Mike Wills of Maid Marines House Cleaning breaks down how he went from baggage handling at Jet Blue to growing his business to $7,000,000 in revenue in just six years as as Dadpreneur.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you, and what do you?

My name is Mike Wills, Jr. from Queens, NY and I’m the 34 year old owner of Maid Marines Cleaning Service (MaidMarines.com) and Check Maid Cleaning Service (CheckMaid.com). I attended NYU Tandon school of engineering (previously Polytechnic University) and also work part time at JetBlue for the flight benefits.

How many kids do you have and how old?

2: a 5 (soon to be 6 on 11/30) year old girl and a 14 month old boy.

You are one of the brave souls that choose the route of entrepreneur and dad. Surely there are easier routes to go professionally. Why did you choose this one?

Entrepreneurship was always something I was interested in since I was young. I’ve worked part time at JetBlue as a ground operations agent (baggage handler) since i was 22. That job was flexible enough for me to pay my bills as well as try my hand at entrepreneurship. I’m actually still here – I can work 15 hours a week while choosing my schedule weekly and my family gets unlimited free flights. I had three failed businesses before this one. Once my fiance was pregnant with Kendall I knew that I had to find a winner so I picked something less exciting.

What are some of your tips and tricks for making sure you have time to spend with the kids?

Scheduling, scheduling and scheduling. As long as you are disciplined with your schedule you should be ok. Having a team behind you to cover you during those times is critical.

Have you ever had to turn something down for work to be present as a dad?

The best part of being an entrepreneur is that you can pretty much schedule everything you need to do around your kids. I drive my daughter to school every morning so my team knows not to schedule anything before 8 AM. I also block out the times for any school trips, plays, etc.

Conversely, have you ever had to tell family to hold off on something so you could work?

This is probably the hardest part. I have a home office but my family hasn’t quite grasped the idea of me being “at work” while at home.

What’s the best part of being a dad and an entrepreneur?

The flexibility is awesome. I’m able to spend way more time with my family than I otherwise would have with a 9-5. I’m able to get a lot of work done when I wake up between 4/4:30 AM until when my daughter wakes up at 6 AM for school.

What’s the hardest part of being a dad and an entrepreneur?

Entrepreneurship itself is hard. Finding the balance between quality time, spending time with all members of your family, sleep and personal time is always tough. I don’t really get to hang out with friends or other family members nearly as much as I used to.

Advice for entrepreneurs thinking about having kids – should they go ahead now, wait till later, or when is the best time?

Kids have been the best inspiration for me to keep pushing on days when I just don’t have it.

Tell me more about your company, how are things going, and do you have anything exciting coming up?  

The company has grown A LOT since we started in September 2012. We are doing over $7M in revenue and are growing every day. I actually was able to acquire the company of one of the guys who taught me the business (Check Maid) in 2014. We are making a huge push into social media and our Instagram and FB (@MaidMarines) is growing. We’re also plan on shaking up the office cleaning industry in NYC in the coming months. It’s a crazy industry with new companies popping up everyday but I wouldn’t change it for the world.