Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey.

Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey, what’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Laundromat Resource podcast. This is show 226, and I am pumped you’re here today because today we’re going to talk about how you can grow from four up to four stores in two years. Justin Eaton and Ashley are on the show to show you exactly how they did it. This one’s super informative. They are super open with sharing exactly how they did, exactly what they did. And listen, if you’re out there trying to grow your portfolio, this one is the one for you. If you have aspirations of owning multiple Laundromats, this is the one for you. So let’s jump into it with Justin and Ashley.

Jordan Berry [00:00:39]:
All right, Justin and Ashley, thank you for coming on the show. How are you guys doing today?

Ashley Eaton [00:00:43]:
Good. Thanks for having us.

Justin Eaton [00:00:45]:
Yeah, man, we’re excited. It’s been a long time coming. We’ve been watching your show for a while and it’s cool to finally be on, man. Looking forward to it.

Jordan Berry [00:00:51]:
Oh, you know what’s funny is I’ve been watching your guys’s stuff popping up all over my feeds everywhere, which real quick. I mean, just, we’re right here in the beginning. I just brought it up. Can you tell us? I mean, you guys got some really good content. What I like about your content is you’re. You’re posting a lot of, like, specific stuff, stuff people really want to know, like, how much money is your stuff, your stuff making, where, you know, new customers versus old customers. Like, all these cool details in some of your content. Where can people find your stuff?

Justin Eaton [00:01:18]:
Yeah, so our store, the. The three stores we branded as My Friends Laundromat. So Instagram, it’s My Friends Laundromat. And then our personal Instagrams we’re building out as well. The Laundromat brand is mine’s Justin Underscore, Underscore Eaton. Hers is at Ash Griff Underscore. We just got married a month ago, so eventually she’ll change her Instagram name. Maybe not, but for now, those are.

Justin Eaton [00:01:41]:
Those are the places you can find us. Also on Tick Tock, we’re at Launder Friends.

Jordan Berry [00:01:46]:
Awesome. Love it. All right, we’ll have links to all that stuff too, in the show notes. If you’re on YouTube, they’ll be down below. Make sure you give those guys a follow. Subscribe. Whatever you do on whatever platform, do that on all the platforms because a lot of genuinely, like, a lot of really good stuff on there. Really practical and insightful stuff.

Jordan Berry [00:02:05]:
So you Want to get the real scoop on what it’s like to own a Laundromat. You got to follow these guys. Okay, cool. Hey, let’s rewind it a little bit and tell us a little bit about you guys and, like, how did you. I mean, like, you guys are young, you’re hip, you’re cool. That’s. That’s not. That’s not how we roll over here in the laundromat industry.

Jordan Berry [00:02:25]:
We like to be old and stodgy and. So how’d you guys get in this business with all those old timers?

Justin Eaton [00:02:33]:
Yeah. So I. I have a handful of rental properties, and when me and Ashley got together, she was managing our rentals. You know, we were still. We were still buying more rentals. And it got to the. The deals weren’t making sense from a cash flow perspective. You know, we’re putting out 20% down, 30% down on these real estate, you know, duplexes and small commercial buildings.

Justin Eaton [00:02:52]:
And, you know, we’re making 5, 6, $700 a month on those. And, you know, we started to explore some alternative avenues to really increase our monthly cash flow. So 2021, as most people saw, Cody Sanchez popped up on my Instagram feed just talking about laundromats every day. Laundromat, Laundromat, Laundromat car wash, Laundromat. So I was like, all right, just got it. Like, there’s something here. She sounds smart. So 2021, I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole on Facebook and found a local distributor in my area that sells equipment.

Justin Eaton [00:03:24]:
And so, you know, I contacted him, and me and him kind of stayed in touch for about a year and a half before that first deal came up. We were kind of like, you know, half serious about it. We weren’t, like, actively looking for deals during that whole time, but when he did bring us that deal, kind of checked all the boxes for us, and so we went for it. And that was October of 2023 when we closed on that first deal.

Ashley Eaton [00:03:47]:
Yeah. And I was definitely very, you know, nervous about it. I knew we could do the rental, so at least we had that experience with that business. And I was like, okay, like, I. We can manage it. We can make that work. But this was just something that we’ve obviously never have done to. Done before.

Ashley Eaton [00:04:03]:
And I remember going to the first. First time to the store and opening the door and just looking at this thing, and we’re like, oh, my gosh, like, what are we gonna do?

Jordan Berry [00:04:13]:
Yeah, well, I. And I’m glad You said that because, like, I don’t know, you go and watch your content like you guys are pros. You’re running your stores, you know, really well, and you guys are doing well in your stores. And, you know, it can be difficult for people when they are like, trying to get into their first one to say, well, these guys got it figured out. Like, they, they know how to do it. But, you know, I remember my first store too. Like, I was scared. I was, I told the story before, but I got a picture of my wife and I were holding the keys up with the laundromat in the background.

Jordan Berry [00:04:44]:
It’s all dumpy, half the lights are out, wood panels mismatching on the walls. And I was like scared to death. Like I had no idea what to do. So, you know, I mean, this is a, this is a figureoutable business, right? I am curious. So. So I like investing in real estate too, but I had, you know, similar experience where I’m like, oh man, there’s a lot of benefits to investing in real estate. Still a huge fan of it. But when it comes to cash flow, you know, I, in, in my mind, the average real estate deal can’t touch the average laundromat deal.

Jordan Berry [00:05:21]:
But I’m curious, you know, how do, how do, how do you feel about real estate versus Laundromats? Are you still fans of real estate investing? Are you all in on laundromats? Kind of. Where are you at with those as.

Ashley Eaton [00:05:35]:
Far as the industry goes? Like, I also have my real estate license, so I feel like real estate and laundromats are both, like you said, like it’s all old school, no one wants to innovate it. And I just found that fascinating that, you know, both of these things that we, we kind of got into just needed a total revamp, technology wise and everything.

Justin Eaton [00:05:57]:
So, yeah, I would say we’ll always buy real estate. Like, I love real estate and real estate has great long term benefits. You know, you get the tax benefits, the tenants are paying down the debt, the property value is going up, you know, just historically based on appreciation. So I think if you can combine the two, you know, use your, you know, put some of your cash flow away that you’re making from the laundromats, buy real estate maybe less often than you would otherwise, but still pair that, you know, real estate, you know, investing with Laundromats, and you can really hit that long term wealth benefit that comes with owning real estate. And then you can, you know, take the cash flow from the, from the Laundromats and kind of hit both aspects of it.

Ashley Eaton [00:06:42]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:06:42]:
And if you can, if you can buy, you know, real estate, a laundromat with real estate, which we did on our fourth store here, and we can talk about that as well. But that was kind of a home run deal and we obviously were hitting both kind of aspects with that.

Ashley Eaton [00:06:54]:
Yeah. And I also really like more commercial real estate versus residential real estate. And I always, I always say from managing tenants and residential real estate, I’ll take a laundromat customer over like a long term tenant like any day. So most of them.

Justin Eaton [00:07:12]:
Most of them, yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:07:14]:
Most of them. Well, no, and that’s interesting too because that you say that I’m, I’m working on two commercial buildings right now, trying to get those under contract. And. But I mean, I think commercial real estate investing is not the common one. Right. People either talk about single family, you know, rentals or apartment complexes, which you know, are I guess technically commercial. But it’s, it’s interesting that, that you are, you know, talking about commercial because it, it doesn’t get up, get brought up quite as much as, as the other asset classes. Just out of curiosity, like, what do you like at a commercial?

Ashley Eaton [00:07:55]:
So I love that our one commercial building that we have, it’s basically all offices and they’re all, they’re all professionals, they all have their. So you’re really working. Your tenants are also business owners. So it just, it’s just totally different from versus, you know, someone who’s just renting as, as their home.

Jordan Berry [00:08:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. How’d you, out of curiosity, how’d you learn about commercial real estate?

Justin Eaton [00:08:22]:
Put a deal on the contract and figured it out as we went.

Jordan Berry [00:08:24]:
Yeah, that’s what I like to hear. That’s, that’s what I like to hear. Learn by doing.

Justin Eaton [00:08:31]:
How did I find that deal? I just. From a. It was on LoopNet and then it was on there for like two years. And I happened to know the broker who had the listing and I was like, I was like, what’s up with this? It’s a professional office building that was like not touched since like 1985. Like the people who occupied it were the people that owned the business and they were selling it because they were closing their law firm. And so I reached out to the brokerages on a whim. I was like, I saw this deals on the market for two years. It was way overpriced.

Justin Eaton [00:08:57]:
And I met him out there and he’s like, here, listen, here’s the price. This is what the willing to take. And it was 150k less than the list price. And I was like, I’ll sign the paperwork tonight if you can get it done fast enough. Because it was such a great deal. And that was our first commercial property. And then we bought two more, two or three more on that street. It’s like a small downtown area and like a B plus area that has a lot of, you know, Runway for development.

Justin Eaton [00:09:21]:
And the two others are mixed use, like up and down. Like upstairs in an apartment, downstairs is commercial. So we felt really good about that, that specific area long term as well. So. And the property values there, like the residential space are 600 to a million dollars now. So it’s been great. We bought that property in 2021, so.

Ashley Eaton [00:09:39]:
Yeah, but that was after. Yeah, it was after Covet. And everyone was like, oh no, like everyone’s gonna be working from home.

Jordan Berry [00:09:45]:
Like your office space is dead.

Justin Eaton [00:09:47]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it was like a, it was like one of those buildings where like you could kind of parcel out like sections of it, which is, which is kind of how we did it. We have four different tenants in there that take up different offices. So it’s really, it’s perfect. We love that property and project.

Ashley Eaton [00:10:03]:
Yeah, but then we had just had a child and we were like, you cannot work with a child. You need an office space. So I was like, I think it’s going to be. Yeah, it’s going to be necessary. So.

Justin Eaton [00:10:14]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:10:16]:
Yeah. Well, and kudos, you guys. I mean, that’s, that’s hard to do. Right. Of, of like you’re buying when other people are selling and you’re buying when people are saying, oh, that whole, that whole asset class is basically dead. Like that’s what people were. 20, 20, 2021 was like, office space is done. Everybody’s working from home from now on.

Jordan Berry [00:10:35]:
Right. And we’ve now seen that that’s not really the case. Most jobs, I think, have gone back to the office by now, so. Interesting. Well, I wanted to kind of go down that little rabbit trail because little known fact, I’m a commercial real estate agent in California, which I don’t really talk about a lot, but I really like commercial real estate. So I’m always interested in, in what people have. So. Okay, so let’s go back to that first laundromat deal.

Jordan Berry [00:11:04]:
Where, where did that come from? Talk us through the process of like finding it and getting it under contract and buying it. I know a lot of people are like, I can’t find deals right now. So how did you guys find a deal and put that thing under contract?

