We Won a National Title. Then We Started Scrubbing Floors. Here's Why.

Just months ago, the three of us were standing in Canton, Ohio, under the bright lights of the NFL's Hall of Fame Stadium, holding up the NCAA Division III national championship trophy. We're Ethan Perkins, Bradley Arndorfer, and Tanner Kaufman, teammates at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, and that night was the moment every athlete dreams of. A few months later, we started cleaning houses. Here's why that makes more sense than it sounds.

The idea that started between lectures

Mopp Cleaning started in a UW-River Falls classroom. In early February 2026, Brad and Ethan were supposed to be focused on a lecture. Instead, they were talking about time: how nobody has enough of it, and how cleaning sits at the bottom of everyone's to-do list, draining the weekends that could be spent on almost anything else.

The question they kept circling was simple: what if someone could take that off people's plates entirely? Build a cleaning company that handles the one chore most people genuinely hate, so customers get their time back. In a market full of unreliable services and surprise fees, the hard part was never the concept. It was doing it well, every single time.

How did three national champions end up cleaning houses?

Because a national-champion Division III football schedule doesn't leave room for a normal 9-to-5. Between practices, games, film sessions, and travel, our time wasn't our own, and when we went looking for work that could flex around that kind of commitment, the options dried up fast. So we stopped looking for a job and decided to build one.

Tanner came on board, and the idea Ethan and Brad had been kicking around between classes suddenly had three competitive, disciplined, team-first athletes behind it: people who understood what it means to hold a standard and show up every single day, no matter what. That's not something you learn in a business-school classroom. It's something you earn on a football field.

Why cleaning? Seriously, why cleaning?

Because cleaning is one of the most universally disliked household chores there is, and that is exactly the opportunity. People don't put it off because they're lazy; they put it off because life is full and time is short, and scrubbing a bathroom after a long week is nobody's idea of a good time.

In western Wisconsin and the Twin Cities metro, we saw a clear gap between what people needed and what was actually available: a home cleaning service that was reliable, easy to book, and honest about pricing. That gap became Mopp.

From a two-week deadline to two innovation titles

The business world noticed what we were building, too. In February 2026 we took the stage at UW-River Falls's Spark Tank! Innovation Challenge, a competitive pitch event judged by area business leaders and run by the St. Croix Valley Business Innovation Center, with the contest just two weeks away. We didn't wait for it to get started. We pooled our savings, bought a cleaning starter kit, and went door-knocking in River Falls that weekend.

By the time we pitched, Mopp already had paying customers, an LLC filed in Wisconsin, and $1,400 in revenue. We won, earning $2,000 in prize money, a one-year membership to the St. Croix Valley Business Innovation Center, and a bid to the WiSys Big Idea Tournament. Then, in April 2026, we entered that University of Wisconsin system-wide competition (one UWRF students rarely win) and won that too.

Two innovation titles and one national football championship, all in the same school year. At a certain point, winning stops being a coincidence and starts being a pattern.

What Mopp Cleaning is built on

From day one, we built Mopp around three things most cleaning companies treat as afterthoughts:

Transparency. No mystery pricing and no surprise fees when the crew shows up. You know exactly what you're paying before anyone walks through your door.

Simplicity. Book entirely online. No phone tag, no waiting on hold, no "we'll call you back to schedule." The whole process is designed around your time, not ours.

A real satisfaction guarantee. If something isn't right, we make it right within 48 hours, at no charge. That's not a marketing line. It's the standard we hold every single visit to.

These aren't values from a mission statement written in a conference room. They're the values of three people who spent years on a team where accountability wasn't optional and cutting corners wasn't an option, not if you wanted to win.

Where we clean in western Wisconsin

Mopp Cleaning is based in River Falls, WI and serves homes across western Wisconsin and into the Twin Cities metro. Whether you're in River Falls, Hudson, Prescott, Baldwin, Eau Claire, or one of the surrounding communities, we bring the same standard to every home, from recurring standard and deep cleaning to move-out cleans: consistent, professional work that gives you your time back. Not sure whether we cover your area yet? Reach out. We're growing, and we'd love to hear from you.

The bottom line

Most cleaning companies are anonymous. You don't know who started them, what they stand for, or whether anyone actually cares if your home looks great. Mopp is different, and not just because we say so. It was built by three people who care deeply about doing the job right, who started it to help people reclaim their time, and who have the competitive mindset to never let the standard slip.

Three national champions. Two innovation titles. One cleaning company. Ready to get your time back? Book your first clean online. No phone call required.