Who are you and what do you do?
Joseph Edwards. Founder of Gleem: Higher Quality Cleaning
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How have you found your start-up journey so far?
It’s be an incredibly fun and bumpy ride. What started as a way to escape to other countries with a passive income has transformed into an existence oscillating between empowering people to enjoy their jobs, developing myself, and challenging the status quo.
What do you listen to whilst you work?
I don’t really listen to music anymore. It’s a mild obsession with efficiency so I listen to podcasts religiously instead. Freakonomics, Stuff you should know, Startup podcast: anything that feels like I’m learning.
What drives you to get up in the morning?
I’m really into my running, so the excitement of getting to stretch my legs early helps me spring into action. It wakes me up, and makes me feel like I’ve already achieved something in the morning. Breakfast is a pretty good motivator too!
What three things can’t you live without?
My apple watch because of how it saves me having to look at my phone and get distracted, hair bands to keep my hair out of my face when working or running and orange squash. No other country has the same obsession with squash as the UK: I miss it every time I travel.
What’s your best time-saving trick?
Get a motorbike: my commute to work takes 8 minutes. In a car, because of Bristol’s traffic, it would take 40!
What have you learnt that you’d like others to know?
I love my job, like truly love my job: I’d encourage ANYBODY to really consider what they WANT to do, and not just what they feel OBLIGED to do. You haven’t made your bed, and you don’t have to lie in it.
Where do you see yourself and your business in 12 months?
Gleem aims to triple in the next 12 months: our standards are getting higher and higher which is really helping our growth, and we’ve just launched window cleaning! It’ll be fun to get past the £1 million per year mark, and then it’s a case of where we can take it from there!
The best advice you’ve ever received?
Rob Carter from Action Coach told me: Ready Fire Aim, not Ready Aim fire. It got me to launch the business, and it’s helped me take leaps of faith when making important decisions.
Fill in the blank. I’d like to see ___ answer these same questions!
Darren Clark!
Check out Gleem at gleem.co.uk