Meet Tvarkytojai.lt, a home cleaning booking service. Its co-founder Dovydas Stulpinas says the company completed more than 100 orders in its first month, but it's already cash flow positive, and its growth numbers customer feedback allows them to consider Kaunas, other Lithuanian cities and even Scandinavian markets for future expansion.

So what exactly Tvarkytojai.lt is and what it does? What problems does it solve?

Dovydas: Tvarkytojai.lt is a platform where people can easily book a cleaning for their home in less than a minute. It solves the problem of finding a trustworthy and experienced cleaner who could take care of your home. It also allows customers to choose when and what exactly they'd like their home to be cleaned, at their own convenience.

When and how did you come up with idea behind Tvarkytojai.lt?

Dovydas: We were thinking about a laundry cleaning service aimed at younger people over a year ago. But the more we thought about it, the bigger the need for cleaning services in general became apparent. When you think about it – up until now, people had to look for a cleaner by either asking their friends for recommendations or by browsing through various advertisements. And when you find that person, you still have to take a "leap of faith", because basically, a stranger who you don't know comes in to your home and does their work. Basically, there was no secure and easy way to find a cleaner. With this issue in mind, we came up with this platform, where people can actually read more about each cleaner, see how other clients rated their work, how many orders were completed, etc.

So the idea came to us naturally, just by thinking about the cleaning market and demand for such a service.

What are your competitors both in terms of products and processes?

Dovydas: To be honest, there is no real competitor in Lithuania or even in the Baltic States for that matter. If we look at how other cleaning companies provide such services, we can often find that they use "older" methods and processes of booking a cleaning – via telephone, email or some basic online form which users have to fill in and then wait for someone to reply to them.

What makes us different is that we provide an easy and quick way to book a cleaning for you home. All you need to do is fill in a form, select additional services if needed, choose the cleaner you like the most and finally pay the full price for the order. That's it. It's that easy. On top of that, we actually double-check each order with a cleaner and make sure that the order will be carried out with 100% certainty.

The idea is similar to that of Uber – where you can order a service on-demand, whenever you need it. It is a sharing economy business model, which allows individuals to be their own bosses and take control of their income and time – they set their own timetables and hourly wages.

What is the team behind Tvarkytojai.lt?

Dovydas: We are three young, ambitious and customer-oriented founders of Tvarkytojai.lt who believe that sharing economy business model is the future and will continue to take over many more different business sectors. Our team:

• Audrius Klangauskas – master's degree in ICT Law, studied in Norway, University of Oslo. Responsible for cleaners on-boarding, client support management.

• Me, Dovydas Stulpinas – bachelor's degree in International Business, studied in the UK, University of Birmingham. Responsible for strategy, operation management, technology department.

• Vytenis Škarnulis – bachelor's degree in International Relations, studied in Lithuania, Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science. Responsible for marketing strategy, public relations, technology and design department.

Me and Vytenis are also co-owners of a digital agency KEMDU, which has been running for four years now.

How Tvarkytojai.lt is funded?

Dovydas: The initial funds came from our own investments. However, currently we are growing organically and are using the income from the platform to support its continuous growth.

What are your target customers/markets?

Dovydas: Our target customers are pretty much everyone who is looking for an easy and quick way to book a cleaning. We've noticed that it tends to be younger people, young professionals or families, who value their time and would rather spend their time with family or doing some other things than spend half the day cleaning their own homes.

What is your business model? What are your short/mid/long term plans?

Dovydas: We receive commission from cleaners on every confirmed order. Customers pay the full cleaning order price and don't need to worry about any additional payments. The cleaners receive their pay in the beginning of each week for the past week's completed orders.

Our short-term plan is to expand into other cities in Lithuania – first of all to Kaunas by the end of this year.

Our long-term plan is to go abroad, namely Scandinavia region, where we see there is a huge demand for such services.

What are the biggest challenges you have been facing and how are you overcoming them?

Dovydas: I suppose the biggest challenge with such a platform is to actually influence and change people's mindset and habits about ordering services online. At first, many people questioned us whether we can be trusted or not. But with a continuously growing number of happy clients and very positive feedback (100+ positive reviews with an average 4.7 out of 5 rating), this attitude is now changing and people are more and more willing to try this new service and recommend it to their friends and family. The best way to ensure peoples' trust is to continuously deliver quality service.

Looking from cleaners' perspective, they required more time convincing that this platform will work and will benefit them a great deal. We had to prove that they can become their own bosses and set their own wage. We provide total freedom for them to decide when they work, how much they get paid and even where they'd like to work – it was absolutely crucial to explain the benefits of such a business model.

Have you got any numbers to illustrate your growth?

Dovydas: Having started just a two months ago – I would say that we are doing really well. In the first month, we've completed 100+ orders and if we compare with our second month – we've increased that number by 10%. The most important KPI is the regular users and the results show that 1 in 5 first-time happy customers who used our service are coming back to our platform and repeat their orders. We even have customers who already booked a cleaning through our platform 5 times!

The main reason of this organic and successful growth are the professional cleaners who do all of the dirty (literally) work and who keep our customers happy. We will continue to look for such great cleaners and ensure that our clients stay happy!

Thank you, Dovydas!