Influencers beware, Revenue is on the prowl

Hello, this is Kiran Hancock, welcome to Inside Business. This week I'll be looking at revenues crackdown on influencers and I'll be talking to a young Dublin entrepreneur who has set up an online subscription window cleaning service that this year is projected to generate €2.5 million in turnover. But we'll start with influencers being reminded recently by revenue of their obligations to pay tax on their earnings. Siobhan McGuire is a contributor to the Irish Times and she wrote an excellent piece this week on this hot topic. She joined me on the line and I began by asking her how revenue has begun tightening the net on influencers to ensure that they're paying their taxes. Here we go. Well, Kiran, this is the latest in a long effort by revenue to basically teach influencers anyone kind of using social media for their own personal and financial gain that basically you're going to owe tax if you're taking in any particular kind of gifts or if you're being paid to promote something. We've had a series of incidents kind of leading up to this, like in March revenue sent over 450 tax compliance letters to social media influencers regarding undeclared income, gifts, services. And what that had was a major knock-on effect in terms of business for accountants because suddenly they were fielding calls from really concerned people who were accepting gifts and asking, "Am I due to pay tax on this? Where do I stand on this?" And revenue has repeatedly said over the last couple of years in particular that if you are earning money, if you are getting income in some shape or form, be it promotional services or indeed in terms of a cash payment or a financial payment, then of course you do naturally owe tax on it. But there has been this doubt, this kind of thinking among social media that perhaps you were somehow exempt because sure isn't this just a nice little hobby on your part, aren't you just promoting these lovely clothes because this is your passion beyond the day job? And in actual fact, the answer is no. If you are taking in any kind of money in whatever shape or form, outside of a second job even, you will have to pay tax on it. Yeah. So what's the definition of an influencer and how big is the market here in influencers? Yeah. It's a, well, it's a global phenomenon. I mean, it has grown substantially in the last five years alone, particularly here in Ireland. We see that the growth was kind of in tandem an awful lot with the COVID years, where people were suddenly stuck in their homes. We had the rise and rise of the likes of TikTok, where suddenly everybody wanted to do the latest viral dance, and the more of a reaction you got, the more of a self-opinion that somehow you were making your mark on the world. And it actually gave rise to an awful lot of you influencers here. I mean, you know, we could name drop five, six, seven who are so successful at what they do. The actual fact of the matter is for the most part, the vast majority aren't earning a huge amount of money here on, they're not being singled out by brands to promote X, Y or Z. And it is really just a small few, you know, you'd be looking at in the thousands in terms of those making really big money in this country. Sean, maybe you could give us a sense of what kind of money influencers are making. And I know this isn't publicly disclosed information, but what's your feeling on how much the top earners might be getting? I mean, you have to look at the likes of massive influencers say, even not just in Ireland, but in the UK, like folk Williams, really well known Irish export. And her company recently declared that there were millions in the bank, you know, and I'm not saying that's fully from the likes of pure influencing jobs. I mean, she is across adverts and social media ads. And she is somebody who regularly has the hashtag gift hashtag ad, you know, within her social media feed. But the examples that we hear from people abroad is that it's a really tidy little earner if you can somehow separate yourself from the very large pack that dominates the influencer market. And that basically means that you're bringing something new to the game. Like you're being hugely, you know, comical about certain things, therefore, certain brands will zone in on you. And it is a nice little moneymaker, Kiran. We have in terms of influencers agencies now who deal solely with the promotion of these social media influencers. And what they've actually done, and I know this from a previous article I worked on, they have kind of divvied them into different categories. So what you have is like the massive influencers. And you're talking like people with hundreds of thousands up to millions of followers. And these are the guys that dictate the really, really big bucks. And then you have the kind of the middle influencers who'd be up to kind of the 50,000 mark maybe from around 15 to 20,000. And so they would be able to maybe ask for, you know, in the region for around 10 or 15,000 if they were promoting a certain brand. And then you have the micro influencers. This is like the small fish. But they're still of interest now because they might be quite niche and specific so that what they say or do or post might be significant enough for whatever market they're kind of zoning in on. So you think of that in terms of like, say, a financial expert or, you know, somebody who has a knowledge all around certain animals or people who have decided that, you know, they're going to zone in on them on climate issues. And they would be able to dictate in or around the region of a thousand to 5,000 euro, depending on what they're being asked to post or talk about. Yeah. Now, we know in GA, let's say, and they're amateur sports people. A lot of some brands will give things to GA players, cars. Sponsors often give cars to GA players or managers, etc. So how is that treated? Yeah. And this was one of the surprises in the manual that came out here on because revenue couldn't make it any simpler. It's in actual layman's terms and it describes everything and anything from the makeup blogger to indeed what you've just referenced, you know, the guy or gal who plays on a football team who gets the free car for a year. And we see this all over the place. I mean, anyone who's on social media, Kearon, will have seen somebody plugging a car and they've got that lovely, lovely reg, you know, showcasing the fact that they have the latest version of this car and, you