Justin Eaton [00:11:20]:
Yeah, so like I said, after I found out that Laundromats were a business that you could buy and own, I contacted this broker who I found on a Facebook forum. Or not a broker, I’m sorry, a machine distribut who I found on a Facebook forum. He’s one of the sales guys, is the contact that I had. And he essentially drives around the area and stops in stores all day, every day. So he usually knows the owner. So he happened to come across this deal that was in like five minutes from our house. One of those, you know, typical zombie mats, like you were just talking about yours. The lights were flickering, the paneling, half the machines are out.

Justin Eaton [00:11:55]:
He brought me the deal. It was. He. They were asking 40 grand. We offered 25 and they took it. You know, we knew that it was. We kind of couldn’t lose just because the environmental impact fees and like the sewer tap fees around us, if you’re starting from scratch or like 5 to 7k per washing machine. And so for us to buy that store and, you know, get that fee grandfathered in, you know, we knew that worst case scenario, if we had to sell the store for the cost that, you know, we were into it for, we would have no problem doing that.

Justin Eaton [00:12:26]:
Obviously, you know, it all worked out for the best, but that was kind of how we got into that first one.

Ashley Eaton [00:12:31]:
Yeah, I think it’s always important too, to. I know we met with him personally, the owner, and for him to see you in person and like. No, you know, we’re. We’re a couple. We have a young child. Like, we’re. We’re trying to do this business. I think it goes a long way to have that personal.

Justin Eaton [00:12:47]:
Yeah. With the seller, it wasn’t like some, you know, he didn’t have some, you know, professional people come in trying to buy it. Like, we went there with our son. I think he had his grandkids there. The first day we met him, older guy, was just tired and ready to let go. So it really worked out kind of for both of us.

Jordan Berry [00:13:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s. That is a like a under in. In like the age of like AI and automation and all that stuff, like total. And this is true in real estate too, right. It’s like this is still a people business. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:13:17]:
And if you can put some FaceTime in with the owner, if you can make a connection like that, you got the kid, the grandkid connection. You, you know, you got, you know, maybe you guys reminded him of when he was younger or, you know, those kinds of things. And like, that stuff makes a real difference. And not only. I know this is like a relatively small deal and you know, I don’t want to like pretend like 25k is a small amount of money. For most people, it’s a lot of money. But relatively for Laundromat is a small deal. And but, but even on larger deals, like, you’d be surprised if you make that connection with people.

Jordan Berry [00:13:51]:
A lot of times you can, you know, you can win out over all cash deals or higher bids. I see that happen a lot.

Justin Eaton [00:13:59]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:14:00]:
Okay, so. Oh, go ahead.

Ashley Eaton [00:14:01]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:14:02]:
Part of my networking. Not networking, but like, you know, we’re always looking to buy more deals. And so there’s this one store that’s right down the street from our commercial properties and same exact thing, what you’re talking about. Just I went in there the first time, actually I texted him the first time and he’s like, I don’t know who you are. I’m not looking to sell my business. I love what I do. And that was like six months before I first went in there and talk to him. And he didn’t know it was even me who had texted him, like, so he didn’t put that together.

Justin Eaton [00:14:28]:
But I just went in there, I was like, hey, like, I’m Justin. You know, I’m doing development project. At that time, right across the street, I was putting. We had bought a one story commercial building. We got approved first, second story apartment. So I was doing that project and it was right across the street from that Laundromat. And I was popped in and I was like, I’m Justin. I was like, you know, I’m doing this project across the street.

Justin Eaton [00:14:46]:
So yeah, yeah, I’ve been watching it. And I was like, oh, we also own, I think at that time we just had the one laundromat. We also own a laundromat in Voorhees. And like, I didn’t, I never said like, hey, like, you know, you’re looking to sell. I just created the relationship more so with him. Like, you know, I’m a long time owner myself. Like kind of shot the, you know, shot the stuff with him a little bit and talk business. And then I was again, you know, just listen, if you’re ever interested to sell like down the road, definitely keep me in mind if you need help with anything.

Justin Eaton [00:15:11]:
Like, I’m usually in the area, just more so created like a friendship with them. And then he was a big Sports fan. We’re big sports fans, and, like, Eagles were getting ready to play in the championship game, so we were talking about that. And then, like, I just. I just know from all that, when he goes to sell that store, I’m gonna be the first person that he calls.

Ashley Eaton [00:15:29]:
Absolutely.

Jordan Berry [00:15:30]:
Yeah. And that’s. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

Ashley Eaton [00:15:33]:
And I was gonna say, with the first store that we bought that, the guy, he said that, he’s like, hey, I’ve gotten other, you know, offers since you have put it in, but I want to stick with you guys. So.

Jordan Berry [00:15:45]:
Yeah, yeah. Huge. I mean, that’s your. That’s your hack. Like, if you’re out there trying to find your first deal and. And we’ll get there, but. And I think you guys have seen this. I definitely have seen this, and I’ve seen this happen a whole bunch.

Jordan Berry [00:15:57]:
But once you get that first one under your belt, subsequent ones become easier to find, at least. Maybe not get, depending on the situation, but you can at least find them. They come to you easier. But, yeah, if you’re looking for a hack, if you’re looking for a secret, there’s. Listen, there’s no silver bullet necessarily. But if there was one, it’s probably putting in the. Putting in FaceTime with people, which obviously is more work, more time, more effort. But looking for that deal, that’s.

Jordan Berry [00:16:26]:
That’s the way to get it. Okay, so it sounds like this deal, you know, it was like a zombie mat needed work. What did you guys do to it? Did you run it as is? You know, a lot of. I’m. I’m kind of surprised. I’m curious what you guys think. I’m kind of surprised. Most people are like, run it as it is for a little while and then.

Jordan Berry [00:16:46]:
And then figure out what changes to make and make it. So did you guys do that, or did you make changes right away?

Justin Eaton [00:16:52]:
How’d you approach it? We closed the store the first day. Like, we closed on it, and then we closed the store itself.

Ashley Eaton [00:16:58]:
Yep.

Justin Eaton [00:17:00]:
You know, we pretty much did a full retool. We gutted the store all the way down. Got rid of all the old machines, updated all the mechanicals. Full cosmetic upgrade. And then we put brand new machines in. Card system, you know, automated, as many things as we could. Camera system. We had laundry works on all of our stores.

Justin Eaton [00:17:19]:
You know, we put maglocks in the doors. So we shut it down day one. Jumped directly into the renovation. We didn’t think it was worth keeping just because of the condition it was in. And, like, we, you know, Half the machines didn’t work. You know, we were in there and customers were, you know, having issues. So we didn’t want it to be a headache from day one. So we’re like, let’s just close it down.

Justin Eaton [00:17:39]:
Jump right into it. We come from experience in real estate, where we’ve done development projects and rehab projects before that. I GC myself. So we just kind of ran that same play and, like, learned a little bit as we went in terms of, like, you know, differences for Laundromats. Obviously there’s a lot of mechanical changes that had to be made to upgrade from old to new machines, but, yeah, we took that. We took it on right away. Yep.

Jordan Berry [00:18:02]:
You remember how long that took or how long you were shut down?

Justin Eaton [00:18:05]:
Yeah, we bought the store October, like 13th or something. And then we reopened in February 12th. So was that four. Yeah. What, four months. And there was a couple small hiccups. We had that. You know, knowing what we know now, I think probably we could have got it done in half that time.

Justin Eaton [00:18:22]:
But again, that was the first one we kind of. We were learning as we went. Yeah, yeah, I think it was. It was four months from close to close, from close to reopen, which I think was pretty good.

Ashley Eaton [00:18:31]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:18:32]:
Yeah. Okay, so, well, talk to us about, like, the reopening. Did you do anything special for. Did you do, like a grand reopening or did you just kind of fling the doors open? How did you. You know, one of the. One of the fears when people, like, retool and invest, reinvest money back into the business is, am I going to recoup that money? Are people going to come, you know, is it going to be worth it or am I going to lose money? Were you guys feeling like that and. And what did you do, you know, when you kind of reopened?

Justin Eaton [00:19:00]:
We just. We just propped the door open with a big Tide detergent thing. We did a soft opening. And then I think within a week or two, we had a grand opening party where it was like, mostly friends and family. And then we had like, pizza and refreshments and stuff. And then obviously there was, like, some customers that we talked to in between that time that we invited.

Ashley Eaton [00:19:20]:
We were like, I think we relied a lot on. On our Google business profile. And I think we made an event on that to let people know, you know, that were having this party. And we also did some raffles. We raffled out off like a TV and some laundry products. So that was really cool.

Justin Eaton [00:19:37]:
Yeah, we did a ribbon cutting ceremony with the town. We had like chamber of commerce or whatever. You know, we signed up for that, and then the mayor came out.

Ashley Eaton [00:19:44]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:19:45]:
So we did all that cool stuff.

Ashley Eaton [00:19:46]:
We did a direct mail campaign as well to let people know when we were going to be opening. So that was, like, very interesting to go through that whole thing. My. My best friend, she actually is in marketing, and she helped us out with all of. So that was awesome to be able to work with her through all of that too.

Jordan Berry [00:20:05]:
Yeah. Okay, so you. You. You did all this renovations, new equipment, you know, rehab in the place, all that. You do a soft opening, you do a grand opening. How was the response? I mean, did people show up? Was it, you know, were you feeling good about it or how did it go?

Ashley Eaton [00:20:28]:
Well, I’ll never forget the first day when we. It was like our soft opening, and we were watching the cameras and I think. So we open at 6am every day. And I think this guy came in, I want to say very early. Like, I think it was like 6:30 or 7. And at that time, we were going to the store and unlocking and, you know, opening the doors ourselves. And we, like, watched him on the camera, and he was at the kiosk, and we were like, oh, my God, like, we have a customer. So I’ll never forget that moment.

Ashley Eaton [00:20:56]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:20:56]:
I was like, oh, it worked. Like, somebody came. One person came to the store and spent seven, ten dollars.

Ashley Eaton [00:21:01]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:21:01]:
But no, I think the community loved it. It took time for it to ramp up, obviously, but once the word got out, like, you know, we were pulling a lot of customers from these other two stores that were local. Yeah. And I would say it was. It was pretty positive. I think, you know, we. We probably broke even, like, within two or three months, and then we were turning a profit by month. Month four.

Ashley Eaton [00:21:23]:
Yeah, we were clean ourselves, I think, for the first six months, which is crazy. And that, you know, definitely allowed us to make a profit faster. We. With our. Our newer stores, we. We have cleaners right away. So I. I think that does impact, you know, making a profit a little bit later.

Ashley Eaton [00:21:42]:
But, yeah, yeah, since, you know, since we opened that first day, we’ve never not had not one person come in our store. So I’ll take that as a win.

