Today we’d like to introduce you to Clae Henderson.
Clae, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
When I was 18 years old, I received a scholarship to go play football in college. Through this first year of adulthood in college, I fell out of love with the game I once cared so much for and instead found myself coming up with business ideas and creative concepts in a dorm room late at night with a few of my close friends.
This was the beginning of the ever so changing life path I chose at 18 years old. I ended up skipping a majority of my general education classes and ended up quitting football. I wanted to experience what life had to offer, create myself and apply my work ethic elsewhere, somewhere that I could tangibly feel it. It may have been extremely selfish and partially childish, but in my gut, I felt that it was the right path, which is a key lesson I found through this journey and still have to rely on daily to grow my company as well as my life.
I had challenges ahead that I did not see, including learning curves, failures, disappointments, and many more struggles that in retrospect, made me who I am today. As cliche as the sounds, here is how I struggled to then later on use what I learned from previous chapters of my life, to get to the next one.
After flunking out of school and quitting football, I decided to work for my father’s company. He had been a master of hardwood floors from the time he was young and he finally got the opportunity to start his own company 20 years later. Ironically, right around the time, I was done with my first year of college. I applied my work ethic, my creativity and continued to develop as a young immature adult. I had no clue what I was doing when I walked on the job site and that adversity I felt allowed me to establish a strong root of belief and character of who I am today. I was uncomfortable and my father was hard on me, as he should be.
I wasn’t making large sums of money nor did I have anything promised in my future. This was work and I had to figure out something in the real world that I truly had no clue about. It had to make sense for him financially to pay me and keep me on the job. So I began to figure out ways I could help them improve production while still learning as much as I could. I started by opening boxes of wood and sorting them by size.
This led to me being able to see the design of the floor which led me to laying out rows of flooring before they were installed to speed up production. I eventually started to prep the floor, then staple the floor, then cut the floor, then install the floor. Before you knew it, I had truly created production even my father was shocked by it and still to this day we’ll talk about it. I did as much as I could humanly do as far as speeding up production and still felt unsatisfied. I knew deep in my heart, that this was my father’s passion, not mine. But I watched myself grow and acquire information and create a better product. I enjoyed the challenge and this taught me so many valuable lessons, about who I was, what I enjoyed, and what I may be good at.
While working for my dad, I also worked large ticketing events like Country Thunder Music Festival for a few weeks out of the summer, this festival is home to over 40,000 festival goers. I worked with my grandmother who has been in the business for 30+ years. We would work these week-long shows and I would go back to my normal day job when the week was finished. Two and a half years and 8 or 9 shows later, I was 22 years old when I reached out to the company that controlled the ticket sales and the technology behind the festival. I asked for a job as I needed change and wanted to go in the creative direction. They provided me with an opportunity through an internship.
I moved to Tempe, Arizona in the fall of 2016 taking a major pay cut along with a major work culture shift. As it was only an internship, I was making $8.00 an hour. Most students from ASU worked 10 hours a week to work in a cool environment, make some money and be able to attend festivals like Coachella. Meanwhile, I had to work 40 hours in the call and support center to make ends meet. I biked 5 miles every day to work when I couldn’t catch a ride and I shared one bedroom with a true friend of mine while sleeping on a futon mattress on the ground. I went there with a concept that I had been creating for a while.
That was the main reason I wanted the job. I drew an app for ticketing, festival, and venues, that would have integrated features such as VR, reselling tickets, connecting with people at the festival, finding friends at the festival, networking, ordering concessions without having to leave your spot, etc. I even created tickets for the events for the people who couldn’t attend but wanted to through the footage being streamed by people using the app live. I never pitched that idea because, in my gut, I felt I didn’t have the leverage, the tools, or the capacity to pitch that concept. I was only able to move to Tempe because I had enough funds by playing blackjack at a casino for 11 days straight. It felt like I was in a movie and I was enjoying every scene possible.
This is literally where I was mentally. I had a work ethic and creativity but I had 0 wisdom and truly was still an immature kid. I was irresponsible with my money and this was another tough lesson. End of story. I went to a festival that we sold tickets for in LA with a few of my friends from back home and we all decided we wanted to move there and attempt to make music and film. My job in Tempe offered me a job for $10.00 an hour a few weeks later and I said I’m going back home to save more money and move to LA in the fall of 2017.
I did just that, again not a whole lot of money, but I now have all this experience and I felt like I was ready to take the world by storm. So I thought again. I started working for Chipotle in Beverly Hills, I biked and bused 20 miles just one way a day to get to this job to make ends meet and still, I was unable to do so. But while I was working at Chipotle I started to learn how to transfer sounds from my mind, onto computer software.
I began to write freely, create music freely, and design freely. I worked multiple jobs while putting my true focus into what I was doing when I got home from a normal job. I lasted 7 months at Chipotle and later got a job in Downtown LA for a fashion start-up company which happened to be even farther of a commute on bike and bus. For context, we could see the planes take off and land at LAX. At our house…I lasted a year and a half in LA, worked one commercial for Brita Water, and was sitting on a bunch of art I created but knew it wasn’t ready to be consumed or shared.
