When Claudia Meneses discovered her aunt was being underpaid at her cleaning job, she decided to launch her own cleaning business to provide better opportunities.
Although Meneses had a business administration background, she soon recognized the Las Vegas cleaning industry was highly competitive. To distinguish her company, she chose to offer nontoxic cleaning products as her unique selling point.
“It wasn’t something that people were so used to seeing,” Meneses said. “Especially here in Vegas.”
Meneses, who is originally from El Salvador, had come to Las Vegas in 2004 and worked for several years for the same family as a nanny for whom her aunt was a housekeeper.
It was there they learned about organic ingredients like baking soda, vinegar and mild soap as alternatives to cleaning products with toxins, Meneses said, and led her to using environmentally friendly products to clean her own home.
The eventual result was Avanti Green Eco Cleaning, which Meneses founded in 2011. In addition to its entirely toxin-free cleaning offerings, she said, Avanti Green stood out because at the time she was still perfecting her English and used online forms to prevent miscommunication — long before they became the norm.
“Over time, people have gotten used to going online and booking stuff without having to talk to anybody,” said Meneses, who is CEO as well as founder of the company. “But back in the day, that’s one of the things that I started doing, which separated us from the competition.”
The company has grown significantly in the almost 15 years since its establishment.
“We started to get more referrals — word of mouth,” Meneses said. “People will refer us with their friends, with their family, and then we start to get more and more homes to clean. So little by little, we’ve been growing the team from my aunt and my cousin, to now we’re having about 45 cleaners in the field.”
Recently, Avanti Green received the Small Business of the Year Award from the Nevada Small Business Development Center. Meneses pointed to the organization’s ability to help burgeoning companies when it comes to marketing, keeping up with trends and more.
“That was amazing,” Meneses said of the award. “Coming from very humble beginnings to now having that recognition was really great for everyone in the company.”
Karma Hunter McClain, a business development adviser at UNLV’s office of the Nevada Small Business Development Center, housed with the UNLV Office of Economic Development, said she first connected with Meneses when Avanti Green was seeking to improve its marketing strategy.
From there, she connected them with different resources across Nevada to scale the business even further. The company almost doubled its revenue in 2024, Hunter McClain said.
“We’re very proud of their growth,” she said. “And that’s why they got the client of the year award — because of their growth and success.”
The Small Business Development Center looks at an organization’s revenue growth and operation when considering awardees, Hunter McClain said.
“All of the resources we connected them with — they were very involved and engaged, and they took action,” she said. “And when they took action and applied everything, they were able to basically scale their operation, and they were able to increase their revenue.”
The Nevada Small Business Development Center encourages entrepreneurs to use the resources and partner organizations it can connect them with, Hunter McClain said, because it wants small businesses to grow.
“That’s very important for not just the businesses (themselves), but also the economy,” Hunter McClain said. “And we want to help that growth. We want to help the businesses.”
Using the right tools, Meneses said, Avanti Green’s revenue has grown to over $2 million a year.
The company has expanded its offerings, now doing window cleaning, carpet cleaning, pressure washing and more so customers feel like they can come to Avanti Green for a “one-stop shop,” Meneses said.
“It’s still the same company,” she emphasized. We might be bigger, but we’re the same people.”
She ultimately wants Avanti Green to make people’s lives easier, and be a company where employees feel they can stay for a long time and with good wages.
“We want to keep growing,” Meneses said. “But we want — not only the company grows in revenue, but our employees are also able to grow themselves. I want to keep the company moving in the right direction.”