Just four years ago Hugo Russell set up his modern cleaning company NowThen Cleaners and has since, with the support of the Wosskow Brown Foundation, achieved great success in building the business.
It has recently been announcement the business has been shortlisted for the High Growth Award in the upcoming Sheffield Business Awards, displaying the company’s successful achievements and promising future.
The story of NowThen Cleaners so far
Upon moving back to his hometown of Sheffield, Hugo wanted to set up a business that helped other businesses as well as consumers. After making observation of industries at the time to find inspiration, he came across a gap in the market. He discovered the cleaning industry to be overwhelmed with old-fashioned businesses, that didn’t meet the needs of today’s tech-savvy society. Due to this Hugo decided to start-up his own modern cleaning company, NowThen Cleaners.
NowThen Cleaners spent its early days as a B2C business, offering their cleaning services to Sheffield residents who wanted their flats and houses cleaning. This mainly involved ‘end of tenancy’ cleaning, deep cleaning and regular domestic cleaning. However by their second year of operations, NowThen Cleaners began to offer B2B commercial cleaning services, and made their online system even more advanced.
“We launched our own geo-located app for customers to manage their bookings. Using the app, our staff can also view their bookings and check-in/out of the appointments”, Hugo said.
Now, in their fourth year, NowThen Cleaners has expanded greatly. Operations are now not only exclusive to Sheffield, but available across the South Yorkshire region, North Derbyshire and Leeds. This expansion has also seen their commercial client base rocket too, providing cleaning services in offices, bars, schools and much more.
Sheffield Business Awards 2019
Due to a stunning performance by the business over the past year alone, NowThen Cleaners have been shortlisted for the ‘High Growth Business of the Year’ category in the 2019 Sheffield Business Awards.
The award recognises businesses that have experienced exceptional growth in any or all of the following; sales, profit, market share, international trade, and numbers employed. The entrants must have demonstrated the highest levels of growth, which can also be supported by a sustainable business model for future growth and stability.
Just the nomination for this award alone demonstrates the remarkable growth NowThen Cleaners have displayed over the past 4 years.
The upcoming Sheffield Business Awards are set to take place on Thursday 5th December at Sheffield’s Ponds Forge.
The support of the Wosskow Brown Foundation
Jim Lawson, Director of the Wosskow Brown Foundation said, “We have supported Hugo since start-up. Firstly we provided a room for him to interview staff during his initial recruitment stage, as at this time, Hugo was still living in London but driving up here on Fridays to do interviews”.
Hugo applied for support under the Foundation’s WB100 programme, and was provided with access to our incubation space. This gave him a free office, free Wi-Fi, free phones and free mentoring, to help get his business established.
“We gave Hugo access to all this for 12 months during the crucial start-up phase when money is tight”, Jim explained.
Over the past 4 years the Foundation has continued to provide business support to NowThen Cleaners by providing access to a wide network of contacts; and connecting Hugo with experts in sales, marketing, social media, cash-flow and accountancy.
“We now meet two or three times a year to review how the Foundation can help Hugo going forward into the next stage of business development. Our role will be to provide a model for growth, and as importantly, access to the wrap-around support he will need as he leads his company through a further period of growth”, Jim commented.