Jordan Berry [00:21:52]:
Yep, that’s a huge win. Yeah, I was. I think it was. I think it was Lloyd who was on the podcast, and he said, like, the first day or two, zero people came to his store.

Ashley Eaton [00:22:04]:
Oh, no.

Jordan Berry [00:22:05]:
Talk about, like, after retooling everything. Talk about, like a gut punch feeling. Feeling awful.

Ashley Eaton [00:22:11]:
That’s yeah, but we were still very. Yeah, we were still super nervous. I know I was very nervous about our. Because I kind of related it to mortgage payments with our rentals. We had that equipment payment and it was, you know, $4,000. And I was like, oh my God, like, our mortgage isn’t even this expensive. None of our rental properties is this expensive. Like, what, how are we going to pay this? So I was super nervous about that.

Justin Eaton [00:22:34]:
Yeah, it looked like a big, like, you know, chunk to have to pay every month. But we hit our projections like our. And even when our distributor, like our sales guy was the one who gave us the initial pro forma and we understood like, all right, he’s selling this, this equipment, he’s making money on this. You know, how, how busy being about this pro forma. Right. So we kept that in mind and we were like, all right, listen, even if it does 75% of what he’s projecting, like it still makes more sense than a rental property. So we took that risk. He projected to do like 19,000amonth.

Justin Eaton [00:23:05]:
This is all self serve. We don’t have any wash, drive, fold. And I remember telling people at the grand opening party, like my friends and stuff, that the store is projected to do like 19k a month in revenue. And in my mind I’m like, man, just don’t know how that would be possible.

Ashley Eaton [00:23:18]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:23:19]:
And this month we’re, we’re probably going to break 30,000 for the first, the first time. So.

Jordan Berry [00:23:24]:
Hey.

Ashley Eaton [00:23:25]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:23:26]:
All right. Congrats. That’s huge.

Justin Eaton [00:23:28]:
Yeah, thank you.

Ashley Eaton [00:23:29]:
Yeah, we would, I would have never thought, like, if you were to tell me, you know, we were projected 19 and now we’re about to hit 30. I was like, I would have never thought that.

Justin Eaton [00:23:37]:
So, yeah, it’s still growing. Like we’re obviously, we have the laundry work, so we’re able to see a lot of that data and we’re still seeing like 30 new customers come to the store even now on a month to month basis. So it’s like, yeah, I don’t know where all these people are coming from, but keep them coming.

Ashley Eaton [00:23:51]:
Yeah, but we’re the only like brand new store like in our area. So that’s what people want. They want brand new and they want clean. So.

Jordan Berry [00:24:00]:
Yeah, well, I mean, that’s a great point. So I mean, let me ask you guys this question because I get asked this question all the time and you know, probably it depends is, is the correct answer, but I’m just kind of curious on your, your thoughts on it. Of do I do partial retooling and fix certain machines or do I do them all at once even though it’s going to be this, you know, make you want to throw up price tag most likely to do it all at once. What’s your guys’s take on that?

Justin Eaton [00:24:31]:
I would say, you know, it depends. Yeah, I think we’ve ripped them all out. Like we do full rehabs on the first three we bought the fourth one, we run it, we kept it as is until the end of the year. We just closed in June. Yeah, we’re going to run it the way it is until the end of the year, then close it. And the only reason we did that was so we could get all of our permits lined up and just hit the ground running when the time comes. But I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to, you know, we’re actually looking at a fifth store now that has like the, has older Dexters that are in like the 10 year to 12 year old range. And so that’s the.

Justin Eaton [00:25:05]:
Where our plan would be to keep those machines. Put the lawn to works card system and rebrand it to our brand and run it, you know, kind of with the same machines. So I would say it’s case by case, but I would prefer if I’m being picky, is to have like a complete zombie mat that I can get for cheap. Run a full rehab on it, do everything brand new. You’re not dealing with older machines where you’re having more maintenance issues. Utilities are better now, obviously with the new machines. It’s kind of like the Burr method in real estate, you know, so the worse it is when you buy it, you know, the more upside there is when you go to do all that stuff. So if I could pick, every store would be a gut rehab from the, from day one.

Ashley Eaton [00:25:42]:
Yeah. Like me being more on like the operations side. I want everything brand new. I want, I want to be able to see everything in real time and, and from a customer standpoint, you know, an older machine, I don’t want to have to worry about that. I love how all of our machines are, are brand new and, and I don’t have to worry about maintenance issues so much. So.

Jordan Berry [00:26:04]:
Yeah. Justin, how do you feel about having a super lazy COO over here who doesn’t want to deal?

Justin Eaton [00:26:12]:
My back’s been killing me, man. It’s over here.

Ashley Eaton [00:26:15]:
Well, like they, they complain even. Even though things are brand new, they’ll still complain. So I, so I’m like, you know, the less. Yeah, I can.

Justin Eaton [00:26:25]:
There’s always Something to be done, that’s for sure. And you know, it’s, you know how it is. But yeah, yeah, yeah, well.

Jordan Berry [00:26:31]:
And you know, I think one thing that’s not talked about nearly enough is your return on headache.

Justin Eaton [00:26:36]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [00:26:36]:
Like the, there’s, you know, you get to a point, or at least I got to a point where you can only deal with so much, you know, so much coming at you from especially you got four stores, you’ve got rental properties, you’ve got a five year old. You know, there’s a lot of demands coming at you and you can only take so much. And that return on headache gets more and more important the more you have, right. The more assets you have, the more wealth you build, it becomes more and more important. You start to see why, you know, some of these like uber wealthy people are like, yeah, I’ll just, just stick my money here where I can have a headache free 5% return on my money. I could probably get more, but it’s not worth my time anymore. Right. Not saying that I’m there, maybe you guys are, but I’m not there yet.

Jordan Berry [00:27:23]:
But it becomes more and more of a factor as you go. So I really don’t think you’re lazy. I was just kidding.

Ashley Eaton [00:27:30]:
I know, I know. I’m not lazy either. So.

Jordan Berry [00:27:32]:
Okay.

Ashley Eaton [00:27:33]:
But I got, but I got that way with answering the phone. So at first I was the one, I was answering the phone for a year and a half and I couldn’t take one more phone call like I was, I was on the verge of becoming mean, you know and I love, and I, but I always thought, you know, because I’m such a hard worker, I’m like, no, it needs to be a real person. It needs to be someone who cares that answers the phone. Like I, I don’t really like talking to you know, a robot, any of these recordings and we made the, the jump and we have AI answer our phone now and it’s been the best decision ever.

Justin Eaton [00:28:06]:
So yeah, absolutely. But to the return on headache, that’s kind of how we, that’s how we review these stores. It’s like we want to make it as automated as possible to eliminate a lot of that headaches. And so having a brand new store and being able to put all these systems in place, cameras, maglocks, automatic timers on the lights, AI phone answering at that point, it takes a lot of that remedial tasks off our plate. That’s the only way that if you’re going to have multiple stores, you really don’t have a choice. Unless you just work all day every day for 12 hours straight while the stores are open.

Jordan Berry [00:28:44]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I’m, I’m glad you brought up the AI phone thing because, you know, I mean, I think it’s something that’s peaking the interest of a lot of people in our industry. You know, obviously if you’ve got like a, a pickup and delivery service, it’s really intriguing because you know, people can place orders with an AI agent on the phone and you, they just fall into your lap basically. But you guys are running just self serve only, right? Right, yeah, that’s correct. Yeah. So I, I was, I am curious about like, how is it helping? Is it just, is it answering people’s questions and you’re not having to deal with them? Is it dealing with problems? How is it helping?

Ashley Eaton [00:29:25]:
Yeah, we actually had, you know, a customer that was upset, it was last week. And I was so impressed with how the AI person actually handled the situation. And it was right before it was right when we were about to close. So it was at like 10:30 at night. You know, I, I go to bed really early. Like I go to bed by like 9:30. So I was so happy I didn’t, you know, have to take that call. We do have like a customer service hours between 9 and 9 and no one really follows them.

Ashley Eaton [00:29:56]:
Like they’ll still call anyway. But just the fact that I had all that information when they called, you know, they told them they’re going to let the owner know and then we just followed up with them in the morning and you know, smoothed it over and everything was, everything was great.

Justin Eaton [00:30:11]:
Yeah. I would say most things in the Laundromat, like Laundromat customers, nothing’s like urgent to where it’s like you have to tend to it like right now unless there’s like somebody in there causing trouble. But I would say, you know, yeah, just not having to answer the phone for stupid question. Not stupid. I don’t say stupid questions, but a lot of them are like, oh, what time are you open? Well, you have wash, dry, fold or stupid questions that if you just did like a looked on our Google page, like you would already have to, you would already know this. So like just not having to hear her phone ring when we’re home together for simple stuff like that is like, that makes all the difference. And then when there’s things that need to be attended to, like we get emails right away. Yeah, we use Bella from Rick Rome, his program.

Justin Eaton [00:30:51]:
I actually found out about that from your Podcast. So shout out to Rick Rome on that. It’s been good so far. We’re just still training the brain there of Bella for our store specifically. But she does like take initiative and like ask certain questions and answer things in ways that like, it seems like a human would because like, you know, some of these things she’s asking, we didn’t train it that way. It’s like intuitively it just does it, which is kind of crazy. So it’s been good, man. Really successful for that so far.

Ashley Eaton [00:31:18]:
Yeah. And I love how it also will give you like a summary at the end of the week and give you like suggestions like, like, hey, people keep calling about wash, dry, fold. Like, is that clearly like, you know, noted on your website and everything? And I’m like, yeah, it is. But everyone just always keep. But it’s also nice to know that if we did ever want to do a wash rifle, there’s so much demand for it, that area.

Justin Eaton [00:31:40]:
So return on headache. It’s not there yet.

Jordan Berry [00:31:43]:
Yeah, return on headache, Turn on headache, man. I, I love it. Yeah, it can get, it can get like tempting, right, to like add more things and, and you know, obviously sometimes there’s, you know, lot, lots of times there’s a reason to go, go after it, go get that business, go do the pickup and delivery, go do the drop off. Obviously that, that there’s a lot of upside to that part of the business. But it depends on kind of what you’re, what you’re looking for. And it can get tempting to pull you away from your focus. You know, it’s one of the things I think the Willford brothers does really well. They’re self serve only.

Jordan Berry [00:32:19]:
They don’t offer wash and fold. They don’t do pickup and delivery. They just have a bazillion stores. And that’s just, they’re like, that’s our lane. We’re gonna stay in it. And that focus, you know, can bring you a lot of success, I think.

Ashley Eaton [00:32:33]:
Yep. That’s where we’re really leaning towards. Like that’s. We’ve. There’s actually a space that opened up right next to ours first Laundromat. And we’re like, oh my gosh, we could, you know, we could put more machines in there. We could start the wash rifle and then delivery. And we’re like, do we really want to do that?

