Listen to or watch this incredible episode! You won’t regret it. I promise!
Paulo Cruz, a hugely successful laundry business owner in Manilla, Philippines, shares his story of starting small in the laundry business with a 250 square foot laundromat and growing from those humble beginnings into a laundry titan.
In a captivating narrative style, Paulo weaves his story of starting small, overcoming obstacles, learning, adapting, hustling, growing, and eventually succeeding in the laundry business with universal, practical lessons that will help anyone listening to grow their laundry business!
He begins by sharing his humble start and how his own mother didn’t believe in the direction he chose to start in the laundry business. From there he shares his journey of growth and what it took to not only win over the support of his mother, but to succeed in such a way that his mother became his number 1 believer and even a partner in his business with him!
It will be obvious to anyone who listens to this episode why Paulo has found such huge success in the laundry business, but he will insist that anyone can find similar success and even more. So take good notes and absorb the lessons, techniques, principles, and mindsets that Paulo shares. The universally lead to success no matter where you are in the world!
Listen To The Podcast Here
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Links from the show
- Laundromat Investor Resources
- Join Laundromat Resource
- Laundromat Resource Forums
- Laundromat Resource Blog
- Be a guest on the podcast!
- Sell your laundromat
- Laundromat Resource Coaching
- Help Margo Build a Laundromat In Africa
- Michael’s Tips
Paulo’s Recommended Resources
(May contain affiliate links that help support Laundromat Resource with no extra cost to you.)
Connect with Paulo
Email: [email protected]
Facebook Page: Sudsmasters Laundry
Paulo's Bio
I’m Paulo Cruz from Manila, Philippines. I’m married and have 2 beautiful daughters. I currently have 1 laundry plant. I started though with 1 laundry shop (that’s what we normally call it here in the Philippines), back in 2013. It was just a 100 sq ft neighborhood laundromat that offers full service (wash, dry, fold). I only had a pair of Speed Queen machines to start off. The rise of Coin ops only started around 2015 in the Philippines so the full service shops dominated the local laundry scene.
I eventually expanded to my 2nd branch in a year but my turning point was on my 3rd year when I started to shift towards the Business to Business model (B2B). That’s where I am now.
I do a bit of consulting and coaching on laundry. I also founded a small laundry society where we support each member to further develop their laundry expertise and we aim to standardize processes for the betterment of the customers.
Join The Laundromat Resource Community!
Episode Transcript
hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the
laundromat resource podcast this is show
number 25
quarter of a century and i’m super
excited uh
for you to be here today because we’re
talking with paolo
from manila philippines today and
i i’ll be honest i did not know what to
expect with this interview but i was
blown away i was taking furious notes
i would encourage you get something to
take some notes on whether it’s a pen
and paper or
an app on your phone or whatever uh
cause paulo
has got some incredible things to share
with you i didn’t know how relevant it
would be
uh to all of us on in all over different
parts of the world
but it’s incred i mean what he shares is
incredibly incredibly relevant and
incredibly valuable
it’s gonna help you grow your business i
guarantee it i’ll give you all your
money back if it doesn’t
but it will i promise i mean he he just
really has some awesome things to share
and you’re gonna love it and you’ll know
how to get in contact with him by the
end because you’re going to want to at
least say thank you for him being on the
podcast because he
man i just i loved every part of this um
but we’ll get to that in a second
i wanted to just take a second to thank
you guys i
had this crazy week uh of highs and lows
let me just share
my low day with you and then i’ll share
some of the cool highlights of the week
but my low day started off with a bike
ride i do triathlons
hopped on my bike didn’t even make it
very far from my house and somehow on a
straight flat road all by myself i ended
up
taking a spill on my bike in the middle
of the road
i don’t even really even know how it
happened got some you know some good
road rash
and and stuff so nothing major but i had
to do the walk of shame back
carrying my bike back to my house
embarrassing stuff
that’s how my day started and it ended
on my way home
from one of my laundromats actually
where my car got hit by
a drunk driver spun me around a couple
times all the airbags went off
uh one of the wheels was severed from
the vehicle it was
dramatic and crazy i’m fine a little bit
banged up but uh
totally fine otherwise i feel very
blessed to have come out of it that way
um but that was just a wild crazy day so
that was my low day
but some of the highlights of the week
man i
last week we had over 700 downloads of
the podcast i mean that just
blows me away it’s a testament to how
awesome our guests have been how much
value they’ve been bringing how much
wisdom they’ve been bringing how much
you guys have been taking away from what
they have to share it was
i mean i just i was blown away by that
so thank you guys for that
um and you know whether you’re uh
listening on a podcast or watching
on youtube doesn’t even count the
youtube views which speaking of
youtube this this last week we crossed
over a thousand subscribers on youtube
so thank you guys
for watching this on youtube shout out
to you guys
if you haven’t subscribed either on a
podcast player
and or on youtube hey subscribe because
there’s just some incredible stuff
coming up uh
the next couple of episodes are out of
this world i’ve already done them
they’re you’re gonna love them
uh so make sure you’re subscribed but
thank you huge thank you guys to all you
guys who’ve been a part of the podcast
uh and if you wanna be uh london my
resource.com
podcast guest go check that out go sign
up
uh to to come be a guest on the podcast
i think you’ll
you’ll love it we have a ton of fun so
go do that
um but huge thank you to all you guys
who’ve been on the podcast and a huge
thank you to all you guys who have
subscribed
and who have been downloading and
listening i feel very humbled very
blessed
so fun so thank you guys for that i
wanted to highlight real quick
speaking of awesome things happening a
bunch of you guys have been joining the
free membership at laundromat
resource.com
and a couple of you guys have introduced
yourselves in the
in the new members introduction forum a
lot of my resource.com
forums uh that’s an awesome place for
you to get to know
other owners ask your questions
introduce yourself start networking
big shout out to michael tom steve
margot and micah who all introduced
themselves this week
on the forums if you haven’t done that
then go introduce yourself if you have
or even if you still haven’t go welcome
them to the community
they have some cool stories some of them
are looking to get started some are
already in the business
michael shared some awesome wisdom in
his introduction from his vending
machine route
that translates super well to what we’re
doing with laundromats
so go check that wisdom out and margot
i wanted to just highlight real quick
she’s in africa
and wants to build a laundromat there
and there’s some unique
obstacles that she needs to figure out
how to overcome and i thought that
some of you guys out there are a lot
smarter than me with this stuff and
might be able to help margot
jump start her laundry business in
africa
and help overcome some of those
obstacles so go check that out on the
new members forum i’ll link it
specifically
uh in the show notes a lot of my
resource dot com show 25
or if you’re on youtube it’ll be in the
description down below um go help margot
out over there and go welcome the rest
of these guys
uh to the community um and if you
haven’t yet man go introduce yourself
over there it’s awesome
um also speaking of forums uh micah had
a question
about legalzoom do you can you use
legalzoom do you need a lawyer
some of you guys might have some
experience with legalzoom so i thought
you guys could go over there and help
mike out with that question
on the forums and corey had an
interesting question about
robs which is a rollover
small business uh it’s basically a way
to use your 401k
money to buy a small business and he
wanted to know
if uh any of you guys have had any
experience doing this or heard of
anybody doing this so
go help those guys out over on the
forums and as always every week go over
there to the forums ask a question
answer a question because we are all
better when we’re working together
helping each other out so make sure
you’re over there doing that every
single week
uh it’s it’s awesome and it’s really
cool to see what’s been going on over
there
okay enough of all of that i’m super
excited
for you to hear paulo so let’s listen to
this and we’ll jump right in with
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[Music]
hollow thank you for coming on the
podcast i’m
i am like really really excited about
this episode i’m so
fascinated by this and i cannot wait to
uh hear about how you’re doing your
business so thank you for coming on the
show man
hey thanks for inviting me here this is
actually my first
ever podcast to join in so i’m really
excited to share what i know about the
laundromats here in in manila
so looking forward to this yeah well hey
you know what you went straight to the
top this is like top-notch podcast so
no but seriously thank you for coming on
i’m sure you’ll be on
more uh here to come and i want to hear
i mean you’re this you’re a very unique
guest for us
uh because you know you’re pretty much
on the other side of the world from
where
i am right now and you can’t get a whole
lot further and so i’m really really
interested to hear
about you know what it’s like owning a
laundromat in manila
but before we get there tell us a little
bit about
you who are you and and then
maybe how did you get into the
laundromat industry
oh yeah sure this is going to be long
and i sometimes i get carried away when
i talk about my journey
about laundry but anyway
i have two kids already two beautiful
girls
um so
for for my journey in in the laundromat
business
um i started actually back in 2013.
