold calling” |
| ZenMaid | ad spend Initial Google Ads budget (~$3/day) from day one | USD 100/month approximate | “So we started out I think at $100 a month, so $3 a day on um on Google was what we initially started with” |
| ZenMaid | team size 'close to 40'; marketing team is 2 people plus outside agencies | 40 people approximate | “I have a team now of like, you know, it's close to 40 people, although the marketing team is like is quite small” |
| ZenMaid | margin Profit margin; Amar prefers low margin with little personal time required | not large approximate | “We don't have a large profit margin at ZenMaid” |
| ZenMaid | customers New customers per month in the month competitor Launch27 was acquired vs a normal month (44 vs 41); illustrative figures | +3 customers/month approximate | “It was like, "Oh, we added like, you know, 44 new customers instead of 41 month," right?” |
| marketVery direct competitors serving maid service owners | count Plus 20-50 general-purpose scheduling tools, of which 2-3 are regularly compared with ZenMaid | 5 competitors estimate | “we have maybe five or so, um, five or so like very direct competitors” |
| ZenMaid | count Speakers at ZenMaid's annual virtual summit for maid service owners | 40–60 speakers/year approximate | “we have anywhere from 40 to 60 speakers each year” |
| ZenMaid | count Paid content pieces (e.g. 80-page e-book); none make significant money | 4–5 paid info products approximate | “we have only like four maybe that we charge for. It's not very many. Like maybe like five.” |
| ZenMaid | trial starts Increase in trials after launching free-for-life plan and running ads promoting it | +40% estimate | “I think I think it was about 40% maybe of, uh, increased trials that that just by essentially being able to run those free-for-life like ads” |