A young entrepreneur has recently expanded his successful barbecue cleaning business, hiring seven student employees who are all looking to pay for tuition.
Nineteen-year-old Jacob Shaidle earned $30,000 last summer over four months by cleaning 200 barbecues, and his work ethic has attracted more young students who want to work with him.
Shaidle started cleaning barbecues at the age of 16 after his mother had him clean theirs, and he realized how dirty they could get without proper maintenance. The entrepreneur in him saw an opportunity to solve a problem many others faced, and his experience working on a farm gave him the foundational skills of a solid work ethic.
"I did it, and it took me forever," said Shaidle. "I had been looking for a way to pay for school, so I wanted to run my own business. Working on a farm wasn't going to cover my tuition."
Eager to make money, he began knocking on doors, asking neighbours if they needed their barbecues cleaned, and discovered it was somewhat of an untapped market. He began working overtime on his own, cleaning as many barbecues as possible with each job taking around four hours to complete. He realized then that he didn't want to ever have to work for someone else, so he became his own boss and set his sights on expansion.
Originally from Guelph, Shaidle landed an academic/hockey scholarship at Appleby College and commuted daily to campus. During his time there, he began tapping into the Oakville market and met Aran Giffen, a friend from school who quickly became a business partner after observing Shaidle's work ethic.
Giffen is now pursuing a business degree at the University of British Columbia (UBC), while Shaidle is studying engineering. Before they went away to school, Giffen was impressed by Shaidle's 80-hour work weeks in the summer and saw the potential to turn this hustle into a legitimate business.
"I saw Jake doing this on his own, and up until this summer, it was just him cleaning," Giffen said. "I thought I could help him run this."
Giffen began handling the back-end operations, managing logistics, creating the company's website, and turning this into something that could bring on staff and successfully make payroll.
Together, the two teens officially established Shaidle Cleaning and hired a staff of students around the same age as them to handle the demand across Oakville, Mississauga, Milton, Burlington, Guelph, and Hamilton.
"My original goal was to pay for school," said Shaidle, "now that I'm kind of the central part of this, I'm not worried about paying for school, my main goal is to help everyone else pay for their school."
All employees get an hourly rate in addition to time and a half pay if they clean 10 barbecues per week. A 15% commission is also available for employees who bring in their own customers. They've also established a strong company culture through bonding events and a good example set by their leader.
Giffen said, "I don't know if Jacob would say this about himself but I think a lot of it is the guys trust Jacob. They've seen Jacob's success doing this by himself so with a team behind him, everyone's pretty certain we can make it happen."
Shaidle and Giffen say the adjustment has not been easy, but that the effort is worthwhile to create something that serves others and will help prepare them for their futures.
"Most of these people have the responsibility of at least paying for rent," said Shaidle. "All these guys have expressed that to me, so now we've shifted our goals to 'I want to help these guys out as much as possible' to be able to pay for their University tuition and rent at least."