47. Wheelin’ and Dealin’ Their Way to 10 Laundromats with Logan Wuethrich

Logan Wuethrich and his father have accumulated 10 laundromats and are on the lookout for more. They started off in small towns and have since expanded into larger towns. This give Logan a great perspective for anyone looking to buy a laundromat in a small town and scale their business!

With solid laundromat business advice packed in, Logan tells the story of how his dad got into the laundromat business, expanded his laundromat portfolio, and roped Logan in to help him run the business. Now, Logan has laundromat fever and is actively looking to expand their laundromat empire!

Get ready to take some notes because we cover a lot of ground in this episode, including:

Logan’s dad’s story breaking into the business
Building a strip center with no capital
Tanning salons as a complementary business
Zombiemats and how to make them profitable
How to accumulate hard assets with little or no capital
Systems to run a scaled up business
Making a good offer on a laundromat business
Small town laundromats vs. big town laundromats
Systematic redundancy
When to cut corners and when not to

And a whole lot more!

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Website: https://washboardsolutions.com
Email: [email protected]

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Logan's Bio

I am 26 years old, born and raised in NW Indiana. Married my high school sweetheart at 19. She is a nurse, and in a short amount of time I bounced between several different jobs. We spent an amount of time overseas as teachers and school administrators, I drove a school bus, built high ropes courses, developed and ran extensive internship programs, was a director at a summer camp, and a youth minister.

Currently, I am operating my fathers company, which consists of 10 Laundromats in NWI. We also operate a carwash, 2 check cashing locations, and a tanning salon. The company was founded by my father when I was 9 on a whim. We used to have several dozen rental properties but as of the end of last year we consolidated all investments into the laundry industry. We are in the stages of a buyout, as my dad’s goal has always been to sell and retire at 55.

I also have a separate company of my own, (Washboard Laundry Solutions), that is the factory rep for Cryptopay laundry products. I plan to utilize this company to provide products and solutions for laundromat owners (when I can find the time!).

