Marketing Crafted

The Marketing Strategy Behind a $79K/mo Window Cleaning Business

B
Pink Windows logo

Brandon Downer & Carter Smith

Founder, Pink Windows

Follow on LinkedIn

$79K

Revenue/mo

Business Type

Service Business

Monetization

One-time Purchase

Founded

2020

How it started

If a friend said, “Going to start a window cleaning company,” most people would nod politely and forget about it.

Brandon Downer and Carter Smith didn’t let that happen.

Brandon Downer & Carter Smith Pink Windows

They took one of the most boring services on earth, wrapped it in a story, a brand, and a system, and turned it into Pink’s Window Services — a franchise with hundreds of territories and an estimated ~$19M+ in annual revenue across the network as of 2025. ​ This breakdown walks through:

  • How Pink’s started with $153 of gear
  • The key marketing moves they used to stand out
  • How those moves turned into real revenue and franchise growth
  • Concrete lessons anyone can steal for their own “boring” business

The $153 Home Depot bet

In early 2020, Brandon was working in live music. Carter was at Tecovas Boots. Then COVID hit. Both got laid off. ​ They started walking neighborhoods in Austin and noticed something important:

  • Streets were full of service trucks.
  • Those trucks were still working.
  • But almost everyone they knew had horror stories about home services: no-shows, surprise invoices, dirty boots through clean houses.

So they asked a simple question:

“What if a blue‑collar business felt as reliable and thoughtful as your favorite hotel?”

They weren’t electricians. They weren’t plumbers. But they could clean.

They went to Home Depot, spent $153.87 on a squeegee, bucket, towel, and soap, and called it a business. ​ No master plan. Just:

  • Two friends
  • A tiny bit of gear
  • A big chip on their shoulder about how low the bar was in home services

From day one, the mission was crystal clear:

“Bring dignity back to the blue‑collar service industry.”

That line matters, because everything Pink’s did later in marketing flows from that one idea.

Notice how the story started before the service. The “why” was locked in first. The “what” (windows) was almost an afterthought.


Brand the boring

Pink’s is basically: “Good window cleaning + ridiculous attention to branding.”

Instead of “Austin Window Cleaning LLC,” they chose Pink’s Window Services because it simply sounded fun. The name came first, the “we clean windows” came second. ​ Then they built a brand around it that does three smart things:

1. A visual style you can spot from across the street

Pink’s deliberately doesn’t paint everything neon pink. The core look is navy and white, with pink as an accent:

  • Navy trucks with clean retro logos
  • White button‑ups with a “Pink’s” script over the pocket
  • Pink towels hanging from back pockets
  • Pink pens, pink socks, subtle pink touches everywhere

Pink Windows services

It feels like a 1950s gas station crew mixed with a modern streetwear label, not a random local contractor. ​ People notice. Greg Isenberg told a story on My First Million: someone in Austin was wearing a Pink’s hat at dinner. It looked so cool he assumed it was some underground brand… then learned it was a window cleaning company and ordered the hat himself.

Pink Windows services ​ That’s the bar: The brand is strong enough that people buy the hat first and only later learn it’s for window cleaning.

2. A tagline that says exactly what the company stands for

Everywhere you see Pink Windows, you also see:

“Clean it like you mean it.”

Short. Memorable. And it encodes their whole positioning:

  • Don’t just “do the job”
  • Go all‑in, visibly care, take pride

3. Uniforms as walking billboards

The uniforms have their own press coverage. Articles talk about how the Pink Windows's crew looks like a “retro band” turning up at your house, not anonymous laborers.

That’s not vanity. It’s marketing:

  • Customers film and share them because they look cool.
  • Franchisees feel proud wearing the brand — which makes them better ambassadors.
  • The uniform makes one quick TikTok clip instantly recognizable as “Pink Windows” not “some guys on ladders.”

Please sign in to continue reading

We do this to make sure real humans read our stuff, not bots.

Share this case study

0% read