this is a really fun story so like what
you said buckle up
so my wife actually started
the the idea so we have our day jobs
back then and we were on our way home
we were talking about our finances
uh so she was telling me oh we have
already placed money for
for our investment in the stock market
the mutual fund so on and so forth okay
fine um
all right so i guess we’re all set and
then she told me we have some extra
savings left
so what do you want to do about it she
knows that
i’ve been wanting to have a business
but during that time i was a little
younger
i was a big dreamer i always think about
oh i want big corporations i want to be
the president the ceo
even though i don’t have any experience
on doing
businesses so then she told me we passed
by this
laundromat in front of our residence
she told me hey how about this why don’t
we
try to set up this little laundromat
business
it looks promising we can see that there
are
a lot of clean mainly packed linens and
clothes
in the shelves and the shelves are
really full they’re overflowing there
are there are
other other um packages in on the floor
so
if i take a look at it then i told her
are you serious about this
you you really want to to you know
to start it to start up on on the
laundry business which is a dirty
business
a literally a dirty business so yeah you
don’t
want to wash clothes of other people you
don’t even know them you don’t know
where they came from
so i shrugged it off in short
and then um after a couple of days
so every night what i do is after work i
i do my research on my hobbies
i do some video games that’s my normal
routine before i go to sleep
but there was this weird night i’m not
going to bed
and i don’t have anything to do so i
remembered
what my wife told me the laundry
business
so i did some research and that’s
where all my interests kicked in right
so i realized hey it’s not really that
hard and the machines look nice
you don’t need a very big investment to
start the business
so why not and then i found this
consultant so he’s based here in manila
um
he’s popular then he was able to help
out around 30 or more individuals set up
their laundry business
so why don’t we really try this
so i talked to my wife said okay and go
for it
so we set up a meeting with the
consultant and in just a month’s time we
closed the contract
signed it we’re ready to go right
you’ll be surprised in my next what what
i’m going to say next right
so the shop it’s a full service
laundromat
when i say full service we it’s uh the
full wash during phone services we do
that we do the packing we do the
pressing everything
there’s no going up back then it’s 2013
i think the rise of the coin laundry
here in the philippines was around 2015
and actually i was really doubtful of
of the idea of the coin it’s it’s two
westerns
only americans do that because they have
high labor costs
right here in the philippines we have
what
really low labor cost right so
why will someone just spend their time
in the laundromat doing their own
laundry wherein they can just have it
serviced full service so they can do
whatever they want
some family time watch a movie right
anyway going going back to the topic
so it’s a it’s a full service laundromat
the size of our first location and we’re
we are actually renting it releasing it
it’s just 250 square feet and
fifty square feet three small goodness
that’s like it’s slightly bigger than
the room i’m in right now
exactly right but surprisingly
for you right it’s very common here in
in the philippines that we have these
businesses not only for laundry laundry
shops oh yeah laundry shops that’s what
we call here in
in the philippines not laundromats so
the shops normally are around that size
sometimes they go up like double double
or triple the size
and the setup the setup of the met
the of metro manila is that the houses
sit together so not compared to
in the states that you know houses have
big blocks of
of land right here houses sit wall to
wall
so the density if you imagine the
density in one area
density of the residents are a lot
really a lot
yeah really congested
so it was a 250 square foot place
we have our first pair of speed queen
machines
back then it was a top load machine and
the capacity was like the smallest one
the one though the machines that you use
back there at home in the states you
know that’s what we call
the commercial machines here in in the
philippines
so do you you have those machines i’m
sure
right upload washers right so so
it’s it’s we had our first pair
so we’re happy um business business was
okay
and it’s our first time so we don’t have
any comparison
for just right at the third month we
we went green already we started
starting to earn
so okay um we’re happy with the side
hustle
the the income not so much
but it gets to help to pay the bills
right
and you get to learn right so so we
continued to
to do the business and take note we both
have a day job
so i was in charge of operations my wife
was in charge of the finance
so we were handling this remotely but
most of the time i handle it remotely
right so i just uh call
call my attendance how things are um
so yeah so that that happened that was
the first
year right then
i guess the following year so i was
thinking i was talking to my wife
this looks like a promising business
fine so we started to
generate our vision so the vision in
back then was
the target was around 10 branches
so if we’re earning this then multiply
it by 10 then
wow so we’re gonna get rich
rich in the sense that it’s going to be
you know
will be better off right
[Music]
okay fine so i continued to research
because what the consultant taught us
it it was the fundamentals of starting a
laundry business
you know it was good but it was basic so
i did my research and i
i stumbled upon this local forum
there was this thread about laundry
about laundry business
it has around 300 pages so i read them
from page one
to the end yeah that’s how interested i
am yeah i think that i’m sorry to kick
down notes yeah because
i i’m not sure what how how do i handle
let’s say um irate clients or how do i
handle this type of stain
i don’t i don’t know right so i’m really
relying on what the
other people know and in in the forum
there were some folks that they were
telling ah don’t
don’t start a laundry business it’s
already saturated here in manila it’s
just going to cost you money right which
is actually true
so i told you earlier that the density
of
of the residents in in here in manila
right
so our first shop
we were the fifth actually in a five the
fifth
business laundry business in a 500 meter
radius
imagine that wow yeah it’s
so incredibly dense pot oh yeah but also
the laundry shops yeah exactly so
but i think the lucky lucky part there
is that we were at the center
so imagine this it’s like a grid a grid
of uh
it’s a um residential community so a
grid wherein there’s the streets are all
nearby
and it’s let’s just really dense a lot
of people
right and we were at the center but we
we were the new guys but still we were
able to
get a chunk of a piece of the pie
in the laundry business there right
so yeah um so fast forward
after a year and a half we opened our
second branch
so thankfully it’s i think four or five
times bigger than my first one
right but the location was really bad
it was just like we i was just like
forced to get that because i was really
frustrated for
i think more than a month or two i’ve
been looking for a new place
and i wasn’t able to find one so when i
got that
i really jumped onto it so
[Music]
the income is not that good compared to
the first one
it’s still green though but you know
it’s it’s not
it’s not really that profitable so
what we did is i asked my attendants
let’s do some marketing
we do some flyerings we we drop some
our marketing materials at the mailboxes
of
of the residents of our neighbors but
still it didn’t work
we even asked the local drivers of the
the transportation system
in in out in that area to help us out in
the marketing so they also gave out the
flyers
the marketing materials it didn’t work
really
and to think if we we were just like the
third
or the second laundry shop that area
i guess that explains it no one wanted
to have a laundry shop in that area
because the business is weak
so i didn’t know that but that didn’t
stop me
so one of the turning points this is
actually one of the first milestones
um in our journey we’re in towards the
business-to-business
model right a
very good friend of mine who happens to
have a salon in another city
he called me and then he said hey paula
i need some help
my uh my current service provider
is going to stop doing service
in my salon and it’s going to be a
problem
so i’ve been thinking about the b2b
business the business concept
back then but i’m still not sure because
i know there’s a lot of cost involved
i’m not sure how to deal with
with businesses back then but since it’s
my friend
a very good friend of mine why not the
problem is
i don’t have a van i don’t have a driver
i don’t have a car but i’m working so i
can’t spend a lot of time just picking
the towers of of that salon
so i thought about it and then i
realized that
my mom she has a little van
she has a driver and my mom was actually
my number one
non-fan non-fan
oh no he’s a non-believer believe me
my folks they are they are also
entrepreneurs they started
um young so they had they had a very big
shoe manufacturing facility before they
already closed it down but
you know their business was really good
they were like um exporting shoes around
the world back then right so
it was really good but anyway she was
our number one non-believer so i told
her
