GiGo Broadcast

Paul Corvino sits down with Bita Safari!
Bita Safari is the founder and CEO of GIGO Clean Technology. GIGO Clean Technology provides a platform for an application that works like Uber for the cleaning industry. Starting from a small office in Santa Ana, California, the company plans to provide services nationwide by 2028.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
This is CEOs you should know.And now from iHeartMedia, here's Paul Corvino.
Today I have the pleasure of speakingwith Vita Safari, the founder and
CEO of Gigole Clean Technology. It'sa business and technology that provides a platform
for an app sort of like Uberfor the cleaning industries? Is that Is

(00:23):
that correct? That? I guessthat's just correct. Okay. I like
to start these meetings off with sortof a rapid fire question just to get
us thinking and talking in our mouthsmoving. Are you ready? I'm ready?
Okay, summer or winter, summer, beat your ski, vacation,
each Star Wars or Godfather, Godfather, Sean Connery or Daniel Craig, Sean

(00:46):
Connery New York or Los Angeles,New York. So tell me a little
bit about the journey. I understandyou were born and I ran experiencing difficult
times. How did you go fromthere to founding and building this incredible business.
Well, it's a dream come true. I have to admit it has
been a very challenging and rough journey. Yes, I was born and raised

(01:11):
in Tehran, Iran. The womanusually are the second citizens of the society.
I experienced revolution war and then immigration. I have been here in United
States for the past thirty years.My background is in chemical engineering. I
worked as a chemical engineer for acouple of years, and then I was

(01:33):
fascinated with management. So in latetwenty eighteen, both me and my husband
living in southern California having a busylife working for Corporate America, and we
always had hard time finding cleaning helpwhen we needed. We had a designated

(01:53):
cleaner to come to our house helpingout, but we had a child involving
a sport, we had a dog, and we both were working. I
don't know how many days and nightsI was back keeping you away from my
cleaner. She's not going anywhere.Okay, that's a Los Angeles thing,
right, People trying to find someonegood it is. It's very difficult.

(02:15):
It's very difficult, and so Ihad hard time finding help when I needed
help. So I came up withan idea, what if we bring technology
to this industry which is massive,it's about it closed at ninety four billion
dollars last year, and here isstill operating in a very old fashion.

(02:37):
So I thought, what if wecreate this platform that gives people opportunity to
book it cleaning when they need it, for the time and the date that
they want. So I said,okay, what if Uber for cleaning?
And then it was difficult because wedidn't know how we have to manage the

(02:58):
you know, cleaning crew, wherewe recruit them, what are the standards
of the industry, and how tobuild So we did. I did write
a business plan, I did writethe infrastructure and then programmers that started to
work, but we didn't know howto charge people. So in order to
learn how to charge, I startedanother business and we completed about eleven hundred

(03:23):
cleanings different then we came up witha uh like a reference to see what
is the correct way of billing,how many hours each cleaning is going to
take, what are the correct wayof paying? And this industry, as
I said, it's a very oldfashioned yet and the other thing that was

(03:46):
really upsetting was the way that cleanerswere getting paid. I mean, many
many cleaning companies are not still payingthem correctly. And these people are they're
not paying them correctly. They havea daily guarantee. Whatever that daily guarante
is, let's say one hundred dollars, one hundred and twenty dollars, but
that daily guarantee they have to cleanas many as properties as they can.

(04:10):
Let's say that somebody has to cleanfive houses for one hundred and twenty bucks.
I mean that is not great,but I won if they were on
their own right. So this isthe key that through the app, cleaners
can be their own boss. Theycan have their own schedule, they can
manage their schedule, and they getpaid correctly. So they sign up.

(04:31):
So it is very similar to uberit is. So how many people have
you had? Do you have signedup? Now? We have about forty
cleaners now because we completed the platformlate March early April of this year.
So now we have about forty cleanerson board and we are covering Orange County

(04:51):
part of Los Angeles County. Thisis the two sided business that we have
to hire, train and then expandof you are now covering this area as
I mentioned, and then the planis to go nationwide. All right,
So so you get the cleaners,and it's a tough catch twenty two because

(05:13):
you get the cleaners, you haveto have the cleaners before you can get
the customers. And so you can'tgive the cleaner's business right away until you
get the customers, and so nowyou're at a point where you're able to
do this. It's very much likebuilding the uber model, except you don't
have to go against taxi companies andgovernment regulations the same way they did.
So it's basically we have to nowgo against the cleaning companies. Yes,

(05:38):
so it's the same. It's thesame. It still have a lot of
regulation. And one thing that weare also trying to do is to raise
the level of cleaningness by providing alot of educations to cleaners. So a
perfect example, when COVID happened,we had a meeting with twenty five cleaners
and I ask if they know whatis going on, if they know what

(05:59):
is the difference between cleaning and sanitizationor sanitization versus sterilization. No, none
of them knew. None of themhad any idea about Okay, your technical
engineering background coming. So I alsotry to explain to them that using less
chemicals is going to help them cleanbecause many people think the only way that

(06:24):
can clean the surfaces are using reallyreally harsh chemicals. And most of these
cleaners, if you pay attention,they get age really fast. They look
older for their age because they arenot taking care of themselves, and they
are using a lot of chemicals andit's a very hard physical work. So
we are trying to provide education andoffer them better cleaning products to use and

(06:50):
educate them about what are the correctmethods of cleaning in order to be faster
and yet really clean and not toharm them. If as wants to get
in contact you, how do theyget to you? Where do they go
online? Where do they go to? They can either go to our platform
at gigle clean dot com or theycan download the I I g O clean

(07:11):
dot com or download the app ordownload the app. That's that's that's terrific.
Once again, we had the privilegeof listening to Vita Safari, the
founder and CEO of gigle Clean Technology. This is Paul Corvino saying thank you
for listening to another episode of CEOsyou Should Know. Listen to CEOs you

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Should Know on the iHeartRadio app.