Berry Clean - USPAACC Western CNPP Success Story

USPAACC Western Success Story | Berry Clean, Vice President: Stanley Chen

Berry Clean is a cleaning service for residential and commercial buildings, established in 2015.

Most of its business comes from servicing residential customers. For its commercial business, it has customers from both the government and private sectors.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Berry Clean’s business was severely affected,

although not as much as restaurants or other businesses that provide in-person services. They tried to avoid laying off anyone and struggled to pay their bills and meet their payroll. With the help of SBA’s PPP and other grants and small business technical assistance programs, Berry Clean was able to stay in business.

Today, Berry Clean’s business has fully recovered and is thriving. Its annual revenues have

exceeded $3.5 million. To further grow their business, the company needs to expand its current fleet of service vehicles from 13 to 15. At the same time, they need to purchase an office with a parking lot to park their fleet overnight in a safe and secure location. The company had trouble finding a bank willing to lend them the funds for their expansion. Our small business advisor helped the company prepare and review their financial statements, conduct lender searches and connect the company to potential lenders. The loan application was rejected by several banks and CDFIs.

Finally, the company secured a $1.1 million loan from Chase. They have recently signed the

loan papers and are in the final stage of closing the loan.