hey mom um i have this new idea
i want to try this out can i borrow your
van just for a couple of hours per day
i’ll just pay the driver as well so she
allowed me
and then it was easy to plan the
logistics
maybe it’s just because it’s just one
salon so
it was it was seamless i was able to
to add the new process easily in
in my business so i was excited
wow it’s working right but i’m running
at a loss there it’s just
one salon i have some other small
businesses already that i’ve been
servicing than our our neighborhood
salons the barber shops in the spa and
little restaurants but it’s the first
time
that i i went inside a mall in a
business
center to to pick up right
so in the end money is there actually
there’s this volume there
right it’s okay but again
running at a loss i have i’m borrowing a
van
i have to pay the petrol and the driver
so i have to
think of ways on how to
to earn right so i thought okay
maybe this is the start of my b2b
journey
but i don’t i i know that the best the
retail business in my second branch is
not that good
so why don’t i focus on adding
more b2b clients so i asked my
attendants
this i had them i think for two months
i had them walk around give
out and talk to the owners or the
managers of businesses
to offer our services so it goes around
two months yeah i also printed them
gave them calling cards to make it more
professional
okay they were able to give me one
client
obviously i was not happy i spent a lot
of time planning
and then it’s just one client so i
thought
maybe i really have to do this and i’m
not
at that time i’m very shy person i’m not
very outgoing
i don’t like talking to people i don’t
know i don’t
i don’t like rejection i i don’t
like you to say no to me right right and
in the business
there are more no’s than yeses right
but it really pushed me to do it because
i really
want to grow the business to scale it up
so what i did was for for four sundays
so that’s a month
i allotted around two to three hours of
my time
so i parked my car in the center of the
business district
and i walked around and it was also an
exercise for me it’s like i’ve been
walking for hours
so so what i did was i literally went
door-to-door in the salons restaurants
bus i wasn’t touching hotels back then i
was really scared of servicing hotels
mountain so
in four sundays in a month
i was able to get five clients so
wow that my staff were really
wow that many so i was also surprised
that
i guess the difference is that if
if the manager or the owner realizes
that you own the business
that you’re marketing they will engage
you more
so they ask a lot of questions how do
you
distance these these are our concerns in
our
current service provider
how much how much is the service cost
where are you located
it’s more of a conversation rather than
just you know pitching your
or a one-way uh
marketing style right so i was very
happy
um so i targeted after that i targeted
that every month i’m going to add
one new client so insert small small
businesses
right yeah yeah so
[Music]
i was able to average around two clients
per month
so it really kept going i was really
relentless
keep on adding go let’s go as good if
there’s a problem with capacity no
problem we have some savings we are
earning from our main jobs
we buy new machines keep on buying the
the speed queen machines right
so i think at around around that time i
already had around
four or five pairs right so it kept
growing
adding more stuff i still i was still
borrowing my
my my mom’s fan and the driver
and then um what happened was
because i was so relentless in getting
more clients
i forgot about quality so we had a lot
of fallout as well
i was adding new clients and there were
a lot of clients leaving
so then i guess it made me realize that
uh it’s not all about getting involved
like just it’s
about making your service you know
really good quality
um then
so i took a step back
and i told my attendants we have to
revisit our process
and i was i was also a manager in my day
job so
i know how to handle people and just
really not that
you know outgoing i was shy but i have
to do this right so
i did some training plans spent some
time with them during the weekends
so it’s slowly improved right
um the cases that i had back then was
very bad uh washing quality
damaged items missing items
and worst case i had theft theft from
the cash payments
and sometimes theft of the actual item
because the towers the items of the
business class are really nice
so it’s really tempting and
i’m not able to trace who stole it right
it was a nightmare
around that time okay
so fast forward to 2016.
um what happened was i got my very first
hotel that year
and it’s another milestone for me it’s a
little hotel so what happened was
during that time i had my two branches
we’re going b2b already we have
but we still have some retail clients um
i think
at that time i have around 20 or
25 clients combination of
salons spas and restaurants so we’re
happy
and we were also able to buy our own van
um at that time and hire our own driver
but still we’re borrowing my mom’s man
and the driver
right because it’s there’s a lot there’s
a lot of volume
for us at that time and i i remember
i remember um one time when
the driver of my mom was calling uh
talking to my mom said mrs cruz
i just i just need to give you an update
your van is full of laundry bags really
full
that powerless attendant can no longer
hop in so he needs to ride a cab
with other laundry bags to go back to
the shop
that’s how many we were picking up so
for me it’s a good problem to have yeah
oh yeah it was really a good problem
and take note remember my mom was my
number one non-fan that’s right
so the message was very clear that oh
it’s paula’s really doing something
about this
right so so there but anyway
so in 2016 i
i got my first hotel right so they found
me in a local service website
so it was they were they were telling me
that
they need help because their their main
provider
had need to rehabilitate their machines
so so they have to close shop for a
while
so okay fine and it’s just a couple of
blocks away from my first
branch so why not
it’s it’s a small it’s a boutique hotel
i think it’s just around 30 rooms 30 or
40 rooms really small
um so we were able to handle that
to think that you know i thought i
thought i would be able to handle it but
with some research
it was just i realized that it was just
the same process with just
some changes in the tracking system and
the folding because they are
there are requirements in the hotel
linens for folding
so after a month um
the manager was talking to me that the
hotel manager was talking to me so she
said that
what do you think if we move
our hotel to your service
right you accommodate us
so i said yeah of course you’re just
nearby why not
right but the condition is
you have to handle two additional
branches
so okay where are these branches located
they’re located in other cities probably
30 minutes or 40 minutes away from where
we are
so it was a challenge well
yeah i i i was thinking about it as a
challenge and
a good problem because
during that time we are actually in the
process of constructing
our plant in a property that we own
right so no longer renting and
it’s a plant we won’t be accepting any
retail clients there
it’s a processing plant for the b2b
clients so
the hotel manager gave me two weeks or
three weeks to prepare
and it was really good timing that was
the time that the
the plant will be completed right
and we bought our first industrial
machine it was a 55 pounder
and it’s not brand new it’s a refurb
it’s an
old machine it was a brand supremos
brand
um now here in manila just to give you
some information on how
on how we purchase machines of course
the the smaller machines in the coin of
machines they are all brand new but for
industrial machines
most of us in the industry we go by the
the refurbs these are like five or
ten year old machines right so what what
they do the
the business owners they they purchase
machines from from other countries
most of the time it’s from the states
and then they repair it here in
philippines then they sell it so they
flip it
right and for me i was hesitant back
then but when i first tried it it was
really good
the breakdowns i was surprised that the
breakdowns of the machine is not really
that common not often
yeah what other people is trying to tell
me that ah
secondhand you’re going to have a
headache in the
maintenance but surprisingly it’s not
and the support the support of my
provider
was really good like if there’s a
problem
in just a matter of two or three hours
the tech will be arriving and it’s going
to repair it
a quick repairs except for of course not
re-bearings
um changing the seals it takes quite a
while but overall it was good
um so there we have our first machine
and it’s paired by my little dryers i
move some
of my dryers out from the two branches
to support the
the industrial machine so because we
don’t have enough funds back there
right so but we have already a plan it’s
a small plant
it’s very spacious i think it’s around
7 000 square feet much
bigger way way bigger much much
especially way bigger than that first
laundromat
250 square foot yes no holy cow
but okay so so we were able to handle
the three branches
because of that so that’s where my b2b
journey started
after that i reviewed my
my list of b2b clients and there it was
a lot of salons
spas so and then i realized that ah
these are small businesses that
you know i wanted bigger ones i want to
go for the hotels
right i want to go for the hotels right
so it’s a big industrial shop now
so i started shifting my marketing