know, it's all hashtag gifted and life is great. So what it comes down to it is that if you are a brand ambassador for the car and let's say you have the car for a full year and that value for that year is 10 grand, then you have to pay tax on that 10 grand. And there's no black and white in any of this, Kearon. Like the examples in the manual, they even refer to one where Kate's a sports car enthusiast. She's a large following on social media channels. She enters into the brand ambassador agreement with the sports car dealership. The agreement states Kate is going to carry out various promotional services on behalf of the dealer. And the dealer will provide her with the use of a particular sports car in consideration for these services. The value of the promotional activities provided by Kate is 10,000, therefore Kate will be subject to income tax in respect of the promotional activities and the taxable value will be 10,000. So there's no getting away from this. Yeah. Which is interesting. It might come as a surprise to some GA players or even rugby players who've had the use of cars previously for a period. Revenue it would seem has kind of taken a softly, softly approach and to this is produced the manual. It sent out letters to the 450 influencers. But it has actually gone after a couple of people, hasn't it? People that it has identified as making significant income in this area. And in your article for the Irish Times this week you cite the only fan star Matthew Gilbert. Tell us about him. Yeah. So I don't actually tune into Matthew myself and only fans gear on, but he's very well known because of his build and his own self promotion. And so in March of this year, he was actually named in a list of tax defaulters after he reached settlements of more than 350,000 but revenue. And that was towards the end of last year. And when a name like that appeared on the list of defaulters, you automatically have to think about what revenue is doing behind the scenes because we see this over and over. Particular professions seem to be zoned in on by revenue at any one time. We had it with GPs many years ago. We see it this week with the likes of pensioners exactly. So what you tend to have happen is that, you know, if there's even one name pertaining to a particular profession, in this case like the only fan star, what has likely happened is that an awful lot of letters have gone out to people who work within the social media sphere and they would have been targeted. And the likelihood is that a lot of people had to perhaps say to revenue, I didn't have a clue that I was supposed to declare left, right and centre to you. How can I fix this? How do we, you know, agree on some kind of payment plan? So that's what I believe has been happening. And I know feedback from accountants would certainly add up to that in terms of the amount of calls that they're fielding from people in the social media area as well. All right. Revenues manual also makes clear there's no special VAT rate for influencers. There isn't, no. And rightly so, Kiron, an aspect of this discussion this week on Photov the article, we saw a really animated thread on Reddit Ireland and there were like out of like 70 something comments, there wasn't one ounce of sympathy for influencers in all of this, whether it pertained to having to pay tax or to pay VAT, the manual very clearly states that there's no special treatment for social media influencers when it comes to VAT. And rightly so. I mean, I'm a self-employed journalist and I have to pay VAT. I mean, that's just the nature of the beast, the nature of the job. And that applies to whether I'm a hairdresser or, you know, I'm a plumber or whatever else I'm doing as a self-employed person. So the person sharing their beautiful stay in whatever hotel in Ireland over four days and, you know, they've gotten X amount in money and X amount of posts to do, then they too have to pay their VAT if they reach a certain limit on that income. Yeah. Of course, yeah, there's a threshold, isn't there, for the VAT? You have to be earning over a certain level to... Yeah, I think it's around 38,000 if I remember correctly, 81,000 or 80,000 in the UK. So it does seem quite an unfair system here in Ireland. Okay. Now, what about that situation that you mentioned where, let's say a hotel offers you a couple of nights, maybe you and your partner, some spa treatments, dinners, et cetera, and maybe around the gulf, which in the normal course of events might cost, you know, might cost four figures, but you're not getting a monetary sum, but you're getting the value of that in terms of the stay in the round the gulf and so on. And in return, they want you to make 10 or 15 posts, whatever it is on your social media account to say what a great time you had. How is that treated by revenue? Yeah. And you've actually hit the nail in the head, Ciaran, with your language there in terms of the monetary aspect, because the confusion stems from what's called non-monetary compensation. So what the non-monetary compensation applies to is if you are in a stay in a hotel and you've gotten your three nights and you've had some fabulous dinners thrown in and all of a sudden your partner has been allowed to go out around the gulf course and enjoy him or herself, the value of that total stay, whatever it is, is subject to tax. And that has been actually a massive question mark in all of this because it's hard for the social media influencer to ascertain and can be forgiven in this instance to think, do I really have to pay tax on something where actually no euro notes, no big check has landed in for me? And the answer is yes. And what this might actually do is turn the branding promotion within all businesses, all aspects of marketing on its head in the coming years, because the influencer will suddenly say now, well, look, I have to pay tax on this free trip regardless. Whatever the value of this trip would be to Joe Smith, who is booking it himself, is equivalent to what I now owe revenue on this. So, you know, the hotel, it means the hotel who is now sharing that particular gift may have to actually say, well, here's the value in cash comes day, and then you pay your tax on it. Right. Now, what about the situation where somebody, let's say an airline takes a suite at a golf tournament, the open championship in Port Rush recently, let's say Erlingas, for example, took a suite at a championship like that. And it invites a bunch of tour operators and suppliers and