Hollywood screenwriter of films such as Saving Silverman and Mama’s Boy, and multi-laundromat owner Hank Nelken joins us on the show today to share about his experience getting into the laundromat business. 

Hank owns the laundromat brand Half Price Laundry and shares his winding path into the laundry business and reveals the wisdom he has gained from owning multiple stores. Acquiring the fabled free laundromat, Hank started his small empire from scratch and built it into a thriving business. 

From a slow start to having multiple “big days” a week, Hank shows how he steadily grew his businesses and exactly how he turned his slowest day into his second “big day” of the week, attracting customers from all over!

Hank is laid back, confident, and wise as he generously shares his story and his wisdom to help you succeed in the laundry business. Don’t miss this this one!

In this episode, Hank and Jordan discuss:

  • Hollywood screenwriting
  • Experiencing a slow start in business
  • Maintaining steady growth over time
  • Genius marketing techniques
  • Pick-up and delivery- including his hard numbers in his fledgling pick-up and delivery business
  • Success mindset
  • The concept between his Half Price Laundry
  • The FIRE movement- Financial Independence, Retire Early
  • The importance of having a great staff

And much more!

Listen To The Podcast Here

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Today's Sponsor

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Hank's Bio

As a single dad, my priority is to spend as much time with my two boys as I can, and doing laundry is yet another chore that takes me away from them.  The cost in time and money is just too high.  That is why I created Half Price Laundry.

Our mission is to provide the highest quality cleaning at the lowest possible price.  That way, you can spend more money on the things you want and more time with the people you love. 

Equally important is leaving my children with a world that is better than the one I inherited.  That is why we use high-efficiency, commercial washers and dryers made by Continental.  Designed to drive down water, electrical and gas costs while improving productivity, our high-performance washer-extractors deliver more performance using less labor, natural resources, and chemicals. 


Founder and CEO Hank Nelken is a screenwriter / entrepreneur who works with communities in Los Angeles to provide high quality laundry at an affordable price.  Hank believes quality, convenience, and impeccable customer service are the most important aspects of his or any business.  Hank owns two laundromats in Arleta and Panorama City, CA.  Hank is also a commercial real estate agent with Keller Williams, Beverly Hills.  Hank’s screenwriting credits include Saving Silverman, Are We Done Yet?, and Mama’s Boy.  Hank holds a BA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