from the salons to the hotels so i was
able to to get more hotels at the
boutique hotels right
and then there was this hotel
that was really eager to transfer to me
okay sir let’s i want to start i want to
test your service
and then we were almost done in the
discussion and then she remembered sir
i forgot to ask you do you have a flat
works
in your plant i don’t have
flat bricks in my plant
that was the deal breaker i wasn’t able
to get that sir we need pressing of our
linens this is a hotel don’t you realize
that
uh the other hotels they have well
the linens of other hotels don’t drink
all that much so we can fold it really
nicely
so i realized that okay this is a very
big roadblock
i researched how much flat works cost
and it’s really
really expensive
coincidentally my wife’s
former colleague they they had a small
no no just that small it’s a it’s a an
industrial laundry plant
also but they closed it down probably
because of bad business
and they happen to have a 60 incher flat
bricks that just needs refurb
so we bought that so we were very happy
we were able to press the the items of
some of the hotels i was able to get
more hotels that requires the flat works
but here’s another problem
[Music]
the flatworks that we have is just a 60
incher yes we can
press the items but how can we press the
bigger sheets
the queens the kings right you have to
fold it
and because of that we try to fold it
there’s a bigger chance of
having an accident that you know it’s
the sheets gonna get scorched or
torn apart
um it was a problem for me and i was
very vocal to my wife and my
my parents here about it that ah this is
really a big problem and i know that
the cost of the
the bigger flat bricks is in the
millions of pesos
right so just for familiarity i think a
dollar
is around 50 pesos right
so so it was
having the big flat works was the major
challenge it’s too expensive yeah we
have the space
but it’s too expensive
[Music]
my mom heard it the number of a non-fan
and that’s where she told me that
do you really need that i’m going to
help
she was now a believer because
you won her number oh yeah yeah yeah
i and even my dad actually they were my
motivation one of my motivation
i i remember my dad this was
earlier i think 2014. she was
i mean he was he was asking me about the
business
which he was telling me how’s your
business
that’s good so then again he asked me
why did you start the laundry business
um what are you earning there pennies
so that was an insult and a motivation
to me ever since that day
it just kept on my mind that oh i’m
going to change my mind of my fox
i’m not earning pennies here i’m going
to scale this
up right so yeah they were my believers
now so they were my fans i’m not sure if
they were they are number one fans but
they are now
how long did it take for you to win them
over how many years
three years three four years three hard
years yeah
oh yeah yeah yeah yeah so we were able
to purchase
the the flatworks and then that’s where
it all began that’s where i am right now
we have already expanded
i have like three more industrial
washers
and i have five bigger dryers my
plant is capable of handling around
three to four tons per day
the shift well before the pandemic i had
a 24-hour shift so imagine the turns of
the machines
per day right so
yeah sorry it’s quite long you might
have some questions oh
that’s my story man man i mean that’s
just so fascinating it’s
it’s so cool first of all i mean it’s
just cool to hear
you know how things work in manila right
because not very many of us get to
experience that
but it’s so cool to hear your story
to hear how you started
in a 250 square foot laundry shop and
were able to be creative
and work hard on your business and
scale that to where now you have this 7
000
square foot plant and you’re doing a ton
of commercial
uh commercial uh b2b uh laundry
it’s i mean it’s just so cool to hear
that and it’s
um it for me the thing that was really
striking me
is the principles are the same right
if if we’re in the united states if
you’re in manila the principles are the
same
exactly you know you you got to use
creativity
you got to work hard and you have to
have your mind set on
on growing and scaling if that’s what
you want to do
and and it works there and it works here
and it works all over
the place um so it’s just a super cool
story
um but yeah i mean i have i have
lots of questions one that i was
wondering are you still working
a full-time job outside no more actually
i’m no long i’m full-time already so
what happened was in two years ago 2018
right so i was an operations manager in
one of the
big international companies here in in
manila
so pay is good happy with the job you
know i can handle
i can work even with my eyes closed
because i i know what i’m doing already
right um but two years ago they have to
let me go
so that was another milestone that
i was afraid back then because
um the the salary that i’m getting
is not comparable to what we’re earning
in the laundry business
so i was thinking like oh how i’m going
to support the family
right but it was also exciting it’s more
of more after i was scared but i’m more
of excited
yeah right so i remember the time when
my boss
and the hr person was talking to me when
they told me that
of course i was scared for a split
second then after i realized that
okay this is what’s going to happen i
don’t have any
control of the situation let’s think
about
what i am in control of so
laundry laundry so that’s what i’ve been
thinking what am i going to do with the
laundry how i’m going to improve this
this is now my main job the laundry
business
so that’s what happened so when i when i
left the company
i went full time um in the laundry base
every day i was there
from around 8 a.m in the morning up to 4
p.m or 5 p.m
in the evening sometimes i change shifts
because back then it was 24
we were two shifts sometimes i come in
around
uh 5 p.m in the afternoon and i go home
around five
a.m in the morning right once in a while
when doing full time i saw that
the flaws and the weaknesses of my team
right
there’s a lot i thought i’ve seen
everything but now since i’ve been
handling it remotely i just saw probably
just
five percent of it yeah there’s a lot of
work to do
right so it was also an opportunity for
me to restructure the
team um develop
new training programs methodologies and
everything
right so yeah this is good it was good
that
it was a blessing that i i was let go so
that
probably i can focus 100 in the business
yeah well and one of the things i love
about that story
actually is i mean
we you know a lot of people
we’re taught you know go you know get a
good job you get an education get a good
job
and you’re going to be safe and you’re
going to be secure you’re going to have
that salary
and life doesn’t always work out that
way right and you
you found this and so because you were
building this business on the side
when that happened to you you were okay
right yep you it was scary still scary
you know and still a lot of work to do
but you were okay
right you didn’t have to scramble your
family didn’t starve i’m assuming
um yeah and you know i that’s why i
think it’s just so important
for for everyone to be
building something of your own uh on
on the side so that when stuff happens
you know you have that to fall back on
for a while so i mean i just think
that’s a cool
story and that’s a principle that
translates everywhere
right yeah the united states and
everywhere in between
and what’s also funny about that
incident is after
my last day in that company so i have
this client
a hotel client he called me yes sir
we have to talk to you about the hotel
so i thought it was a problem
so i went there had a meeting then the
president told me that
paulo we’re on an aggressive stage right
now
we’re planning to expand 15 branches by
the end of the year and that was
september
at that time are you are you
interested in handling all of it of
course
that’s like this is my main job right
yeah so
so that made it a little bit easier
for me to adjust right but still you
know i
i’m starting to see the problems in the
operation so
again what happened in back in 2015 2014
wherein there was prob there were
problems in the operation it’s going
it’s happening again right it’s
happening again so that’s why i have to
solve it
during that yeah wow i mean so cool what
a cool
story what cool timing you know yeah for
that to happen
uh man that’s that’s awesome so
what i mean
are do you have any self service
locations or are you still all full
service i only have one location right
now oh
just the plan yeah i closed i closed the
first and the second branch already
because
i was dead focused in the b2b
scene right adding for me adding
retail in my operation is just going to
mess it up
when during the transition what happened
was
um sometimes the the t-shirt of a client
gets folded into the back of the hotel
client
right or the towel of the hotel and gets
into the
client yeah right so it’s really
difficult so that’s why i shifted
to 100 b to b right
and in terms of the coin ops
um i forgot to mention that
in 2018 was it in 2018 no no i think it
was
2019 so the volume was picking up
remember
the there’s this one client that added
15 branches right so the volume was
my capacity started to peak right
and we don’t have any more money to
invest
because i have to be more careful now
this is my main job
yeah yeah um
so i i was thinking that how can
i i want to handle more
but i don’t have the funds and i don’t
have the facilities
right so i started talking to the to my
neighboring
laundry businesses just walk away a
couple
of minutes walk or just across the
street these are the little coin