clients and so forth along to that. And those people wander along, they don't pay any money, but they're not being paid for being there. They're just there as guests. They take a few photographs and they put out posts saying, oh, having a wonderful time at the golf with Erlingas or Ryan or whoever it might be. Could they find themselves getting a letter from revenue? They absolutely could because, again, it comes down to this question of the non-monetary compensation and what you choose to post and what you choose not to post. If you're taking it upon yourself to post something that is off of value to a person, then it could be looked at as you're actually somehow doing some kind of marketing work in this area. I mean, the intelligent thing to do is if you're being invited along to something and you're not being remunerated with free gifts or, you know, you might get the odd free glass of champagne, I'm sure revenue would turn a blind eye to that. But it comes down to what you hope to gain from the fact of promoting it yourself. It's a very tricky area, Kiran. Yeah. The thing to do might just be not to post. Well, that's it. Or post and just make it clear that it's you out with friends for the day, you know, and don't be thanking anyone for a lavish invite somewhere. Yeah. So, where does it go from here, Siobhan? Are revenue really going to get tough now? We've sent out the letters. They've given people the manual. One presumes that from here on, everybody's on notice and they expect people to file tax returns. Well, that's it. Yeah. I think revenue will be kind of ramping up for a busy enough October period in terms of self-assessments in the hope that people will ease the call. I mean, the manual now in black and white, you were in absolutely no doubt, along with its many, many examples of what you can and can't do, of what you owe if you are in the social media influencing space and you were getting gifts and/or money, then yes, you have to pay tax. And it's up to you. I mean, it's always been the way. This isn't something new. Influencers have always been subject to tax in this country. It's just been clarified now in terms of the manual. And before that, the likes of people ending up on defaulters lists and various letters like 420 letters sent out to influencers. I mean, all of it points to the fact that revenue is serious about this and they do see you as a tradesperson. And that's another thing that emerges from the booklet itself, Kiron. It deals with this aspect of a trade. If you have a social media profile that is promoting something and very active in the area of you being rewarded for your work, it is a second job. It is a profession and you have to pay tax on it. Okay. Influencers, beware. Revenue is on the prowl. Siobhan McGuire, thank you for joining us. Thanks, Kiron. We're going to take a short break now when we return. I'll be talking to young Dublin entrepreneur Luke Joyce about setting up Ireland's first online subscription window cleaning service. Back in a few moments. Welcome back. This is the inside business with Kiron Hancock. Dubliner Luke Joyce grew up on a farm in Sagart County Dublin, did entrepreneurship at Maneuth University and then set up Ireland's first online subscription-based window cleaning service called thecleaningcompany.ie. His success cleaning windows recently spurred him into launching new businesses, painting houses and doing general maintenance work. I began by asking Luke to explain why he chose to launch a window cleaning business after finishing college in Maneuth. Yes. We were Ireland's first. It was something that was in the UK and the US that I had seen. We started with window cleaning in general, the way it was done in Ireland, which was kind of just ad hoc once off type of stuff. It was now set direct debit type subscription model. I went to the UK, to London, to a big window cleaning company over there and brought the idea back here and started that then from scratch in Ireland. So that was thecleaningcompany.ie. So when did you begin business? We started full time in 2020 and the subscription model came in in 2021. So you started around COVID time? Yes. So was COVID good or bad for business? Good. We were cleaning. So you were outdoors? Yes. We did a lot of disinfecting and stuff like that as well. We had like hotel clients and gyms and they were constantly opening and re-opening and closed and re-opening. So every time they did that, we would do a disinfecting. We did a bit with RTE on their home rescue show as well, where they needed us to disinfect the kind of set beforehand. They'd come in and do the filament and we'd come in after. So we were doing lots of cleaning stuff, which was obviously an essential service. So it allowed us to continue to work. And we were outside for residential stuff. And it was direct debit, so there was no need for face-to-face contact with anybody. So we were able to continue on with most things, internal window cleaning and residential if we had to stop that and certain things. But overall, it was a good thing for our business COVID. So in terms of residential, I mean, a lot of people, you know, there's some guy with a ladder who comes around occasionally and says, "You want your Wednesday?" And yeah, go ahead and cash in and off they go and you maybe get it done three or four times a year. Why would they want to hire your company on a subscription basis and commit themselves to a regular subscription? What's so good about your business that would make people want to do that? Yeah, so a big issue people have is finding someone and getting someone to do a job at their home. So in my case, it's window cleaning or just exterior cleaning in general. So the first thing is finding that person. After that, then is trying to get into contact with them every time you want it done. You might contact them, leave a commune or a confirmation in two weeks time. You want the windows cleaned. They may be booked out. They may be on holidays. They may be gone somewhere else. A lot of times they actually just can't get a hold of that person anymore. That's the kind of local window cleaning. They might just disappear into thin air a lot of time. That's one side of it. It's just a hassle for people. We're the complete opposite of that is that you set and forget. So you sign up with us once. After that, you never really have to do anything again. We just text an email you today before we arrive. You set your schedules. You decide how often we come. That's