Lawn & garden
Mowing. Edging. Hedge trimming. Garden tidies. Plant watering.
A free 4-week program for 10 Australians launching local service businesses.
Four Saturday mornings online, starting 20 June 2026. From idea to first paying customer by 1 August — or we keep going until you do.
Some roles are quieter than they used to be. Costs are higher. Australians are spending differently — more on local services, more on the things that make daily life work.
Lawns still need mowing. Dogs still need grooming. Houses still need cleaning. Cars still need detailing. The work that has to happen in person, near where people live or work, isn't going anywhere. And the people doing it well are in higher demand than ever.
That's why we built Service Starters. To help ten Australians at a time start a local service business and land their first paying customers. It's not overnight success. It's a start.
A second-hand mower, basic supplies. Most gear pays itself back in weeks of work.
Time-to-revenue is measured in days, not years.
One good job becomes monthly. The same lawn next month, the same dog next groom.
Most customers live within a 20-minute drive. Flyers, neighbourhood groups, local pages — close-to-home channels do the work.
Slow to grow into something big.
Fast to start.
The kind of business you can begin on a Saturday — and still be running ten years from now.
Real services. Already in every Australian suburb. We don't teach you the work — we teach you how to turn it into a business.
Mowing. Edging. Hedge trimming. Garden tidies. Plant watering.
Residential. Commercial. End-of-lease. Builders cleans.
Mobile grooming. Dog walking. Pet sitting. Training.
Handyman. Painting. Repairs. Small builds. Maintenance.
Hair. Nails. Beauty. Massage. Personal training.
Detailing. Pool servicing. Pressure washing. Tutoring. Personal cooking. Aged care.
Don't see yours? If it's local, hands on, and people will pay for it, it probably fits.
A plan you can act on. Pricing set. Service named.
A first paying customer. Money in your account.
Most people don't stall because the work is hard. They stall because they can't see what "start" actually looks like. Service Starters takes you from one to the other. Four Saturdays. Ten people. That's the whole job.
Hey,
For 12 years I helped people start service businesses. Not as a coach or consultant, but as the franchisor of a brand that grew from one location to over 30 across Australia and New Zealand. Some of those operators built something they loved. Some didn't. That's how it goes.
I exited in 2024, and since then I've spent a lot of time with existing and aspiring service business owners. The pattern I keep noticing is that people who haven't started are trying to solve problems they don't have yet — scaling, hiring, route efficiency, fancy branding, the perfect business name — when none of that matters until you have a paying customer.
That's what led me to build Service Subscriber, and it's why I'm launching Service Starters now. There's a lot of people sitting on a real skill or a real idea who just need a structured month to actually start. So that's what we're doing. Ten people, four Saturdays, real businesses by August.
— Nik
Looking forward to meeting you.
Define the offer, set pricing the right way, get your page live. By Sunday night, someone could find you, book you, and pay.
Map your channels, design a flyer, send it to print, start warm outreach. The hardest week, but the one that brings customers to your door.
The systems, the show-up, the ask-for-the-next. Most first customers land in week 3 or 4 — be ready when yours does.
Read what's working. Set the weekly rhythm. The program ends. The work doesn't.
Coffee in hand. Log into Zoom. Ten of us.
Quick check-in. What we're working through this week.
The week's teach. Pricing. Channels. Delivery. Whatever this Saturday is.
We work the exercise together. Real numbers, real decisions.
Questions, sticking points, peer feedback.
We close. The week's work begins.
Live with me, with the cohort. Not recordings, not videos. 90 minutes every Saturday morning, 20 June to 11 July.
Nine people going through it alongside you, on the same week, with the same goal. Not a Discord. A real group.
Before week one, you'll arrive ready. ABN sorted, business name decided, basic visual identity built, validated demand from real conversations.
The booking, payment, and customer tool — free for the entire program. $28/month after, your call.
What we use to run our service businesses. Booking, payments, AI for initial branding & design, calendar, customer comms. Shortcuts that save weeks.
Your WhatsApp stays open after graduation. Your first network of people who actually started.
If you've shown up every Saturday, done the homework, and still haven't landed a paying customer by 1 August — I'll personally work with you 1-on-1 for another 30 days. Free. No fine print. No "but actually." If you do the work, I'll keep going until you get there.
— Nik
A course. A video library. A $2,000 coaching upsell at the end. A Discord where you're on your own. A mindset retreat.
It's also not for ecommerce, dropshipping, digital products, agencies, or online-only anything. Service Starters is for real local services — a person or a business pays you to do something for them, in person, near them.
And it's not for people who haven't worked out how they'll deliver the work. We help you find your first customers. The means of delivering — equipment, vehicle, supplies, whatever it takes — needs to be sorted, borrowed, or planned before we start.
Better than most alternatives. One in three Australian households now pays someone for help around the home — $6 billion a year and growing. Pet spending hit $21.3 billion last year, up 35% in three years. Services spending is climbing at the fastest rate since 2023. The work is local, hands-on, paid promptly, and unautomatable. The harder question isn't whether to start — it's why you haven't yet.
Because they reward showing up. Because nobody is going to offshore your local lawn round, automate your dog grooming, or build an AI that fixes a leaky tap on Sunday morning (yet). Because the most boring businesses are also the most resilient. And because the time-to-first-dollar is days, not years — which matters when you need this to work.
Really free. No card, no tier, no upsell. Service Subscriber (my company) funds it because it's how we find the people who'll use the tool. That's the whole business model — said out loud.
Apply anyway. You need a skill you could honestly sell locally — we'll help you validate the idea and turn it into a business in week one. If you're stuck on what to start, that's a conversation worth having on the application.
Service Starters works best for services with some repeat cadence, but the program helps anyone launching a local service business.
Miss one and you'll be fine. Miss two and you'll struggle. Sessions aren't recorded — showing up with the group is what makes it work. If you genuinely can't commit four Saturdays, wait for Cohort 02.
You absolutely can start alone. Most people don't — they think about it for another year. Four weeks, 9 people doing it with you, and a specific week you land your first customer is what turns thinking into doing.
Yes. We'll help you build a business of your own — your own customers, your own pricing, your own brand — instead of being one of many on a platform. If you're already at 10+ regular customers and looking to scale, this isn't the right program — different stage, different work.
Most programs are content libraries with a Discord attached. You watch videos alone, and the watching is mistaken for progress. This isn't that. We're 10 people in the same Zoom on Saturday mornings, doing the same week's work, with one week to land a customer. The accountability is the program.
Not at all. Most of Cohort 01 will be first-time business owners. The program is designed for exactly that — someone with a skill or an idea who hasn't taken the step yet. If you have run a business before and want to start a new one, that's fine too. Both work.
Service Subscriber is $28/month after the free program — your call whether to continue. We may recommend other tools along the way (for tax, scheduling, payments, that sort of thing) — those have their own pricing, and using them is entirely optional. Everything else (the cohort, the coaching, the WhatsApp group) stays free for life.
Yes. Every one. I reply within 48 hours whether you're in or not. If you're not the right fit for Cohort 01, I'll tell you why and where to go from here.
If you've read this far,
you're probably the kind of person Cohort 01 is for.
The application takes two minutes. I read every one.
— Nik
Two minutes. We read every one. I'll reply within 48 hours whether you're in or not.
