I speak and write about building businesses remotely, delegation, local and home services, remote staffing, and small business experiments. I am especially interested in conversations that move beyond revenue as the only measure of success.
Christopher Schwab is a British-American operator based in Yokohama, Japan. In 2016, in his final semester of university, he started Think Maids, a Washington, D.C. cleaning company, with $700. He ran it from Japan for eight years, grew it into a national company without meeting a customer, and sold it in 2024. In 2017 he founded Inova Local, the first virtual staffing agency dedicated to home services, which private equity acquired in 2025. He has also bought, improved and sold two more cleaning companies. He teaches the Local Business MBA, runs the Optional Owner cohort and writes Notes from an Optional Owner.
How to start a cleaning business: from zero to $60k a month
Going remote: running your cleaning business from anywhere
Running a cleaning company from 7,000 miles away
Keynotes, interviews, and podcast appearances. Press play on any of them.
Chris Guillebeau tells the Think Maids story: the constraint, the systems, the first year.
A piece on people who built lives that travel. Think Maids appears briefly, among a few others doing the same thing. A small mention.
The case study: building a national cleaning company without ever meeting a customer.
Chris Guillebeau’s telling of the early days: the constraint, the systems, the first year.
A long-form interview on the numbers, the hiring, and the phone tree that replaced the owner.
The consumer-side story: what it costs to start, and what it pays back.
Named to the industry’s expert list, alongside headline talks at the ZenMaid Summit every year since 2019, to thousands of attendees: among them “Going Remote: a whirlwind tour on running your business from anywhere in one year” (2021) and “Crash Course: recession-proof your cleaning business” (2022).
Recognised by the fraternity for building Think Maids and Inova Local, and for running both from the other side of the world.
Introduced as someone who “helps local business owners get unstuck by rebuilding their business’ foundation and providing trained virtual office assistants who can help manage their day-to-day.”
With Neel Parekh of MaidThis: the revenue valley of despair, staying balanced after the move to a remote life, and the personal funnels that join marketing to sales.
Building a company that can be run remotely, around a life of travel rather than instead of one.
A live session with Liz Trotter of Core Profit Builders and Danit of 2 Buckets Cleaning.
A cleaning company with no office at all, and what that asks of the people running it.
The Japanese year-end clean, remote business models, and the unlikely route by which I came to cleaning at all.
ZenMaid’s resident expert on remote cleaning businesses and virtual assistants. Headline speaker at the Maid Summit every year since 2019, recorded ZenMaid’s training videos for virtual assistants and office managers with them, and named to its Top 20 cleaning business experts to follow in 2025.
Years of work with Neel Parekh and the MaidThis franchisees, most recently a franchisee-only training in August 2026. Neel also had me on his podcast, Diary of a Franchise, to talk through taking a local business remote.
“Major shoutouts to … Chris Schwab for helping so many people on this journey.”
Rohan Gilkes, founder of Launch27, in the Launch27 owners’ community.
The first virtual staffing agency dedicated to home services, built alongside Think Maids and run for eight years. It served companies across North America, including national franchises and Inc. 5000 operators, and was acquired by private equity in 2025.
Chris Guillebeau’s bestseller tells the Think Maids story under the headline “College student earns $20,000 per month cleaning houses”: the constraint, the systems, the first year. As Guillebeau put it later: “I mention your story all the time.”
International headline speaker in the cleaning and staffing industries. Each talk is operational, honest about the numbers, and free of hype.
The model, end to end: how absence becomes an operating system, and what it asks of the owner who builds it.
The first virtual staffing agency for home services: what remote teams can and can’t do, and how to hire for warmth at distance.
A working session on documentation, delegation, and planning your own redundancy. The kindest thing an owner can do.
For conferences, podcasts, and press. Include the publication or programme, proposed subject, format, recording date, expected length, and deadline. I read every relevant request.