And before the million, you have to make the first move.
Everybody wants to be a billionaire.
Nobody wants to be the kid with a bucket and a squeegee at 6 a.m. in July.
I know, because I was that kid. Summer of 1992. Seventeen years old. Raleigh, North Carolina. Sweat running into my eyes and a homeowner watching me through the glass like I was a raccoon who’d learned to use tools.
I didn’t have a plan to build anything. I had a squeegee and a gas tank to fill.
Here’s what I’ve learned in the 30-plus years since: the people who build big things almost never started by thinking big. They started by doing the next small thing well. Then the next one. Then the next one. And one day they looked up and realized the small things had stacked into something real.
That’s what this article is about. Not billions. Steps.
The Math Nobody Wants to Do
Let’s play with numbers for a second.
A billion is a thousand millions. You can’t skip to it. There’s no elevator. Every billionaire you’ve ever heard of made their first million first, and before that, their first hundred grand, and before that, their first dollar from something they built themselves.
But that’s not how most of us think about it. We see the finish line on social media. The private jet. The founder on the podcast. And we compare our Chapter 2 to their Chapter 27.
Then we feel behind. Then we feel stupid for even wanting it. Then we go back to our desk and do what we’re told for another ten years.
Sound familiar?
If you’re reading this and some part of you is nodding, I want you to hear this clearly: you’re not lost because you want too much. You’re lost because nobody showed you the first step. They only showed you the summit.
Washing a Skyscraper
Here’s an analogy from my world.
Ever see a crew cleaning a 40-story building? From the sidewalk it looks impossible. Thousands of panes. Wind. Height. Nope.
But nobody on that crew is cleaning a skyscraper. They’re cleaning one pane. Then the next one. Then they drop down a few feet and do it again.
The building gets clean one pane at a time. Your life gets built one decision at a time.
The billion is the skyscraper. The million is a floor. The first step is one pane of glass.
You don’t need to know how to clean the whole building today. You need to pick up the squeegee.
I Didn’t Have the Résumé Either
Let me save you some time, because I know what you’re thinking. “Easy for you to say, Gabe.”
Fair. So here’s my résumé.
I went to college for half a semester. Half. I didn’t even make it to finals. I came home and went back to cleaning glass.
Then I spent about 20 years running a franchise in somebody else’s system. I learned a ton. I built a good business. But I was building it under someone else’s name, someone else’s rules, someone else’s vision.
I was in my 40s when I finally walked away and started Window Ninjas on January 1, 2018.
Not 22. Not fresh out of business school with a pitch deck and a hoodie. Forties. With a family, bills, and every reason in the world to stay put.
So if you’re telling yourself you’re too old, too far in, too uneducated, or too responsible to start something of your own, I’d gently say this: bite me. Respectfully. I’ve been all of those things at once, and I’m still standing.
What Ayn Rand Got Right (and What She Didn’t Mention)
I recently read The Fountainhead. The main character, Howard Roark, is an architect who refuses to design buildings the way everyone else wants. He builds his own vision, even when it costs him nearly everything.
It’s a great book. It’ll light a fire under you.
But here’s what struck me. Roark was a genius. Most of us aren’t. And honestly, most of us don’t need to be.
What we need isn’t genius. What we need is a blueprint.
The world tells you there are only two options. Option one: keep working for someone else and stay “safe.” Option two: be a lone wolf visionary, risk it all, and build from scratch with no map.
There’s a third option nobody talks about. Build your own thing on top of a system that already works.
That’s not selling out your vision. That’s being smart about where you spend your energy.
The Wealth You’re Not Counting
Another book I read recently, Sahil Bloom’s The 5 Types of Wealth, makes a point I keep coming back to. Money is only one kind of wealth. There’s also time, relationships, health, and purpose.
Here’s the uncomfortable part. Most people who want to “get rich” are actually broke in time. They trade 50 hours a week, plus a commute, plus the Sunday night dread, for a paycheck that builds somebody else’s empire.
When I say “make a million first,” I don’t just mean dollars. I mean proof. Your first real proof that you can build something that pays you back in more than just a check. Proof that you can own your calendar. Proof that the thing you built can run when you’re not standing over it.
That proof is the first floor of the skyscraper. Everything else gets built on top of it.
Boring Is Beautiful
Here’s a secret the podcast crowd won’t tell you. A whole lot of self-made wealth in this country wasn’t built in tech or crypto. It was built in businesses that are, frankly, a little boring.
Plumbing. HVAC. Landscaping. Pest control. Window cleaning.
The research backs it up. Thomas Stanley’s classic The Millionaire Next Door found that a big share of self-made millionaires owned ordinary, unglamorous businesses. Not flashy. Just steady, needed, and repeatable.
Why? Because homes always need care. Windows always get dirty. Gutters always fill up. Every fall, somebody wants holiday lights on the roofline and does not want to be the person on that ladder.
Boring businesses don’t trend on social media. They just quietly pay people for decades.
Why I Built Window Ninjas the Way I Did
When I started Window Ninjas, I made myself a promise. Every hard lesson I paid for over 30 years was going into a system, so the next person wouldn’t have to pay for it twice.
Because I remember what it felt like to figure it out alone. Answering the phone at 9 p.m. Guessing at pricing. Learning the hard way which hires would show up and which ones wouldn’t. None of that made me better. It just made me tired.
Here’s something that surprises people. The best owners I know aren’t great window cleaners. Most of them never touch a ladder. Their techs do the work. The owners build teams, show up in their communities, and run the business. I’ve always said I’m a businessman dressed up as a window cleaner. That’s the job.
A system doesn’t guarantee anything. Nothing does, and anyone who promises you a specific outcome is someone to run from. What a good system does is turn “I have no idea where to start” into “I know exactly what to do Monday morning.”
And for someone who feels lost, knowing what to do Monday morning is everything.
The First Step Is Smaller Than You Think
So let’s bring it home.
You want more. You’ve wanted more for a while. Maybe you’ve never said it out loud because it sounded crazy coming from someone in your seat.
It’s not crazy. It’s just big. And big things get built small.
The billionaire made a million first. The millionaire made a hundred grand first. And every one of them, at some point, had a day where they decided to stop watching and start building.
You don’t have to quit your job tomorrow. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to take the next step, and the next step is usually a conversation.
Let’s Talk
If this article hit a little close to home, good. That means it was written for you.
I’m not going to pitch you. I’ll just tell you what I wish someone had told me 20 years earlier: what ownership actually looks like, what it takes, and whether it fits the life you want to build.
Reach out to me directly. Let’s grab a virtual cup of coffee and talk.
You don’t have to clean the whole skyscraper today. Just pick up the squeegee.
Gabe Salinas is the founder and CEO of Window Ninjas Franchising and calls himself the world’s greatest window cleaner. He’s been in the trade since he was 17 and still believes the best businesses are built one pane at a time.