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    Episode Transcript

    hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the
    laundromat resource podcast this is show
    number 30 and i am pumped that you’re
    here today because today
    we have on hollywood screenwriter
    multi-store
    owner hank nelkin and man he
    shares his story of how he got into this
    business
    how it was a slow start for him and how
    he kind of wiggled his way
    up to profitability and beyond and it’s
    an
    awesome story filled with uh just a ton
    of practical tips and wisdom
    i know you’re going to get a ton out of
    it and he’s just a good dude too
    so you’re really really going to enjoy
    this i can’t wait for you
    to listen to it i already took away some
    really cool stuff
    and be sure to stick around to the very
    end because at the end
    i’ll give my big takeaway from this and
    uh and encourage you to find a takeaway
    to take
    take away uh from this one too uh but
    before we get there
    a couple of things that i wanted to do
    is number one hey welcome to all of you
    who are here for the first time either
    on youtube
    on the podcast um if you’ve joined on
    the website the community over there
    man welcome to you and man we
    really really believe that working
    together and helping each other out
    is going to lead to success uh
    higher success quicker success better
    success for all of us and it’ll make it
    a lot more fun so that’s why we’re doing
    what we’re doing here
    we want to help you find financial
    independence
    through laundromat ownership and
    one of the big ways that people are
    connecting
    right now is on our forums and there’s a
    lot of activity this week on the forums
    very cool to see so i wanted to take a
    second to welcome all of you who are new
    um and in particular uh john cooper who
    hey welcome man i’m super pumped he’s a
    wave max
    franchisee and he came and joined us and
    he introduced himself
    himself on the introductions forum um
    the forums by the way
    laundermatresource.com forums we have a
    few different forums there you can post
    on
    but the introduction forums is a place
    for you to go introduce yourself
    and go meet some other owners and start
    networking so you can find success
    faster so if you haven’t done that yet
    head over there
    introduce yourself let people know where
    you’re at on your
    journey with laundromats um so welcome
    to john
    uh also happening over there a really
    really cool
    thread in the financing the uh forum is
    talking about robs which is if you’re
    not familiar with robs
    it’s uh like roll over
    business something i don’t know but
    essentially what it is is using
    retirement funds to purchase
    a small business and that is an awesome
    way for
    some people to get into this business
    and a lot of people are doing it so if
    you’re interested in
    that or something like it head over to
    the financing forum and jump in on that
    conversation there’s a lot of buzz
    happening on that forum thread right now
    so
    check that out and the other one i
    wanted to highlight is
    josh in the laundromats forms posted
    about marketing
    and he uh bought a laundromat did all
    the basic marketing stuff but now he’s
    interested in
    and leveling up his marketing and so
    taking that to the next level he wants
    to
    put together a group of people who want
    to talk about intermediate
    and advanced marketing techniques and i
    knew some of you guys would really be
    interested in that and some of you guys
    probably have a lot of really good
    things to add to that
    um ways that you’ve done marketing that
    you’ve seen really work
    in in this business so if that’s
    something that interests you
    head over to the forums click on the
    laundromats forums and find josh’s
    thread on marketing i think the title is
    just marketing
    and uh you know let josh know that you
    are interested in that
    i’m interested in that i’m super pumped
    about that our ceo of
    modern resource marketing john he is
    super interested
    in that we’re going to be participating
    so we want you to join us so head over
    to that forum
    let us know that you’re interested let
    josh know you’re interested we’ll put
    something together and that’ll be
    awesome for all of us i think so hey
    that was i so cool to see this week all
    the action happening on the forums over
    there and again that’s free
    free forms always free will always be
    free a
    place for you to connect get questions
    answered and
    more um one final thing
    that i just i wanted to actually ask
    your help on something
    and uh i get we have a buyer’s email
    list you can sign up on the website
    um right there on the home page there’s
    a button for it
    and i literally have multi multi
    hundreds of people maybe
    over a thousand people by now who are on
    that buyer’s email list and one thing
    that’s so important to me is helping
    connect
    buyers and sellers with great brokers to
    work with i really believe that working
    with great brokers
    is a huge huge deal because i say this
    all the time but if you get in this
    business
    correctly then the sky’s the limit for
    you
    if you get into it poorly it can be
    really really hard to dig your
    your way out and i’m speaking from
    experience here so i really want to
    connect people with that but the demand
    is so overwhelming that i can’t keep up
    anymore i can’t keep cold calling and
    emailing brokers and trying to vet them
    so i thought i’d reach out to you guys
    and see
    hey if you know a good broker or a good
    agent maybe that you’ve worked with
    who deals in laundromats who’s
    knowledgeable who has a lot of integrity
    who’s honest send me an email
    introduction
    and i would love to add them to the
    network so that i can help
    connect them with buyers and sellers
    and my email is jordan
    laundermyresource.com
    launderman resource dot com and my
    contact information is on the website
    too uh i’ll put it all down in the
    description or the link
    uh or the uh show notes so hey
    if you could do that that would be
    awesome and again all over united states
    canada and beyond i’m looking for
    good good brokers or agents so connect
    them up with me that would be helpful
    for me
    and for everyone else listening so
    thank you guys for that without further
    ado let’s get into it with hank
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    [Music]
    all right hank how’s it going man how
    you doing great jordan how are you
    i’m doing awesome thank you so much for
    coming on i’m super excited to hear
    about you and your story and what you
    got going on you have like a unique
    uh thing you’re doing with your
    laundromat and i i’m excited to hear
    about it but before we get into it
    tell us a little bit about who you are
    yeah um i am uh
    originally from the south from uh
    mississippi in texas
    and then i um came out to la to go to
    usc film school
    and um i’d always want to make movies
    and be a filmmaker so i came out
    uh and went to film school and then um
    started
    writing uh and uh i’ve been a
    screenwriter actually
    ever since so professional screenwriter
    for 20-plus
    years and um uh anything
    anything that we would recognize uh
    depending on your taste in movies yeah
    um so i wrote a movie called saving
    silverman
    which is yeah silly comedy with uh
    jack black and uh jason biggs and all
    that and then um
    a family comedy called are we done yet
    which was with ice cube which was
    sequel to rv there yet um and then a
    movie called mom’s boy which
    um not a lot of people saw but it was
    warner brothers made it but it just
    didn’t get
    for some reason out there but uh a diane
    keaton was in it jeff daniels on the
    ferris
    those amazing cats wow yeah yeah so that
    was
    a cool experience man that’s pretty
    awesome
    yeah yeah and i’ve been writing you know
    i mean it’s been my job
    my day job for you know years right you
    know writing rewriting and
    uh to you know adapt books i’ve done
    animation
    so it’s been it’s been a lot i mean i’ve
    really enjoyed it
    yeah that’s so cool and i think you’re
    kind of living well we haven’t mentioned
    this yet but
    where do you live where are you from
    like where i live now
    yeah yeah terminus yeah yeah yeah
    yeah so you’re right you’re right there
    in the thick of it with uh with all the
    movie stuff and everything going on so
    it’s kind of yeah i always want to be in
    la
    you know this is where everything is
    although now things are moving
    to other places
    yeah cool okay so keep going
    [Music]
    okay so uh so i’ve been doing that for
    forever and um
    just really have always been you know
    creative and enjoyed that process
    and um and then about you know five
    or so years ago i got into i started
    getting into real estate actually
    um and i started getting into commercial
    real estate i’ve still been writing
    um but i kind of started to do that on
    the side and i was
    getting interested in it enjoying it um
    apartment buildings and that sort of
    thing uh
    you know as investments and really
    starting to understand
    and we’ll get back to this but uh the
    book rich dad poor dad
    um i’ve read a ton of books and your
    your uh list is great and i’ve read
    a bunch of them on your list i got some
    from your list also
    um but all those books are great
    resources and uh it just
    because i’ve been in the creative side
    of it for so long
    you know i hadn’t really thought about
    the financial stuff that much i mean
    i’ve been
    i had a you know pension plan that i was
    investing in but i wasn’t
    you know thinking about too much um so
    once i started in real estate
    i started starting to understand oh
    building wealth you know this is how you
    do it
    um you know it’s not just about your
    income and so i started getting really
    kind of fascinated with spreadsheets and
    how it looked on paper and how
    we value you know department building
    that the value was based on the revenue
    right you know
    and if you did some improvements then
    the revenue went up and the value went
    up exponential
    uh and leverage you know so so i got my
    uh
    license my agent uh my real estate
    license um
    during that time and when i so
    originally so when i got it i was super
    excited it’s like when you get driver’s
    licenses like
    i’m an agent now yeah so i was like
    going around telling everybody i’m an
    agent if you got anything you know
    and i was at this uh restaurant that i
    go to all
    the time with my like kid where i would
    drop him over to school and i knew that
    the owner just because i’ve been there
    so many times every morning
    and i told him that and he goes oh i got
    a guy over here who’s um
    who’s selling his uh who wants to sell
    this dry cleaner
    right clear business and i’m like hmm
    okay i don’t you know
    i don’t know anything about that but
    maybe i could help him um
    i ended up calling a friend of mine
    who’s a wealth manager
    and i was trying to broker some kind of
    deal between him i said do you have any