Justin Eaton [00:32:48]:
And then we’re talking to other operators that have it.

Ashley Eaton [00:32:50]:
They’re like, they’ve all shut theirs down.

Justin Eaton [00:32:52]:
They’re like, it’s not worth it. Like, you know, you know, if your self serve is doing good and like, you know you’re not looking for additional headache, like it’s not even worth it. Like, especially if you’re growing other stores like you said, the Williford Brothers, like that’s kind of the model that we see ourselves going after as well. So I don’t think you can have like multiple, multiple stores and have wash, dry, fold tacked on each one unless you have like a full time manager operator, you know, that’s at that store. And we really don’t see that model for us, at least not right now.

Ashley Eaton [00:33:21]:
Yeah. And I love with, you know, our machines everything you can get done in under an hour. So people, you know, they can come in and come out and time is everything. So I just love that they’re, they’re able to get in and out so fast.

Jordan Berry [00:33:36]:
Yeah, yeah. And you know, just contrast it like Dave Long Rat millionaire men’s.

Justin Eaton [00:33:40]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [00:33:40]:
Like he, he went the other way. He’s, he started accumulating stores. I think he got to like four or five and then he’s like, well we already have these stores, can we just squeeze more juice out of them? So he went the other way and he built a, a big pickup and delivery business. Right. But he’s got a full time manager and you know, it’s a different business model. And that’s one of the like things that’s beautiful about this super simple, quote unquote boring business. Right. Is there’s a lot of ways you, your business in this industry and it’s kind of surprising.

Jordan Berry [00:34:10]:
I think that was, that was like my biggest surprise early on doing the podcast is talking to 10 different owners and expecting kind of similar stuff and, and some of them being like wildly different, like 10 different ways to run your business. So it’s pretty cool. You can set it up to, to run it how, how you want, like how you want to design your life. Sounds like that’s what you’re doing. Doing.

Justin Eaton [00:34:32]:
Yeah, totally. I think real estate is kind of the same way. Like I have a local real estate meetup group and like every person you talk to, even if you’re. They’re all doing flips, they all do something different.

Ashley Eaton [00:34:41]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:34:41]:
Financing, construction, gc. Like it’s, it’s kind of the same thing with the laundromats. It’s, it’s kind of crazy.

Ashley Eaton [00:34:47]:
Yeah. But I love that there is that possibility of doing, you know, wash rifled if we ever wanted to. I love that. I love possibilities, but I really do. And now we don’t even have any employees at our stores. We basically work with like a third party cleaning company and they run their whole crew. So I love that as well that we don’t have any employees really either.

Jordan Berry [00:35:08]:
Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s interesting because I, I do think that there’s like this like fork in the road that’s happening in our industry where you’ve got like, you know, the model you’re doing where it’s like streamlined, a lot of automation, leveraging a lot of technology and tools, still high on the customer service, but just, you know, more streamlined, more automated. And then you’ve got operations like Dave’s where it’s more like full service laundry center. We do everything. Bring your dry cleaning, we’ll go pick everything up for you. You know, we’ve got, I don’t know, he’s got a bunch of employees out there. Right. So it’s this interesting sort of like divide that’s happening because we’re seeing a lot of both of these things, these models and having a lot of success with them, which is, is really just fascinating to watch right now. Pretty cool.

Jordan Berry [00:36:01]:
Okay, so you guys snagged this thing. Sounds like pretty quickly it was profitable or at least break even. And then, and then sounds like it zoomed right through break even to profitable within a month or two. What I mean, you guys have four locations right now, is that right? I mean, didn’t you say you bought that First 1 in 23?

Justin Eaton [00:36:28]:
Yeah, we did actually.

Jordan Berry [00:36:29]:
Did I just see. I think I just saw like your two year anniversary was like four days ago for or five days ago from when we’re recording this, right?

Justin Eaton [00:36:37]:
Yeah, that’s correct.

Jordan Berry [00:36:38]:
Yeah. From when you bought it.

Justin Eaton [00:36:38]:
Yeah, yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:36:40]:
So four locations in two years, is that. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

Ashley Eaton [00:36:45]:
Well, the funny thing is is that this, at the beginning of this year, we always like to set goals, you know, for the year. And we’re like, this is going to be our stabilization, just gonna, you know.

Jordan Berry [00:36:55]:
We’Re gonna last words.

Ashley Eaton [00:36:58]:
Yeah. And then. Yeah, the complete opposite. So I think that’s just our personalities. Like, I think we just like having things to do him more.

Justin Eaton [00:37:07]:
Well, I also think like these deals I didn’t expect to come up and they were too good to turn down, so I just. We took them, we took the deals and we ran with it. But yeah, that second deal came up, the landlord for that first store, he owns a bunch of shopping centers. And so once he saw what we did with that store and how nice we did, did he’s like, hey, I’m getting ready to evict this laundromat operator in this other store. He’s not paying rent. He’s been there for years, and the store looks like crap. Why don’t you go take a look at it? You know, took us about four months to commit on that just because it was a little bit farther away from our house. So we talked to some of our friends who came on as operations partners who lived over there, put that deal together.

Justin Eaton [00:37:48]:
That was a huge project. The third store came from our machine distributor that we got that store for free. Actually. The landlord just wanted someone to sign a lease, and the fourth store came through one of those partners that we had on. On the other store. So, yeah, things snowballed quick. I would rather these deals be spread out a little bit just to kind of take some of the. The mental.

Justin Eaton [00:38:12]:
You know, free up some mental space for me and everyone. But you can’t pick and choose when these deals come. Like, you know, if we were to turn these down and then, you know, I’m out here for a deal and I can’t find one. So that’s the way I see it. You know, these opportunities. You have to jump on these opportunities when they come up. And like I said, these. These deals were all like, home run deals you really couldn’t miss.

Ashley Eaton [00:38:33]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:38:33]:
And we kind of, you know, solidified the blueprint and the model with that first store, and that store was pumping. So we were like, let’s. I mean, the numbers are good. Let’s run it up and see what happens.

Ashley Eaton [00:38:43]:
Yep. Yeah. From marketing wise, we. We basically just kept doing the same thing every single time. And so lucky to have my. My best friend helped us out with that because she. She knew the drill too. So we’re just like, all right, let’s just keep doing it the same plug and play.

Ashley Eaton [00:39:01]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:39:02]:
Yeah. Which is. I mean, it really. It really can be like that, right? If, like, once you find the model, you can sort of copy paste it. Obviously there’s like, nuances at different locations. Sometimes demographics are a little bit different. And so there’s, you know, there’s some things you can’t just set it totally on autopilot, but there’s a whole lot that’s transferable, more like principle based as opposed to, like, tact based that you can do, which, you know. And.

Jordan Berry [00:39:30]:
And, you know, we talked about how, like, once you own. I’ve said this a lot of times before, but, like, once you own that first one, like, deals come easier for you.

Justin Eaton [00:39:43]:
They.

Jordan Berry [00:39:43]:
They Come to you a little bit more, you find them a little easier. People who, you know, I work with clients a lot who are, you know, they want to buy a laundromat, they’ve never owned one. And a landlord will be like, I’m only, I’m only going to prove somebody who owns one. Right. And so a lot of these doors, not just with deals, but also financing, can open up once you get one under your belt. So sometimes just like get that first one under your belt, learn the business, you know, figure out the blueprint and then like, if you want, you could do four stores in two years. I don’t know if you should want to or not. Maybe I’ll ask you that question.

Justin Eaton [00:40:20]:
But yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I would say like the branding and stuff has been all the same. So like, to not have to think about, oh, what color we’re going to paint the walls, like, what are we going to do over here? Like, what signs are we going to put in this?

Ashley Eaton [00:40:32]:
Oh my gosh, the signage in the store signage.

Justin Eaton [00:40:34]:
Yeah, the window graphics. Like not having to think about any of that now, like, makes it so much easier. It’s like, all right, everyone knows what’s going on. This is the name, this is the branding, this is the color paint, these.

Ashley Eaton [00:40:43]:
Are the vendors, these are the, the cheapest to print the, the people who do our graphics. Like, we have all of that.

Justin Eaton [00:40:49]:
That which is machine distributor knows the drill. He goes in there, you know, comes up with the layout, sends me the, you know, invoice, I negotiate the price down and then, and then, yeah, it’s been, it’s been relatively seamless. And this fourth store we’re getting ready to shut down and redo is our biggest one yet. That’s like $300,000 rehab inside. And then like 807, $800,000 worth of equipment. So that one’s going to be a beast. And, but I think we’re super prepared based on, on, you know, what we went through with these other stores. So we’re looking forward to that.

Ashley Eaton [00:41:19]:
And also I’m like, with, even with the second store, I was like, let’s, let’s open. Like as soon as we ready to open, let’s open. Like the first one, I was like, everything has to be perfect before we open. Like, oh no. Like, and now I’m just like, open the door now.

Justin Eaton [00:41:32]:
Like, tell them to come in, figure it out, something.

Ashley Eaton [00:41:34]:
Exactly.

Jordan Berry [00:41:35]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it’s funny too, what customers will tolerate. You know, sometimes I, I think I’ve told the story I don’t know if I have, actually, but one time. One time, my. My. My first store that I had, which was like, a nightmare, but it flooded. There was literally, like, 4 inches of water on the ground. And I didn’t know, and somebody finally called me, and it had been like that for, like, two hours before I even found out.

Jordan Berry [00:42:01]:
And I live, like, 45 minutes away. So by the time I got there, it was like three hours of flooding. And I get there, and the store is, like, packed. People had their, like, shoes off, in their pants rolled up or their skirts hiked up, and they’re, like, doing laundry.

Ashley Eaton [00:42:15]:
Honestly, making it feel.

Jordan Berry [00:42:17]:
Yeah, making it flood more because my larger machines were, what was like, backing up, and it was just spilling out. So every cycle was just dumping more water into the store, but they just kept on keeping going, and people kind of helped me push water out of the store. I don’t know, man. They’ll just tolerate a lot. I mean, obviously that’s not a good thing, but I was just like, what is happening right now? I would not be doing laundry here if it was me right now.

Ashley Eaton [00:42:41]:
Flooded like that. And someone told that. Someone called us and let us know. So it’s nice that they. They called, you know?

Justin Eaton [00:42:48]:
Well, I. I think that kind of lends itself to, like, the laundromat business.

Jordan Berry [00:42:52]:
Like.

Ashley Eaton [00:42:53]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:42:53]:
That’s why a lot of these operators that are older just don’t care, because they know that the customers are going to come in and do laundry no matter what. So it’s like, why are they going to reinvest in their store when it’s gonna. You know, it would make more if they reinvested, but they’re like, I’ll just run it into the ground, and eventually I’ll sell it for cheap or close it down.

Jordan Berry [00:43:09]:
So it’s like, they don’t want to.

