Upholstery cleaning franchise grows abroad and wants to earn BRL 25 million in 2021

Increasing revenue by 25% and earning BRL 25 million are the objectives of Bahian entrepreneur Fritz Paixão, 36, for 2021. He is the owner of CleanNew, an upholstery sanitizing and shielding franchise, with operations in the United States ( Miami and Orlando), Colombia (Barranquilla, Bogotá, Cali) and Argentina (Buenos Aires), in addition to Brazil, where most of the network is concentrated.

But anyone who thinks that entrepreneurs have always followed the path of business is wrong. The taste for sports in adolescence led Fritz to seek knowledge in medicine and to choose to graduate in physiotherapy. However, the market difficulty of the chosen profession made him review his professional trajectory.

In 2009, a year after finishing higher education in Salvador, he decided to try his hand at acting in Rio de Janeiro. After a lot of effort, he managed to host Operation S2, a reality show on the Multishow channel about relationships. However, a few months later, the program ended, and Paixão was let go. Discouraged from seeking space on the stage, he preferred to return to Bahia, his homeland.

There, he met his girlfriend and current wife, Laís Paixão. Due to the relationship, he decided to acquire a property and understood that he would need a new source of income if he wanted to lead a comfortable life. “I bought the apartment without having the money to pay. I had a year to collect the amount, open a business and start paying the installments”, recalls Fritz.

The way out was to wash cars in a luxury condominium in Salvador, specifically focused on the female audience. “There was a culture of men taking the car to be washed before football or family appointments on the weekends. But not women. So, with differentiated service, that was our strategy”, he says.

However, a new difficulty arose: the condominiums did not allow car washes after business hours. The persuasion acquired in the theater days in Rio de Janeiro came into play. “I had to meet the residents, play tennis and have a chat, to set up a convention and put our service in the building's minutes”, he recalls.

He succeeded and, in October 2015, he serviced the first condominium. With the trust of the locals and the power of word of mouth, in four months he reached another five high-end buildings and served around 500 customers.

The quality of services provided with cars has opened up new opportunities for entrepreneurs. “Many customers started to request the same cleaning work that I did with the upholstery of cars for the cleaning of sofas”, he says. Despite efforts to meet his new demand, Fritz realized that the cleaning processes were very different.

Source: revistapegn.globo.com

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