laundry shops during that time the
the coin laundry business where was the
pumpkin then the full service
laundromats they’re taking a back seat
so i was talking to the owners you know
just trying to getting to know them
and i was telling them i’m no threat i’m
on a different
industry so i just explained that i’m
handling um
hotel clients then but at the back of my
head
i was thinking that i realized that hey
instead of me having a problem of
adding more clients why don’t i ask help
from these guys
but the question is can these guys
handle hotels
these are just small machines right the
lg maytags and the speed queens
um we need fast service for hotels it’s
like a 24-hour turnaround
but anyway i did try i i i i tried to
give them a couple of laundry bags and i
monitored
i checked their quality and they passed
my standards
that’s the time where i form
a laundry society it’s a small laundry
society
consisting of around five five or six
members
it’s a closed society it’s not an
association or
or any public group wherein the members
help each other in improving the
operating standards here in the laundry
business
it’s small it’s not going to make a debt
right now but
at least our current clients are
experiencing the same level
if if they’re being handled by another
side that’s part of the the society
right so i guess that’s another right
thing to do and i was also able to help
these little laundry shops
that they thought that they are not
capable of handling
but because of training and some
knowledge
they realize that they are able to do it
yeah yeah i love that because
yeah i mean so many people get caught up
in uh you know competing
that they miss out on being able to
cooperate
and help each other out and it’s better
for everybody
you know when they do that and starting
a society
and you know partnering with some of
these small laundry shops
to to do laundry is an awesome way
to not only help them but to help you
you know
improve your business and to help your
clients which is going to help you
retain your clients and
just all the way around it’s so
beneficial
yeah because i have accepted that i
cannot do everything
yeah at some point i’m going to peak and
that’s it
but i don’t want to stop there so i
found the solution
it’s that little group well because of
that we’re able to handle like
an additional two or three tons per per
day
yeah well what what really impresses me
about you
is that you know you i mean all
throughout your story it was like we ran
into this problem and we ran into this
problem and we ran into this problem and
right after that every single time you
said
and here’s something i tried and it
worked or here’s something i tried and
it didn’t work so i tried this and
here’s something i tried
and i think you know that’s probably the
key to your success
and that’s probably what when your
parents over to be your biggest fans now
is that you know you started small you
learned what you could
and you just were creative and
persistent and continued
to solve problems and as you solve
problems
bigger problems came and you were able
to solve those to where now you can
handle
really big problems and you’re doing
big business now because of it right
makes you
a lot more valuable so super impressive
super impressive um well okay so tell me
tell me a little bit more about uh
laundry in manila what you know what uh
are most people still doing the drop-off
stuff in these little
shops are bigger shops gonna pop up
anywhere
what’s what do you see happening um well
here
the the laundry industry in in the
philippines i think it’s just the same
so
it’s there’s the fair share for the full
service laundromats and the coin laundry
mats
the full service are much cheaper to to
set it up
i think it would just cost you around
around six thousand seven thousand
dollars okay
right so it’s really cheap like what
they did
in the coin ops it will cost you
probably around twenty thousand dollars
and up and these are
also small if i know in the in the
states that you know
coin-ops are really huge like um that
the spaces are really huge
here the coin ops probably are like
around just 500 square foot the smallest
the biggest would be around
2 000 square feet but it’s very rare we
don’t have like
um the coin ops here well the
sometimes they have food to sell but not
like
they’re in the states that they’re there
are um vending machines
there are like uh arcade um
games there or yeah anything that can
pass the time while waiting
right so here it’s just for some time
food
because it’s just small and there’s also
a television
[Music]
simply that’s it that’s it so
and also coin ops just like what
happened to the full service laundromats
there are a lot of coin ups around
in in a 500 meter ranges you’ll see
probably three or four
coin ops shared with two or three more
full service laundromats
right um and now with the pandemic
happening
i’m seeing a lot of of businesses
laundry businesses being sold
imagine that there’s a surplus of
machines right now in the market
if you’re smart enough you can actually
buy at this time
yeah now’s a good time to buy oh yes
yes oh yeah it was really difficult
because of the pandemic how are you guys
there in during the the pandemic
uh what i mean
some people have gotten hit a lot harder
than others
a lot of owners you know at the lowest
dropped
you know 30 40 percent uh
for a little while there um some some
didn’t
um i know a lot of the and i want to ask
you about this for you but a lot of the
b2b pickup and delivery
uh laundry went down but a lot of the
residential
laundry pickup and delivery went up
um even to the point of making up for
the lost business
with the commercial for a lot of people
so
um i saw a lot of that some some
laundromats were
not affected or not affected very much
so they’re lucky
i know i know yeah and i mean it’s been
it’s good that they’re
you know pretty much everywhere here you
know laundromats have been
you know declared essential businesses
so most of them
were able to stay open um
but you know it really varied pretty
widely
how much they were affected some some
were affected a lot and some
were hardly affected in in now
uh some are still down and some
are back to where they were or even some
a little bit higher than where they were
so um
it’s kind of all all over the map
it’s a slow recovery i guess yeah same
here
yeah so if you are oh god yeah
you said earlier that you’re going to
ask me the same question since i’m on
b2b
right yeah how yeah how did it affect
your business with all this what
happened
during march um the our government
declared a hard
lockdown um here in manila so meaning
that
most of the businesses are closed only
essential ones food
some transportation for for the
healthcare workers
um most of my hotels are closed
except for those that have long staying
guests
and it was very clear by the government
if the hotel has a long stay in gas then
they remain to be open but it’s just
just a handful of guests right so
we’re talking about tons of of laundry
that we handle every day
now we’re talking like what less than
100 kilos
so that’s around 50 200 pounds
per day so i have to adjust um
some of my folks i i did not let them go
but i have to you know rotate the
schedule of their work shift
and and it’s really difficult i have to
cut the shift
from two shifts down to one right
but i guess the pandemic has
well as a negative effect and i saw
that in that negative effect there is a
positive
outcome i realized
uh some of the big industrial laundry
plants they were forced to close
probably because in their area they were
there there are harder restrictions in
the businesses
and while i was working with the
remaining of my remaining open clients
am slowly getting accreditation from the
hotels that you know
you have to consider as an essential
business because on the streets there
are police
that that flags down under cars
if they think that they are not
essential so we had this accreditation
letter so it
made our life easier to travel around
to around the metro
and then when i realized that these big
laundry plants are closed i was telling
my
operations manager oh yeah i forgot just
this year
um january this year i i hired
my operations manager because i was
really having a hard time to handle
operations and strategy
okay going back to to the strategy and
during the pandemic so
i was talking to my operations manager
that we have to
revitalize our marketing even if it’s a
pandemic
so we started calling our old prospects
we were able to get the clients they
were telling us
oh wow you’re very good timing right are
you still open oh yeah we’re not going
to close okay
thank thank you thank you for that we’re
going we’re going to need your service
right
and also my um the supplier of my
industrial machines because he also has
a laundry
laundromat business much bigger than i
have probably they are
five or six times bigger compared to the
to mine
would be that my my there are hotels
that
my clients that needs help also so can
you help
all right since since they he is
uh like a very good friend of mine and a
trusted
uh supplier of course i want to help him
so so this is was somehow good it’s not
compared to pre-pandemic that we’re
getting tons but
i get the ball rolling right and we
continue to market
still still getting new clients i guess
from march to
june we were getting an average of
around two or three new hotels
during the pandemic and what happened is
since there are no tourists right there
are no
um tourism in the metro
uh the guests that they are housing were
seafarers
right because in here in manila there
are a lot of
overseas foreign workers they work
