Austin's Husband-And-Wife Duo Building a Modern Cleaning Company

Q: What is Mi Madre Cleaning Company, and who is it for?

David: For better or worse, we run it together. Mi Madre Cleaning Company is an Austin-based janitorial service for residential and commercial. We really act as a marketplace between the client and a pretty sizable cleaning workforce, connecting jobs to the right technicians on the other side.

Q: Where did the idea come from?

Sofia: It was all inspired by my mom. That's what we're building it for, to leave a legacy behind for our future family, for my mom, and for everybody else. David: There are a lot of women like her mom who immigrated to the US and didn't have the opportunity here. She had a chemical engineering degree, came here, and worked in kitchens and cleaned houses to build a better life for her family. For those women, it's really hard to market themselves, find their own jobs, and have consistency of pay. We wanted to build something that worked for her mom, but also for women like her who are trying to take care of their families through that work.

Q: What have you learned running a service business?

David: A lot of people talk about building a boring business you can grow and scale. We started two and a half years ago, and honestly the plan was for this to be a side hustle alongside our careers. But we realized there was a lot of community for us to help and a lot of white space to grow. It's a challenging service to be in, because it's a transient workforce and there's a lot of scrutiny around this type of work. But as we've grown, we've figured out where we need to be operating. What's exciting is how you can employ technology in a business that isn't tech forward at all and make it work for you. As dual solopreneur types, we can build a thriving business with modern tools, which helps both the end client and the technicians deploying their own work.

Q: What has actually driven your growth?

Sofia: Community involvement makes us stand out a lot more than other cleaning companies. We don't just say, "We like to help people." We actually show up for our people and our community. David: There also has to be a real problem that gets solved. We focus a lot on B2B: property management, realtors, anyone trying to get a transaction done quickly that involves taking care of a property. We use modern tools and the available workforce to connect those two sides. That goes back to being a marketplace, a trusted partner in the middle who can say, "We vet what is a fairly transient workforce, with great people in it, and match them to jobs they're happy to take that need to get done quickly." We've used AI not only to market the business but to divvy out that work and present the tools to clients.

Q: What's Paddle & Parrilla?

Sofia: It's a networking event we run. It brings people together not only to play pickleball and make connections in person, but also to give back to charity, which is one of the best things we're doing. We pick a different Austin charity each month. David: As of this interview we've done three events, with no fewer than about 130 people at each one, and we've raised over $3,000 for local organizations. That's been really rewarding. We have a wide network, from way North Austin down to New Braunfels, close to San Antonio. We thought the south side of Austin needed something that was just a fun roll-into-your-weekend afternoon: a few tequila drinks, some pickleball, great food, and a lot of local business owners. It's been rewarding to watch it grow, and we have collaborations coming over the next several months that should make it blossom even more.

Q: What's it like building a business with your spouse?

Sofia: We spend way too much time together, and that's okay. We've learned to coexist both at work and at home. Over the past two years we learned we needed different hobbies to stay healthy. We have a baby together, so a lot of our personal time is already tied up. Pickleball has helped, because we don't usually play together. We separate into different groups and go on different days. David: On the business side, you find your lanes. Sofia is great with networking, community, and connecting with people who could become future clients or partners. She's bilingual and I'm not, which is a huge plus when working directly with technicians. I handle much more of the back end operations and enterprise client relations. We do look forward to more work-life separation, because with a one-year-old you don't always want pillow talk about business at 4:00 in the morning. But it happens. The flip side is that a couple of nights ago we came up with a great idea in the middle of the night, and you've got someone right there to say, "Hey, does this sound crazy?" Sofia: What makes it work is that we're both excited about the future of the company, and we want it to grow not just for us but for everybody else involved. This isn't a job for us, this is our future. So it's not painful to have those conversations at any time. It's actually great.

Q: What advice do you have for couples going into business together?

Sofia: You have to respect each other well before you go into business. A lot of people don't realize there are boundaries, and if someone crosses them already, imagine what that looks like in business. It's going to be a ton worse. Know the boundaries. If somebody doesn't want to talk about work past 4:00 PM, that's completely fair. Respect that, and know your lanes. I know what I'm good at and what David is good at, and I don't question his decisions in the areas he owns.