    clients who want to buy a dry cleaner
    he said no so that didn’t go anywhere
    and i just kind of like
    left it and went back to my normal life
    about two months later my buddy called
    and goes didn’t you didn’t you call me
    didn’t you uh say something about a dry
    cleaner
    you know he said didn’t you didn’t you
    ask me something about a laundromat
    i said no it was dry cleaner because
    well i got that i got something about a
    laundry room i gotta go with biology
    and i said okay i mean i just i mean
    i’ve in my life i’ve pretty much kind of
    tried to say yes to things and go
    forward to see what yes yes yes you know
    yeah
    because you never know just open the
    door and see and you know so he said yes
    lawyer
    beverly hills he really wants to uh you
    know buy laundromats
    and i said okay i’ll let’s have lunch so
    i have lunch with him
    and he was like yeah i’m a lawyer and
    i’m just i don’t want to be a lawyer
    anymore and i want to
    research this and laundromats are the
    best you know passive income
    and i just want to buy them and get out
    of you i said all right well let me i’ll
    help you i don’t know
    i’ll investigate see what i can do so i
    started calling around
    and uh i ended up with every number of
    people told me
    the guy you want to talk to is david
    dang i don’t know
    david i know david yeah yeah yeah of
    course so i called david
    just cold call him and uh he’s like yeah
    it’s great well i’ve got
    i’ve got stuff to show you so i took my
    this
    lawyer you know guy out we looked at a
    couple laundromats that um
    that david had for sale and i started
    getting into it but i started
    researching it and uh i started looking
    at the numbers and looking at the
    business
    and i sort of like it so then i said to
    the guy you know hey you know maybe we
    could partner up and maybe what’s going
    together
    said okay maybe and so so david had this
    one location that was
    a store that had been in laundromat for
    25 years a little strip mall
    uh but it had been closed for about a
    year year and a half and everything in
    it was
    all the equipment was old and had to be
    replaced it was kind of like opening a
    brand new store but
    you know with all the plumbing and
    people knew it
    and i was really interested in that i
    like the idea of building something from
    scratch kind of
    and learning from beginning so anyway i
    said i think this is a really good deal
    you want to go in together and he said
    i think i’m out i’m not gonna okay
    change his mind i don’t know so i said
    okay so i’m gonna do it
    so that i just did it i decided to do it
    and i bought it and i
    i actually didn’t buy it because it
    wasn’t gonna buy but i um
    you know lease the space got a loan
    bought all the equipment
    built it didn’t build out and open the
    store uh about three years ago
    so that long story to get to one event
    it was a very tribute
    route yeah well i found that a lot of
    people
    take that kind of route to get into
    laundromats
    which is how i would imagine because
    it’s not unless it’s in your family or
    something it’s it’s you know
    it’s an odd one to find totally yeah
    yeah i don’t know about you but every
    time i tell somebody almost
    they’re like that’s random that’s really
    weird well what’s funny about in me too
    is you know every time i say this they
    go oh my god i gotta write a script
    about that you know
    your show about that and truthfully you
    know i think there’s a lot there too oh
    my gosh
    i have thought about writing multiple
    movie scripts about
    the weird things that you couldn’t even
    make up you know that happened in my
    laundromat
    it’s an interesting world yeah yeah
    that’s pretty funny well that is
    that’s a really interesting way to get
    into the business i’m
    curious about that first deal okay so
    you had a broker who brought you and
    showed you a location that
    was not no longer operational is that
    right it was it had been closed the the
    owner of the strip mall had run
    and on the laundromat for 20 years okay
    and
    they’ve apparently done good business
    over the years but you know
    for whatever reason uh they just they
    got busy they also had a restaurant in
    the strip mall
    so they just got busy the restaurant and
    just didn’t want to do the watermelon
    anymore to kind of just
    one day just close the doors and so um
    all the equipment that was there was you
    know 20 plus years old
    right i know that it really were i mean
    it just kind of run down and they just
    decided to close it up so
    um it was just you know it was a shell
    with plumbing and everything ready to go
    but nothing
    inside you know yeah yeah well
    hey man the the infamous free laundromat
    right yeah well that’s what i also liked
    about it i like the idea of not buying
    someone else’s business
    yeah uh you know i was especially the
    laundry
    you know it’s you never you don’t know
    what they’re doing and i never heard you
    talking different people on this
    podcast but it’s i mean obviously
    there’s ways to check and try to
    make sure their books are right but it’s
    especially with the cash
    business it’s hard to really know what
    their numbers are and i just didn’t want
    to take over someone’s business
    hey i didn’t you know i don’t know what
    their customer service was i didn’t know
    what their numbers really were
    their machines i just want to take you
    know take over their problems
    right so yeah okay so i’m assuming the
    the broker then sold you the equipment
    because i’m trying to figure out how
    else they would make money
    off of introducing you so i’m assuming
    they sold the equipment from there
    yes so he was he’s also a distributor
    for the time right
    yeah yeah yeah okay so the equipment
    yeah
    good okay so you got new equipment in
    there and you did a build out
    um did you personally pay for the
    build out or did you get funding for it
    or how did that all work out
    basically the uh the uh
    the the capital investment really was a
    down payment on the machines and then
    the build out
    so that came out of my pocket the you
    know and then the loan was for the
    equipment so i mean
    it was about i’d say 20 of the total
    project you know was out of my pocket
    and the rest was long for the equipment
    yeah but yeah
    the the build-out was was the biggest
    you know kind of hard costs
    um because it was just i mean we had to
    you know put everything in
    redo everything yeah totally what i mean
    that’s a pretty typical
    scenario that i see is you know people
    don’t reinvest back into their
    businesses
    and they end up with the you know the
    so-called zombie laundromat
    where there’s really not anything to
    sell anymore even
    you know people try to squeeze out a
    little bit you know selling a customer
    base or
    the infrastructure but there’s really
    not a whole lot of value
    left in it because they haven’t
    reinvested in it so
    yeah or just some equipment or whatever
    and that’s usually not worth much at
    that point
    right yeah yeah okay so you got in how
    long was that process
    from like when you first you know
    secured that location to when you were
    able to open back up
    um it was uh
    it was about six months you know um i
    mean it’s always a little bit longer
    than you know expected but around six
    months from when we
    you know signed the lease um got the
    loan got all the numbers in place
    started the build out
    we opened in april 2018
    and that’s right um and so it’s it
    started the process started basically
    like the fall of 2017. okay
    okay and then did you uh
    did you negotiate the lease or did the
    broker do it for you
    he had already negotiated the lease okay
    so it was
    it was really a good lease it was long
    term and the you know price was
    really reasonable so good good man
    because it you know those leases
    they can make you a break yeah yeah well
    that was a good one and also and then
    the key too is the lead because you
    wanna
    especially spending money in there like
    i did to build it out
    you know that’s his property ultimately
    right so um
    you know i want to make sure there’s 20
    plus years of
    lease yeah
    okay so you took you about six months
    give or take a little bit to open up
    you open up finally you have this
    laundromat that kind of randomly
    you know for you were trying to get it
    for a client and
    you ended up getting it yourself so you
    you
    throw open the doors what was that
    experience like
    i mean it was so interesting because it
    also for me it was just so different
    than what i’d
    what i’ve been doing for 20 years you
    know when you write them you know
    writing a movie it’s like
    you know it’s all about coming up with a
    concept going on pitching into
    executives and then they
    say well they like it they don’t and
    they buy it they don’t they buy it you
    write it and they write it and
    they make it or they don’t a lot of
    things are out of your control and
    and and you just kind of put it into the
    world and then
    you know you don’t know what’s going to
    happen this is you know this for me was
    so different because there’s a lot of
    control
    you know there’s a lot of levers i can
    pull and um you know it’s a physical
    place
    i can advertise it i can lower prices
    you know there’s ways to get people to
    come in
    and and build it um so the control i i
    really liked a lot
    when we opened um we had um
    we could do a soft open where we just
    opened the doors you know without
    having any marketing or anything just to
    let people come in and start to
    debug the you know equipment and see how
    everything was working
    so we did that for i don’t know two or
    three or four weeks and then we decided
    to have a grand opening
    um number one it was in the summer which
    i don’t
    which is the worst time for laundromats
    anyway yeah
    it’s super hot so we
    did a grand opening in july august
    and nobody should know it was like
    there’s just nobody um but my uh
    so that was an interesting lesson too in
    in
    something do you think it was because it
    was so this is not true everywhere but
    at least here in california i think in a
    lot of places but not everywhere
    summer is the slowest season for
    laundromats and business
    typically is down so that’s what he’s
    referring to
    but do you think it’s because of that in
    the weather or what do you think the
    reason was do you have any idea
    i think i think yeah big part of it was
    it was 110 degrees you know
    and so really
    you know at 110 degrees and i you know i
    think
    um i just don’t think we had enough uh
    uh
    presence in the community i just we’ve
    done some marketing we’ve sent out some
    flyers but
    i just don’t think people knew we were
    really there yet you know and what
    really happened was
    as you know the lesson was i mean i
    thought okay we’re gonna open and have a
    great opening and then people are a
    bunch of people going to come and then
    it’s gonna sort of
    but really what happened was it was much
    more of a slow gradual build
    um and so uh you know it took
