BC Business
CEO
AGE: 29
COMPANY: Cleanify Holdings Inc.
“If I had to do it again, I would. It’s in my blood”
The story: “I’m not going to say it’s easy to have two kids and run a company,” says Cleanify’s Justin Potter. Families and 20-something tech entrepreneurs don’t generally go hand in hand, but Potter—who operates on five hours of sleep as the father of a six-year-old daughter and four-year-old son—considers running his own company a dream come true: “If I had to do it again, I would. It’s in my blood.” His seven-person Vancouver startup is essentially Expedia for the cleaning industry, aggregating a city’s many cleaning companies, big and small, under a single digital roof. Through its website and app, members can book and pay for cleaning services via one online portal, where they compare options by price and customer ratings, all in a matter of minutes. Potter got his inspiration for Cleanify as a teenager, working at his friend’s father’s janitorial company: “What I got from that was how screwed up the cleaning industry was, particularly for the cleaner. I knew there was a big opportunity in cleaning because it’s so fragmented.”
Markers of success: The company has expanded into the Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Chicago markets, with Potter saying that he receives five to 10 new applications a day from interested cleaning services. Cleanify is growing cautiously, ensuring it handles each new market with care. As for why they went into Chicago, Potter says it’s where “we had the biggest backlog of applications.” —Trevor Melanson
Meet Justin Potter and the rest of the 2015 30 Under 30 winners at this year’s celebration event!