How To Travel The World While Building An Empire w/ Neel Parekh

Hey, this is Brian S. Arnold here, and I am so stoked to have you here. Mr. Neil Parekh coming up shortly, and he's going to show you how to really live this lifestyle, that remote lifestyle that you hear about, about just having a laptop and living the dream.

Well, he has a plan, and he's going to show you how he does it, a very unique niche. I will give that hint out to you. Having a very unique niche and really figuring out how to do local service remotely. So this is great.

I want you to hear it. Here he goes. You ready? I'm ready.

Let's go. Ladies and gentlemen, boys, we are back with another one. It is the Authority Project. And I am here with my new good friend here, Neil Parekh.

And he says he's going to help us travel the world while building an empire. Is that right, Neil? As long as the COVID thing gets contained and the world opens up, yes, Brian. I'm hopeful that we could get everyone to do that.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, we shall see. We shall see on this episode.

The Authority Project. success. Developing authority, building your audience, and attracting better clients to your own business. Now, without further ado, let's bring to the virtual stage your host, Brian S.

Arnold. All right, we are back with another one. It is Brian S. Arnold, and I have Neil Parekh on the stage here with us.

And we're just going to talk about traveling and building an empire, an online empire. And how are you doing, my friend, first of all? I'm good, man. I'm excited to be here.

Excited to talk with you about this. And yeah, let's get going. Okay. Okay.

Well, we're going to dive in, but first let's do this real quick. Who are you, Neil? Who are you personally and professionally? Yeah.

So starting from the top, my name is Neil. I run a company called Made This and Made This Franchise. It is a cleaning franchise focused on vacation rentals like Airbnbs. I've been doing it remotely for quite a few years.

And I originally started my career in venture capital did that for a few years and then did this as a side hustle quit booked a one-way trip to columbia and just started building made this and so built it in a way where it's very remote based and scalable and that's how i was able to travel the world while building a local company awesome that's that's you in a nutshell personally professional i love it i love it so what do you have a current project that you're working on besides made this franchise or something or something else you want to um just share yeah i mean honestly that that's our my main focus right now we actually recently launched in end of 2020 for the franchise operations california operations been up this 2013 but that's the main project i'm working on right now and just trying to find awesome people who fit the culture so that's mainly and i actually have a podcast i just launched uh brian i call the remote local podcast so that's something that's coming out too nice very nice so so yeah so let's i want to i usually have a third question this is a daily routine but i think we're going to dive into all that in the topic so let's dive into this topic let's dive into this topic neil about traveling the world while building an empire what does that mean so the concept came to me like many and millions of people who've read the four-hour work week right where you have a company and you could travel and you could let, you know, do it from wherever you want.

And kind of what's happened from that book is there's been communities of people who've taken that to heart, myself included, and built kind of what's called a lifestyle business where you can be completely location independent and run it from anywhere. So that was the impetus of me even starting a business is I wanted to travel. So I think that was number one. And the second question is how do you structure your business in a way that allows you to do that?

So for me, I knew I just wanted to do it from the road for a while. And I don't think I'd be able to do it forever traveling, but I did spend five years traveling and building it. And I think a lot of people who are attracted to this type of model maybe have that adventurous mindset, maybe want to check out other places in the world who don't want to be stuck in maybe one exact city and are wondering how they could actually do that. And what's kind of cool, Brian, is like a lot of people are doing more remote work now.

It's becoming more normalized, which is better. It makes this even easier. So there's so many ways to do this, but I think it's just kind of old school mentality of having to stay in one city. If you don't have to be, you could go anywhere in the world, live cheaply, go explore things you want to do while still having your own business and growing.

So it's very possible now. So I want to dive into exploring, first of all, which is great. Everything you're saying is wonderful. Everybody wants this laptop lifestyle to be anywhere and everywhere and still have a business that's sustaining.

But I see that you have a very specific niche that is always going to be in demand, right? Now, do you believe that's like step one? I mean, you can think about this type of lifestyle, but don't you need something that's like evergreen and, you know, that's always going to be in demand, always going to be something that is a need before you start something like this It a good question Brian I think with any business I would always recommend so what I like is local businesses And I tell you why Local service business specifically Because anything which involves human labor and human work it's going to be hard to get wiped out with technology.

