Hey, I’m Chris. For ten years I ran service businesses in America from a desk in Japan, so I had to work out early how much of a business needs its owner. Less than most owners think.
Read my story →I built Think Maids, the first fully remote cleaning company based in Washington, D.C., moved to Japan, and ran it for eight years without ever meeting a customer. Most of what I know came from not being there. It became the first proof of the remote local model.
When other owners asked how it worked, I built Inova Local, the first virtual staffing agency dedicated to home services, to make the model possible for them. For eight years it served companies across North America, including national franchises and Inc. 5000 operators, until private equity acquired it in 2025. In 2018 I launched the Local Business MBA to teach the model publicly.
Four exits later, the question had changed: not how big a business can get, but how little it can need its owner. The Optional Owner is my answer: a letter from Yokohama, and a small-group programme designed to remove yourself from your own business. Along the way my work has been featured in TIME, Side Hustle School, Side Hustle Nation, and other publications.
Everything I have built or written sits somewhere in here. Most of it started as a problem inside a company, usually before six in the morning, and got written down later, once it had stopped being urgent.
How to make something economically useful in the first place, without a business degree or a rich uncle.
How to make the thing work without eating its owner. The part I know best.
What the business is for, and what kind of life it makes room for. This is where the sitting comes in.
The Optional Owner lives in the second pile, and keeps wandering into the third.
Most owners build a job that owns them back. It happens by degrees. Customers learn to ask for you. Your team waits for your approval. The useful knowledge stays in your head, because writing it down never feels as urgent as the next small fire. Revenue may rise while your life gets narrower.
An Optional Owner moves knowledge, decisions and execution out of their own head and into systems and people, progressively, until their presence becomes a choice rather than a requirement.
It started as a way to run one cleaning company from another country. It now applies to any business whose owner has become the bottleneck.
I like work. The goal is to stop being the bottleneck in your own life.
Think Maids, a cleaning company in Washington, D.C., started with $700 in my final semester and no industry experience, which turned out to be the right amount.
Moved to Japan, and built Inova Local alongside Think Maids: the first virtual staffing agency dedicated to home services. The delegation layer that made the remote local model work for everyone, not just me.
The Local Business MBA: what if business school ended with a business you owned instead of a debt you did?
After eight years operated from abroad, acquired by an industry buyer. I never met a customer. The buyer did not seem to mind.
Acquired by private equity after eight years. The fourth exit, and like the other three, none of it needed me in the building.
Our son arrived. The question moved from how much can I build to what the business is for. He has not answered yet.
Turning all of it into a cohort and a letter. Mostly on dog walks.
“I mention your story all the time.”
“Major shoutouts to … Chris Schwab for helping so many people on this journey.”
“Chris Schwab and the Inova team rock! We’ve scaled our business well into 7 figures utilizing his team. Couldn’t do it without them!”
“He loves having us, and right now [two of our VAs] are running his whole business while the other three are all out. He’s doing between $210,000 and $250,000 worth of business each month.”
“If one of my VAs is sick, it takes minutes for someone to take over. It gives me the peace of mind I need. Now, I can really focus on the big picture!”
“I tried to run my cleaning company for two weeks while I visited family in Japan. It was HARD! The time difference alone was a bear. I admire Chris for being able to do that.”
“This is why a VA is so important. Then I don’t have to choose between my family and my business.”
“You’re the one who inadvertently inspired me to do it in the first place.”
“A lot of it came down to delegation. I outsourced my phones and email to Inova Local.”
“You’ve changed the way I view growing my business! The clarity I have makes me feel so at peace and so patient!”
“Chris and Kelli are full of knowledge and share it so openly. I swear you’ll walk away from any call with them learning something new and actionable.”
“I got the courage to start my own business because of your Side Hustle podcast.”
“Chris Schwab, the man who started it all for us.”
“Chris is a badass and overdelivers massively.”
“I enjoy your approach on business and the simplicity you maintain throughout it all.”
From owners, students, clients and peers, over ten years. Partners and endorsements →
A small-group programme for owners who have built something that works and want it to work without them: the day to day handed over, the business run remotely if you like. The capstone.
How it works →Start a local service business the way I did, in the right order: five stages from first customer to a company that runs without you. Self-paced, bought directly, running since 2018.
Start at localbusinessmba.com →Build a VA agency: the remote office behind local businesses, taught by the founder of Inova Local, the first virtual staffing agency dedicated to home services. Not open yet.
Thanks. You’ll hear from me when it opens.
Goes straight to me. It doesn’t sign you up to the letter.
Private one-to-one work is closed for now. The letter is free and needs no application.
Every year I choose a single word as an intention and let it sort my decisions. This year’s:
Fewer tasks, fewer goals, fewer possessions.
A letter on running a business that doesn’t need you, and what to do with the time it gives back. Written from Yokohama, usually after a run. Free, easy to leave, and it doesn’t sell you anything most weeks.
You’re in. Welcome.
Written from the other side of the world · Yokohama, Japan