    it really took 12 to 18 months
    to real i mean we were six months in was
    doing well but
    12 18 months to really start hitting
    projected numbers
    um and so it just wasn’t growing every
    month we would just see it
    increasing in slowly increasingly
    increasing you know word of mouth
    people you know return customers and and
    just build
    um but it took it was not a
    a explosive you know thing it was a
    gradual thing
    was that did that make you panic
    like when that happened or how did you
    feel when it was like oh man we’re not
    hitting projected numbers and we’re six
    months in and we’re a year in you know
    well you know i didn’t i mean i didn’t
    know if we ever would i mean i
    was the first one i’ve done and you know
    i wasn’t sure
    these projected numbers were real you
    know and so i thought
    god if we can just get if the projected
    numbers were really good
    and if we did less than that it would be
    fine you know
    so i thought i don’t know if i already
    hit those but we’ll
    hopefully we’ll hit the other ones to
    break even and go above you know right
    and it was scary it was scary because
    you know it starts off and you’re
    you know 20 of where you want to be and
    then you’re 25 and then you’re 30 and
    then you’re 40 and you’re half you know
    like okay that’s better but still half
    of work yeah
    and it’s you know it’s scary but then it
    builds it builds and then you start once
    it got to 60 70 i’m like oh this is it’s
    it’s gonna happen you know and then it
    went to 80 90 and then
    it hit um it hit 100 it hit the numbers
    that
    we had projected it to hit the really
    good numbers
    in um january february march of this
    year
    so basically like three years in it
    really hit the really good numbers and
    then covered it
    the next month april it was like we were
    doing our best we’ve done it and then
    april
    and then it dropped 25 but then it’s
    come back
    yeah yeah that that was a punch in the
    gut for
    a lot of people not just obviously not
    just in our industry but
    well i mean the thing is we were all
    able to be open and uh so many
    businesses
    most weren’t so i was felt lucky that we
    could remain open
    yeah and do business so you know and you
    know
    luckily the uh you know the bank the
    lender you know gave us a deferment on
    the
    loan during from that time so that
    really
    yeah that’s nice that that definitely
    helps a lot
    well you own more than one
    right yes so how did you pick up that
    next one
    so that one um in
    uh i guess about a year ago now um
    uh i got a call from uh
    david dang who uh and so david’s son
    madison
    uh has been my manager uh so he really
    has been a key part of the
    original store opening it running it and
    because
    he has a lot of knowledge and his dad
    has a lot of knowledge and his mom
    they’re all in the business and they all
    have homeowner mats and they do
    you know distribution so they’re kind of
    in my gurus um so
    they um so they madison and and david
    call and said
    hey we’ve got the store um
    that uh basically the owner defaulted on
    everything the bank needs someone to
    come in and take over
    um there’s a big discount on you know on
    what was owed on the equipment
    it’s a really great store it’s a great
    location really busy area
    um so i was like right i’m gonna check
    you know check it out and it’d been
    closed
    just like my the first one um but it was
    it was in much better shape um in terms
    of the inside you know interior
    everything
    someone looked at it and i’m like great
    let’s do it i was just ready to go
    because it would seem like an
    opportunity
    you know like i said i’d like to you
    know i like to say yes to stuff if i can
    if it
    makes sense and just go for it and um so
    it was a quick one because it was like
    you know you got to do this now the
    landlord like
    had other people who wanted the spay to
    do it
    again the least had been negotiated um
    so
    it all looked good and uh it was the
    same lender had from the original
    you know store so um they were great
    and this is eastern funding
    and they’ve been great and they were and
    i was you know they were helping each
    other on this one because they really
    needed someone to
    take you know to take this loan because
    it was just sitting there um
    so i did so basically i again didn’t buy
    the store
    um and in fact
    [Music]
    that that had to be proven to the uh dwp
    because
    when i took over the store there was
    like a 25 000
    bill from the department one our power
    previous owner who would like
    kind of skip town whatever he did so
    i said well i don’t know that you know
    that’s that’s the previous owner and
    they said no you do own that you bought
    the business and i said no he didn’t buy
    the business and
    that was a really you know that that was
    a month
    we couldn’t turn the power on for a
    month because
    they kept saying that you know i owed
    this money finally
    we showed enough documentation that they
    understood it was not a
    um i didn’t purchase the business so
    they
    released me from that and then we got
    the power
    holy cow man i have well i probably
    shouldn’t bash the
    department of water and power but man
    i’ve
    i’ve had my tussles with them also
    yeah well this is a bureaucracy you know
    and it just
    it was just took a month to get to the
    right person and convinced i am
    so but we did and during that time
    we were doing some build-out work anyway
    um
    so we did you know more than cosmetic
    but
    not nearly as much we did the first one
    it was ceiling work and lighting and
    you know really spiffed it up but um
    uh so that took that time anyway yeah
    kind of worked out by the time that was
    done
    we got the power on and water and you
    know yeah
    that time that was good yeah so that was
    april so basically that was much
    that was quicker because it was like
    december you know i got the call about
    it and we were opening
    oh yeah that’s that’s definitely quicker
    so what’s that been like now having two
    did was it a big jump or was it pretty
    much the same or
    well it um
    you know what’s wrong with having two
    kids i’ve got two kids and it’s like
    the first one is like the big one right
    that one’s like i don’t know what i’m
    doing i don’t know anything about this
    the second is like yeah it’ll be fine
    yeah
    you know and it’s it’s it’s so i’m just
    less stressed about it unless
    you know the same thing’s happening you
    know where you know we open the doors of
    course we open in april
    right when code hits yeah i mean there’s
    a huge school across the street from
    this
    store which tons of business came in
    from that
    the school closed i mean it was like so
    it was even slower to start than the
    original one but i knew
    based on my experience it was going to
    happen and come so i wasn’t
    worried i think um so yeah i had
    infrastructure
    my madison you know the manager
    managed this store as well so we had our
    thing going in our rhythm
    um i think the hardest part has been um
    staff
    because if the first story took you know
    a good period of time to get the right
    people
    and now they’re amazing and the same
    with this new store it kind of took
    we just kind of made it work the last
    couple of months so it’s taken about you
    know
    six months to get the right people we
    went through some different people that
    didn’t work out so well
    and now we’ve got a good team so i think
    that was that was the hard part
    yeah and i think your staff can make or
    break your business right like if you
    have bad staff
    they’re not reliable or customers don’t
    like them
    or they don’t they refuse to clean or
    they’re not good at it or whatever
    like man your business is going to be
    hurting all the above yeah i mean it
    really is key
    uh that they because i mean you know if
    they don’t open in the morning
    but then people show up with their
    laundry and then they never come back
    like well the doors are closed you know
    yeah i mean and if they’re rude
    they’ll come back you know and if they
    don’t clean them yet so it’s it’s
    fine and you know it’s the right
    temperament too because you know
    everyone has their
    whatever their their philosophy is about
    their place and you know
    how they want their people to have to be
    in terms of like friendliness
    in terms of you know returns or credits
    or you know
    money and how they deal with that um so
    finding people that are on the same page
    you know
    as as us but we we have it now in both
    stores
    so that’s been that’s a huge relief
    you know that’s a big load off yeah oh
    i’m sure
    was it was it mostly trial and error
    just like trying to find the right
    people or did you
    find something that kind of helps you
    narrow that down at all or
    or no it was probably her i mean yeah i
    mean it was like
    yeah just you know you just go you know
    how people you think are
    good and then you see what happens and
    then you know pretty soon you can tell
    um and then it’s also they have to kind
    of work together
    even though they’re not always on the
    same ship but they leave work for each
    other you know and if
    one’s leaving something dirty the other
    one’s upset so they have to
    work together too so it’s it’s you know
    it’s like casting actually i mean you
    know it’s like
    you know you want to cast the right
    person the right role but you also have
    them to get the chemistry with the rest
    of the
    ensemble
    yeah well you know it’s like i found a
    lot of
    similarities and a lot of commonalities
    actually because you are it’s a
    production you’re building something it
    has to run and work
    and um and certainly with the marketing
    sales and stuff that’s been
    for me has been a lot of fun being
    having the creative looking for
    how to market in taglines and posters
    and that kind of stuff
    yeah how what what kind of marketing are
    you doing
    i mean mostly you know it’s been um
    instagram and facebook
    you know trying to do for you know kind
    of as much free social media and
    marketing as i can
    i mean obviously it’s you know google
    and yelp
    uh you know making sure those sites are
    up to date and everything’s
    um looking good on that um you know the
    website
    trying to drive traffic to the website
    um and then we’ve done
    so there’s basically you know there’s
    really two businesses here as you’ve
    been talking
    to people about the pickup and delivery
    and wash and fall
    versus the self-service i mean there
    really are two different businesses so
    advertising for the self-service is all
    local you know so we’ve done
    um you know these mailers the direct
    marketing mailers that went out of
    neighborhood
    and we had we’d say come bring this in
    and you get you know five dollars
    towards your next watch plus a little
    bag of soap
    and that’s brought in a lot of people
    you know in the neighborhood for the
    self-service
    um and then it’s word of mouth you know
    for that um
    and good signage you know one of the big