Justin Eaton [00:43:10]:
Reinvest in their store. And that creates the opportunity for the younger generation to get in there and kind of change the culture of the. The owner. Laundromat ownership.

Ashley Eaton [00:43:17]:
Yeah. Our first store, like, at literally all the machines, like, half of them weren’t working. Like, you walk in there, the lights are flickering, and people were still doing their laundry.

Justin Eaton [00:43:27]:
There was a guy sleeping in the back.

Ashley Eaton [00:43:28]:
There was someone sleeping in the back.

Justin Eaton [00:43:30]:
I was like, people were still coming.

Ashley Eaton [00:43:31]:
In, and I’m, like, still using the machines.

Jordan Berry [00:43:33]:
Yeah, Y. Yeah, well. And it really, like, it makes it.

Justin Eaton [00:43:37]:
So it’s, like, easier, you know, for someone who wants to do it the right way, you can really capture a lot of business like, because most of the stores, you know, if you find a stor, that’s, even if you’re close to other stores, if you can put out a better product, like it’s going to take time, but these customers are going to find you and they’re never going to stop going there.

Jordan Berry [00:43:55]:
Yeah. And I mean it really can be depending on your market obviously and who’s around, but it really can be pretty low hanging fruit in a lot of markets still to this day. It’s changing and it’s changing at an increasing rate I think because there’s more people like you guys coming in saying, oh, there’s a boatload of money to be made here just by treating people right, you know, like taking care of the basics. Yeah.

Ashley Eaton [00:44:18]:
Oh my gosh. That’s what I say. Literally the basics. And same thing with, with cleaning. It’s like, you know, something in my mind it’s clean or it’s not clean. Like how, I don’t know how hard that is, but every laundromat I go into, I see like 20 things that I’m like, oh, this could be cleaned, you could have dusted that could have done that. And, and we’re very detail oriented as at our stores and that’s why we have so much success. So.

Jordan Berry [00:44:43]:
Yeah, yeah. The devil is in the details there, you know. And honestly, like one of the things I find hardest about running a laundromat, especially when I was doing a lot of the stuff I know you were cleaning for like six months and stuff is like that whole sort of like franchise experience. Like the same experience every day, which means just finding that routine of keeping everything clean, keeping everything working and then just over and over, keep that routine, keep that routine. And like when you’re like a, you’re like an entrepreneur or like a visionary, like that kind of like that over and over on the operations is, is tough.

Ashley Eaton [00:45:23]:
Oh yeah. And then when you’re not, when you’re not making money either and doing that, it’s very tough. But I, I was a waitress for, you know, 10 years and it’s interesting that that same repetition of greet every single one of my tables, it’s how I greet every single one of my customers. So I have my spiel. Like the same one that I would, you know, obviously it’s different from the waitress, but the same way I would approach that, I do it instead of the menu, I’m telling them, hey, this is how our store runs and how it works. And I found great success with that as well.

Jordan Berry [00:45:54]:
Yeah, yeah. So what’s it been like getting four stores in in two years? I mean, has it been been easy because you have the blueprint, you’re just copy pasting or has it been overwhelming? Like what’s it been like?

Justin Eaton [00:46:07]:
I would say it’s a little stressful. We get overwhelmed at times for sure. When we’re like trying to, you know, especially when it comes down to like the finish line when you’re trying to get the store ready, like the punch list stuff seems to take the longest and like getting everything ready to like open the store go into the township. So like it’s always seems to be like leading up to the opening and then like, like after that the store kind of starts doing its thing. I mean, yeah, there’s obviously times where it’s stressful, but that’s kind of what you sign up for as a business owner in general and you know, owning the four stores. The second store took a lot longer to kind of profit. Like now it’s profitable, but it’s been nine months. It took us like eight months, seven or eight months to start breaking even and now it’s starting to make a profit.

Justin Eaton [00:46:54]:
So like that was what she was saying. Like could do this over and over for almost a whole year and not get paid. Like we haven’t gotten paid. None of the partners have gotten paid from that store yet. Yeah, that’s, that’s tough sometimes to swallow. But we obviously just keep the long term in mind. Like we know that store is going to do like it’s going to crush it once it’s you know, up and like stabilized all the way. Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:47:15]:
So just kind of staying no grounded in that and knowing that the process like just has to play out is, is promising. But yeah, obviously day to day there’s things that can come up and you get irritated, especially when you’re dealing with partners and customers. Like, you know, there’s things that definitely push your buttons. But yeah, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Ashley Eaton [00:47:34]:
No. But, but the second one is compared to our first one is in a way different area. So it’s probably like a, like a C minus D plus area. And our first store was in like a A minus B plus area. So it was just drastically demograph. So but it, I think, you know, with everything going on, I think the what put me to the top is, is our wedding.

Justin Eaton [00:48:00]:
Oh yeah, we got married.

Ashley Eaton [00:48:01]:
It was like let’s do all of. Yeah, let’s do all of this and then also get married. And I would. That’s what put me over the edge. So I don’t recommend that.

Justin Eaton [00:48:10]:
You can’t pick when the deals come.

Jordan Berry [00:48:13]:
That’s right. Even when it’s your spouse.

Ashley Eaton [00:48:16]:
We didn’t even go on our honeymoon. We didn’t even go on a honeymoon because we were opening stores and stuff out.

Jordan Berry [00:48:22]:
That sounds like a honeymoon to me. I don’t.

Ashley Eaton [00:48:25]:
I mean.

Justin Eaton [00:48:27]:
Oh, man.

Jordan Berry [00:48:28]:
Well, you guys need to. You guys need to take a little honeymoon and come out and hang out with me. Definitely on, you know, in Hawaii. Let’s do it. Because I can’t do anything better to do. Not yet.

Justin Eaton [00:48:39]:
I’m.

Jordan Berry [00:48:39]:
I’m eyeballing them.

Ashley Eaton [00:48:40]:
I’m.

Jordan Berry [00:48:40]:
I’m. You know, of course, there’s a lot of. There’s a lot of, like, rundown laundromats on the island over here, so I think there’s a lot of opportunity to come in and. And do things right.

Justin Eaton [00:48:51]:
Yeah, yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:48:52]:
It’s just finding that deal. But I can’t think of anything better for you guys to do on your honeymoon than hang out with me, so. Yeah, actually, it’s funny.

Justin Eaton [00:48:59]:
We were. We wanted to go to Hawaii for our honeymoon, but we don’t have, like. We were like, all right, we’ll go for 10 days, but we don’t have anyone that can watch our son for that long. So, like, we put it off. We might try and do it next, next year as our one year anniversary and, like, you know, plan it a little better to where we have full coverage.

Ashley Eaton [00:49:15]:
So.

Justin Eaton [00:49:16]:
But yeah, we were talking about going to Hawaii. Actually wanted to go there during co. Right before COVID hit. I was going to propose in Hawaii, and then Covid happened, and then obviously everything changed.

Jordan Berry [00:49:26]:
Well, instead of proposing, let’s just buy some laundromats.

Justin Eaton [00:49:28]:
Yeah, I did both, actually.

Jordan Berry [00:49:32]:
Yeah. Okay.

Ashley Eaton [00:49:34]:
But that’s funny. Every time we would, like, refi, you know, a property or something, I would always make the joke. Like, we would get that refinance check, and I would be like, oh, this is going to be like my ring ring. And then we would buy another property or buy another laundromat. I’m like, all right. Like, am I ever gonna get a ring?

Jordan Berry [00:49:51]:
Yeah.

Ashley Eaton [00:49:51]:
But honestly, I think, like, it is always worth the wait. The more you wait, the better it will be, so.

Jordan Berry [00:49:59]:
That’s right. Well, and congrats, by the way, on. I know.

Ashley Eaton [00:50:02]:
Thank you.

Jordan Berry [00:50:02]:
You’re fresh off the wedding, so congrats on that and thank you.

Justin Eaton [00:50:05]:
Thank you.

Jordan Berry [00:50:05]:
If you want to bring your kid out here, I’ve got a couple kids that’ll, you know, keep Them busy surfing and there you go at the beach snorkeling for turtles, you know, doing all that stuff. So, you know.

Justin Eaton [00:50:17]:
Yeah.

Ashley Eaton [00:50:17]:
Hell yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:50:18]:
Something to think about. Something about. I mean, speaking of you two and like power couple vibes that you guys give off here, it seems like you guys have a little bit different roles in the business. Can you talk about like, do you guys have like distinct roles or is it kind of like we take care of business together? How do you have that set up up?

Justin Eaton [00:50:38]:
Yeah, I’m more of the find the deals, analyze the deals, manage the projects, you know, put, put together the acquisition plan, the remodel plan, structural, the equity, figure out how to finance it, you know, who’s, who’s putting money where. Especially when you bring on partners. Like this fourth store we bought. We, we’re doing a combination of seller financing, private capital and then a special reason Eastern funding for the equipment on that, you know, there was a lot of moving parts and structure in that whole thing was, you know, a little stressful. But yeah, I basically take every. I’m kind of the way I see it is I’m the visionary and then, you know, I kind of get everything up to the point helping, you know, finding the store, figuring out how everything is going to work, you know, running the play and then once it’s up and running, actually kind of takes over most of the operations there. And then we have operations partners on the other stores as well. So they obviously help.

Justin Eaton [00:51:36]:
I’m not that much of a systems person that’s like actually thing is like, let’s create systems. Let’s figure out when the cleaners are coming, the cleaning schedule, keeping track of like cleaning supplies, more of the daily tasks where like I, that’s not really my thing. I like the overall vision of it. And then the project management is kind of my strive at.

Ashley Eaton [00:51:56]:
Yeah. So when he’s like, you know, managing the renovation, I’m creating the email of the store. I’m doing all I’m doing. I’m setting up the utilities, I’m, you know, getting everything organized as far as that goes and doing a marketing plan and how are we going to market this. And then once we do get open, then I’m more, I’m definitely there more in person than Justin is. So I like to go into our store, you know, at least twice a week to check in on the store, talk to the customers. I’m, I’m very big on customer service and making sure I manage our Google business. So, you know, all the contact comments from that, from Our customers.

Ashley Eaton [00:52:35]:
I’m kind of overseeing all of that. And then with all of the stores, I, I oversee all of our emails in, in that regards of the customer service and the operation. So.

Jordan Berry [00:52:47]:
Yeah, well, I don’t know. Have you guys, have you guys read Traction by Gino Wickman?

Justin Eaton [00:52:53]:
No, I read, I read. Oh yeah, it was Traction. Yeah. But the rocket fuel one was the.

Jordan Berry [00:52:58]:
Other one I was thinking of. You guys had. You should read. I mean, you guys are kind of living it, but you should read it like, like that. That’s the first thing that came to mind when you guys are talking about your roles. It’s like you got the, you know, in eos, which is the traction kind of entrepreneurial operating system. You know, you’ve got the visionary and you’ve got the integrator and you’ve guys, you guys have both. Like, that’s like, that’s the rocket fuel.

