The story
Pete Kadens saw a need during the COVID-19 pandemic for sanitizing and disinfecting services and turned it into his latest entrepreneurial venture: Crazy Clean LLC, doing business as Azenity Labs.
Beyond that need, he saw opportunity to give a hand up to people with backgrounds that often make it difficult to find employment. Azenity Labs is the latest in Kadens’ entrepreneurial history, but his interest and investment in helping underserved communities dates to the early days of his career.
He committed from the beginning to hiring people who have been incarcerated or struggled with the legal system.“This is another opportunity to help people who wouldn’t otherwise be helped,” Kadens said.
Community impact
Every employee of Azenity Labs is given owner equity in the company. “It’s nice to pay someone $15 to $16 an hour with benefits, but if you give them the means to create wealth in the form of equity in the company, that’s when you change lives.”
Azenity Labs offers employees monthly training on reading financial statements, trend analysis and understanding business operations. “We invest in their intellectual capacity to understand what entrepreneurship and ownership mean.
“Going into businesses dressed in coveralls to sanitize for COVID-19 is not glamorous work, but our employees show up on time, and they work hard with smiles on their faces. It’s fun working with appreciative people who are kind-spirited and believe that their employer is looking out for them.”
Azenity Labs is filling a niche and helping others through the current pandemic that Kadens sees as a need beyond the current climate. “This is a different need than cleaning, vacuuming and wiping down surfaces. It’s about killing pathogens and viruses.
“I think COVID-19 has changed the American psyche, how we live and will live moving forward. We’ll be looking more and more at what establishments and vendors are doing to keep us safe from illness. And that far transcends the pandemic.”
Kadens has been a client of Insperity’s through four business ventures. “When you start a small business, there’s a lot to worry about and not a lot of money to hire multiple experts to worry for you about payroll, benefits and the HR ramifications of hiring people and conducting business.
“Insperity gives me a broader network of people to help me, and all four of my companies have been Insperity clients,” Kadens said. He also appreciates the medical benefits, which he deems “awesome” and have taken on increased importance during COVID-19.
An alignment of values with Insperity is important to Kadens. “You can’t do good business with bad people, and I’ve never felt I was being sold a bill of goods from Insperity.”
“You can’t do good business with bad people, and I’ve never felt I was being sold a bill of goods from Insperity.”
Pete Kadens