abroad and they
since they are repatriating back they
are required to
have a two-week quarantine in the hotels
so that’s
what keeps the some of the hotels busy
at this time
so there was business at that time
um but i wouldn’t say it’s good
yeah but i’m still happy that i have you
know i am still operating
yeah well i mean just another example of
here’s this problem
but i think because you went through
everything you’ve gone through up to
that point
and you know figuring out all these
different problems
you know i can tell right now that
you’re a really good
marketer you think very creatively about
how to market you’re not afraid to try
you know to market in different ways and
if it doesn’t work you try something
different and there
there’s just a ton of examples in your
story of different ways that you
marketed to grow your business and it
shows i mean
not very many businesses were adding
clients
every month you know early on in in all
of this and
especially laundry businesses because
you know
when everything shuts down there’s not
nearly as much i mean like you said
there’s not nearly as much laundry to be
done
so but i like that you thought
creatively
and you thought okay there’s a problem
yes but this is also an
opportunity i can go start collecting
clients
that you know we’re using these other
services that aren’t around anymore that
are closing down
and i bet that you’re gonna find
at the end of all this when things start
getting back to
normal more and more that you’re gonna
find out that your business has actually
grown tremendously
during the pandemic because all these
new clients are going to be needing a
lot more
you know yeah i hope so done so yeah
huge jump forward and that’s that’s just
a you know a testament to
you working hard and working smart and
being creative
um and planning ahead and
those are all things that we should all
be doing right now
um because you know like you mentioned
earlier there’s things you can’t control
like you know if if the government’s
going to shut stuff down
or not you can’t control it but you
can’t control
the things that you can control so like
you did figure out what you can control
and go do it yes you can
yeah very cool well uh
there’s like a thousand questions that i
want to ask you
um but i’m going yeah i don’t want to
like overwhelm you
at all um but man
i’m trying to think of like what’s the
most important stuff that we all are
like
dying to know about this laundry
business
in manila um so do you have right now
tell us a little bit about this do you
have one van you said you got a van
right yeah i have one right now i have
five vans already you have five
vans is one of them still your mom’s or
did you give it back to her no more no
more
that’s funny she’s probably happy she
got her van back but five
minutes yeah but sometimes i also
consider
our personal car as an emergency van
um if ever that let’s say for example a
client really needs
their their linens i’m the one who goes
there
so i’m like the second party going
second trip secretary
yeah sometimes but before it was like
most of the time every week i do
emergencies but now it’s
really really rare so i’m happy that i
was able to solve that
i mean you have a lot of volume that
you’re doing
particularly before everything happened
before yeah
but you have a lot of volume still that
you’re doing how are you managing
all of that do you use like a software
are you
what what systems do you have in place
to help you manage like
the laundry the drivers your employees
all that stuff how are you doing that
don’t be surprised we are low technology
guys here
we don’t have any software here only
microsoft office
and facebook chat really that simple
that simple yes i know i’ve been you
know i’ve been
researching uh in in the states that
it’s very high tech right there are a
lot of um apps for logistics and
everything but here in manila you rarely
see that
for the coin ops um they are they have
pos systems already that they can track
the turns
the num you know the sales but in
i guess in where i am right now the the
b2b scene
probably the the top five
giant indus industrial laundry giants
here in manila
will have those high-tech uh software
but most of us we do it manually but i
guess
that also helped us improve it um
one by one um right now i’m very heavy
using
uh worksheets right i have developed
i have some know-how in in doing my
sheets right and i was able to automate
it
and it’s able to help us it was able to
help us
but when you’re talking about those
applications
we don’t use that it’s expensive i’d
rather
buy new machines or buy a new van
it’s it’s the market here um i guess the
difference is
since it’s congested it’s much easier to
move around
and go to the clients
but the traffic is really bad so
sometimes we
one of the solutions very simple
solutions we use waze
right is to avoid the traffic but
basically that’s it it’s i know it’s
going to be surprising but yeah that’s
how it’s happening here in the
philippines
so if you want some opportunity here
yeah let’s talk maybe we can help out
the industry here right
hey yeah i mean i i got some people that
you can
that you can talk to that you know would
at least
be interesting for you to talk to
because i wonder if
you know especially i mean after things
go back
you know to normal assuming they go back
to normal at some point here
um you know particularly if your
business has grown a ton
it might be helpful to get in there and
get you know an app to help you manage
that stuff to make sure
you know stuff’s going the way that you
want it to go and a lot of those
softwares you can
really customize them to you know
implement the systems that you have
you know that place i know there’s a lot
of opportunity here in
in the philippines um with regards to
you know optimizing and automation
but probably what’s holding us back
would be the cost
so filipinos are very resourceful uh
we try to find things that you know that
can help us out in the most efficient
way and the most less costly
so let’s say for example those refurbs
right for
for for the for for other countries
these machines are already trash and
garbage but for us
this is gold right yeah we find use for
it
and then we can make it you know we can
we can use it just like a brand new
so that’s how we do it here so that i
guess that’s also another challenge
changing the mindset of the filipinos
that uh
it did automation can help you but i
would think that it’s too expensive i’d
rather use it somewhere else
that i can get faster results
well i mean i would just say maybe
that’s the case but also you know
use your own advice and say hey you know
what
this you know you you in particular
have said hey that’s a challenge we that
maybe that could be a place to grow
but it could also be an opportunity
right if you’re
if you can figure out how to get um a
good software to help you manage that
stuff uh
more efficiently and save you money
uh in the long run then it’s going to
give you an advantage over
the other you know players and you might
be able to get business
but maybe not just out of curiosity i
mean that’s that’s pretty cool that
you’re able to
manage that kind of volume that big of a
business
using spreadsheets and facebook chat and
ways
and those are all you know free
resources and
uh pretty you know pretty pretty cool
and pretty impressive
that you’ve been able to set that up um
doing that you know i don’t i don’t know
that i would want to
tackle that that sounds like a lot
pretty you guys are way ahead than us
yeah
we’re trailing we’re shaving yeah um
well i mean one one thing i wanted to
ask you uh
and maybe this is just a simple answer
but
you know earlier i mean you seem like
just talking to you hearing your story
you seem like very
business savvy you’re very you know
confident in what you do but you said
early on
you you know you were shy you didn’t
want to
talk to people you didn’t like rejection
and i mean how did you get over
some of that to where you know
now you have this big business you’re
managing you’re managing employees
you’re on a podcast telling your story
to a bunch of strangers
um you know how did you how did you grow
in those ways
so changing my mindset actually it was
because of the drive
i wanted i wanted to scale my business
and i know that it’s just me that’s
going to do it
not my attendance not my wife right um
since i’m part of operation marketing i
will have to do this on my own
right so i i forced myself and then
eventually because of the
the successes that i i got in you know
getting more clients it made me more
confident
then slowly it’s just like
very natural to me to to talk to people
you know
if if hotel managers want to talk about
it oh we can talk all day about it
right that’s how i am right now
i love talking about the the industry
you know the technologies and you know
possible um how we can improve the
processes
yeah so yeah i guess it’s because of
because of the experiences
you know the challenges that i i i was
able to handle
properly yeah i love that and i love
that the the driving force behind it was
your your why like the why you were
doing what you were doing that
drive that you had and you know
particularly in the laundry industry i
think we can lose sight of that
why sometimes especially i think here a
lot of people
want to get in the laundromat because
they can
kind of put it on you know automation
you know to an extent it’s pretty simple
pretty easy business
not a ton of work and so it’s easy to
just kind of get in that routine
and not constantly have that why you’re
getting into the industry
uh while you’re getting into the
business at the forefront of your mind