Q: What advice do you have for Austin business owners more broadly?

David: Find your community. I came out of a corporate environment. When you switch into a founder or small business lifestyle, you realize you can make really solid friendships and find community outside of what corporate life offers. In corporate, you're around the people you work with far more than anyone else. We've met amazing people in Austin by finding the right groups: pickleball, young professionals networks, putting on our own event, different chambers of commerce. That's what I'd tell anyone starting out now. Sofia: You also have to shift your mentality. You're not going to want to hang out only with people who work 9 to 5, because your work looks completely different from theirs. Some people will hear an idea and say, "That's such a dumb idea." Another business owner will say, "How can I help you execute that?" They fuel you up instead of pushing you down. Be around people who think like you.

Q: Is it worth it to run your own business?

David: You're worried about payroll coming out this Friday, and things pile up. It's a lot. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Looking back at my first 15 or 20 years in my career versus now, I wouldn't trade it for what we're building here and where I know we're going. A big part of it is being able to see your roadmap and the milestones you hit. From the outside, nobody really sees them. But looking at it day to day against your goals, it's a huge relief to know you're on the right path. Sofia: Even just seeing our numbers month after month, they keep increasing. That's always a good feeling when you own your own business.

This week's Founder Friday features a husband-and-wife duo building a modern cleaning company around a problem their own family experienced firsthand.

Sofia and David founded Mi Madre Cleaning Co. after seeing how difficult it was for immigrant women like Sofia's mother to market themselves, find consistent jobs, and earn reliable income from cleaning work.

Sofia's mother came to the United States with a chemical engineering degree, but without the same opportunities available to her here, she worked in kitchens and cleaned houses to build a better life for her family.

Mi Madre Cleaning Co. now connects residential and commercial clients with vetted cleaning technicians, using modern technology to match workers with jobs, coordinate operations, and create more consistent opportunities for the people doing the work.

What founders can steal from this:

Look for business opportunities inside problems your family has experienced firsthand
Use technology to improve an industry that has traditionally operated offline
Build community around the business instead of relying only on transactions
A roadmap for building a family business with your partner

Here's what Sofia and David shared about building a modern cleaning company together.

What is Mi Madre Cleaning Company, and who is it for?

David: For better or worse, we run it together. Mi Madre Cleaning Company is an Austin-based janitorial service for residential and commercial. We really act as a marketplace between the client and a pretty sizable cleaning workforce, connecting jobs to the right technicians on the other side.

Where did the idea come from?

Sofia: It was all inspired by my mom. That's what we're building it for, to leave a legacy behind for our future family, for my mom, and for everybody else.

David: There are a lot of women like her mom who immigrated to the US and didn't have the opportunity here. She had a chemical engineering degree, came here, and worked in kitchens and cleaned houses to build a better life for her family. For those women, it's really hard to market themselves, find their own jobs, and have consistency of pay. We wanted to build something that worked for her mom, but also for women like her who are trying to take care of their families through that work.

What have you learned running a service business?

David: A lot of people talk about building a boring business you can grow and scale. We started two and a half years ago, and honestly the plan was for this to be a side hustle alongside our careers. But we realized there was a lot of community for us to help and a lot of white space to grow.

It's a challenging service to be in, because it's a transient workforce and there's a lot of scrutiny around this type of work. But as we've grown, we've figured out where we need to be operating. What's exciting is how you can employ technology in a business that isn't tech forward at all and make it work for you. As dual solopreneur types, we can build a thriving business with modern tools, which helps both the end client and the technicians deploying their own work.

What has actually driven your growth?

Sofia: Community involvement makes us stand out a lot more than other cleaning companies. We don't just say, "We like to help people." We actually show up for our people and our community.

David: There also has to be a real problem that gets solved. We focus a lot on B2B: property management, realtors, anyone trying to get a transaction done quickly that involves taking care of a property. We use modern tools and the available workforce to connect those two sides.

