The Pink Team: One of Lafayette's few international businesses

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — When Alejandra Malo first opened her business, she could not have imagined how successful the Pink Team Cleaning Services would become.

The success came within the span of 12 years.

When she initially created it, Malo figured this would be a side project — to provide women dealing with breast cancer with a free cleaning service.

But over the years, this small business eventually evolved into providing high-end cleaning services to corporate real estate and factories.

It’s one of a few Lafayette businesses that hold the honor of being recognized as a multistate and international business, after she expanded it into Illinois, Georgia, Texas and Mexico.

“I would have never imagined that we’d end up being this big. If I did, I may have picked a different color to base my business’s identity around,” Malo joked.

Malo initially created Pink Team in 2011 to women across Tippecanoe County either diagnosed, battling or recovering from cancer.

She understood how difficult it would be for a woman to maintain a spotless house while going through treatment, and Malo had no intention of growing Pink Team into the size it is today.

She expected that it would be not much more than an occasional solo gig.

“I didn’t know if it was going to work or not because it was just me," she said. "I told myself that whatever happens, if it doesn’t work, I know that I at least helped people with cancer clean their home

Her initial customers were so pleased with her work, they began recommending her services to others in the area. Within the first few months, she began receiving so many requests that she needed to start hiring staff to meet the demand.

And although her business originally provided house cleaning services, it quickly shifted to providing cleaning services to office buildings as more commercial property owners learned of her business.

But it wasn’t until 2013 when Malo knew she had a winning forum of business on her hands after a local factory wanted to hire her team to do routine janitorial service for them.

Even though her team had never cleaned a factory, this wasn’t going to stop them from learning how to clean a factory.

Between 2013 to 2019, her business continued to grow, adding several other factories to their portfolio and expanding her business into other Indiana markets such as Indianapolis and Bloomington.

She also began investing in local property and started offering short-term rentals on Airbnb.

During that time, there were several moments when Malo considered retiring from the business to focus on her family, but that all changed after the pandemic.

When the pandemic initially started, she believed that she might lose the business after a number of her clients ended their contracts since workers were no longer in the office. Employers believed that they wouldn’t be needing her team’s services for a while.

After two months of constant fear, everything changed when people began to return to the office.

Businesses reached out to Malo to reinstate their contracts with the Pink Team, as well as requesting additional cleaning services in hopes of addressing people's fear of COVID-19.

“I had never been so busy in my life after we heard back from them,” Malo said.

“We went from cleaning an office every other day to almost three times a day.”

During the pandemic, there was a high demand for professional cleaners who could sterilize commercial properties, and this increase in demand was the catalyst that allowed Malo to expand her team as well as her business into other states.

From 2021 to 2022, Malo opened several branch locations of the Pink Team in Texas, Illinois and Georgia, and earlier this year, she officially opened her first location in Mexico, which primarily works with hospitals.

With the constant growth that the Pink Team has been expecting, Malo could have taken a moment to relax. She and her team have too much drive to allow themselves to relax.

Malo is currently working to expand her cleaning business into a laboratory setting and has begun teaching process amongst her staff.

“I wanted everyone on my team to be proud of the work we do. Yes, we clean, but we are professionals. These people give us the keys to their businesses and that’s a big responsibility. And it’s a responsibility we take seriously and don’t take for granted,” Malo said.

Noe Padilla is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email him at Npadilla@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter at 1NoePadilla.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Pink Team expands into one of Lafayette's few international businesses