driving you to
grow to expand um i mean just
super inspiring of what you’re doing
with your why
um oh good i don’t know oh
go ahead yeah yeah well i mean we have
i’ve this
i’m i’m very excited about that you’ve
you’ve already given
a ton of really really cool
tips all throughout your story um we do
have a couple sections that we
like to um we like to do here on the
podcast
but before we kind of get to those well
one of them is it’s down to business
and in down to business we like to just
hear a little bit about the details and
i’m really curious about
just some of the details about like how
do you charge
for launch you charge by the pound you
know how much does that
cost you know a hotel to you know those
kinds of details
what does that look like three well it
really varies it depends on the linen
type
the requirements of the hotel so there’s
no fixed rate compared to
the to the coin ops or the full service
laundromats for retail
right um here you really have to
work closely with with the client you
have to get the requirements
that’s where you can start computing for
the cost
and for the whole for hotels most of the
times most of the time it’s
more of on uh per piece basis okay
and so that’s that’s how the pricing
goes but there’s no
um certain number that i can tell you
because it really
varies it is a there’s a very small
chance that
that one hotel will have the same price
with another
because it is also the distance you have
to compute for the distance from from
the plan the cost on the requirements of
the chemicals that you’re going to use
how many head counts will you need
to to work on on this client
so that’s where the complexity comes in
in terms of for b2b right
so i’m sure automation can help me out
here because it’s a nightmare it’s a
headache really to compute that and i
i’m not sometimes i’m not really sure if
i’m doing it correct
but i guess i’m doing it correct because
i’m here now right yeah
well i mean that brings up a good
question
so are you personally the one that has
to go
get all of these clients negotiate all
of the
pricing are you having to do that or do
you have somebody that helps you with
that
i prefer doing that on on my own right i
really love
talking to you know talking to to the
hotel managers going to the hotels
and of course it’s a change of
environment you know the laundry plant
is you know it’s
dirty right it’s messy when you go to
notice oh wow
so proper here there’s just a change of
environment so i really like going to
meetings
you know with meeting hotel managers and
the general managers
yeah i guess that also helped me build
my confidence oh
totally yeah totally um okay so you’re
going out
and you are negotiating these prices
with the hotels
and in landing the clients and you’re
that’s
that’s your job in in your business oh
one of them
yeah very cool um well
i’m i’m just i’m very excited to hear
from you
listen up it’s the secret sauce
[Music]
[Applause]
you know we have a section we like to
call secret sauce
and secret sauce is you know as a
laundroma
laundry owner as a laundry business
owner
do you have any tips of things that are
working
in your business particularly with the
commercial the b2b you know pickup
delivery
service anything that is working really
well for you that you think would work
well for other owners
around the world oh yeah definitely man
so the simplest way would be
you have to understand the nuts and
bolts of your business right
it may seem easy at first that you know
like what i told you earlier that oh
it’s easy business to set
up you know the laundry shop right but
if you start to deconstruct it one by
one from
operations from the deliveries from the
machine in the machines
there you will see how difficult it is
to connect
each other right but if you fully
understand that
you will have a bigger picture on how to
properly operate your business
so for example back then i
researched how to handle different kinds
of stains blood stains
food stains oil stains everything how
can i remove this completely and more
efficiently
right those types of research
is going to help you um
in the future right and i
was also able to share that to to my
attendance
so i have people assigned doing the the
spot cleaning
right because of these knowledge they
are now
more aware on what to do and much more
efficient and faster
right and another thing is that in my
experience i raised
i raised the bar in terms of learning
how to maintain my machines
well my smaller machines right the speed
queens
i fell in love with the speed queens
right um
up until now even my first pair of
machines i am still
still using those machines right
what happened was of course you have to
maintain your machine and
i have to pay for a technician back then
and the tech was really ripping me off
like cost me around like a couple of
hundred dollars
but the problem was not fixed so i got
really frustrated
so what i did was i tried to learn learn
it on my own
uh observe what the techs are doing how
they dismantle the the machines and i
even watched
youtube videos so in a year’s time i was
able to master
how to repair it well except for the
wirings i’m not an electrician so
but the parts i do understand you know
how the the series of the parts are
connected to each other
so it it helped me probably save
on on the maintenance cost and even the
parts
i purchased the parts directly from the
suppliers in
in the states right instead of buying it
here from the distributor
so that also saved my cost i guess
that’s also part of the nuts and bolts
maybe you can also do that for
um controlling
your expenses if you want to focus if
you want to
if you’re trying to save up for another
machine then try to
cut some costs on some aspects of your
business
uh what else uh
[Music]
i guess in a nutshell you really have to
be resourceful wherever you are
if you’re in the states or in here in
the philippines
you have to think about ways on how to
you know work yourself work your way
around these challenges
challenges may be small but if you’re
able to master it those challenges may
won’t be even challenges at all right
there you go that’s that’s my secret
sauce for you that
i mean that’s just so profound it’s such
great secret size it’s
just such great advice um in general
to understand and know the nuts and
bolts of your business
uh because if you don’t you’re not gonna
run an efficient business
and uh energy i mean you talked about
understanding how all the parts of a
machine kind of go together and because
of that
you can do most of the repairs well the
same is true about your business as a
whole right understanding
how the different parts of your business
connect up together
and so when there’s a problem you can
diagnose it and figure out
where the problem is just like in a
machine i think that’s
insanely good advice and i don’t think
that we’ve gotten that advice yet so
that is
you know really really solid secret
sauce thank you for
yeah i’m sure some some of the folks are
doing that in the states also because
it’s
you know i think for me it’s very simple
that you really have to
learn it especially if you’re really
into your business you really have to do
it
right unless unless your laundry laundry
business is not your main
business so i guess you really have to
get a service person on that
i used to buy broken machines and and i
play i play with it i i try to revive it
and
i come up with a couple of successes
already
nice yeah i mean definitely a theme
running through
your entire story is resourcefulness i
mean you said
oh yeah you know filipinos are
resourceful well you are
the epitome of resourceful all
throughout your whole
journey so far and i’m sure you will be
continuing on too
uh so that i mean that’s that’s a whole
another secret sauce that
you know people should be implementing
in their business
pro tips uh we have another section
called pro tips
and that’s more for i mean you got to
think back to when you were first
getting started thinking about buying
that little 250
square foot you know laundry shop you
know pro tips is for the people who are
thinking about getting into the business
uh do you have any tips for anybody
buying their
you know wanting to buy their first
laundry shop laundromat
yeah there’s a lot actually well first
the first step
is do your research do your homework
um it’s not that you know i told you i
didn’t like the idea of
having a laundry business because it’s a
dirty job
right but when i did my research i fell
in love with it that there’s potential
in this there is
um an opportunity in in the business
right um so yeah research that another
thing
this is very important you have to find
a mentor
someone that will guide you not
necessarily in the in the
in the same industry my first mentor in
this industry of course was my
consultant
right so he taught me the fundamentals
and then
in just a week of training we’re already
capable of offending the business on our
own
so i’m looking at it this way you know
the cost was pricey
in hiring that consultant but we’re not
actually buying a
laundry construction service there or a
consultation service
we’re actually buying our confidence
here
right so day one we we’re not having any
problems
i felt that i was really equipped to
take on
our clients on day one
so my second mentors would be
of course my folks right when even
before when they were non-believers they
were still advising me because they know
they can’t do anything it was my
decision and even more so that
when they become my believers the more
that i
saw them how how they taught me how to
handle the business how to deal with
people
because they were also entrepreneurs