    you know nice streets without making
    sure people could see it
    but then there’s the marketing for the
    pickup and the livery and the washable
    which is totally
    separate and it’s a much wider area in
    la you know
    it’s i’m trying to do the whole valley
    um san fernando valley so it’s it’s uh
    and marketing to different demographics
    so it’s about
    it’s not been trial and error too how do
    i reach them you know which ads work
    the best get the most clicks you know
    i’ve tried a bunch of different ads and
    i do the same um you know i’ll pay 25
    bucks to let’s say instagram
    so it’ll run five days i’ll spend five
    dollars a day
    and that’s my template and then i’ll see
    how many clicks each one gets you know
    you can see
    someone get you know 25 clicks a dollar
    a click
    so i’m getting five so i’m getting more
    right so right it kind of helps me see
    what’s
    what people are engaging with yeah
    you’re running some good testing there
    for those ads and stuff that’s pretty
    cool
    well i wanted to hear a little bit about
    your pick up and delivery
    business too how did you get into that
    and how’s that going and
    tell me a little bit about it um well so
    you know the the wash and folds is the
    beginning of it and
    you know i knew i wanted to do that um
    you know as soon as we open you know
    both stores because it’s just it’s such
    a
    it’s just such a great revenue to stream
    and it’s you know the profit margin is
    really high and you already have the
    infrastructure
    you have someone there working at the
    machines you have everything there you
    may as well
    you know pick up a do do wash and fold
    so we started with that
    staff got really good at it you know we
    started building a custom base for just
    drop-offs um
    and then uh in may with copa dead you
    know
    i saw the numbers drop you know 25
    and i thought okay this is time to pick
    and deliver i mean because
    everyone’s doing you know that’s what
    the head of everyone’s getting every
    service now
    and um so i just kind of
    cobbled together something and got it
    going i just want to get it started
    so it was just um it was i had a guy who
    was
    already kind of working the store and he
    was he was dry he would drive and pick
    stuff up um i basically just did
    marketing on like
    you know social media just started that
    way also reached out to customers we
    already had
    emailed them and sent out you know
    campaign with that
    um and uh it was just really simple just
    if we got an order you know we come
    through the website
    um i set up a square real basic uh
    booking site so you could book a time
    and then um if the order came in he
    would get a text
    he’d go pick it up bring the store
    they’d do it you take it back
    um so i was looking like i was looking
    back at the numbers so in may we started
    we did seven orders
    um and so and it was like you know
    it was great because it was a way to
    just try it out see how it works
    um and see if people were you know happy
    with it
    then in june we did 15 orders uh so we
    doubled in june
    uh you know we started some return
    customers some new customers
    july and august which was the summer
    anyway dropped to like nine or
    eight or nine for both months it kind of
    went down a little bit
    but then september october november had
    gone from 14 to 26 to 30.
    um so that’s what i felt like we were
    finally getting our groove in terms of
    like really
    getting the word out a lot of repeat
    customers um
    and uh and a lot of new customers
    starting to come in and that’s look
    that’s there that’s one a day
    we’re getting this month i mean you’ve
    had guys on and they’re doing 50 a day
    so we’re just at the beginning of this
    but what i’ve done is
    i bought curbside i know you’ve had
    those guys on yeah
    that’s my next thing so we’re in process
    on that right now
    um real quick too just
    you know for anybody listening that uh
    i’ll link to
    matt simmons’s interview uh in the show
    notes
    or if you’re on youtube in the
    descriptions uh that is one of the most
    popular episodes
    out there uh matt simmons with with
    curbside laundry so
    check that out i’ve been dealing with
    ken there has been great um
    they’re they’re yeah those uh now
    they had a webinar maybe that’s the same
    thing you’re talking about
    but man it was uh i it was so
    i was like i’m in i was just sold and um
    i called them and
    i’m about to do this and i’ve been
    looking at i knew about it anyway for
    the last couple of years but
    you know it’s an investment and it
    already had kind of the square machine
    and i have the way we do things so it’s
    a big
    you know change but i felt like okay
    we’re growing this thing and that’s the
    way to scale it because also
    what i was doing is so mom and pop it’s
    like you know
    the way the texts come in and the
    communication and the orders is very
    like
    we’re able to do 30 a month for sure but
    to do 60 80 120
    so actually so right now um actually at
    11 o’clock i’m doing curbside training
    online like for the software stuff um
    the equipment’s all coming in um i built
    out cabinets in both stores
    to hold the clothes because we you know
    running out of room in the sports and
    these laundry mats typically don’t have
    a lot of storage space right yeah
    so we’re like building shelves in the
    back trying to squeeze back
    so we built um two big cabinets uh in
    both a big cabin each store to hold
    and sort of organize on shelves and
    where everything’s gonna go
    um and then i think with this with the
    new software we’ll be able to
    the really the i mean all of it’s
    important but it’s the website and the
    booking
    for me too because my website i created
    myself which is fine but it just can’t
    do very much
    and the booking site all i can do is
    book a time you can’t i really said
    and with their website you can do all
    your
    you know what kind of soap do you want
    when all the scheduling of really
    specific detailed stuff
    um you know you pay online all that
    stuff which it’s just
    much more advanced um so
    and the website’s more is better
    designed to funnel in
    you know your customer comes in it looks
    they look at it then they end up
    scheduling a pickup
    so i’m excited about all that i’m hoping
    that that will help me scale in the next
    six months to a year
    yeah huge uh so you have you haven’t
    really been operating with the software
    up until
    now is that no no not even now yeah i
    mean we’re gonna
    uh i think i mean hopefully by
    december 1st maybe we’ll be kind of
    running running it
    um yeah but you know right now it’s just
    square
    and kind of doing it yeah oh my gosh i
    mean it’s gonna
    it’s gonna make things so much easier
    for you i think uh
    and for the customer too to make those
    orders so i think you’ll be
    you’ll be pretty excited about it yeah
    i’m sorry
    cool well man that’s that’s awesome i i
    love
    that you i mean i i kind of love your
    philosophy of just like
    let’s say yes and then let’s figure it
    out and you kind of did that with
    you know becoming an agent and then you
    know
    yeah i’ll try to sell your dry cleaner
    you know
    yeah i’ll try to help your guy find a
    laundromat to buy
    okay you’re not gonna buy yeah i’ll buy
    it that sounds good to me
    like okay yeah i’ll take another one
    okay i’ll do
    you know pick up a delivery bit like i
    love that because
    i do think good things happen when you
    say yes
    even when bad things happen when you say
    yes i i agree i think it’s
    you know and you know i learned this
    from hollywood because you know
    it’s such a tough business and with so
    much projection you know and so
    but you you know and so it’s hard and
    it’s barrier to entry is really
    challenging you know but you know you go
    for it you do
    you got to put your stuff out there you
    gotta it’s like you want to have i mean
    you want to calculate
    i’m not i’m not advocating like you know
    just go out and buy the first thing you
    see
    spend all your money and hope for the
    best you do all your homework
    but you got to pull the trigger on
    something
    and if it’s not this deal look for the
    next one but i if you don’t pull the
    trigger you just you don’t do anything i
    think
    that’s where the rich dad poor dad and
    that you know five so years ago
    looking at this wealth building and
    understanding like i gotta pull the
    trigger on some things because
    it’s the building of that that 5 10 20
    years from now suddenly
    you’ve got multiple businesses you pay
    down the you know
    you’ve got equity in them the revenue’s
    up the value’s up you can sell them you
    can you know
    run them i can buy real estate with
    money you know just continue that
    process so
    you gotta get in yeah that that’s
    exactly
    how you build wealth right you take that
    first
    step and that’s the hardest one i mean
    it really is the hardest one because
    i mean i i talk to coaching clients all
    the time who
    you know who are like i’ve been doing
    this you know i’ve been looking into
    laundromats for years or decades or
    whatever
    and i’ve never taken that step because
    that first step is so scary
    you know there’s like you mentioned
    before like you don’t know
    how it’s supposed to perform like you
    don’t know how it’s gonna go
    you just kind of have to take that step
    and
    maybe it flops completely and you lose
    everything you work so hard for that’s
    scary right but maybe it doesn’t
    and and i like what you said that you
    know with the laundromats
    as opposed to screenwriting in
    particular you said you know you have
    some element of control you have the
    ability to kind of control that
    yeah i in a way i feel like this it’s
    less risky
    to do this than because um
    because you can i guess i felt like i’m
    not gonna fail because i’m gonna make it
    work
    like no matter what it’s a laundromat
    it’s not
    you know i’m not you know i’m not elon
    musk sending a rocket to mars
    these are yeah it’s watching your
    clothes yeah
    yeah i’m not sending a rocket to mars
    yet that’s right when he calls and wants
    to
    depart and i’ll say yes um
    but you know so these are like
    you wash your clothes people do it
    there’s a zillion of them it’s putting
    on business
    so you can make it work you know and if
    it’s
    so you learn on the fly and you learn
    what works and doesn’t but you just got
    to put in the time to have to make sure
    it works you know what i mean i don’t
    want to lose my
    investment and all that my time so i
    knew
    that no matter what i know unless
    something catastrophic i guess happens
    but you know that
    that you just keep working harder and
    harder marketing whatever you do to get
    people to come in
    and once you enter people in then you’ve
    got a business you know and then
    you can grow it or not but at least
    you’re not losing you know that’s
    yeah awesome philosophy i’m a big fan of
    that
    um you know i know some people take a
    little more conservative approach but
    i’m a big fan of that so
    kudos from me to you