then booked in. You give us your direct debit details. That's set up and we text an email you today before each booking. You make access available. If it's a side key, the lads will arrive. They'll work away. They'll close up after them and they'll head off. You're then charged three to five days later for that clean. Customers who signed up three years ago, who we haven't ever actually spoken with, it just continues on. Some of them will be there. Maybe a lot of them won't. They'll be just out working or whatever. So it's just completely hassle-free. So let's say I own a three-bed semi and have a side access. How much are you going to charge me to do the windows front and back? And how often are you going to suggest that you do it? Yes, we do two window cleaning frequencies for residential. Every six weeks or every 12 weeks. Every six weeks is eight cleans a year. Every 12 weeks is four cleans a year. We'd always recommend a six weeks a year because it's like in Ireland, a really heavy storm or whatever will wreck the windows. So every six weeks, it'll keep them clean pretty much all year round. 12 weeks is they're probably getting a bit dirty in between. We'd always recommend a six weeks. Our prices start at €40 for a six-weekly clean, including VAT. So it's very reasonable. Every 12 weeks, we start at €45. So that'd be for exterior windows frames and doors of a three-bed semi. It'll be €40 including every six weeks. Right. Okay. So I mean, that seems like good value compared to, again, what the local window cleaner just knocks occasionally with charge. Yeah. So because we're kind of, we're booking this out for, we hope, years in advance. We're able to give it kind of much more reasonable, right? And because we have such a volume of houses that like if we come into an area like say, Rot Farnham, we have so many houses in that area that we can send multiple vans there all day to just clean. We could have maybe 30 houses and want to stay. So we don't have much driving time between the jobs, whereas a much smaller company might have one job in Rot Farnham and then they have to drive to East Wall and then they're out of Malahaut. They might be, you know, all our place to have to factor that in, whereas we have such a volume, we can reduce the price down. So we'd be very, very competitive, if not on the cheaper side for our regular window cleaner. Everybody thinks we're the opposite because we're a bigger company. That would be dearer, but it's actually the, that's not the case at all. So you're in residential five years now. How many customers have you got? So we're up to, on the subscription, we have 3,300 residential customers. We've another probably 3,000 that use us ad hoc or, you know, they might want to book the subscription, but they still want to use us in some way, you know, for para washing once a year. So we'd have over 4,000 residential customers that use us on a regular basis. Right. Are you profitable? Yeah. Yeah. So we've been profitable every single year. So we've no investment. It's all been bootstrapped. So there's no external investments, no big loans, nothing like that. It's all been, every year, we've been profitable and a good profit margin as well. And how many people have you got on the road? So we, as of yesterday, actually drove in and was the 14th van. So that's now going out on the road. We replaced another one. So it's technically the 15th van we've bought, but we replaced our very first van that I bought. So we've 14 vehicles on the road. Yeah. And how many staff? We've usually in around 20. So we'd have some office staff as well. So we've kind of office manager, operations manager who looks after the stuff. Then we've a sales team and a bit of admin as well. So it's one employee per van. They go, they do the house, then move on to the next one. How many houses can they do in the day? If they were just doing three-bed, semi, four-bed, semi, one after another in a condensed area, they could get up to 15, 20 houses because it could be just a line of them. Or it could be just one big house if they're getting maybe a first clean of windows, gutters, face yourself if there might be power washing done. It could be just one day doing the job. So it varies massively. But usually we do a lot in a day, like a high volume of jobs, because we're so efficient at our routes and where the guys are, that they can just kind of hit an area and be just in that area all day. Yeah. Now, I've seen you do this. So your vans have their own water supply. Yeah. And the guys have powered hoses essentially running off a generator or something. Yeah, water fed poles. So we fill the water, so we're completely self-sufficient. So we don't need access to water. We don't need electricity. We don't need anything when we get to your home. And that's to make it again, a hassle-free thing that you don't have to be there. Like that's what we say when we're booking in the jobs. It's what we constantly say is there's no need for you to be there. So there's no sponge and wiper that traditionally would have been used? No, nothing like that. And we don't need access for ladders right like that, because it's all from the ground. We obviously have ladders if there's maybe a flat roof extension or something we have to get up on. But 99% of the time it's from the ground. So we fill up our vans on the farm. So we're based on a farm in South West Dublin that we fill the water there through our water treatment kind of system that we have, that water is then transported to wherever we're going. And then we arrive, the water is then pumped from the van through a house rail up a water fed pole is what you would have seen working. So it has a brush on the end. It scrubs, rinses, and we leave the windows wet then to dry spot free. So it's ultra purified water that we use. So there's nothing actually in the water. It's there's no nutrients or anything to leave spots on the windows afterwards or streaks. Yeah, no, it's all streak free. So if you were to use like water from the tap, it would have a TDS total dissolved solids of maybe 100 to 200. Like, so that means that there's there's little stuff in the water as nutrients, there's bits of grit, there's all this sort of stuff that that's what leaves streaks and spots in your windows. We run this through an RO system. So it's reverse osmosis and then a deionization that comes out then as there's nothing in the water. So you wouldn't even be able to drink it. There's it's like a clear liquid rather