back then
right and the last of my mentors uh
i have two good friends from two
completely different
uh businesses and industries so
what they do is i try to throw them my
laundry ideas and they try to shoot me
down
so that’s how honest we are to each
other and they try to shoot it
to shoot it down and if they’re unable
to shoot it down they think that okay
it’s going to work let’s go
yeah you can do that actually the idea
of the society that i formed
it came from them they gave me a lot of
tips on that
and how to how to form this group
you know for the benefit not for me not
not only for me but also for for the
members
right so get a mentor and then
um we’ve been talking about this you
have to be resourceful
and in addition to that you have to be
agile um
you have to learn to adapt like what
what i did during the
pandemic during the lockdown or when
i had some issues in quality right
so you have to you have to learn how to
adjust
it um there was a time
back then um i still don’t have the plan
back then i’m that i’m having problems
with with my sales
because i’m not sure about the prices
that i have if it’s
competitive and then i realized that it
was a bit higher
compared to the other so what i did was
i did some gorilla tactics and i called
the competitors just to get their prices
right i i pretended that i’m a client
you know and it’s bad but
i have to do it i don’t know what what
other way that i can do it right
right um in that sense i was able to get
a grasp of the
current market prices in that area so i
was able to adjust and it worked
actually right so agile
and resourceful the next is
you have to keep learning up until now
almost
daily i keep on researching about
laundry
even though i’m not based in the united
states i i subscribe to
the coin laundry association and the
other other magazines
right i take a look of what’s happening
around the world
but of course most of the time the news
is coming from the us right i don’t get
news
from here much in in asia but so it’s
still good because the machines that you
guys are using and the processes that
you’re using it’s pretty much the same
with
we are doing here so keep learning
and lastly and this is the most most
important
it’s not always about money
as the driving force in building a
business but of course
right if you if you’re thinking if
you’re a first-timer
you will always think about that doing a
business will make me rich
so that i can get out of my day job
leave my day job and have my own time
right but eventually i realized that
it’s not all about the money it’s about
solving people’s problems
right if if it’s far more important than
money
solve the problems the money will just
come
so that should be the mindset
i guess that’s a lot of pro tips already
i stopped there man i feel like a pro
right now just
from listening to you uh but gosh man
just such
solid advice um i
thank you uh yeah thank you for for
sharing that um
yeah i’m just gonna let it sit because
it was just so good and if you’re
looking at buying
a laundry shop or a laundry laundromat
or any kind of laundry business
this advice is you you need to implement
it like
do it do what he’s talking about because
not only did it work for him
uh it’s worked for pretty much every
successful
you know laundry owner and small
business owner and business owner in
general
these are the things you need to do in
order to set yourself up for
success in business and so make sure
you’re doing
you know all these things fine you know
researching finding mentors
you know being resourceful and you know
having agility continue
learning all these things are just
they’re just vital to success so
write them down take out a notepad write
them down
stick it on your mirror in the bathroom
look at it every day and make sure
you’re doing those things
until until you die really like just
keep doing them
so do you have any uh
do you have any resources that you
recommend i mean you’ve mentioned
like coin laundry association you’ve
mentioned mentors
uh is there anything else that you would
recommend for people to help them grow
their business or to grow
i mean you talked a lot about mindset
which i loved
um and you know i don’t know if you have
any resources to help kind of develop a
good mindset or anything like that
um well you just join the forums you
have a forum there
oh yeah by the way i have i’m having
some problems logging in that forms
we’ll talk separately on that on your
forums yeah so check it out
join the four rooms um
also in the facebook pages there are a
lot of
laundry groups you know that i joined
in um
i’m not an avid reader but i have a
couple of books that i have read and
i’ve
i felt that it it helped me a lot so the
first one would be
the blue ocean strategy from harvard
harvard business press really
really good and the next one is getting
things done by
david allen yeah david allen
and then the next one is the 10
entrepreneur it fits me perfectly
i was working back then and i have a
business
so the ten percent entrepreneur by
patrick mcginnis
and then i haven’t read last week i
would recommend
uh the four-hour work with my tim
ferriss it’s not applicable for us here
in the philippines but i was able to get
you know read between the lights on how
to
use what he’s trying to teach
yeah i think it’s a really great book
for
implementing systems optimizing you know
saving time saving money
putting the most important things first
and getting rid of things that aren’t
important that we feel like maybe are
important
uh so i think there’s a lot you’re right
the the main concept behind it is not
necessarily applicable
but there are so many principles in
there that are definitely applicable
to what we’re doing awesome resources uh
man that was yeah you just
you’re just bringing so much uh
value just in terms of not only you know
strategy that you’ve talked about
marketing that you’ve talked about
mindset that you’ve talked about
resources that you’ve talked about
there’s just so much to learn from you
you can tell that you have put in
a ton of you know
sweat equity into your businesses you
have you know learned a lot and you’ve
absorbed
uh from research from mentors from
everybody and it really shows man it
really shows
and it’s obvious you know just by
hearing your story
why you’re as successful as you are and
why you’re going to continue to be
successful
going forward you know you have all of
these amazing traits so
uh one last question i have for you i
know and
you know you may not want this and
that’s totally okay but i know that
people are going to
want to thank you for coming on the
podcast for sharing your story they
might have questions for you
um if anybody wants to
you know ask you a question or just say
thanks for um coming on the show and
sharing your story is there a good
way that they can get a hold of you yeah
sure i love to talk about laundry
meeting you people
um you can you can reach reach to me
through sun’s masters laundry
at gmail.com so i i monitor that
actively
if if you want an easier way you can
just shoot a message in
my facebook page that says master
incense masters laundry
you know it’s the page is not doesn’t
have any content
but i monitor it for you know messages
so if you want to talk there it’s also
fine
awesome well paulo thank you
so so much for coming on sharing your
story and sharing just so much
wisdom uh i just this has been an
episode that i’ve been
really really excited for you know since
you know we talked about you coming on
and it’s
exceeded all expectations and i know
that you got up super early
to you know to get on this and i really
appreciate that
yeah uh yeah i love that i look forward
to
you know connecting more we got got to
stay in touch and
uh definitely man you know i want to i
want to continue to hear about the
progress that you’re making the ways
that you’re growing your business
and uh thanks again man for coming on
really really good thank you too man
yeah we’ll talk to you soon ah man i
i hope you’re still sticking around
listening to this because that was an
incredible episode don’t you think i
mean he
you know it’s obvious that paul has
invested a lot into himself not just
through
uh reading books and and having mentors
uh but also just through his experience
through doing through scaling through
building through overcoming uh various
kinds of adversity i mean
just the epitome of what that
determination that it takes to succeed
paulo has it in spades and it’s obvious
i think to anyone listening why he is as
successful as he is
so man i hope you got something as
always i want to encourage you to take
at least
one thing from this uh show from what
uh paulo shared maybe and put that into
practice
in your life and or in your business uh
because if we’re doing that every week
for learning these lessons from
these successful owners uh man we’re all
going to be more successful so make sure
you pick something
put it into practice this week and watch
how you grow as you do that every single
week
um again if you haven’t subscribed make
sure you’re subscribed to the podcast or
here on youtube
you do not want to miss uh these
interviews that are coming up because
there are some great ones coming up
you’re gonna love
love love them i promise you and as
always make sure you’re asking a
question answering a question over there
on those forums every single week
and we will see you next week when we’re
keeping it international
kinda sorta uh and it’s very intriguing
i think you’re really gonna love it
uh next week so we will see you next
week on the laundromat resource podcast
this is jordan and
[Music]
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