De Poetsfiets
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Summary
De Poetsfiets
Cleaning industry
Sole proprietorship
Belgium
Flexibility, name, logo, branding
Zeinab Mohamed, Kjell Vanderhaeghen
Anthony De Clerck
Zeinab Mohamed, Kjell Vanderhaeghen
De Poetsfiets was recently founded in October 2015 and has been growing ever since. The interview was conducted from the founders Kjell Vanderhaeghen and Zeinab Mohamed, who both put all their effort and time into this business in order for it to flourish in a sustainable way. With its electronically driven cargo bike, this cleaning company is able to transport their personnel and equipment in an easy, flexible and ecological way through the city.
Background
The incentive to start this company came from the idea that the current problems of mobility in the city of Ghent could be solved by simply changing transportation methods that are used to reach customers in the city. The creators of this company are determined to help create a ‘better tomorrow’ and want to reduce their ecological footprint. In order to achieve this goal, they decided to transport themselves by a cargo bike that carries their ecologically friendly cleaning products.
Zeinab Mohamed had some experience in the cleaning industry prior to the foundation of De Poetsfiets. She got tired of working for companies that conducted their activity in damaging ways for the environment and that’s why she started to work with Kjell Vanderhaeghen. Both of these entrepreneurs had the idea that the cleaning industry in general lacked a proper evolution and started brainstorming on how they could improve the activity and business in a way that is applicable in the 21th century.
The biggest problem according to these two creative minds, could be found in the mobility throughout the city. Transporting yourself by car to reach clients in the city is very stressful, time consuming, expensive and most importantly: it’s very polluting. After some brainstorming sessions on how these two could give an answer to these problems, they came up with the idea of De Poetsfiets: a company that transports itself by cargo bike filled with equipment.
In the times we live in, it’s very difficult to obtain a loan from traditional banks if your idea is somewhat different from the usual companies, since the banks try to avoid as much risks as possible. That’s why the creators of De Poetsfiets decided that during the months of preparations, they would search for creative alternatives to achieve financial support. This was a success as they were able to obtain a sponsorship deal with the companies Cleandeal.be and Ecover. These sponsorships helped them to lower the initial cost of investment by sponsoring the materials that are used to perform the business activities, being the gear and cleaning products in exchange for publicity throughout the company's communication.
After this sponsorship the founders were left with a minimal cost of investment which was the sum of the costs of the bike, the branding and the clothing. The duo decided they would finance this cost with their own money. The company decided to invest in just one bike at the beginning to explore the market and the demand for their business activity and hoped to grow in an organic way. After launching the mobile and durable cleaning company gained a lot of attention from the media and the offers started pouring in.
Mission
The mission of De Poetsfiets is to please their customers by offering a high quality service, while working in a sustainable way.
Vision
De Poetsfiets wants to look further than just Ghent and would like to expand to the rest of the big cities in the Flemish region, and maybe even obtain a position in The Netherlands.
Values
The catch phrase of this company is ‘sustainable cleaning’, meaning that they’ve founded a cleaning company that fits in modern society and is applicable in the 21th century. The aspect of ecology and sustainability is carried out throughout the whole business and its activities:
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The transportation by bike
To reduce their emission and to help create a better future for the city will always remain the core values. Even if the company would expand and there would be need to transport themselves by car to reach the customers located in different cities. The creative minds would, in that case choose for an electric car to again reduce their ecological footprint.
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The products that are used
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Their work clothing
The fabric that was used to make the workforces’ clothing is organic cotton. The cost is higher than normal clothes but thanks to the company’s high attention for sustainable business activity they opted for this option.
Another company value is their focus on human resources. De Poetsfiets attaches great value to this factor because they want their personnel to be treated in the right way. By caring for their personnel, the company tries to obtain better communication and trust with these people.Examples of their improved policy are the higher wages the personnel receives next to the non-statutory benefits. By treating their personnel better, De Poetsfiets tries to keep the most valuable individuals of the staff. This is also very important for the customer as they want to see a familiar face each time the company makes a visit.
A remarkable given is that the solicitants that apply for a job at De Poetsfiets are not solely people that have experience in the cleaning industry. They also receive applications from high- educated people who are enthusiastic about their business concept and their environmental friendly policy, and want to help the company to flourish.
Business Model
The founders didn’t want to start a project that was already used by other people, so they’ve decided to create something completely new. Even though there are traditional cleaning companies, De Poetsfiets differs themselves by their unique approach to conduct their activities.