than water. So there's a bit of science to this. Yeah, and it's charged as well. So it kind of pulls the dirt towards it as it's rinsed off to a glass and then it's left wet to dry spot free. So there's a bit of explaining to do with sometimes the older customers will come out with a squeegee nearly after you. I think they have to squeegee it down and we have to say no, you leave it wet and it will dry completely spot free. And doing how it won't is maybe on wooden frames that haven't been cleaned in a couple of years. They could maybe leave deposits and it might just need another go over. And that's why we guarantee all of our work. So we've worked guaranteed that if there's ever anything wrong, if you get back to us within kind of two, three days of your clean, we'll come back free of charge and reclean it. Because sometimes on a first clean, we'll have to go back and it just needs another go over. But on the regular schedule, it won't happen. And how much water do the vans hold? So they hold usually about 500 liters. We've won bigger than that two guys are in. It's a double van and that holds 1000. So it just depends on the weight of the van. And how many houses can you service with 500 liters? You would get the full 15, 20 from that. So it's yeah, you wouldn't actually use because it's it's it's small stream of water. It's not powerful. It's a soft wash. So it's not a lot of water is actually used during the cleaning process. Because if you use too much power, you could blow seals on windows and all sorts of stuff. So this is a much softer kind of the brush does all the work. And then the the rinsing is just to kind of clear the window off. Okay. Now you mentioned some commercial clients that you've had. So tell us a little bit about that side of the business. Yeah, so that'll be kind of a different side that we do. And we do a lot of work with the Office of Public Works for the government. So we'd have like PPM contracts of there are five year contracts with Peer Street Garter Station, which is around the corner. We do that. And so that's for gutters, roof, window serves and stuff like that. And we do social welfare centers, all that sort of stuff. We wouldn't get them on a subscription or a direct debit, because it's the government, but it's similar and that we're calling. Yes, we'd have to do a tender for that. And so they'd send out a tender, we'd apply for that. And then we if successful, then we'll get a five year contract to look after that building. And what would a five year contract with the LPWB worth? Very massively. And there's some ones that are worth kind of per year, could be maybe four or five thousand, nothing massive, really, it's kind of it's smaller kind of contracts. But there'll be a lot of PO work that will come off the back of that. Like if you're cleaning gutters and the gutter is broken, it's up to us then to notify the LPW that this is broken, we then send in a price to fix it. So that will be kind of off the back of it. And someone in my work, they could only work 100 euro per call out that we're just going out to inspect something maybe. So it kind of varies massively. But we'd have, we do a lot of that work, a lot of, a lot of kind of reactive work for the LPWB as well. And that like their HQ is in trim. And last week, they had a minister calling out, so they wanted to clean up, they'd send us a PO, we'd arrive, power wash all the areas they want. And we do a lot of that kind of reactive work as well for them. What's PO? Purchase order. Okay. Yeah. So it's reactive working that it's not going to be a regular thing, it's just a once off clean. And so we're doing like nice courthouse, we're doing tomorrow. And then there's the courthouse and trim we're doing next week. So there's a lot of stuff that, you know, someone in that building would look after it, they'd contact the LPWB and say we need this done. And they'd then send that to us. So we kind of a fair contractor for them. And is your residential is it mostly Dublin or the greater Dublin area? So we were always within an hour of our farm on Southwest Dublin. So that would get us up to Dublin, Laod, Mullingar, Mead, Kildare, Wicklow, part of Karlow. So an hour of that gets us a good distance, even eating dairy is technically awfully. So that was always our circle. But we, as of the end of last year, went into Cork and Limerick. So we're doing residential houses down there now. We'd be nationwide for commercial work or for government work, because we can factor that into the cost if it's a large job. We'll say we'll have to say, you know, in a B&B overnight, we'll have to derive down, but like a tree beds Emmy isn't going to pay you for driving to Cork to do it. So we've now launched into Cork and Limerick. So we've about 120 customers in Cork on the subscription, and about 20 in Limerick. So it's very new and we're growing that. So we send the van down for about a week a month at the minute to those areas. So put commercial and residential together. What kind of turnover will you do this year? Yes, our target this year is two and a half million. So it's big business. Yeah, it is. In 2023, we kind of hit the million for the first time. It was 1.1 million. And then last year, 1.65, 1.7 million. This year, we're going for 2.5. So we've grown at least 50, 60% every year. In the beginning, it was like 200% growth a year on year, but then it gets harder as you grow. Yeah, because the vans, like we can kind of, there's a lot of money gets pumped into the vans to get them out on the road. And it's a lot of time goes in. So we had kind of treat the four vans a year. Right. Are you leasing the vans or do you own them? No, purchase them. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we buy, yeah, buy everything and fit everything out as well. So we're still profitable even though we pump a huge, like last year we spent, I think we had about 150,000 on marketing. And this year we'll do more. So we do a huge amount of marketing and stuff. But even at that, we're still profitable. What kind of profit for this year then? So we're hoping for our original target was 30%. Now that was a, that was a figure that I thought up off the back of looking at last year's stuff. It's not going to happen. But if we're around 20% again, I'd be happy. So about 20% last year. About half a million. Yeah. Yeah. So we're doing a big push on that. Our first six months was done and we're kind of, we've done all our figures on that. But it includes January, February and kind of March, which are terrible months for us because. Because of the rain? Yeah. Like we'll kind of continue with our regular work. The rain doesn't affect it too much and that we can clean with that system. That could be done in the rain. Our gutters can be done in the rain because it's from the ground, but we don't get a lot of new customers. It's just our subscription. So we'll keep us going. I suppose in January, people are going out. It's dark. They're coming home. It's dark. They're not really seeing, they're not looking out the window. Priorities have just changed. Nobody really has money. So what are the peak months? Is it summer when? Yeah, right now. People are at home looking out their turkey windows. So it kind of goes from, depending on the weather, it will kick off and usually April. So even though it's February, March is technically spring in Ireland, it isn't really like so. It's April, it gets busy. And then from May right up to October, November, it stays busy. November, it starts to die off a bit, but then December is really busy with Christmas. So everybody wants their house clean for Christmas then as well. So our kind of really down months when we encourage lots of the holidays and other things, January, February, March. So our first six months, we did just about a million on those. So the next six months, we're hoping to do 1.5 to get us up to our two and a half million target. Okay. What's the demographic of the customer base? Is it young? Is it old? Is it mostly women who are booking the services? Is it men? Yeah, it'll be mostly women. So mostly kind of women who maybe are at home more or are kind of more looking after. I suppose our ideal customer usually is a kind of homeowner 50 plus years of age who is in maybe more affluent area. A lot of the time that's a woman. They might be retired. It could be a bit older again that they're just a kind of house proud type person. Not that people in non affluent areas are not house proud, it's just that they would have more disposable income to spend on the stuff that gets done on the house. So they'd be more looking for to sign on to the subscription that they'll get, you know, power wash and done every six months. They'll get windows, gutters, fascia, they might get solar panels, whatever they want. They kind of, they just want someone to look after for them. That'd be our ideal customer. That'd be the demographic usually. Now, if I'm living in Fox Rock, am I paying more than let's say somebody living in Finglas? No, definitely not. No, our pricing is standardized. So it's all like, it's actually on our website. Depending on what your house is, we can give you an exact cost on it. Unless it's a huge house or something real out of the ordinary. A lot of houses now that are being built are like a lot of these modern homes are kind of really unusual that are really awkward to get there. They might have weird kind of, forget the name of the type of balcony where it's just glass in front of the things. A lot of them in Dublin 4 would be a bit like that. If it's something like that, it'd be a different price, but 90% of houses in Ireland are pretty similar. I mean, a four bed in Fox Rock is going to be pretty similar to a four bed anywhere else. Now your own journey has been interesting because you grew up on a farm you've referenced it a couple of times. It's near Sagarton County Dublin, so near the Dublin mountains. So you're, you know, you're part Dublin, part country almost. And then you did entrepreneurship in Maneuth. And then obviously decided that cleaning windows was your dream job. So tell us a little bit about that. Tell us about growing up on the farm with Catlin sheep and chickens and life on the farm. Yeah. So it's born on a farm in, as you said, South West Dublin. So the address is Sagart, but it's really the middle of nowhere. It's kind of between Tallah Sagart and Blessington, but it's, it's County Dublin. So that's where it's born. How many acres? About 120 acres. All kind of high immunity, unfortunately. There's no, when I tell people that they're like, it's 120 acres in Dublin, but like, I wouldn't get plan permission for this can of water out there. You know, it's kind of, it's very much rural like, so we won't be able to build there and like that. So you kind of use what's existing, which is what we've done for our new HQ is whatever was there. We were able to renovate it. Yeah. Yeah. Put water and stuff like that. You have your own well. Yeah. Yeah. So that's where the water comes from is a spring well up the mountain. And that feeds my dad's house and also the lads for the water. And your dad is still farming? Yeah. Yeah. So we see it as a cattle farm. So when I was born, there was cattle, and we'd sheep, we'd hens, we'd, my grandad was grown vegetables, it was all sorts. But as it kind of went on, my grandad lived up there till it was 99 and he was out doing all sorts. But when my dad took over the farm, then he kind of streamlined a bit, he got rid of the sheep, got rid of that and that wasn't making him money really. So he kind of got a bit smarter with it. And so he had a limousine cattle farm. So it was pure red limousines, which is a French breed. They're hardy because we're on the side of a mountain. So not every kind of type of cattle is going to be able to survive up there. So limousines were more hardy. And he would have bred cattle up there. So that's what I was involved with. It was a suckler herd. So I would have had my own cows when I was younger and kind of bringing them on and always around the farm. That was my first job was being on the farm every summer. And then later on was kind of just doing bits and pieces around the farm, like scrap and scrap metal, scrap pallets, bits and pieces. There was always some sort of enterprise going on. My nanny then would have had her, so the buildings were actually used at the minute was she a knitwear, a knitwear, like kind of handmade iron sweaters and stuff like that. That was what she did. She just shopped in town, Cleo's, which my auntie now has on, it's beside the door on Kildare Street. So she would have been there. So it was brought up around constant kind of entrepreneurs, you know, so that was kind of what I was never going to get a job, really, it was always going to be. And farmers are entrepreneurs. People don't generally view them in that way, but they are. Absolutely. Yeah. So there's forestry, I know the Christmas tree farm, and there was always just stuff going