How did a $99 pair of designer jeans inspire American author Kristen Hadeed to start a successful cleaning company at the age of 19?

Read her bestselling 2017 debut “Permission to Screw Up: How I Learned to Lead by Doing (Almost) Everything Wrong” to find out.

Falling under the business leadership memoir genre, Hadeed comically and earnestly airs her dirty laundry as she looks back to 2009 and her creation of Student Maid while she was at college in Florida.

The firm employed other students to polish and shine the dingy corners of the Sunshine State.

Hadeed delivers stories and scenarios about how she became an entrepreneur and the many ways in which she “screwed up” along the way.

Her first major mistake happened on Day 1, when the home she had pitched for turned out to be a mansion and took her seven hours to clean rather than two.

She was told to bring her own supplies and naively thought that an off-brand glass cleaner, a sponge and a used toilet scrubber would be enough. She was both right and wrong. She managed but it was depleting in several ways.

She made mistakes again. And again. And again.

Some were significant, like when 75 percent of her team abruptly quit. Others were smaller, like when she avoided difficult but necessary conversations with employees.

Then something shifted. She began learning from her missteps and it is this wisdom she shares in the book.

I listened to the audiobook version — narrated by Hadeed — while cleaning my own home.

Her latest book, “Human Leadership: The Courage to Face Ourselves and Each Other,” was released last month.

I will be dusting that one off soon.