I followed this thread carefully and at the time I was struck by the fact that 100% of the replies were completely negative (my own included) and thought perhaps it was unfair that only a few actually offered any constructive comments. It did rather give the impression that CIU members on the whole revelled in the opportunity to heap scorn on someone's misguided attempt at setting up their own business.
I emailed Louise and offered to try to explain why their idea was being treated so badly.
She replied, thanked me for taking the time to contact her and asked that I forward my thoughts on and analysis of their business model.
I did that and a couple of weeks later had the following reply:
Hi Ian
My apologies for taking a few days to respond to your email, it has been a busy week and I wanted to give your comments as much time and trouble to read as you so obviously took in writing them.
So having read your feedback now in full, first of all I wanted to thank you for the time and thought gone into it. As a new business in a busy market of course we read, appreciate and consider all the feedback we receive, from window cleaners we have already signed up, our customers and also those who disagree with our business model.
We will give all your comments consideration, but as I am sure you can imagine, having read them through we need to give them considerable thought so I can't respond to you now with any changes we might consider making as a result, or indeed any feedback as to where your understanding of our model is not quite accurate.
Your feedback is very valuable as a long standing member of the window cleaning community and I can assure you that we will give it appropriate consideration. In the meantime if you have any other comments or questions please do let us know.
Kind Regards,
Louise.
I haven't heard anything since.