¡Sofa So Bueno!

Easy money. Empty days.

• Remote corporate work paid well and asked very little of me.
• Back-to-back calls, and nothing I could point to at the end of the day.
• It was slowly grinding me down.

The deliberate choiceTrade the easy salary for work I can be proud of.

Every business starts with a problem. Ours had four legs.

Yoda had an accident on the couch. I needed a professional, and I needed one fast.

No website. No reviews. Just a WhatsApp number.

A friend passed on a contact. The job got done, but it left me with more questions than answers.

Not just a gap in the market. A whole chaise longue.

The quality of service simply wasn't there. And, embarrassingly, I struggled to explain what I needed in Spanish. If I felt that way, so would plenty of others.

Scotland v Norway. A name is born.

Watching the match with fellow Scots, "so far, so good" got a Spanish twist. We gave the world the telephone, the TV and penicillin; that afternoon, we added a sofa pun.

Behind the scenes

The fibres that bind us.

Four values woven through everything Sofa So Bueno does, and the thinking behind every clean.

First stop: London.

• I researched the market properly before spending a penny.
• Then it was back to school, for chemistry this time: fibre types, pH and dye testing, with Prochem in London.

The deliberate choiceTrain first. Trade later.

The UK is years ahead. So I listened.

I connected with UK peers, where the industry is far more developed.

Every conversation shaped a decision: which training, which chemistry, which machine.

Oldham, for the chemistry.

• I completed Njord Chemicals' upholstery training in Oldham.
• Then I imported their specialist chemicals back to Spain.

The deliberate choiceChemistry matched to the fibre, not one bottle for everything.

Not the cheapest. The right one.

Plenty of cleaners here buy a Kärcher off Amazon for less than half the price. Tests online show time and again that it doesn't match up. So I found the machine that suits my business model and imported it from the USA.

The deliberate choicePay once for the right tool.

• A compact machine, around 12 kg, I can carry up the stairs of older buildings without a lift.
• An e-bike for the city's narrow streets: no parking hunts, no emissions.
• Chemistry chosen to be kind to fabrics, homes and the environment.

The deliberate choiceKit that fits the city, and the planet.

Back to Glasgow, to learn on the job.

I began visiting my hometown for shadowing sessions with Ryan and Vinny: real homes, real stains, real customers.

The deliberate choiceLearn from people who do it every day.

Less water. More finesse.

A two-day course in low-moisture encapsulation with Craig Carnan of iClean 24/7, hosted by CleanSpec Cumbria in Penrith. Faster drying, gentler on delicate fabrics.

Bookings open. Sofas transformed.

• I soft-launched through word of mouth among friends and colleagues.
• Every booking doubled as a real-world beta test.

The first reviews are in.

Care and quality, in a customer's own words. La magia está en los detalles.

Paused. Not finished.

Just as things got going, I found out I need a hip operation. I've paused operations for now, and expect to be back in early spring 2027.

The deliberate choiceUse the recovery to come back stronger.

Recovery, with homework.

While I recuperate, I'll train one-to-one in advanced stain removal with Ken Wainwright of KenDry in Redditch.

¿Qué tal el español de Ryan?

While I can't work, I'm focusing on improving my Spanish.

Vote. Everyone else did. ↓

What's built, what's next.

Looking for partners and collaborators who value doing things properly.