The advantage of their service lays in the fact that they can work in a very flexible way thanks to the cargo bike and thus that they can agree to smaller projects which traditional cleaning companies would decline. For instance: when small companies want their offices to be cleaned, the traditional cleaning companies often won’t agree to the task because they search for assignments that last for at least 2-3 hours. (Because of the higher transportation costs the traditional companies try to attract longer lasting assignments). De Poetsfiets, because of its cheap and easy way to transport, doesn’t mind moving from one place to another. In fact, this is an opportunity for them because they can enlarge their income per hour.
The business model of De Poetsfiets is innovative on several aspects. The first one being the used ‘channel’ to reach the clients is different than the channels their competitors use, both literally and figuratively speaking. Not only do they transport themselves in an original way, the traditional cleaning companies are also hardly ever present on social media and similar channels to promote their services. Founder Kjell Vanderhaeghen learned from his previous experiences from other projects that branding the company is the best way to reach out to new potential clients. De Poetsfiets wants the customers to familiarize themselves with the brand and its activities in this way.
Next to the factor ‘channel’, the targeted customer segments this cleaning company tries to reacha are different than the ones of their competition. Like previously explained, De Poetsfiets can agree to smaller projects thanks to their flexibility so they can reach a lot more clients and make more profit by cleaning at more locations in the same amount of time. The cost structure of this company is also altering from the traditional cleaning companies. Thanks to a lower initial cost, because of the sponsorships they received for their products and their limited need for expensive transportation methods, this company could manage to grow organically after the low initial cost. At last, De Poetsfiets also wants to change their ‘value proposition’, by approaching their customers in a different way. By applying the higher wages, the cleaning personnel is more rapidly satisfied during their work and thus will deliver a better service.
The revenue model of this company is based on the current market prices. There are a lot of suppliers in the cleaning industry so the founders of De Poetsfiets have to adapt their prices to those of their competition. At the moment, the company works with a base rate that is applicable if the service is only needed once a month. If the customer needs their services more than once, the prices will drop.
In order to obtain information about the cleaning industry, the duo didn’t rely on organizations like Voka, Unizo,... Most of their information was derived from the working experience of Zeinab Mohamed and the knowledge concerning businesses and their activities came from the working experience Kjell Vanderhaeghen had. Other sources of information were the internet and business magazines. At last, the creators claim that the most useful information they’ve received came from their own personal network.
Growth
The launch of the company was better than they had expected. After their first press release, the offers poured in and their profits have been rising ever since. Nowadays we can state that since the release in October 2015, their revenue has been doubled every month. The company that grows organically was already able to purchase a second cargo bike and managed to hire an additional qualified employee.
At the moment, the main focus lies on companies and offices. Noticeable is that they notice a lot of start-ups in their customer base. These trendy people are mostly between 25 and 40 years old. This was the targeted audience from the very start because the duo knew that these young entrepreneurs would appreciate their concept and they would try and support it.
Like stated above, the offers came immediately after their initial press release. After that De Poetsfiets made an effort to contact potential clients themselves and this proved to be a wise decision as records show that about 78% of their sent quotations get accepted.To promote their business, De Poetsfiets makes use of several communication methods:
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Social media
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Website
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Press releases
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Word- of- Mouth advertising
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Being present in the customers everyday life
Customers
The reason why De Poetsfiets attaches so much more value on promoting their brand in comparison to the traditional cleaning companies, is that they are convinced that this is the best way to reach new potential clients. Even though they are focusing on businesses and not on individuals, branding has proven to be very efficient because people talk and share their discoveries with acquaintances. The last factor of promoting their brand is their presence in the life of the customer. People recognize the bike while it travels through the city.
Competitors
De Poetsfiets doesn't have any kind of direct competitions. The traditional cleaning companies are considered to be indirect competitors because they offer the same service but in a completely different way.
At the moment there aren’t any copycats, and that may be thanks to the fact that the creative duo has protected themselves against them. They managed to do this by obtaining a patent on their name and logo. According to the management of the business, they have a name and logo that best describe their activity, if a person was to copy it De Poetsfiets is able to take legal actions and if the competitor uses a name and/or logo that’s completely different, it will never explain the concept in a way De Poetsfiets does.
Conclusion
We can conclude that the opportunities for this ambitious company are still endless considering all aspects. The biggest one being their ability to expand to different cities and obtaining more notoriety in the cleaning industry. At the moment, the biggest threats of De Poetsfiets are the need for more adequate personnel and finances to support their growth. The weaknesses of this company lays in the disadvantage a cyclist has in bad weather conditions, that’s why De Poetsfiets tries to attain driven and adequate personnel that are willing to commit to their job.