on. And so when I was in school, then I decided I would do, I didn't want to leave school when I was early, when I was kind of, I remember googling, what age can you leave school at? And he was 16 or something. So as soon as I hit that, I wanted to leave. But my dad would left school very early and never did his junior cert running. So he kind of turned me away from that idea and got me to finish. And I put one thing on my CEO and that was the entrepreneurship course in minute. And I got it. So I kind of decided then to do that because it wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do. I wasn't really going to take over the farm because my dad kind of turned us off that a bit as well. Or maybe it was my experience of seeing him and not being able to go on holidays and things like that. You know, it was very much a lifestyle that I suppose when I was 17, 18, I didn't want to do that. I think eventually we'll go back to that. But at the time I didn't. So I went to minute and I did the entrepreneurship course there. Right. So why are you cleaning windows? So while I was in minute, I was deciding what I wanted to do. And I had started just part time cleaning windows. It was my nannies to be out of the house. I used a little faulty ladder and I kind of borrowed most of the equipment and spent 50 euro on the rest. So that's how I started. This is just earned a few quid as a student. Yeah. Mostly beer money in minute. The social scene was the best thing about it. So that's kind of what I was doing. And then, like I remember the reason I did that was my mom was trying to book. She lives in Raquel and she was trying to book a window cleaner for her house, which is a standard house and like it's kind of terraced tree bed house. And I was trying to book a window cleaner and I had awful trouble in doing that. I just couldn't book one. Like the first guy never turned up. Second guy, they just would kind of ghost you and you'd never hear back from them. The tour guy then had lead me on for ages and it was just, it was a really difficult process. And even at that stage on the websites, the websites were like really old looking websites and you couldn't book through them. And it was just really clunky experience. And from that, I was like there must be, and I could hear people in the local area couldn't get window cleaners and it was a problem. So that's why I started. I never thought I would continue on with that. I just thought there's maybe something here. I'll start cleaning windows. I looked at YouTube videos on how to clean a window and just started from that. And then in university, I thought I'd come up with the next best app or it was always to do with tech or something like that. But as the time went on, I kind of thought as I continued on with that business, there was more and more that I seen that it was like there has to be something here. You know, there was no household name, no proper brand doing window cleaning in Ireland. And I thought at the start, maybe that's because it was maybe not a lot of money in it or whatever. But as I went on, I realized it was very profitable, very easy to get customers and very easy just to do the service. So it kind of got more and more. And then towards the end of university, that's what I was going to do. And so when we were doing our teases and stuff, my thesis was on a window cleaning company. And I pulled everybody, any group project I had, I pulled everybody in and we did a window cleaning company. So there's lads that I went to college with, and girls as well, they still slagged me today, came up with the idea or they helped me with the idea because everything we did, I'd be like, great, we're going to do window cleaning business. And so that kind of helped me, I suppose, nurture what I was going to do that when I graduated in 2019, 2020, I kind of had a much better business plan behind me that I was able to go on with then. Yeah. And here you are now two and a half million in revenue, which is impressive. You've branched out from window cleaning and gutters and so on. And you're now doing painting and plumbing. Yeah. Painting and kind of general maintenance. So kind of good replacements and stuff like that. So again, like with the volume customers that we have, like they trust us, they know us, they like us, and we're seen as probably just general handymen for them. Like when lads arrive at house, there could be always someone there, like you wouldn't mind just hanging this up or you wouldn't mind just there's a wire hanging loose. Because we have the ladders and we're handy, we'll always do something for them. And we'll never charge and you wouldn't look for charge like that. But off the back of that, they look for recommendations and stuff like the two big things was painting. So we were constantly getting asked for, could we do the painting? They didn't even sometimes have the paint and the brush there for the lads when they arrive to just touch up something. That was one and the other was gutter repairs because we're cleaning gutters and dealing with the roof and stuff like that and in roof cleaning and all that sort of stuff. We were always coming up with there was a broken gutter and they'd say, would you be able to fix it? And we couldn't read it. We could do small little jobs, but we'd never be able to replace a full gutter or anything like that. So it was then caught into a team that we'd be back around a year later and the gutter would still be broken and causing problems and they couldn't get anybody to repair it for them. So this was going on for a few years. So I had the idea then that we would just start doing those services. So we launched the painting company. So we're the cleaning company dot e. We launched then and marched the painting company dot e and the maintenance company dot e. So the maintenance company dot e will do general handyman stuff, but mostly it's good or replacements, face your software replacements, good repairs, stuff like that. So it's external rather than internal. Yeah. So again, it's keeping what we do with the cleaning. It's mostly external. We do internal stuff, but we'd always, we just like sticking to the outside. So we launched that in March and we just sent kind of an email to all our customers to say, we're now doing, I haven't even told them we're doing the replacement thing yet because we're so busy that we sent out an email to all our customers to say, we're now doing painting. And I think we got something like 280 