{"id":883042,"date":"2026-01-06T04:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/06\/the-saskatoon-twentysomethings-embracing-boring-business\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T04:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:27:12","slug":"the-saskatoon-twentysomethings-embracing-boring-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/06\/the-saskatoon-twentysomethings-embracing-boring-business\/","title":{"rendered":"The Saskatoon twentysomethings embracing ‘boring business’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Resilience in more ways than one with \u2018boring business\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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Twenty-eight-year-old Joel Burghardt of YXE Cleaning & Restoration has been leveraging the opportunity of \u201cboring business\u201d in Saskatoon since May 2024.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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With past experience as an electrician and \u201cflipping\u201d books to sell on Amazon, Burghardt says he was looking for a quick way to increase his family\u2019s cash flow, with his wife expecting.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cI saw a guy on Instagram making good money cleaning gutters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Then he bought an inexpensive ebook about how to start a home service business.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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However, Burghardt and his wife soon experienced a shattering loss.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cUnfortunately, we ended up losing our daughter, and that kind of pushed me to go full-time into it because at that point. I really had nothing to lose,\u201d he said about the aftermath of her death.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cIt started because of my daughter, and I went full-time because of her, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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From a place of pain, Burghardt took a conservative approach to growing his business. Now, with one full-time employee, the mentality has paid off.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Joel Burghardt on the job in 2024 after starting his Saskatoon-based cleaning business. Since beginning in gutter cleaning, Burghardt has used his profits to expand and rebrand, focusing more on restoration services.<\/span> Photo by Joel Burghardt<\/span> \/Submitted photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Expanding to offer more technical services, such as carpet cleaning, water damage and mould remediation, Burghardt says he\u2019s been able to pay for his business\u2019s growth at each step.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cI started small with like 500 bucks for gutter cleaning, and then eventually reinvested that over and over, and then it paid for all my carpet cleaning stuff, and now my carpet cleaning stuff has paid for all my restoration (stuff).\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Recognizing that gutter cleaning isn\u2019t \u201csexy,\u201d Burghardt says many underestimate the potential for profitability in these kinds of endeavours.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cWhen everyone thinks to start a business, they think of trying to invent something new that goes viral. Whereas what I did is I just looked at, \u2018What is somebody selling in a different city and how can I sell that here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Technical thinking to thrive<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
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A friend of Smith\u2019s, Allan Lopez, has also jumped on the momentum of providing niche home services in Saskatoon.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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A mechanical engineer by trade, the 25-year-old began GoFlow Building Services with his wife Rachel, an accountant, in August of this year.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Seeking more hands-on work with a desire to own something, Lopez says he took the leap with his business partner and purchased the necessary equipment to provide furnace, air duct and carpet cleaning.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Their aim? To attract clients from a DIY-averse, convenience-seeking crowd. Lopez says that in the months GoFlow has been operating, they\u2019ve made back about one-third of their initial investment.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Allan Lopez (left) and his wife, Rachel, owners of GoFlow Building Services, which launched in August of this year. The pair hopes to apply their backgrounds in engineering and accounting to build a profitable business.<\/span> Photo by Allan Lopez<\/span> \/Submitted photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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\u201cWorst comes to worst, we just sell the equipment and probably lose 50 per cent of the investment,\u201d said Allan, who acknowledges their start-up strategy was slightly more expensive than a bare-bones approach, but says it\u2019s nowhere near what a more traditional retail business would cost to get up and running.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201c(With starting a coffee shop), you\u2019re probably looking at over $50,000 just to start,\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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While working through the early days of his company, Lopez says he thrives on the opportunity to apply his engineering mindset to solve technical problems involved in cleaning big-ticket items in someone\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

Olivia Grandy
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article content Resilience in more ways than one with \u2018boring business\u2019 Article content Twenty-eight-year-old Joel Burghardt of YXE Cleaning & Restoration has been leveraging the opportunity of \u201cboring business\u201d in Saskatoon since May 2024. Article content With past experience as an electrician and \u201cflipping\u201d books to sell on Amazon, Burghardt says he was looking for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":883043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43824,98600],"tags":[43823,147273],"class_list":["post-883042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-saskatoon","category-twentysomethings","tag-saskatoon","tag-twentysomethings"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}