    uh hey i wanted to ask you too uh so we
    we kind of got connected just on
    instagram uh i think randomly i think
    yeah and your your
    instagram really stood out to me because
    your laundromat
    i don’t know if both of them are just
    one of them is half price laundromat
    right yeah that’s the whole brand yeah
    yeah the brand so i mean i would love
    to hear about that concept and how you
    came up with that
    and and what that looks like what that
    means
    and how that’s working out yeah so
    you know i mean again i had no idea what
    i was doing when i started
    but i um with that first store
    um i really wanted once i found out that
    there were you could have a card store
    and not a coin store i really wanted a
    card store because
    uh that’s the one thing that was kind of
    always a turn thing to turn off to me
    thinking about london it’s like
    collecting those coins buckets of coins
    and how do you weigh them and then
    people steal them and break in so and
    how do you track it all
    um so once i realized we could put
    make it a card store then i was like oh
    this is great you can actually you know
    change the pricing obviously you can
    make it
    doesn’t have to be by the quarter it can
    be 99 cents or whatever
    and you can change the pricing time of
    day pricing right you can look and see
    what your
    you know high traffic low traffic areas
    are and the low traffic you can
    lower the price to try to get people in
    so i thought well that’s a really
    that seems kind of unique to this
    business because i don’t see that very
    much
    it’s mostly just you know it’s what it
    is and what 98
    or 95 percent are all coins are still
    all coin swords
    yeah percentage yeah so i thought okay
    well if i
    if i can control that um maybe that
    could be my
    hook my you know concept so i thought
    well
    if i you know originally i thought i’ll
    do time of day pricing so every day
    there’d be times where the machines
    would just
    drop to half price like in the low
    traffic times
    which we actually tried at the beginning
    um so anyway but i thought okay
    well if it’s if it’s going to drop to
    half price
    but i just call it half price laundry
    like and let that be
    the concept and um because i thought
    well
    what are you going along with that for
    you i mean why would you pick one
    obviously location right to be close to
    you
    but beyond that it’s price and
    cleanliness
    right so you can either call it you know
    clean town laundry or whatever
    or something to do with the
    affordability of it i think
    um to me anyway so anyway i thought
    who wouldn’t want to go to a place
    called happer’s laundry like
    right yeah totally it seems like yeah
    yeah
    so um so that’s kind of where that came
    from we came out of it being a card
    store to be able to control the pricing
    and then we um we tried that time of day
    and it was just too complicated it was
    too complicated to market it to tell
    people like
    okay on mondays you know it’s gonna be
    half price from 9am to 11
    30. it just was you know it was too much
    um
    so what we ended up doing was uh having
    a half price thursday that was our
    lowest traffic day and um so every
    thursday is half price thursday
    um and then uh
    so um and then we’re also doing running
    half price specials
    during the month just on a set of
    machines would be always half price
    um so you know we’re trying to make sure
    we live up to the name
    um but the ability to change that is so
    easy
    you know and change that pricing it’s so
    easy so that’s where it came from
    yeah i love the the card system just the
    flexibility you have to be able to do
    different things like that promotional
    things that customers really love
    um i’m curious how how did it affect
    your traffic
    on like on thursdays
    is it better than sunday yeah
    that makes sense it wasn’t the worst day
    the best day yeah i mean and it took
    it took a while it’s starting to get
    both stores are on the same trajectory
    you know we’re like six months into the
    new store and
    the revenue has been going about 30 you
    know a month
    and uh thursdays are like the beginning
    like you know a handful of people
    a little bit more you know one thing new
    you’re gonna need to know it’s there
    and it’s consistent um now thursdays are
    super busy the new store just like
    they’re at the first door
    um i mean we to the point where like you
    know
    we’re building these cabinets i was
    telling you like to hold the washing
    fold stuff
    and last week the guys were in there
    building the cabinets and it was
    thursday
    and my staff was like you cannot let
    people do work on thursdays we can’t
    visit you know that we can’t handle it
    there’s just too much going on
    yeah so from now on the mandate is no
    you know no work gets done on a thursday
    you know
    um so it’s been great i mean it seems
    that really works
    yeah thursday’s a new sunday over there
    i love it
    yeah well it really gives you two big
    days because sunday’s
    still a huge day yeah but now thursday
    is a little bit better so you get really
    and then saturday obviously but those
    thursday sunday for us yeah
    yeah i like that i like that did did you
    see a significant drop in any of the
    other days
    no that was the thing you know i wasn’t
    sure if i was gonna cut into business
    from other days but it really didn’t
    seem to do that at all um
    it seemed to just raise thursday and
    everything else pretty much stayed the
    same
    i mean if anything i think it probably
    helped
    increase business overall just because
    it’s more awareness and people
    and you know it was so busy that if you
    came on thursday and you couldn’t get in
    or you had to wait you know you found
    the store
    right and you come back yeah
    yeah that’s awesome i love that as you
    know from a marketing perspective that’s
    genius man money money talk so
    [Music]
    yeah so
    yeah yeah i love that um
    the uh man i had one more question i was
    going to ask you
    but you know i’m getting old over here i
    just
    you gotta i don’t know how you do it
    it’s a tough job you gotta listen you
    gotta oh god you know she’s prepared for
    the next question but you gotta be in
    the moment you know
    that’s right that’s right uh all right
    well maybe it’ll come back to me
    in a little bit but for right now i
    would love to get
    down to
    [Applause]
    and business of business just a little
    bit
    and here a little bit of like just the
    details of your business i mean we’ve
    talked about
    some of those already but a couple of
    little more details
    uh number one where where so you’re in
    sherman oaks
    right so i live your laundromats located
    so
    and yeah for those i mean sure moses so
    there’s la is there’s
    the city in the valley the city is
    beverly hills and you know
    all that santa monica and the valleys
    and san fernando valley um
    so sherman oaks is kind of new whatever
    i did the laundromats are in panorama
    city and
    arlida which are like kind of north
    north
    valley um
    yeah okay yeah no that’s good that’s
    good
    so uh so you have two laundromats you
    you
    started talking about real estate do you
    have any investment real estate or no
    i don’t at this moment um i uh
    there was a deal i’m looking at that
    would be
    buying the building and then putting
    watermelon in it
    which i’m really interested in doing
    that yeah
    you know the building that i had the
    store in um
    so i don’t know that this particularly
    was gonna happen but that i’m looking at
    that
    so part of it was i felt like this
    business was a way to get cash flow i
    know you talked about that you know the
    cash flow of this business is much
    higher than it is in real estate
    typically
    um so my idea was let me get some let me
    get cash flow going
    and then i’ll take the cash flow and
    start investing in real estate
    um but i didn’t want to do it in the
    reverse because yeah then i don’t have
    any cash flow invest in anything else
    you know for a while yeah it is
    i mean i love i say this all the time
    but i love the relationship between
    real estate and laundromats for that
    reason
    really and it’s kind of funny because
    it’s a little bit backwards from
    the normal model the normal model is
    create a bunch of equity
    or save a bunch of money or whatever and
    then with that
    go by cash flow essentially with it and
    but i love kind of flipping that
    because if you can get that cash flow
    and you take away
    you know just those the basic pressure
    and the basic
    needs that you have for just you know
    daily cash flow
    then you can really focus on doing more
    and doing bigger stuff so
    yeah that was really appealing to me to
    sort of have enough money flowing in
    that i
    wouldn’t be as concerned about you know
    just
    living in the basics and then you really
    can zoom out and start to
    save and then then when you’re you know
    and also with this business i mean the
    the idea of the washington pickup
    delivery adding to it is
    such a there’s so much room to add
    revenue there that
    um it’s kind of limitless so with all
    that money that i hope to bring
    in as this thing grows that’s the
    leftover
    after i pay for my expenses then you
    start investing you know in
    other other things so that was exciting
    totally
    i love that and i know too you know with
    laundromats another huge perk of it and
    we
    you know you kind of we talked about
    this a little bit too but it
    it does help you free up that time when
    you have that cash flow
    helps you free up that time and it’s
    like a parent you get more time with the
    kids and you know
    we all know that time’s super limited
    that time goes by really fast and
    trying to make the most of it is you
    know
    optimal and it’s hard to do when you’re
    you know you’re working
    all the time which a lot of us have to
    do i’ve been so interested in this whole
    you know fire movement of the financial
    let’s retire early i mean yeah
    because you know this whole outdated
    concept of work my whole life and then
    when i’m eating now
    we’re trying to go to me like you know
    who wasn’t
    that you know and then you look back and
    like oh i missed all my time with my
    kids and my family because i was at the
    office
    you know so uh yeah for me it’s it’s
    finding a way around that and uh
    freeing up the time this business
    definitely seems to do that i mean
    there’s there’s certainly an investment
    of time at the beginning and for no you
    know
    the setup to get it going to open and
    then
    from open to getting the business really
    on its feet there’s a lot of investment
    time in that
    but once it’s going then you’ve got
    it’s going and then i feel like years
    you know it can just go on that way
    forever so it’s really
    investments from the beginning yeah yeah
    and that’s
    you know that’s a pretty typical
    quote-unquote
    passive income model right where you
    invest a lot of time up front
    and then it i mean it’s not going to run
    itself it’s still a business and you’re