Jordan Berry [00:53:21]:
That’s of rocket fuel is having. You know, I think a lot of times entrepreneurs tend to be visionaries and they like finding the deal. This is like me, like to a T. Right? Like finding the deals, like putting them together, trying to find out creative ways to structure it, making it work. I do that just as a hobby. That’s like my probably number one hobby, right. Is like looking at deals and doing all that stuff. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:53:45]:
But then when it comes to like I even said, like running the day to day and keeping things consistent over and over, it’s like death sentence. Right?

Justin Eaton [00:53:52]:
But yeah, dude, we’re twins. We’re basically twins.

Jordan Berry [00:53:55]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:53:56]:
Not that I hate going to the store, but I’m like, I don’t want to go there and like talk to people and look at the cleaning closet and see if the cleaners are doing their jobs and look at the lint trap.

Ashley Eaton [00:54:05]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [00:54:05]:
See if they cleaned it. Like, I’d rather just look at new deals, you know, so that’s totally.

Ashley Eaton [00:54:09]:
And I love all, and I love all that stuff and I love making sure that, you know, we’re organized and everything is and set. And I’m, I’m on it with the emails. I’m talking to our vendors.

Justin Eaton [00:54:19]:
So God forbid the broom is hung in the wrong spot in the damn cleaning closet. Somehow it’s my fault. I get blamed for that. But I’ll take it.

Ashley Eaton [00:54:27]:
But. But it’s so important to be totally to someone on site at least twice a week, you know, every single week. And building that, that customer relationship. Like, everyone knows me in our stores, everyone knows Ashley, and people ask about me all the time. And even in the reviews they always mention my name and I take pride in that.

Justin Eaton [00:54:49]:
So yeah, I would say as hands off as we make it seem like we do go there voluntarily to like create that community and like, you know, put a face behind the store and the brand and that’s super important and that’s a big part of why people come back as well. In addition to the, you know, the store being what it is. So that’s something I think a lot of people don’t talk about is that culture that you can build even with a self serve store that’s unattended, like if you focus on it, spend some time there, you know, if you go there on a Sunday for like an hour or two, you’re going to talk to 20 or 30 different people possibly. So it’s like, yeah, doesn’t take much to put that effort in. And I think that really can separate, you know, operators as well.

Ashley Eaton [00:55:25]:
Yeah. And from that you could you get like 10 Google reviews, like you know, 10 five star Google reviews. And that’s what, what everyone I think looks at in our area.

Jordan Berry [00:55:35]:
So yeah, that’s like money in your pocket. Yeah. But you know, it’s funny, Justin, appreciate what you got here. Even though you do put the broom in the wrong spot, it is your fault. Because you know, I, I didn’t realize, I didn’t even, it never even struck me that there’s people like Ashley that like doing that stuff. Right. I just thought everybody hated that. And most, I think most people who get started, you have to be that whole package.

Jordan Berry [00:56:05]:
Like that’s how it was for me. Right. When I got started I had to be the whole, I had to be the visionary and come up with the ideas and put the deal together and do all that. And then I had to go and like integrate it, put the pit, put the plan in motion. And I felt like I was dying doing that over and over for years. Right. And I didn’t realize there were people. I remember when I hired my first admin to help me just with laundering my resource stuff and I was like, I hired her and I gave her.

Jordan Berry [00:56:31]:
I was like, I’m behind on all this work. This is probably going to take you like a few weeks to like catch up on. And I was like apologetic. I’m like really sorry to give this to you. And she, she did it in less than a day, all of it. And was like, loved it. And I was like, oh shoot. Like wow.

Jordan Berry [00:56:54]:
I, I had no idea. Like I had no idea. And it really is like the rocket fuel kind of concept there. So you know, it’s, it can be difficult I think to like work with somebody who’s always bringing you deals instead of rings and you know, making you wait on your honeymoon because you know of that. And it could be difficult somebody who gets irritated because you, you know, put the broom in the wrong spot or you’re met, you’re getting in the way of the operate, you’re trying to help, but you’re really like getting in the way of the system or whatever. But, but man, if you can find ways to communicate and work together, like you guys are seeing it, you’re living it, right? You’re, it’s got four launds, you got real estate empire building over there, you got a family, you’re building over there. Like it’s powerful.

Justin Eaton [00:57:37]:
It’s powerful. Totally.

Ashley Eaton [00:57:38]:
I always say I rather have assets over flowers any day. So there you go.

Jordan Berry [00:57:44]:
Yeah. Maybe one day he’ll buy you a flower shop and you can have both.

Ashley Eaton [00:57:48]:
You know what I mean?

Justin Eaton [00:57:49]:
Hey guys, there’s an idea. Sell flowers out of the laundromat.

Ashley Eaton [00:57:53]:
That’s right.

Jordan Berry [00:57:54]:
That’s right.

Ashley Eaton [00:57:55]:
We really do like work like so, so like ying and Ying and yang. And he is just non stop and I am non stop. So I couldn’t imagine if, you know, one person trying to do everything that we, we both do separately.

Justin Eaton [00:58:08]:
So yeah, there would be a lot of things that fall through the cracks. Like the cleaning stuff. Like if, like if, if she wasn’t involved and it was just me, like there would be things that fall through the cracks and like it might not seem like big things, but they would accumul. And then, you know, at that point, like you said, it gets to a point where you have a mess and somebody has to figure it out. So it’s been a, it’s been a good combo for sure.

Ashley Eaton [00:58:29]:
Yeah. And we definitely want to, you know, document our, all of our systems and everything. Like that’s the next thing I’m going to start working on. So then we can get a manager down the road and I can just, you know, hand them this playbook and for all of our stores we can have that playbook.

Jordan Berry [00:58:44]:
So yeah, that’s money. And I’m sure AI can help a lot with that as well as just as you’re kind of going through stuff and you know, it might be interesting is like, like getting like, have you seen those Plaud Plaud Plaud devices? It’s like put on your phone or you wear it or whatever and it records like what you’re doing or conversations you’re having, stuff like that, and it gives you like AI notes and stuff like that. But I was just thinking like, if you had something like that, you’re just going about your day to day business. You’re just sort of narrating like crazy talking to yourself, you know, like everybody thinks you’re schizophrenic or something, but you’re just kind of like narrating what you’re doing all day. Day. That stuff could just like lay it all out for you. Here’s your SOPs on how to do everything that you’re doing. And I don’t know, it’d be interesting.

Justin Eaton [00:59:31]:
Yeah, we’re definitely gonna have to look into that. I know that was a thing. That sounds awesome, actually.

Jordan Berry [00:59:35]:
Yes. Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Okay, so I, I mean, I, I feel like I have to ask this question because I mean, you got, like I said, you guys are really relatively young and you’ve talked about real estate, you’ve talked about getting four laundromats. Like, how are you, are you buying all this stuff? How are you affording it? How are you financing it? How are you funding it? Because I. That’s like probably the number one obstacle people have to taking the leap and buying their first business or real estate, you know, property or whatever, is like how to actually pay for this thing. So how are you guys doing that?

Justin Eaton [01:00:07]:
Yeah, so I started buying real estate and I got involved with like flips in like 2014, and then I started buying rentals in 2017. I don’t have a lot by any means. We have five properties. Properties. But I got that experience on how to structure, you know, deals basically from doing this similar thing with real estate. And also, you know, through that time you’re building equity and you’re building, you know, a relationship with the banks. Like they can look at your history. Okay, he bought this property here, you know, he stabilized it, got the rent.

Justin Eaton [01:00:39]:
So you really become bankable from that perspective. My day to day, I own a small engineering company and so like I have income from that and I’ve been doing that for long enough toward the US that it’s not a W2 because it’s my own business, but they use that as, you know, my W2 income. That’s the way they would look at it, essentially. And so all those things kind of lead up to how we finance that first deal. We had a duplex that we had just sold by chance like a month before this deal came up. We bought it right after Covid So we got it for cheap. It wasn’t in the area that we wanted to have a rental in long term, so we decided to sell it. The market went well, way up.

Justin Eaton [01:01:18]:
We walked with about 150,000 in cash from that deal. And then that Laundromat came up. The first one that we bought for 25,000. So we paid cash to buy it plus closing costs. We paid cash to renovate it. And then we put it. We put a down payment, you know, down on an equipment loan. So I think out of pocket we were around.

Justin Eaton [01:01:42]:
It was. It wasn’t much different from what we netted from that duplex that we ended up up putting towards that first Laundromat deal. The second one we raised friend that. The second one we brought capital partners on and operations partners. And so we raised like 150,000 for that deal. Most of that was for the renovation of the store. And then we brought in eastern funding to finance the equipment on that. The third store was small.

Justin Eaton [01:02:11]:
That was like only. Only thousand square feet. Only got 13 washers and I think 15 dryer or 16 dryers. So that one we had capital saved up. We went 50, 50 partners with one of the guys on the other store. We each put in about 30 grand. And then we brought in SBA and that the equity injection that we had put towards the store to renovate it, they looked at that as a down payment. So essentially we just, you know, that was like how we got into that one.

Justin Eaton [01:02:39]:
The fourth store, we bought the real estate with that. That deal came from one of the partners on one of the other stores. It was a family friend. They were talking at like a, you know, dinner or something during summertime, like with the family member, that one. So the seller had like a third party appraisal done, like just because he wanted to sell the store and the business or the real estate in the business. So he had an appraisal done. So he basically was just asking for the value of the real estate and whatever his appraisal was, which was like 645,000 doll, I think we went and offered them 565 and we landed on 590. 590,000.

Justin Eaton [01:03:22]:
That was for the real estate and the business. So we basically bought that deal for less than what the real estate was worth. So essentially we got that Laundromat for free. Those machines are older, between like 20 and 30 years old. So we’re planning to retool that. We did seller financing on that because he wasn’t. He didn’t have any financials, which is super common. And the bank, the bank was kind of pushing us, like, listen, if we’re funding this much on this deal, we need some financials from the business.

Justin Eaton [01:03:46]:
We were asking him, he didn’t have anything. So we went seller financing route. We put down, we put down like 12% and then he’s holding interest only payments for five years with the balloon. So we raised capital to put that 12% down to acquire it. The rest of the capital we have raised which we’re going to use towards the renovation and then we’ll bring in. The plan is to bring in eastern funding to do that equipment loan as well. I don’t know where I was going with that whole thing, but that’s kind of how we, that’s how we financed all those. The combination of everything really like, and this is all comes from my real estate background.

Justin Eaton [01:04:24]:
Like I’ve been studying real estate and buying real estate for, you know, 10 years. And like, that’s how I know how I can, you know, structure all this stuff. And like, I have all these little tools in my tool belt. And like, eventually, you know, these deals come up and you just figure out ways to do it. Then you got to be creative and, you know, kind of use all your levers that you can and see what banks are willing to do what, and you know, what buttons you can push to make these things work. So I need a drink of water after that.