I remember calling my mother, saying I just don’t get it and I’m just stuck in life. I couldn’t break through and I wanted results now and had been that way since I started working for my dad. She said, Clae, move home and get your life together. I took the advice and moved flat on my face into my parent’s house at 25 years old.
My grandfather (my mom’s father) whom is a custom builder and has been for over 30 years. A man of strong character and quite frankly is the man everyone looks up to in my family. He accomplished everything you can in life, twice over. I remember not even a week after being home he took me up on a trip to his cabin that he was remodeling, I went there and helped clean up for an hour and had a deep conversation with him on our long drive about life, where I wanted to go, and everything in-between. It was a very heartfelt, open-ended conversation that just felt like a conversation. I needed that but I didn’t necessarily know where that would later lead me.
Looking back, this shows how strong his character is because it was that short but deep conversation, he realized what I needed in the short term and long term in my life. This would require all kinds of uncomfortable feelings, a lack of trust in the vision, eliminating all kinds of negative thinking, and paving new ways to create a foundation for the future.
Long story short, I worked for him for 3 years, which honestly felt like it was never going to end but in my gut, I knew every day I was laying one brick in my foundation for the future, and at the very worst, I was learning a trade I would have for eternity.
This changed the way I thought and truly changed my life for good. Something I was missing all along. It required a lot of hard work to keep what I had but to rewire myself to create output with what was going in inside of my head. I believe he realized that in the moment. I walked in not knowing how to trim, paint, frame a wall, create, design, build stairs, install windows, doors, etc. I left being able to do all of that while having a fire inside of me for the future.
I met my lovely girlfriend in the summer of 2020. Nearing the end of my tenure with my grandfather. I credit a lot of character-building to my grandfather, because without it. I truly do not believe I would have landed the love of my life without a reforming of my life. She was out of my league and currently, I believe she still is. She was always the best in school, graduated undergrad in 4 years, and worked jobs while doing so. She has the spirit of a living angel and she is seriously one of the sweetest people on earth. She had just graduated when we met and she was in the process of applying to dental school. She got accepted and one year later we moved to Utah in the fall of 2021.
I was feeling inspired. While reforming my character, I still worked on music, writing, and creative concepts every day. And I mean every day. At this point, I have 3 albums unreleased and will plan to do so when the time is right, in my gut. But I had to get a normal job when we moved out here and it took me 4 months to find a job due to me lacking a college degree. I worked for a year and I was excellent at my job but it wasn’t providing me the finances and I was running low on all of my savings.
This is where things get interesting, while working this job and striving to figure out my creativity and my life path. I was involved in an accident that would truly shift the way I approached life in the spring of 2022. I broke both orbital bones, my nose, my upper jaw, and cracked the tip of my forehead.
I woke up the next morning in a hospital with a truly unrecognizable face. There were also spinal fluids leaking through my nose and until that stopped, we had to wait to undergo a massive 6-hour surgery. After sitting in the hospital bed for 5 days, I was blessed to have a surgeon that quite frankly saved my life. I underwent surgery that required cutting my scalp in half from ear to ear and restructuring my entire face.
At this moment, I’ll never forget how I felt. For the first time I was so nervous, but so calm. It felt as if what I had been asking for had weirdly been answered. The perspective. It’s natural to say I’m going to be a better person after this realizing all the things you take for granted. But at this moment, on my surgery bed being wheeled down to the elevator. I realized that I had everything I wanted the entire time. Instead of trying to prove myself so strongly with concepts, work, and character. I had everything, even at the age of 19 when I quit football and flunked out of school.
I had a calm presence over myself being wheeled down, and at that moment, I said if I make it out of this, I’m going to apply what I now know. Who I am, I am just going to give my best self to the world and everything I do.
I had a successful surgery from one of the best surgeons in the nation, and I look to pay it forward to him one day for the impact he had on my life. It wasn’t just the fact that he was great at what he did, it was his presence with me for those 5 days leading into surgery. Sometimes you wonder, when all hope is lost the best outcome is waiting on your doorstep. I’ll never forget how I felt the first day in the hospital, lost and confused. How did this happen to me, how am I going to pay for this, who’s going to do it, how different is my life going to be, what have I been doing to deserve this? All of these thoughts, and not two hours into the first day, this surgeon just so happens to be doing his routine walk in a hospital and stops by my hospital bed.
I made it a mission to recover as fast as I could, with the support around me. I didn’t want to take pain relievers, I wanted to go through the pain, and the process, and heal properly. We made benchmarks and we achieved these benchmarks, daily, weekly, and eventually monthly. Without the support of my family and friends, I do not see myself being able to break through as I did.
I had a swollen and shaved head with an incision going from ear to ear. I wanted to get back to work as quickly as possible to heal my working soul as well. It drives me nuts to sit on the sideline and watch the action. I was back to work after just two months and I made it known that I was going to finish this year working for this company and move onward with my journey and path.
I quit in February of 2023 to form this company I call Glass Rain. Washing windows was one of the easy tasks I was assigned while working for my grandfather. It wasn’t framing a custom window well for a window no one uses nor has the answer for, it was just cleaning the windows.
