In the late summer of 2023, I contacted my uncle about borrowing a pressure washer to do some jobs around my house. I created some brochures on my own along with my business logo and some small digital marketing pieces. Earlier that year I was looking into becoming an entrepreneur because I thought it was fascinating to start your own business and make money. I couldn’t get a job I wanted and didn’t like the idea of working at a fast-food restaurant. After my baseball season was over, I asked to borrow the pressure washer and did a couple of jobs around the house and I really enjoyed that. Before that next summer, I asked for a pressure washer for my birthday so that I didn’t have to use my uncle’s anymore. Then I got more jobs in my grandma’s neighborhood and from family members and other people I knew. Then I received the grant from my school.

You get out of it what you put into it. I’m trying to learn as much as I can about this industry. I’m managing a business and trying to hire employees, and I’ve learned communication skills. I’m really hustling. As a freshman and underclassman, I struggled with confidence and talking to people. Going up to doors and using sales tactics to close a deal has really helped me with my soft skills like eye contact. Improving those skills has helped me gain new clients and work toward client acquisition.

One challenge I’ve learned to overcome is pricing. As a service, it can be difficult to come up with a flat price. With a product, you can calculate how much it costs to sell each product. I’m still trying to get through that obstacle of figuring out pricing that’s consistent. Especially with all the different things you can do with pressure washing, like sidewalks or decks.

I would say small steps are better than no steps. You’ve got to take action; you’ve got to start. You might want to try and get everything right, everything perfect, before you launch something but that’s not how it works. You have to make those mistakes and fail. You have to learn from those failures, then evaluate and grow. That’s really what it’s all about as an entrepreneur, being able to fail and then learn from it.

I’m looking at colleges and I’ve been thinking of running my business from college. To do that, I would hire a small team and stay connected with them through virtual meetings and going back to my hometown during the weekends. I’ve had mentorship from Luke Devins, who owns Devin’s Pressure Washing, he went to Polaris as well. He’s about 20 years old now and started his business around the same age that I did. He runs his business while attending Miami University. I thought that was interesting and could see myself doing that.

I’ve attended multiple YYEF programs through Polaris. We’ve come to Hackathon and thinkBIG! Summit. Those programs were very helpful. They showed me a little more about entrepreneurship and starting your own business. It’s inspirational when you see guys like Josh and his company Jam by Josh and you hear his story about overcoming his stutter and growing his business. I know I was really inspired by his story.