That goes back to being a marketplace, a trusted partner in the middle who can say, "We vet what is a fairly transient workforce, with great people in it, and match them to jobs they're happy to take that need to get done quickly." We've used AI not only to market the business but to divvy out that work and present the tools to clients.

What's Paddle & Parrilla?

Sofia: It's a networking event we run. It brings people together not only to play pickleball and make connections in person, but also to give back to charity, which is one of the best things we're doing. We pick a different Austin charity each month.

David: As of this interview we've done three events, with no fewer than about 130 people at each one, and we've raised over $3,000 for local organizations. That's been really rewarding.

We have a wide network, from way North Austin down to New Braunfels, close to San Antonio. We thought the south side of Austin needed something that was just a fun roll-into-your-weekend afternoon: a few tequila drinks, some pickleball, great food, and a lot of local business owners. It's been rewarding to watch it grow, and we have collaborations coming over the next several months that should make it blossom even more.

What's it like building a business with your spouse?

Sofia: We spend way too much time together, and that's okay. We've learned to coexist both at work and at home. Over the past two years we learned we needed different hobbies to stay healthy. We have a baby together, so a lot of our personal time is already tied up. Pickleball has helped, because we don't usually play together. We separate into different groups and go on different days.

David: On the business side, you find your lanes. Sofia is great with networking, community, and connecting with people who could become future clients or partners. She's bilingual and I'm not, which is a huge plus when working directly with technicians. I handle much more of the back end operations and enterprise client relations.

We do look forward to more work-life separation, because with a one-year-old you don't always want pillow talk about business at 4:00 in the morning. But it happens. The flip side is that a couple of nights ago we came up with a great idea in the middle of the night, and you've got someone right there to say, "Hey, does this sound crazy?"

Sofia: What makes it work is that we're both excited about the future of the company, and we want it to grow not just for us but for everybody else involved. This isn't a job for us, this is our future. So it's not painful to have those conversations at any time. It's actually great.

What advice do you have for couples going into business together?

Sofia: You have to respect each other well before you go into business. A lot of people don't realize there are boundaries, and if someone crosses them already, imagine what that looks like in business. It's going to be a ton worse. Know the boundaries. If somebody doesn't want to talk about work past 4:00 PM, that's completely fair. Respect that, and know your lanes. I know what I'm good at and what David is good at, and I don't question his decisions in the areas he owns.

What advice do you have for Austin business owners more broadly?

David: Find your community. I came out of a corporate environment. When you switch into a founder or small business lifestyle, you realize you can make really solid friendships and find community outside of what corporate life offers. In corporate, you're around the people you work with far more than anyone else.

We've met amazing people in Austin by finding the right groups: pickleball, young professionals networks, putting on our own event, different chambers of commerce. That's what I'd tell anyone starting out now.

Sofia: You also have to shift your mentality. You're not going to want to hang out only with people who work 9 to 5, because your work looks completely different from theirs. Some people will hear an idea and say, "That's such a dumb idea." Another business owner will say, "How can I help you execute that?" They fuel you up instead of pushing you down. Be around people who think like you.

Is it worth it to run your own business?

David: You're worried about payroll coming out this Friday, and things pile up. It's a lot. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Looking back at my first 15 or 20 years in my career versus now, I wouldn't trade it for what we're building here and where I know we're going. A big part of it is being able to see your roadmap and the milestones you hit. From the outside, nobody really sees them. But looking at it day to day against your goals, it's a huge relief to know you're on the right path.

Sofia: Even just seeing our numbers month after month, they keep increasing. That's always a good feeling when you own your own business.

How can the Austin community help?

Sofia and David want to connect with Austin property managers, realtors, and brokerages looking for a reliable partner for move-out cleanings, recurring service, and fast-turnaround property needs.

They are also looking to meet local businesses interested in sponsoring or partnering with Paddle & Parrilla, their monthly pickleball and networking event that brings together service businesses, real estate professionals, and other Austin operators while raising money for local charities.

Where can people learn more?

Learn more about Mi Madre Cleaning Co., follow Paddle & Parrilla on Instagram at @paddleandparrilla, RSVP for an upcoming Paddle & Parrilla event, and contact the team at support@mimacleaning.com.