This past week, I posted that a kid in Hamilton, about an hour southwest of Toronto, turned a neighbourhood BBQ-cleaning business into an enterprise spanning several cities. How much would you pay a kid to clean your grill?
A disgustingly dirty Gas Grill Grate: Would you clean it your self?
If not, how much would you pay someone to do the job?
After some thought…
I had a chance to sit back and think about the deal in greater depth. And see it with less-glazed eyes. And I came to the conclusion that some well-off folks – the kind who throw BBQ parties every weather-permitting weekend through the summer – would jump at the chance to get a like-new gas grill for ‘just’ $180. But is the idea viable as a local, neighbourhood enterprise? And would you pay that tab?
The deal
If you missed it, the deal sounds great. You get a responsible, reliable skilled BBQ cleaner in the person of an older teenage or younger university student. They clean and de-grease your standard 3-burner grill inside and out for $180 (to start).
Really grand grills these days cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. They’re seen as an investment, not an straight expense. And we expect them to last for many seasons, unlike the flimsy sheet metal ones many less well-off folks throw out every few years.
The duty
But cleaning these sometimes-mammoth cookers can be a chore no one wants to tackle. It’s dirty, greasy, sooty and repulsive. And the smell can be downright nauseating.
I’ve endured many a spring grill cleaning in the past. And I vividly recall the toll the experience took on me. After about 4 hours of scrubbing, inhaling hazardous cleaner fumes, and becoming literally infused with the odor and palapable greasiness of the business, I was totally whacked. It took at least two showers to get the smell out of my hair. And I could still smell – and taste – rancid, burned grease the next day.
That’s no way to start off a brand, new, shiny BBQing season…
The Shaidle approach
I’m now aware that Jacob Shaidle, the kid I bathed in golden sunlight and lauded to the rooftops in the original post, is not the only one who’s started a summer grill-cleaning business. In fact, they’re all over the Internet. But that’s no sin.
It’s still a great idea, a market to be exploited, and a lucrative opportunity for any high school or university student looking to make their own holiday work.
My take
But Shaidle, I believe, owes his admittedly monumental success to the scale to which he’s grown his enterprise. It6 now covers several citieslocat6ed up tio an hour away from his original starting point. And he managed a corps of dozens of operatives in 6 different service zones.
What are the prospects for the average kid, who wants to start up such a service solo, or even in partnership with a few friends, serving a relatively small area?
My questions to you:
Would you pay a kid – no matter how trustworty, skilled and professional – $180 to clean your grill?
If not, what WOULD you pay a kid to clean your grill?
If you are such a kid, would you even want to do that disgusting, nauseating job?
If so, could anyone ‘ever pay you enough’?
Muse on that…
~ Maggie J.