    still dealing with people so there will
    be problems but
    relatively speaking especially relative
    to like a full-time job
    you know you’re going to have a lot more
    time it’s a lot more passive than that
    if you want it to be yeah and you can
    you know
    but you can also spend your time in a
    way that’s
    more valuable i mean on the business you
    know if you’re zoomed out and you’re
    working on marketing and you’re working
    on increasing pickup and delivery
    you know by major percentage points i
    mean that’s
    you know that’s well rewarded time spent
    you know
    yeah huge huge big return on your
    investment
    yeah okay uh so i i think i remember
    you saying you got in the business in
    2018 is that right
    yeah 17 was like when it started in 18
    yeah
    you opened it okay it’s 2020 right now
    in case you’re listening to this in
    2150 or something uh
    by that point yeah if you’re listening
    in 2015
    man the immortal podcast episode right
    here
    going on forever uh talk to you okay so
    you got
    i mean you’re the half prize laundromat
    here talk to me a little bit like give
    me ballparks of
    what have been prices cost i think
    people are always surprised
    you know in new york la you know how low
    prices can be compared to some of these
    like midwest cities who are charging
    yeah i don’t know like an arm and a leg
    i feel like but what are your prices
    looking like
    uh both stores are very similar i mean
    they’re in the same general area they’re
    only like 10 minutes apart so
    it’s um but they range from like two
    the top loader is like 225 um
    and then they go up to like the uh 70
    pounders are um
    750 775. they’re under eight dollars
    okay so between two and eight bucks and
    then on half price days
    it’s one in four dollars you know a huge
    difference i mean
    think about doing a wash for for a 70
    pound machine for four bucks
    you know it’s it’s a bargain yeah that’s
    i’m gonna come do my pick up and
    delivery at your laundromat
    on thursdays
    just kidding uh okay are you fully
    attended
    partially attended what are you what are
    you running right now
    yeah so we’re fully attended um you know
    that was one of the things too at the
    beginning i wasn’t sure
    you know it’s like the idea of like hey
    how great would it be just to have
    automatic doors and nobody shows up and
    run you know but the reality is it’s got
    to be clean and it’s gotta
    you gotta have customer service
    especially i think these days as
    as i’ve heard a lot of guests talking
    about you know the businesses you know
    is is is evolving and i think you know
    so
    anyway they’re both fully attended um uh
    from you know
    open close and i think that’s key to
    have someone there to be
    friendly to greet them when they come in
    hey i’m here if you need me
    you know and and because there’s always
    something it’s always oh there’s too
    much soap and the
    the door got locked i mean there’s you
    know a million little things that go on
    i don’t know how to
    in the card system like how do i you
    know use that so having someone there
    has just
    been really key yeah so fully attended
    what kind of hours
    are you guys uh we’re 16 to 10 p.m okay
    yeah pretty pretty typical and you’re
    are you card only or do you also accept
    coin
    we’re card only on both stores nice i
    love that
    i love that did you feel like there was
    any
    resistance from customers for doing card
    only
    i think it i think probably the
    beginning there was i don’t know how
    much resistance but i think
    it was it was different and i don’t
    think they were used to it you know yeah
    maybe that accounted for a little bit
    extra time it took to get
    to get rolling and get people in there
    um just because
    that wasn’t what they’re used to doing
    um but it seems like once
    they got once they tried it they really
    liked it i mean because one of the
    stores
    um you know would do a 10 bonus so if
    you put in 10 bucks you get 11
    you just get a free dollar every right
    so i mean
    that’s pretty good in itself um and uh
    you know the idea that they can uh keep
    the card
    and also bonus points that you know they
    automatically accrue and then you get
    free washes so
    a lot of benefits to it yeah huge
    benefits to the
    card system yeah i love that was it was
    it super expensive to put in
    um i mean you know it’s yeah
    yeah i guess i mean
    the original store you know it was part
    of the equipment order right i mean so
    yeah it was uh let’s see
    another like an additional 10
    to the total cost okay of the equipment
    and then
    the new store already had it so
    yeah the reason i asked i get asked that
    question all the time do you feel like
    the
    the investment was worth it though i do
    because
    uh i mean i don’t know how you keep
    track of it otherwise i mean
    everything’s
    on the you know i can go online in one
    second see exactly how
    everything’s doing um day to day the
    store i can pull up a report in two
    seconds it shows me the month the year i
    mean
    i you know it really helps me otherwise
    you’re just
    always behind always i guess counting i
    don’t know it seems
    uh challenging yeah also you know where
    it allows us to um
    you know take credit cards or take um
    debit cards so
    that money goes straight into a bank
    account you know so
    it’s still mostly cash and 75 percent
    cash but that 25 percent is like
    immediate in your bank account so that
    helps
    yeah super nice i mean i think card
    system is awesome
    i highly recommend it highly and i’m
    jealous
    because i don’t have cards yet gosh no
    how is it coins is it
    how is it counting them and all that is
    it challenging or is it
    no i mean it’s not channel i i use a
    scale and i weigh them
    right it’s a counter scale so it tells
    me how many quarters there are
    so i mean it’s pretty quick and easy but
    you know it’s still a
    hassle i got to go in the coin boxes get
    full or the changers empty
    or you know a bill gets jammed and it
    shuts down
    one of the change or i don’t you know
    there’s always like
    stuff like that so keeping track of it
    in terms of your numbers i mean
    so i i just created a
    semi-elaborate spreadsheet that keeps
    track of stuff in fact
    you can download it if you have a coin
    store and you have a headache
    just like i did you can download it at
    laundromat resource.com
    check out i believe you gotta sign up
    for the free membership
    and get the go to the member resources
    but you can download that spreadsheet
    for free right there look at that good
    little plug there
    that’s nice i think i’m gonna check it
    out i’m always looking for room
    you don’t need it but well you got the
    data
    that you need that’s awesome um all
    right one more question and down to
    business
    how like give me a ballpark how many
    hours you spending on these two
    laundromats a week
    um so you know
    in the beginning um
    and that you know getting it going and
    putting in the time to get it started
    the first number of months
    uh is very different than the later
    months so
    in the beginning but even then i feel
    like i’d spend
    you know maybe maybe two hours a day you
    know
    you know um maybe maybe two or three
    hours a day five days a week or
    something at the very beginning getting
    it
    really up and running um and then it
    just starts to diminish you know then it
    starts to be like
    you know an hour a day there’d be like
    you know a phone call to deal with or
    something or
    it’s really it’s really the time that
    i’m the expansion stuff like the
    the the pick of the delivery and new
    things and website stuff that’s really
    bourbon spending the time
    but i don’t know yeah two hours a day i
    guess
    you know at the most some days one hour
    some days none
    but never and you know like we’ve been
    having staff meetings so you know i go
    in that’s a couple hours you know
    um but it’s not a full-time job
    at all yeah i mean yeah that’s awesome i
    i think it’s just helpful for people to
    get an idea of how much time
    owners are spending you know at their
    stores and working on it you know a lot
    of people come into it with like
    hey i’m here once a week i collect
    quarters
    or take the bills out of the card you
    know the changer
    or the uh the card loader and
    roll out you know there’s a little bit
    more to it than that but
    like you said it’s not significant you
    know after you get things going and
    enrolling it’s yeah you certainly can
    sit back and just
    you know do the books and and keep it
    really simple
    but i also think it you know then it
    stagnates and
    you know i’m interested in growing it so
    and i enjoy that part of it so
    that’s been fun for me to spend time
    doing awesome
    all right well we got another section we
    like to call
    the secret sauce listen up it’s the
    secret sauce
    the secret sauce is you know what’s one
    thing that you feel like is really
    working for your business right now
    that other owners can implement to help
    them improve their business
    um i mean we were talking about but i
    think like really it’s staff
    you know um having the right people
    there is just so key it’s key to getting
    good reviews the reviews on the outdoor
    key to getting business the
    you know the the google pages um the
    reviews
    are so key so um and i feel like so many
    reviews are based on customer service so
    to me getting the right people in there
    and if someone’s not right
    you know it’s hard to fire someone but
    just you got to move forward
    and try to find that right person in
    that right team
    as i said earlier um and then um
    the right camera the right cast you
    gotta get really fantastic
    it’s an ensemble you know it’s uh it’s
    it’s not a it’s not a not a one-hander
    um
    and uh and then the second thing is
    really this this washington delivery
    business i think if you if you’ve got
    your self-service thing kind of rolling
    i mean it’s it just makes sense you’ve
    already got the investment
    um you may as well maximize it and
    they’re summing down ways with
    technology to uh
    to do that and it just
    as opposed to buying another store
    [Music]
    just invest a little bit you know
    spending a lot of how to do a whole new
    store
    spend a little bit to invest in the
    store you already got and expand that
    into those services to me to me that
    makes the most sense
    at this point yeah i think both of those
    are awesome
    secret sauces i found with reviews
    most of my good reviews are
    because of really good staff most of my
    bad reviews are because
    you know something was dirty or a
    machine was busted right so
    having a good staff there that’s gonna
    encourage those good reviews
    and also keep things clean to discourage
    the bad reviews and let you know when
    you need to be
    working on these machines if they go
    down uh
    man having a great staff is it’s
    money in your pocket it’s key really
    yeah yeah
    yeah i think you’re right about the
    delivery business the pickup and
    delivery
    you know you have the you have the stuff