inquiries just off the back of that for people who wanted external painting done. So we booked ourselves out till at the time to the end of September. We've never been booked out for most of the rest of the year. So have you qualified painters on your books? Yeah. So what we do is we are subcontract network. So we bring in someone who's going to do, because I don't, I'm not a painter and I wouldn't know. I know a lot about it because I've done kind of renovations and construction and stuff like that. I've painted many things on the farm, but it's just kind of, I'm not a painter by trade. So we got in a kind of subcontractor who's working with us as a partner who is a painter by trade and he knows everything there is about painting. So he's who then takes on the work under our brand, if that makes sense. And so before we would get into putting our own vans on the road, this is how we're kind of testing it out and it's working really well. Same as a good replacement, it's a roofer who's come in as a kind of partner with us who will do all of our work. And again, we guarantee it and you're dealing with us. You're not dealing with like everything is still true us as a company and our insurance and all that. Yeah. So how big can that be? I think it can be massive. Is that another two and a half million business, potentially? Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So they all kind of tie in together. Like it's all under the one kind of, I suppose umbrella, all the, everything's kind of similar. The branding is all similar. How we deal with the customer is similar. At the end of the day, when it's just, it's a van going to a house to do a job, when he gets out of the van instead of cleaning windows, he's painting, it's, it's not wildly different. And all the systems are the exact same right up until the point that you start to do the work. So there's no real end, I think, to any of these services in Ireland that we, so that's kind of, as far as my ultimate goal is to be a home services group where you can come to us for any kind of home service that you need done. So how big could this company be in your review? Let's say five years down the road. Yeah, we'd be looking for 10 million revenue. So that's kind of our goal. That's our five year goal. And that's the goal boy that we set in, it would have been five, six, seven, so 2024, by the end of 2029, that we wanted to be doing 10 million revenue and profitable off the back of these new services. So that's, that's our goal. After that, I took the push on again. So I think it could be huge because it just works. Our only problem now is is getting enough people to complete the work and making sure that when it is completed that we're not growing too fast, the quality drops. So that's a constant kind of, it's a constant thing that we're kind of dealing with that we don't want to, like a good boy for an advance tomorrow, sick for guys in them. It doesn't mean that it's going to be good for us or good for the customer. So it's kind of, that's the constant kind of battle is when work comes in, having someone reliable to do it. So we're doing pretty well at this stage. And will you need external investment or do you see a point where somebody might knock on your door and say, we love what you've done, you've built a business up to this point, 10 million or whatever. We'd like to buy the business from you. I have an approach a few times over the last few years from different kind of people and different people may be looking to come in and do like with the painting, we'd loads of much bigger painting companies that wanted to come in as kind of investors and dead around that side. And there's always stuff nearly every week, there's something offered, but I just feel like I don't need it at the minute. We don't have problems with cash flow. I mean, obviously, everybody could do it more cash flow, but like, ultimately, the way we're growing, I think is I'm happy with it, you know, I'm happy with the growth. If it went any quicker, I think we'd have other problems like quality and stuff like that. So we're growing quite quickly. And I don't think I need investment. That's not to say in a few years, when we really start to kind of crack Ireland, that a lot of external investment would help with offices and much more marketing and stuff. But at the minute, it's not something that I'm looking at. And it's not something on me horizon really. I like to have like, I'm the only director of the company. And I kind of like to have 100% control over what we do, you know, and kind of it allows me to make decisions on different things. I don't have to answer to anybody or don't have to. It's just me on the decision maker. And that's kind of the way I like it. And for the minute, doesn't decide it'll get much, much bigger. Eventually, I'll probably bring in maybe a managing director on kind of a profit share type thing, but I'm not sure that it'd ever give up a large portion of your business. In 10 years time, who's decided I won't want to sell and go on to something else. I don't know. At the minute, it's not, it's not part of the plan anyway. Back to farming. Yeah, yeah, my dad loved that. I think eventually, I will. I think the busier I get, the more attractive that seems. The good is, the good to see my dad just heading off on the quad and he just does his cup of it. It's like, he's in the sixties now. And he's kind of reduced, he's not a suckler here anymore. It's dry stock, so he's just buying in. And then he kind of brings them on and sends them to the factory. So there's no calves or anything like that. So it's, it's much easier than it used to be. So it looks, it's looking more and more attractive, the older I get, and the more focused I become on family and stuff. It kind of looks, it looks like a good way to go eventually, not for the money, but more for the, the lives that I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, look, we wish you well. Luke Joyce, thank you for joining us. Thanks very much. Okay, that's it for this week from Inside Business. My thanks to Siobhan McGuire and Luke Joyce for joining me on the show. John Casey produced this episode with JJ Vernon on Sound. Thanks also to our sponsor EY for its continued support. Remember, as an Irish Times subscriber, you can sign up to our daily business digest at IrishTimes.com. And you can also follow the Irish Times business feed on X LinkedIn and Facebook. book each day. I'm Kieran Hancock, until next time, take care.