Combining two seasonal businesses, Bright Brothers provides franchisees with revenue streams throughout the year. Now the exterior washing and holiday light installation brand has new investors, BrandOne and Contractor Nation, who will help the company grow.
BrandOne has 10 percent equity in Bright Brothers and Contractor Nation is a network of home improvement contractors. The two partnered to grow Bright Brothers, but they’ve worked together in the past to grow companies like The Junkluggers and Gutter Shutter.
Through licensing, Bright Brothers has 10 territories open along the East Coast, plus Seattle, but now its focused on expanding its presence in the Southeast, Co-founder Patrick Clark said.
Clark founded Bright Brothers in 2006 as a pressure washing business and added soft washing in 2008.
“It’s a proven model that we’ve been using for 17 years, but it’s a model where you can work year round with the Christmas lights,” Clark said. “You don’t have that seasonal curve as much as if you were just in exterior cleaning.”
Clark remains on the Bright Brothers team, where he handles training, and Contractor Nation has elevated the “behind the scenes” elements, like technology. The companies worked together to film training videos and “upping the ante” across the board.
“The training we have, nobody has it,” he said.
BrandOne generally works with emerging brands to develop and execute a franchise development strategy. “We become their development arm,” said Dave Schaefers, chief development officer at BrandOne.
The company also worked with healthy bowl concept Clean Eatz, in-home care franchise Seniors Helping Seniors and FirstLight Home Care.
Creating awareness for Bright Brothers is the first step, Schaefers said. The year-round revenue at Bright Brothers appealed to BrandOne. “Sharing that message is going to be neat,” he said.
Florida-based MosquitoNix offers a similar model, in which the summer-oriented pest control business is accompanied by a winter holiday lighting installation offering. Outdoor Lighting Perspectives offers holiday lighting, among other outdoor services, and did $53.6 million in sales across 112 units in 2022. Exterior window cleaning brands are more popular, like Window World, which had $1.2 billion in sales across 211 units in 2022, and Fish Window Cleaning, which had $115.6 million in sales across 271 units.
Bright Brothers is looking franchisees who are hungry to build a business of their own. Clark said he’s “really big on empowering entrepreneurs. … I always explain it like I’m talking to past self, because I didn’t know anything about business.”