    if you can
    if you can figure out a way to get it
    going you know even if you’re just doing
    it yourself
    you know before and after work or
    whatever like get it going
    i mean it just seemed to me like even if
    i’m doing you know i deliver one a day
    that’s just for i’m still bringing in
    that’s his business that wouldn’t be
    there
    it’s at a premium because it’s the you
    know watching full prices
    got the machines i’ve got someone to do
    you know it just makes sense
    totally yeah i love that and makes
    it just makes a lot of sense so cool
    next section is called
    pro tips pro tips
    pro tips is for the newbie the person
    who doesn’t own a laundromat yet but
    maybe is looking to buy their first one
    you got any advice for them
    i guess you know we were talking about
    those a little bit before but i think
    you know
    in general the advice is take the leap
    you know at some point
    make you know pull the trigger um
    but not without doing you know all your
    research
    i think you got to look at a bunch of
    them and you gotta look at your area and
    you gotta do you gotta do your homework
    so you know
    what to expect you know and uh and then
    lower your expectations and just hope
    you know before you get into one make
    sure that
    it doesn’t take your absolute highest
    projection for you create a break even
    like you want to
    make sure that even if you do okay not
    you know half your projection will still
    be okay um
    so uh you know be pragmatic and and be
    um and do your research but once you
    sort of in that zone where you’re like
    okay it looks good but i don’t know then
    that’s your fear then i think you got to
    just jump in
    and actually you guys you got to do it
    and then just know that
    you can make it work you know if if you
    need to put in more time to make it work
    you can
    and awesome yeah
    awesome awesome pro tip because i mean
    like we talked about taking that leap is
    it’s
    hard to do uh but
    you know you’re never going to get
    somewhere unless you take that first
    step right you’re going to be
    where you’re at forever if unless you
    take that first step so you got to take
    that leap at some point yeah there’s
    really the
    analysis parallelism paralysis you know
    you know so you want to analyze and do
    it and then
    but you you can feel it i think and
    you’re that point where you keep looking
    over the same numbers in the same
    spreadsheet and then you’re adjusting it
    by
    one dollar here two dollars there that’s
    the point at which you’re paralyzed you
    know then you go all right i gotta do it
    yeah i spent my fair share of time doing
    that earlier oh i i spend a lot of time
    yeah i love spreadsheets but uh
    but you know yeah you know you gotta do
    it yeah i’ve got
    i’ve got all kinds of spreadsheets i
    created that show me how i’m going to be
    like a multi-multi-millionaire yes i
    love those spreadsheets yeah
    if i just do this this and this yeah
    it’s going to be this
    if i just get this return and i can say
    that’s this much money every month
    hey if you’re interested in those
    spreadsheets hit me up i’ll i’ll send
    them over and show you how you too
    can have 30 million dollars in the next
    20 years
    yeah with laundromats
    um all right well awesome pro tip we are
    laundromat resource so
    i would love to ask do you have any
    resources that you would recommend
    to help people improve themselves or
    their business um
    yeah i i think uh i think books are the
    way to go and you’ve got a great list of
    books on your
    site um i would just go to that
    go to your list and uh and read them all
    the one that
    really for me was was a game trader was
    rich dad poor dad
    you know i mean it’s not a bestseller
    for a million years for no reason it’s
    just
    it was an eye-opening book that
    made me understand oh this is how rich
    people get rich and wealthier and this
    is why i’m not
    it’s not happening because it’s you have
    to do certain things
    um and i would start with that if you
    haven’t read that book
    um it’s really great just financial 101
    i think
    and then you can go you know advance
    that but i think books i think you just
    you get all those
    the great books that are on your site
    get into them and read them
    yeah awesome advice and i you know i
    really
    couldn’t agree more with the rich dad
    poor dad definitely a life changer for
    me
    also uh some people love it some people
    hate it
    but man i you know on this podcast and
    i’m a lot of the other entrepreneur and
    real estate investor
    podcast that i listen to when this
    question gets asked rich dad poor dad is
    by far
    the most answered question
    that i have seen and so that just tells
    me something get in there and
    and learn something from it it’s an easy
    read it’s fun
    yes you learn a lot yeah it’s narrative
    it’s
    it’s awesome um i wanted to sneak in uh
    another question and because you had
    mentioned earlier the fire
    movement
    yeah yeah uh you had mentioned earlier
    about the
    fire movement the financial independence
    retire early for those
    who aren’t familiar with it i’m
    wondering if you have any resources
    for that uh to point people to maybe to
    introduce them if they don’t know
    anything about it
    there are i read a couple of books and i
    don’t if you just google fire
    you know um i can’t recommend a
    particular book but there were two or
    three that popped up
    you know fire
    [Music]
    whatever i read the first couple that i
    saw
    were enough to give you the idea of it
    um
    so i would just you know google that and
    find a couple of those books
    uh only new ones called
    you just google it you’ll see them um
    but i thought they were great because it
    kind of gives you
    um a new strategy new philosophy instead
    of
    you know waiting for years and years to
    hopefully retire
    with something you know you really start
    now and you really start building it
    today and have the life you want
    as soon as you can you know
    yeah i love that philosophy and i think
    one good place that i’ve seen
    to get an introduction of it is um
    if you google mr money mustache oh yeah
    he’s got a he’s got a blog on it there’s
    a there’s a couple other
    really good blogs and there’s some other
    podcasts i’ll link that one
    um in case you want to kind of go get a
    little intro
    because he’s got everything from there
    you can go you know all kinds of links
    yeah he he wrote a blog post i think
    that put him on the map
    a while back that’s basically like the
    simple math of
    retiring early or something like that
    and it basically tells you
    hey if you’re this old and you want to
    retire in this many years here’s how
    much you have to save every month
    and it really just breaks it down and
    makes it really simple right
    and that you know the idea of taking
    control of your
    financial situation is is you know
    it’s so key because we just spend we
    spend on stuff and it’s gone
    and we’re like oh i don’t i don’t have
    enough to i think we all say well i
    don’t have enough to do that
    i don’t have to buy a partner why don’t
    i buy a laundromat you know
    but the truth is is that you know you
    can start small you can
    start saving small um uh and uh you know
    and
    build it up and then start small with
    the investment you have
    um but it’s all about starting and
    saving and getting that
    habit going you know and then if you and
    then suddenly you’re building you know i
    got 500 bucks
    built up a thousand bucks you know now i
    constructed new things
    you know yeah love that and
    i mean it goes right back to your pro
    tip so you know get started
    get started with something well hank man
    this has been
    awesome i am i i really appreciate you
    coming on you’ve been sharing a ton of
    awesome information i think it’s going
    to help a lot of people inspire a lot of
    owners
    and soon-to-be owners in how to improve
    their businesses and how to get into the
    business
    really really appreciate you coming on i
    have one more question for you
    if there are people out there that were
    inspired by you and they want to
    connect with you maybe ask you some
    questions about you know
    how you got in the business a little
    more or uh
    or how you’re running your business
    what’s the best way they can connect
    with you
    uh you call my people i’ll have my
    people you know call your people got
    no emails are great it’s great just
    email me and uh
    i’d love to hear from people and talk to
    people and expand my network
    and and meet some folks so i’m very open
    i love to collaborate i love to
    share and hear stuff so awesome what’s
    your email address
    it’s uh uh it’s
    hank.havepricelaundry.com
    awesome
    yeah and i’ll put that in the show notes
    in the description
    uh if you’re on the podcaster on youtube
    hank man
    this has been incredible i really again
    i really appreciate you coming on it’s
    so good to actually finally connect with
    you
    uh you know face to face uh well sort of
    you know the way we connect face to face
    these days um
    yeah looking forward to connecting in
    person someday soon since we’re so close
    i know i know me too well thank you
    jordan i really appreciate you having me
    on
    and keep doing what you’re doing because
    it’s uh it is a great resource you’ve
    named it correctly
    it is a great reason to support all
    things laundromats
    well i appreciate that a lot and we will
    talk to you
    soon sounds great thanks all right that
    was
    awesome hank man so good so good thank
    you for coming on
    and sharing so much wisdom as promised
    for me the big takeaway from me was
    actually a mindset takeaway i loved he
    said this quote he said i’m not going to
    fail
    because i’m going to make it work and i
    love that mindset and i just want to
    ingram like brainwash myself
    with that quote i’m going to make it
    work
    so i refuse to fail and i just
    in everything i do that’s the mindset i
    want to have because adversity will come
    bumps in the road will come and it will
    be difficult
    to navigate those but if you can
    just decide and bet on yourself and say
    i will make it work
    man i think the sky’s the limit for you
    so that was my takeaway but i encourage
    you as
    always every single week take one thing
    away from this
    interview with hank today and apply it
    to your life
    and or to your business and watch as you
    do that
    every week how big your business is
    gonna grow
    it’s ah man it’s gonna be awesome we’re
    all going to get better and do it
    together so make sure you head over to
    the forums
    and get better together over there and
    as always if you’re interested in being
    on the podcast check out laundromat
    resource.com
    podcast guest again link
    for that and everything else from the
    episode in the description or the show
    notes
    and man i i i can’t wait to see you guys
    next week you’re gonna be blown away by
    next week’s episode you’re gonna
    love it all right we’ll see you peace
    [Music]

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