I expand that concept as I have to for every creative concept I pursue. The service I am providing has to be elite along with my branding and options for customers. I built my company after studying and understanding the market while testing solutions that would be best for my sake as well as the outcome for the consumer.
My end goal is to build a franchise. I want to make window washing accessible for homeowners and business owners while serving them the best product they can receive. I’m using every inch of my creativity, experience, and work ethic while remaining humble and balanced. When I grow the company to a certain point, I will introduce my creative endeavorers like my music, my film, and the documentary I am filming to create a media company that can leave an imprint on society. I will never leave Glass Rain and will make sure that our core is always our core but I will look to grow that core along the way creatively.
In all of my creations, I put myself in the shoes of the consumer, and I think the word consumer isn’t the right choice of word, I truly look at everyone as my family and friend. There are issues we all go through every day, and some are more extreme at certain points in our life, but we are all in this together. I plan to use my company to solve some of these issues, whether that’s creating foundations for youth to build, society infrastructure issues, or charitable acts that make ripple effects That will always be the main focus of my company and my path.
We will start by offering an elite service for an affordable price. I realized how much people were paying to have clean windows and it truly made me sick. I saw this opportunity to showcase my talents, creativity and offer a service and brand that people can feel a part of, again by first experiencing the A+ service and benefiting from that, but feeling like they are a part of this growth with the company and seeing the impact that we will leave behind.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My road consisted of slippery paths, potholes, caved-in roadways, etc., but I always figured out a way to stop my car and observe the path ahead. These challenges truly present an opportunity to create a better path for the now and to drive on later. I experienced every failure you could imagine.
Growing ideas that never would have the light of day, overworking myself, overthinking, committing, and just not having the confidence to go a full 100% with what I was doing at the moment.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I decided to observe myself artistically and professionally at a very young age. Both entwine beautifully now at moments and my company is a reflection of those two things I hold so close to my soul. With that said, I have also separated the two.
I have a list of music, film, and ideas that I am working on and will release when the time is right. I taught myself how to play instruments, create music, write lyrics, draw houses, and write stories. I also used the work ethic that was instilled in me from a young age to chase perfection and never be satisfied with results, which I have a beautiful balance with. It allows me to go at things 100% and drive results that I don’t think would be possible with a normal mindset.
At Glass Rain, I am telling a story regarding my work ethic and how I creatively can solve issues at scale. We will start by providing a service with a cool brand people can feel a part of rather than overspending money on an undesirable task. I know that the service I provide will showcase who I am as a worker, that is my core and what drove me through my story and all my failures and kept hope within myself. I know that’s a talent of mine, whether it’s in the professional or creative workspace, my work ethic and beliefs drive everything to a degree that I can’t see before I start.
My work ethic is driven by my personal beliefs in humanity and creating a sound, film, or idea is a reflection of that very same engine. I am doing my best to provide myself to the world as best and as humbly as I can. With aspirations ahead of me that are not financially driven but by changing the world and shifting the paradigm we live in for the better.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Well, in the current global economic weather and while everyone is on a budget including businesses. I’m trying to change my industry and create cheaper and more affordable pricing that makes sense, And once my company spreads the word of the service attached to the pricing, companies will have to fall in line and shove their prices down to where they should be. I would have done so even if we were in a good global market.
I just think the prices flying around my industry are astronomically high and people have taken advantage of an undesired property owner task that is truly necessary. It could be looked at as a luxury for your home and more of a necessity for your business but I look at it as the same for both, a necessity and I have built the pricing to reflect that.
Our prices include everything, both sides of the glass along with detailing the track and frame to perfection. Our average window price with everything included is 4 dollars cheaper than the low-end average cost per window.
Statistics are right on our website. On a larger scale, especially in Utah, we are building at an all-time high. Buildings, plazas, and homes are going up at record numbers and every single one of those is covered in glass that is required to be washed. I see the overall amount of jobs grow, but with what I am providing, the cost will go down. The service I provide is top-tier. Most top-tier companies continue to raise prices as they grow to run businesses. I will not. There will probably be a time we have to adjust pricing but I am going to keep it as low as I humanly can to drive the vision I have.
Because the results of a clean storefront, including your glass and the entire track that surrounds it, will drive business. You’re more likely to return to a storefront or walk into one when you see the product, food, or service from a presentable perspective.
Same for homes, when you wake up in the morning and the sun is beaming in your windows and you can see the pure reflections of nature and your surroundings, it improves your mood and quality of life. It’s a simple service that I want to make accessible for everyone and be able to apply my attention to detail and commitment to service within the product I provide. I don’t see a better way to do what I am doing, and that is why I am confident, pricing in my industry will decrease while the number of jobs will increase.
All of this is just to have a clean window!
Pricing:
- Full Wash Residential Window – $6.00
- Full Wash Residential Window (2nd story) – $7.00
- Exterior Only Residential Window – $4.50
- Full Wash Commercial Wall – $45.00
- Exterior Only Commercial Wall – $30.00
Contact Info:
- Website:glassrainutah.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glassrainutah/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093486254139
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/glass-rain-herriman