My parents had video rental stores. 33 years had video rental stores. Do you remember those old blockbusters? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So I grew up with that. And I saw very quickly how that, within a matter of a couple of years, they just got overtaken with technology. I'm not saying that can't happen.

when you have a service-based business, but it is going to be a little bit harder to do. Cleaning has been around forever. It's been around. So that's kind of, in my opinion, more of a sustainable type of model where it might not get automated out quickly as my parents' business did.

So I don't know if it's necessary for the purpose of travel where you need this type of sustainable business, but I think as a general business practice, I think it's just a good model. You're a little bit insulated because it is dependent on humans. Yeah, that's great. That's great.

So let's go over how to get this done. How hands-on do you have to be to keep this thing afloat? Like, where are your resources? It's not just you.

Take us to the point where, okay, how do I do this? I'll be outsourcing people, then be hiring people into this thing. How does that all work? Yeah.

Yeah. And look, I'll be upfront and also say, it is difficult. It's not easy. You have to go step by step.

You're, at least for my business, it is a local business, meaning I'm working on Los Angeles time zone. The people are localized. there's a lot of moving parts involved. So it's not easy.

Talk a little bit about my team, Brian. So there's, of course, the cleaners who are boots on the ground. They go straight from their homes, straight to the cleaning jobs. We have about 10 people on operations.

And those people are all over the world. They work wherever they want to. So teams in different places. And we all communicate via Slack and coordinate things.

And we communicate with the cleaners via just a VoIP system, like a telephone system online, through Slack, through email. So it is somewhat easier to communicate with people. And from my end, Brian, your question was, how long do I have to work on the business, I guess? Well, how do you put this together?

I mean, where are you getting these people? Basically, where are you getting these people? You have this idea. Yeah.

It's a great, this is the idea. You kind of started off by yourself. It's like, okay, do you start off like, I'm going to start running this by myself, or I can't do this by myself. I'm going to start putting other people in place right away.

How does that work from there? Yeah, absolutely. I started putting other people in place right away. I'd be a terrible cleaner.

So my first action was find a cleaner and I'm going to do the rest. So starting from very ground zero, just went on Craigslist. I threw up an ad, found a cleaner and said, okay, this should work. I had no idea what I was doing.

Somehow found a customer who was looking for a cleaning. And I said, okay, great. Let me just match this up and go. And that was step one.

And I used to go out of my corporate job and like pay the cleaner in cash. And so people always just saw me handing someone bills in cash and be like, hey, you're a drug dealer. Like what's going on over here? But that's step one.

And then grow from there. So step one is outsource. Step two is once you get very busy, figure out if you want to outsource the customer calls or the management of the vendors, the cleaners as well. So it's pretty much seeing where you're over capacity and what you hate doing, outsource that, and then keep building and building from there.

So, Brian, if that answers the question you were looking for. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So that's great.

It's a very quick answer. i'm gonna have some more because you make it sound so simple and easy yeah i mean but what what are the challenges what are the wrong ways to go about this what tell us about the speed bumps yeah so and i'm going to talk a lot about our business model because i think it's very different from i know other hosts other people we've had on the show who have different types of business models local services is different because it does involve humans and like i discussed earlier, that's great for insulating yourself against technology.

It's hard because you're also dealing with humans and human error and different personalities. You're dealing with the blue-collar labor force as well. So a lot of the problems honestly would just be from the cleaner partners we use or the cleaners maybe not being a great fit for us. Decide they don't want to show up.

All of a sudden, what happens? You get yelled at by the customer. Decide they're going to mess up at the cleaning and just not answer. And anything with humans involves finding those people who are the greatest cultural fit for you.

So I think that was a hard part for us to understand is even though there's demand for your service, you need to have a good product before you can fulfill it. You should throttle your growth until you can provide a good product or it's just going to cause issues down the line. So examples of what would happen is we'd be growing so fast and so much demand for the service, which is great. However, we'd have to send what I'd call B or C level cleaners to these jobs.

And all of a sudden you get a complaint and you get a refund and then you spend time having to speak with the customer about it. And if you look at all those things combined, it's not a profitable venture to even do that. So the tough part is getting on this seesaw with any local business that involves humans is customers on one end and your labor on the other and how to balance that. And here's the trick, not the trick, but like the reality is it never gets solved.

We've been doing this for eight years and there's always this seesaw. And that's what we teach our franchises is like, it never fully goes away. No local business, which deals with services. It never truly goes away, that seesaw of labor and demand.