Jordan Berry [01:04:50]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well deserved, well deserved. No, I appreciate you taking us through all that because like I said, I mean, I think that’s a question that gets asked all the time. And you put it perfectly right, is like you’ve done the work of accumulating tools, tools, you know, through the real estate stuff. I’m sure you’ve done a lot of like YouTube in or tick Tock and whatever you crazy kids are doing these days to research stuff and you know, like, but. But a lot of like reading and stuff like that, right, of learning how to structure deals, how to make deals happen, right? And there’s a lot of ways, you know, it’s really easy to get fixated on a particular method. Like, okay, I can only do bank financing, or I can only do eastern funding, or I can only do seller financing. And reality of it is that, you know, a lot of deals come together from combining these things creatively.

Jordan Berry [01:05:41]:
And it’s just like, how can, how can we get a win for us to get the deal done? How can we get a win for the seller and, and do it in A way that you know is, is going to reduce your risk and, you know, set you up for success in the long run. And if you can answer that question, doesn’t matter, right. If you refinance a property to put a down payment, or you partner or you sell refinancing financing, or you get money from a bank, or you do all those things in one deal, it’s, you know, it’s getting creative and figuring out ways to make it happen. But I will say that once you have that first deal under your belt, sellers get more apt to lend you money to buy their business. Right. Seller financing banks get, you know, feel a little more comfortable about lending you money once you get that first one in there. So not only do more deals open up, but also more options on the financing open up as well, so.

Ashley Eaton [01:06:38]:
Yeah, yeah, that’s a good point. I, I think with our last store, you know, that we had already had three when the sellers, you know, wanted to give us seller financing. They, they wouldn’t have done that if we hadn’t had those other stores. So.

Jordan Berry [01:06:53]:
Yeah, and also probably the way that you did them too. Right. Like, you, you’re not running, you’re not the, the slum lords of laundromats over there.

Justin Eaton [01:07:01]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [01:07:01]:
You’re doing a good job with the business. So he’s probably has a lot of confidence that you’re gonna be able to pay him back over the next three to five years.

Justin Eaton [01:07:08]:
Exactly. Yeah. I would say, you know, they want to know that the seller or the lender or whoever’s financing wants to feel comfortable with your experience. And if you have operator experience in that specific industry, like, they’re going to be a lot more, you know, comfortable lending to you versus somebody who’s in their first store, you know, so, yeah, definitely. It definitely lends itself to, you know, buying more deals after you get that first under your belt, not only from experience, but you can parlay that into, you know, knowledge to talk to people and sellers and lenders and all that.

Ashley Eaton [01:07:45]:
Yeah. And then with our grand openings, you know, we invite, we invite our lenders to come to the grand opening parties of our new stores. We even other people who are thinking about getting a laundromat, they come and they check it out and it’s really cool. Like, the grand opening parties are just really special.

Jordan Berry [01:08:01]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [01:08:01]:
We invite the sellers, the landlords. We try to get everyone there because, like, you know, the sellers and you can paint a vision, but like, they’re not, you know, they can’t see it necessarily. Same thing with the lenders, like, some of these liners just sit there and underwrite deals or whatever, so they’re not in the field. So, like, for them to come out and see your store, I’m like, oh, damn. Like, this thing is detailed. Like, they have all this stuff. It’s not like a DIY laundromat. Like, you know, that makes them comfortable as well.

Justin Eaton [01:08:26]:
So then you bring that next deal, unless it’s sba and they put you through the ringer either way. But it’s a different story.

Ashley Eaton [01:08:32]:
Yeah, yeah. With the s. With the sba. I remember overhearing a conversation and, you know, he was like, hey, there’s a. There’s a laund right next door. Like, why do you guys think you’ll be successful? You know, you’re. There’s literally one. Why would they just go to that one? And I’m like, have you seen that store?

Justin Eaton [01:08:49]:
Yeah. Half the glasses broken out of the freaking washers, Like. Yeah, so.

Ashley Eaton [01:08:54]:
Yeah, yeah, sorry. We also try to invite, like, the mayor to our grand opening. So. And with. Get the community involved. And that is so special, too, because they come and they’re. They see what you’re trying to do for the community, and it’s. It’s really cool.

Justin Eaton [01:09:11]:
They post it on Facebook or whatever, too. And then people see that and lends itself to the community aspect, for sure.

Jordan Berry [01:09:18]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [01:09:19]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:09:19]:
I was just thinking. It’s. It’s weird because I don’t remember ever getting an invite to one of these grand openings, so.

Justin Eaton [01:09:26]:
I would not advise coming to New Jersey from Hawaii. But I’ll definitely send you the invite in the next one.

Jordan Berry [01:09:31]:
It is a long way away, that’s for sure. Yeah, you. You mentioned. And we. You. You kind of talked about this. I just wanted to bring it up because, again, this is, like, one of the most common questions I get. I mean, you mentioned.

Jordan Berry [01:09:44]:
And I think it was your third store that your. Your Free Store. Quote, unquote, Free Store. Is that. Is that right?

Justin Eaton [01:09:50]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:09:50]:
Can you just talk about that? I mean, I know you kind of mentioned, like, how you. How you found it. People are always intrigued by the Free Store. Everybody wants Free Store or free whatever, Anything.

Justin Eaton [01:10:00]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [01:10:01]:
So can you talk about just, like, how that deal come about and how free was it once you’re, you know, done with it? Like, are you. Are you guys having to put any money into it or. Or is it. Is it really free? Just out of curiosity for that.

Justin Eaton [01:10:19]:
Yeah. So that one came from our distributor, so the sales guy, the equipment guy that we use for the first two stores, like, we had obviously developed a relationship with them. And that third store happened to be like less than 10 minutes from the second store. It’s a dense area, so 10 minutes is kind of far. But, you know, he’s like, hey, I have this other store that just came up. It’s 10 minutes from the other store. I wanted to give you guys first crack at what happened was the, the building, it was like a small strip center. It had sold, and the old landlord was the one that was operating the laundromat.

Justin Eaton [01:10:51]:
So when the new landlord bought. Bought it, he didn’t want anything to do with the laundromat. He’s in the restaurant business. So he just closed it down and pretty much like sat. It just sat closed for a year. And then the landlord called his broker and was like, hey, put this up for lease. That’s a, you know, it’s a laundromat. I just want to get somebody in here who’s going to operate the business.

Justin Eaton [01:11:11]:
So the landlord called the broker, that broker knew the machine distributor. Machine distributor called us and said, hey, there’s this store over here. It’s close to your other one. I don’t think the landlord is asking for like a key fee. He just wants you to sign a lease, basically. So then we drew up an LOI and we signed a lease. That store that was, that’s the smaller store. So that one’s a 13 washer store.

Justin Eaton [01:11:37]:
We did a full rehab there as well, although the mechanicals were in a lot better shape than the other ones. But we did a full cosmetic rehab. We did our branding in there, and then we put all brand new machines. So essentially we got the business for free, signed a lease, we spent around 55 or 60k in renovations and then put in the equipment, which was another 235,000 if I remember. I just made a post about this today, actually. And then we used SBA and essentially the 60k was, was our equity injection as our down payment on the SBA loan. And so was. It was free.

Justin Eaton [01:12:18]:
But obviously we spent money, we invested money there to get the business up and running and create, you know, what we do.

Jordan Berry [01:12:25]:
Yeah, well, and the reason I wanted to ask that is because I’ve, I’ve seen people get themselves in trouble thinking that free is free and, and I’m not saying like, like somebody in theory could have taken that over and probably run that business and like, done put the sweat in instead of as much equity and not put all new equipment in right away and kind of Bootstrap that business. That is possible. But generally speaking, free is not free. I mean, there’s nothing free. And I just, you know, I think I have a little bit of a soft spot for that because, you know, typically the people who are searching for a free laundromat, that’s like the only way they can get in. Right. And so you just need to know that if you’re going to go that way, number one, it’s probably the riskiest way to bootstrap your way into a free laundromat. But also there’s a lot of costs that come up that you’re not aware of that you can get yourself into trouble if you, if you really don’t have much money at all.

Jordan Berry [01:13:26]:
So I just wanted to say that and, and hear also kind of how you did, like how you took over that free store and, and ramped it up. So even your capital injection was relatively low on that one, you know, to get it spun up. So.

Justin Eaton [01:13:40]:
Yeah. And that was a store, actually. We were contemplating keeping the machines. It had wasco mats and they were probably only 15 years old. But we negotiated with the distributor like, hey, can you give us a credit for these? And then we figured out like, you know, based on that credit, you know, does it make sense to redo this whole store or not? And the, a lot of the washers were smaller and we always go in and put bigger machines, machines in. And so, you know, the numbers just made sense for us to, you know, put all brand new stuff in from the beginning, especially since we had just done that twice, we kind of ran the same play and this was a smaller store, so it seemed like a little, it seemed like an easy project and it was relatively easy to get that one through and up and running. So.

Ashley Eaton [01:14:23]:
Yeah, and I love that. That one’s literally seven minutes down from our second one. So for me, operations wise, it’s so easy for me to, you know, hit both of them. Them, you know, relatively fast.

Justin Eaton [01:14:35]:
Yeah, that was another thing too. It’s like, right. It was close to the other one. So it was like, you know, if we’re going to build this brand, we, you know, we would like to have these little cluster. So made sense and we were able to make it work financially and so but realistically, if somebody wanted, they probably could have got it for free, signed a lease, cleaned it, you know, tested the machines, fixed whatever was jacked up and then opened it and still done pretty well actually, because it wasn’t in like, it wasn’t a zombie mat. I Wouldn’t say no. The building was built in, like, the 80s, so the, you know, the whole structure of the building was nice and mechanicals are nice. Overall, it was like a really solid store.

Justin Eaton [01:15:12]:
Probably the nicest one that we got in terms of, you know, infrastructure. So.

Ashley Eaton [01:15:16]:
Yeah.

Justin Eaton [01:15:18]:
But yeah, we ran the same play, just kind of keep everything the same. We didn’t want to deal with old machines that we would have the issues with. You know, it’s like, you know, if we’re doing this, let’s go all in and make everything new and see what happens. So.

Ashley Eaton [01:15:30]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:15:31]:
Awesome. Awesome. Well, I appreciate you sharing that last thing that I think I have that to ask you about, which is not specifically Laundromat related, but I’m just curious on. I mean, you guys have been crushing it with the content, which I really appreciate. I mean, you guys are sharing a lot of, like, insightful stuff on the business. Again, go follow these guys. We’ll have links, show notes page, or if you’re on YouTube down below. So go follow these guys.

Jordan Berry [01:15:56]:
But what led you guys to decide, hey, let’s. Let’s do this and let’s document it along the way and create content.