It's a constant back and forth. And that's the thing I think anyone who's listened to this who might be saying, hey, I want a cleaning company or local service business. That's what you have to understand. You dealing with humans and you dealing with this perpetual seesaw And it can get very stressful But the way to grow is just get recurrent customers get them set and then keep building from there so it does take time it very hard to go gangbusters out the gate and get a hundred thousand dollars in sales in the first month like maybe you could with e-commerce or another digital product it's a little it's tougher to do that when you involve a human labor but i like your niche because it's different it's different you're not just doing cleaning your team cleaning with just, is it just Airbnbs?

Is that what the niche is? Yeah. I mean, we do both residential as well as vacation rentals, but vacation rentals, I like because it's kind of a new rage niche. There's a higher volume of people who are going to these Airbnbs and checking out, meaning a cleaning has to happen.

It's not like a, it's a necessity. It's not like, Hey, I'll get a cleaning if I want to. It's, I have to get a cleaning before the next guest arrives. So for the, for the host, It is, we are a necessity for them.

And it's, our competition is other cleaning vendors or other individual cleaners who might not have the tech prowess we have of being able to like sync with calendars or things like that. So I think also based on the local competition, I do like where we stand. Awesome. Awesome.

So are you running all the operations while you travel or do you have other people like you just jump on a meeting call every day and say, is everything good? Is everything good? Yeah. Tell us about your day-to-day.

What does that look like? It evolves over time, right? Like now when I'm sitting, I have a team and I can do just the meeting strategy. I still hop in the day-to-day every now and then if there's a big problem or it's a crazy day, but I don't need to.

Thank God. Now, this is eight years down the line. So when I first started, I booked my flight straight to South America and I was working. I did have someone helping out with operations, but I would have to be on during LA business hours to make sure things are going well.

And that would involve me cleaner calls and says, hey, I can't get into the unit. Can you please call the customer? Help out with that. Customer calls has a complaint.

I help out with that. So at the beginning, I was doing everything. And eventually, you could kind of outsource it, train people, get people on your team to do it. It takes a while to get there, right?

You need enough money. And like I said, you can't grow gangbusters initially with a services-based business. So it does take a while to scale there. Now, my day-to-day is mostly just lots of meetings with different teams.

Like right before this, I had a meeting with our marketing coordinator just to go over our strategy for the week to make sure we have enough leads. Later in the week, I'll have a meeting with our sales team just to make sure what the closing conversion rates are. And we know our numbers down pat, right? I know X number of leads come in, we should be closing 50% over phone, X% over website visits.

And all it is really checking KPIs now. That's kind of the main thing. And then, of course, a leadership meeting once a week to go over strategy and any big hurdles. I personally just like working.

So if I see the team struggling, I'm never going to let them just struggle. I usually jump in and try to help out. And Brian, I know people say like, oh, you should be focusing on higher dollar stuff worth of time. But I feel like there is benefit for me showing my team that I'm willing to get dirty with them and step in and help them out whenever they're struggling.

So I try to make myself available to do that. And I think it does help out the team. This is great, man. So I want to ask you this because I think you might be going in this direction, but this is a new question.

I'm not going to be asking you this now. So this is brand new for us now. Because it's really in my heart now. What kind of impact do you really want to leave when this is all said and done?

What kind of legacy are you looking to do as far as impacting the world? Brian, that's a great question. I don't think anyone's ever asked me that on a podcast. So I think this evolves over time.

I think the question is, why are you doing this? And I'll start with what it was and maybe what it is now. The why when I first started was two things. I wanted to have money and a project while I traveled.

And two, I wanted to provide for my parents financially who weren't doing as well at the time based off of their video business. Those are my whys. And kind of once I fulfilled that, the question is, okay, those pain points are gone. Now what am I reaching towards?

And what I really like about Made This and what we built is just how it supports the community of people who work with Made This. Initially, Brian, I was trying to almost force it by saying, here's my business. We are helping change the world by providing cleaners to people and that helps them save time. But the reality is it felt forced.

I was trying to make a mission out of that. And the real mission is like, I just like that Made This can help support people live whatever life they want and whatever freedom they want. If they want the freedom to travel, do it. Great.

Do that. If they want the freedom to be able to homeschool their kids, like some of the people who work for us, they're able to do that through Made This. So whatever purpose you want, I think I see Made This as kind of the golden goose, which allows that to happen. And a lot of what we're doing with franchising is allowing our franchise owners to have that level of freedom and build that community for themselves.

So I think the impact I would like to have is just helping people achieve a level of freedom in whatever capacity that means. That could be time freedom. That could be financial freedom. That could be a location freedom.

but just being an enabler and a platform for people to be able to do that. I think that'd be what I would like to leave behind as well. And there's actually something I'm working on. The team haven't fully implemented it, but I would love to figure out a way to kind of weave social good into what we're doing by, let's say, directly tying every booking.

We donate a dollar to Kiva, like a microloan organization, or do something like that and actually be able to systemize in a way where I could even teach other local companies saying, Hey, this actually brings you better ROI by weaving social good into what you're doing. And I think a lot of local companies don do that because local companies aren thinking about that But if I could prove to them and say you can do good and it helps your bottom line I think that be huge So that be phase two of kind of a legacy I like to leave behind I love it.

I love it. Yeah. And I got one last question before we get out of here. Or you know what?

Let's do this. Wrap this all up here. Give me an overall summary about this whole thing, this whole blueprint of traveling and still being able to build an online empire. Do you have anything like an overall thing that you want to share?

Yeah, let me, and I think a lot of it's mindset, Brian, is why do people do this? Why do people do what they want? Why are people even wanting to travel the world while building their business? So here's my philosophy with it.

I believe business in general, whatever business you start, should be a vehicle for your own life. The business is here to serve you. You are not here to serve the business. With that in mind, you should have a lifestyle business, one that devotes and serves your purpose of life.

My purpose of life initially was I wanted to travel and I want to provide financial freedom for my parents. Now, if anyone listens to this and wants to start your business, Think about why am I doing this? And also reframe your thought to say, what business is going to serve me and my purpose of what I want to do? I think that's number one, right?

That's what businesses should be doing. So as you start and think, okay, maybe I want a remote business. I want to do something where I could do it while traveling. And maybe you decide you want to do a local business along with that.

I think there's just so many opportunities to go into the local spectrum and make it remote in a way which is never possible before. So for example, if you decide on local service, call it painting, call it cleaning, call it plumbing, anything you want, you now have all the tools at your disposal, which have never been available historically. Talk about Slack, talk about online systems, access to talent around the world, which allows you to do it remotely. So why not have lower overhead, be able to have the flexibility to travel wherever you want and build your local business?

So that's why kind of I love the niche we're in. It's insulated from technology. It's insulated from competition around the world because it's local, but you're still able to do it completely remotely. So I think that the biggest takeaway is, hey, if you want to travel the world, right now is the best time ever in history to be able to do that because of just the way technology has advanced.

And there's no excuse not to. And another step on top of that is in the local spectrum, I believe you're even more insulated. And a lot of people don't realize that you can travel the world while having a local business nowadays. So it's, in my opinion, a hidden gem of what's out there.

Awesome. I think you already wrapped up my usual last question is, how do you become authority in this space? I think you just wrapped it up right there. I don't even know, unless you have something else to add to that about being authority, you have anything on that?

Because that was just perfect. I don't want to ruin it by trying to rehash what you just said. That was just perfect, man. Yeah.

And Brian, you mean being authority in the remote local space is kind of what you're talking about. Yeah. Shoot, baby, I just won't rehash it either. I think we're good.

I think that was perfect. That's done. So you know what? Let's just do this.

This has been awesome. This has been great. So tell people where they can find you after the show. Yeah, absolutely.

If anyone is interested in Made This Franchise or just wants to learn more, you go to maidthisfranchise.com to learn more about what we're doing, the mission, see if it's a good fit for you to have a remote local business. If you want to message me for any reason, just go to neilparek.co, N-E-E-L-P-A-R-E-K-H dot C-O.

You can shoot me a message there. I see everything and I will answer everything personally as well. Awesome. People, that's great.

We're done. We are done. That's perfect, dude. perfect love it the laptop lifestyle there's so many so many there's so many similar things you can say the laptop lifestyle no med life or whatever you want to call it you know digital mass location independent anything coconut cowboy is one of my favorites someone called me a coconut cowboy one time like i'll take it that's a cool one awesome awesome get a hold of this guy everybody um please get a hold of neoparack and see this guy's great so and just an amazing unique niche that's why i had to get you on here so because i think people just think like it's the old the reckless stuff they they heard this heard that but i don't think they've heard heard something like like this before and how you can find a little gym like airbnb and think about a cleaning service within that and also local stuff too but it's just like i thought it was pretty cool man thank you brian it makes you think there's so many ways to make money right it's an unlimited amount of ways to make money.

Awesome. People, we're good. Remember, as I always say, build it, share it, and they will come. We'll see you on the next one.

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