Justin Eaton [01:16:05]:
I would say just creating, like, equity, like brand equity for the store and like, building a personal brand, I think is going to be, you know, even more important, you know, for the. To, like, you know, have like, a influence in the future as like, a brand and as like, as like a person, especially for some people like us who are entrepreneurial and we’re creating these, like, businesses kind of like, you know, just build it, document everything, you know, let people see it, share what we’re learning, what we’re, you know, what we’re doing. Deals are going to come from it, capital partners are going to come from it, and then you’re going to help people as well. And you can really inspire, you know, others to take action and change their lives, essentially, because kind of the same way we found out about Laundromats was online and, like, if we hadn’t had been on Instagram and saw what Laundromats like, heard that word, really, and thought about it as a business, we would have never got into it. And so I think, you know, based on the stuff that we’re putting out, we can. We can kind of do the same thing for. For other people. And I think because of how many.

Justin Eaton [01:17:08]:
Because of the industry specifically, how many stores there are that are, like, ripe for a retool. Like, there’s so much opportunity out there. Like, I think there’s A lot of wealth can be made, you know, from it. And so we try and just share as much as we can. And I think, you know, TV and all that stu going to. And you’re already seeing it slowly, you know, fade into. Everyone has their own TV channel on Instagram or TikTok basically. And you have your own following and you monetize that, you know, however you want.

Justin Eaton [01:17:38]:
But I think it would be foolish not to, you know, have that as part of your business or brand.

Ashley Eaton [01:17:45]:
Yeah, yeah. And I think that the whole thing about just, you know, growing awareness to the industry, I remember in my 20s I was like, what am I going to invest my money in? Like, what should I do do? And I tell everyone that I talk to, I’m like, you should get a laundromat. Like, and just having it all documented to share with people is pretty awesome.

Jordan Berry [01:18:06]:
Yeah, it is pretty awesome. And I, I’m super excited. One thing you said was kind of interesting is you’re talking about TV and I’ve been noticing on my, my YouTube stats that a larger and larger percentage of my videos are watched on, on TVs not on, I mean on phones. Yes. But more and more people are actually watching YouTube on TV.

Ashley Eaton [01:18:32]:
We do.

Jordan Berry [01:18:33]:
So literally having your own TV channel, you know what I mean? Like, so pretty crazy. It’s pretty, it’s pretty interesting, you know, how all this stuff is evolving. And I think that you guys will find, you know, I mean, you guys, you guys channels are already bigger than mine because you’re doing way more exciting stuff than I’m doing. But if you haven’t seen this yet, I think you will find that a lot of opportunities open up just because you’re putting yourself out there, you’re sharing, you’re sharing the good stuff, you’re sharing the bad stuff, you’re sharing the details. And I think a lot of opportunities open up for you guys with that too. So kudos to you guys and hopefully it comes back around for you guys. Any, any last. Well, let me ask you this question.

Jordan Berry [01:19:18]:
I know I said that was my last one, but let me ask you this other one for wrap up. Somebody’s out there looking to get started. I know you guys offer some like, coaching and stuff, consulting, but what’s your best piece of advice for somebody looking to get their first laundromat?

Justin Eaton [01:19:35]:
Best piece of advice for someone looking to get their first laundromat? I would say find all the local stores in your area within like a 10 or 20 minute drive. Go into those stores and Just try and create a friendship with the seller. If, you know, if there’s no one in there working, maybe there’s a phone number on the wall somewhere. Just touch base with them, a touch point. And also familiarize with the store. Like, dude, when I first walked into that store, the first store, I was like, I didn’t know what was a washer and what was a dryer. And that sounds crazy to me now, but like, that’s the reality. Like, a lot of these people will walk in, like, I don’t know what that machine is.

Justin Eaton [01:20:06]:
And so just getting yourself familiar so that when you, you know, you’re ready, you kind of know what you’re looking at and you can kind of talk the lingo a little bit. And then just watching stuff online. Like there’s a lot. Like, I’m, I’m, like I’m back and forth with the phone stuff because, like I get sucked into Instagram for 20 minutes. 20 minutes goes by. I’m, dude, I just lost 20 minutes. My son’s on his iPad. Like, I don’t like that stuff.

Justin Eaton [01:20:29]:
But with on, there is a lot you can learn from the Internet and from your phone and from Instagram and tick tock. Like even one little tip or trick that I could learn from someone else that could change my entire business or change the entire way. Like I do something like little thing. You never know what you’re going to hear. So I would say just, you know, get, get familiar with, with, you know, Laundromats if you’re looking to get into it. And then, um, you know, I think that’s going to really jumpstart your. When you’re ready, it’ll really, you’ll have a good, like, base to start from.

Ashley Eaton [01:20:59]:
Yeah. And like, you have to stay consistent and persistent and stay organized. If you have those three things when you’re looking for a deal, you’re going to get it.

Jordan Berry [01:21:11]:
Can I tell you what I love about these answers?

Justin Eaton [01:21:13]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [01:21:14]:
Yeah, that’s right. You tell you what I love about these answers is, Justin, your answer was all about like finding the deal, wheeling the deal, and then Ashley’s like, stay organized, stay persistent. Like tool operations over there.

Justin Eaton [01:21:27]:
Yeah, organize. Organize your apps within your one little square.

Ashley Eaton [01:21:31]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:21:34]:
Well, I mean, okay, I feel I got to ask another question. Sorry.

Justin Eaton [01:21:38]:
Ask as many as you want. Let’s go. We’re here for it.

Jordan Berry [01:21:40]:
But, and this is for both you guys, but maybe specifically for you, Ashley. But, but both of you. What about operation? Like, is there, is there anything you feel like, hey, we’re doing this at our stores, and it’s working. And if you’re not doing this at your store, you should be or you should at least try it. Anything like that that you feel like, hey, this could be a win for you in your business.

Ashley Eaton [01:22:02]:
Yeah, I think that you need to have your store cleaned at least twice a day, every day. So I feel like some stores, they’ll just have, you know, like a nighttime clean or a morning clean, and we have that afternoon. I call it like a pickup, where our cleaner comes for a half hour and they make sure the store is tidy. They check all the machines, like the soap containers, if there’s any, like, clogs or anything to, you know, to keep up with the machines. And I think that is just. We didn’t do that in the beginning. And just to know that it’s clean for my morning customers and for my night customers, I just love that. And it makes all the difference, I think, in having that second.

Justin Eaton [01:22:46]:
It’s also good to have, like, they have eyes on it, so if they see something out of place. But I would say the other things you would want to do is cameras. Like, you want to be able to watch it in real time. And if you can get your lawn, if you can get laundry works in your store. Like, we’re absolutely thrilled with laundry works. We could see, you know, all three of our stores that are card now we can see everything in real time. See who’s using what machines, what machines are open, what machines have this or that. The automatic door locks.

Justin Eaton [01:23:13]:
Not having to go there, open and close it. Automatic lights, not having to, you know, go there and turn the lights on. Like, I feel like when we bought the store, the guy was like, yeah, my sister comes here every morning and turns the lights on and unlocks the door and comes back at night and cleans and does this. I’m like, dude, like, yeah, we’re not trying to do that. So, yeah, you know, do that stuff up front. Put that work and automate it as best you can. Keep it bright, safe and clean. Keep the machines running, and it’s gonna be hard to fail.

Ashley Eaton [01:23:40]:
Yeah, we have. I have. I made a very detailed checklist, like Monday through Sunday. And it has. It has the regular duties, and then it has additional cleaning. Checklist cleaning. Yeah, dut duties and those additional ones. Like, I want it to stay deep, deep cleaned at all times.

Ashley Eaton [01:23:55]:
So that kind of like, rotates all the different things to keep it deep cleaned. And I’m very big on, you know, the. The pods that actually Clean the insides of the washing machines. Like, no one does that. And it just, you know, it makes your machines last longer. The customers are happy. I tell my customers about that when we do that. Like, hey, we just deep, deep clean all of our washers.

Ashley Eaton [01:24:19]:
You know, we triple rinse them. People love that. Yeah.

Justin Eaton [01:24:24]:
I’m still waiting for our cleaner to fire us, but they haven’t fired us yet.

Jordan Berry [01:24:30]:
This probably loves it. You know, they probably love it.

Justin Eaton [01:24:32]:
I’m sure she loves the cleaning checklist. That’s 12ft by 4ft.

Jordan Berry [01:24:38]:
See, that’s what I’m saying. Like, to you and me, that’s a nightmare. But some people just love cleaning, you know? Like, I don’t know. I don’t get it, but some people just do it. I know, me too. I have a. I have a high tolerance for chaos. And so I’ll look at something, I’ll be like, yeah, it’s clean this.

Jordan Berry [01:24:54]:
You know, my wife’s like, there’s a shirt on the floor over there, and this cup is sideways. And like, I don’t, like, I don’t even see that stuff. You know, some people do.

Ashley Eaton [01:25:03]:
And a lot of women are the ones that are doing their laundry, so, you know that you got to cater to their needs.

Jordan Berry [01:25:10]:
I know, I know. That’s why you got the. You got the rocket fuel going over there. Well, guys, this is. This has been awesome. Thank you for giving us, like, a peek inside your operation and finding deals and all that.

Justin Eaton [01:25:22]:
That stuff.

Jordan Berry [01:25:22]:
I mean, genuinely, you know, it’s. It’s because, you know, people like you are willing to come and. And chat with this that a lot of people, you know, get the confidence to be able to, you know, buy their first business and venture in and try to make a change in their life and make a difference and leave that W2 or get that cash flow or find that financial freedom. Like, it’s because of that. So I really. I really appreciate it, and I really appreciate all the content you guys. Guys are creating. If you guys are out there listening to this or watching this and you want to see, you know, under the hood with some numbers and stuff like that, go follow these guys.

Jordan Berry [01:25:57]:
They’re giving you the real stuff. So again, we’ll have all those links for you. But guys, really, really appreciate you.

Ashley Eaton [01:26:04]:
Thank you so much.

Justin Eaton [01:26:05]:
Thanks for having us.

Ashley Eaton [01:26:06]:
So much fun.

Justin Eaton [01:26:07]:
Absolutely. Had a blast.

Jordan Berry [01:26:08]:
Anytime. You guys are welcome anytime.

Ashley Eaton [01:26:12]:
We’ll be back.

Jordan Berry [01:26:12]:
Hope you love that episode with Justin and Ashley. I know you did because they rocked. These guys are awesome. Make sure you check them out. On all their. Their socials and YouTube and all that stuff, too, because they’re doing some cool stuff. And listen, all this will be a waste of time unless you go and take some action. So pick something today, Take some action, get out there and do it, and let’s crush some goals this week.

Justin Eaton [01:26:34]:
All right?

Jordan Berry [01:26:34]:
We’ll see you next week. Peace.