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Episode Transcript

Read the Transcript Here

hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the

laundromat resource podcast this is show

number 47 and i’m pumped you’re here

today we have an awesome episode with

logan weetrick who’s got a bunch of

laundromats

and a bunch of diverse laundromats it’s

kind of cool to hear the comparison

and contrast of his different

laundromats and also

uh he talks a lot about his dad and how

his dad originally got into the business

and uh it’s just really really cool to

hear his dad’s story too you’re gonna

learn a ton

i know i did so i can’t wait for you to

meet

logan and we’re going to jump into that

in a second but first of all i want to

remind you

the forums are still going and they’re

going strong so if you haven’t been over

the forums in a little while

head over to laundromat dot com slash

forums

links in the description or in the show

notes which

this link in every link in this episode

will be at laundromat resource

dot com show 47

so check that out there but on the

forums there’s a ton going on over there

lately and

a lot of people are getting a lot of

help and connecting with each other

very very cool one uh conversation i

thought was a good one

particularly good one and one to

highlight was

somebody was asking about the wash dry

fold

standards that you should train your

attendance to and i thought that was a

really great question

especially for those owners who are

looking to start a wash dry fold

business

and who are trying to figure out you

know how do you fold clothes what

uh what detergents do you use what do

you package it in all those little

questions

that’s happening over there on the forum

so if you got something to add to that

or any of the other things

that are all any of the other

conversations happening over on the

forums head over there and check those

out

also i want to remind you we do have a

new members introduction forum so go

over there and

introduce yourself if you haven’t done

that yet and if you have pop on over and

welcome

some newbies there’s a bunch of new ones

from this last week i know we haven’t

welcomed people in a while but

hey you know just wanted to say a quick

welcome to dan shawn

james sherry jason shara

robert scott trenton david elias james

i mean just a bunch of people in this

last week have uh come over and

introduce themselves

so go welcome them say hi introduce

yourself

and uh to them and to everybody else and

uh introduce yourself on that forum if

you haven’t done that yet uh

again community is where it’s at and

when we’re working together we’re all

a whole lot stronger that’s why that

forum is there

that’s why it’s free that’s why it will

always be free

so go check that out there’s forums for

just general laundromat

questions there’s a financing form

there’s a repairs forum

there’s another one too that you’ll have

to go over and check it out

uh because i can’t remember up top my

head but uh

yeah head over there and do that i want

to also remind you that

every week uh thursday every single

thursday

4 p.m pacific time which is best coach

time

7 p.m for you beast coast east coast

timers

uh we’re doing uh a different

uh free webinar live webinar i’m doing

it i’m jumping on there with

a bunch of you guys we’ve had a ton of

people showing up

every single week um so you know this

week i think we’re talking about

how to buy your first laundromat so if

that’s something that

interests you uh head over to laundromat

resource.com you’ll see right at the top

of the home page there there’s a form

that you can fill out just your name and

your email address

and that should get you right into the

uh webinar cool uh man ton of stuff

going on over here

hopefully you’ve been over to laundromat

resource.com lately

and checked out all the different things

going on there’s a ton more in the works

oh like i’m so excited about all these

things happening so make sure you’re

checking back there periodically and

again

spend some time in those forums getting

to know each other cool all right well

let’s jump into it with

jogen wheat jogging i don’t know what

i’m talking about today

logan we trick uh today because i know

you’re going to love this

episode logan it was just a blast i

could have talked to him for

hours longer we’ll definitely have to

have him back on down the line but

i know you’re going to enjoy it so get

out a pad of paper

and a pencil and get ready to take some

notes because he’s going to help you

improve your business let’s do it

logan i am super pumped that you’re on

the podcast thanks for coming on man how

you doing bet

oh i’m pumped as well everybody says

that but no

super cool man uh yeah really excited

i’ve been very hesitant to reach out and

you kind of said hey here’s what i’m

looking for

as far as operators i’m like i fit

couple of those categories maybe i ought

to reach out and

finally introduce myself yeah i mean i

find that’s kind of common actually

people feel like

maybe i shouldn’t come on i only own one

or i’d like own a small one or own some

small ones or whatever like whatever the

case may be but

i do think like man it’s important even

you know if you own one small

laundromat you have a unique experience

and there are other people

listening to this podcast who are trying

to get to where you’re at so

kind of no matter where i know and i

know your situation’s a little different

than that but

no matter where you are in that spectrum

it’s really cool to come on and share

your story how you got in the business

what your experience has been like all

that so

i’m glad you took the leap and decided

to come on i know we’re gonna have a

blast today

yeah yeah absolutely you know it’s funny

there’s times i’ll be like

i hate to admit this but i’ll look at

i’ll look at the list of people that are

you know that have done the podcast like

they probably don’t have any you know

they’re out in la yeah they played on

how much to give me

and i listened to it i’m like what i

mean it’s like oh man that does totally

relate to you know small town indiana so

yeah

yeah and you know what’s funny is that

you know we’ve had we’ve had like the

full spectrum we we had somebody who

doesn’t even have a laundromat yet who’s

in process on the podcast all the way up

into

you know multi-owners you know three

four decades in the

industry uh people on the podcast and

you know some of these really

experienced people you know when before

they come on they’ll say you know what i

listen

to the podcast and it doesn’t matter

who’s on there there’s always

something to pull out and these are

people who like know

this industry forward backward inside

outside and they’re still learning stuff

anyways all that to say hey you know

what everybody’s got something to offer

and their experience matters and can

help other people

so dude kudos to you you get bonus

points today

for coming on the podcast i appreciate

that well let’s talk about i mean

i want to hear about your experience

because you do have a pretty uh unique

experience i think in the industry but

before we get into that

why don’t you tell us a little bit about

you and who are you who’s logan yeah

let’s go deep you know let’s go into the

surface and talk about who you are

cut me off if i if i get too long

because i’m 26 years old

and i feel like between the between the

age of 18

and like late 1819 when i graduated high

school and 26

i went through so many things like

there’s so many things that i bounced

between and like

all things that people held as have held

as careers that i bounced you know that

i bounced through

and um and i i’ll give a uh i’ll get i

gave you this warning before i’ll give

everybody else this morning

it’s been one of those weeks for me and

one of those mornings for me so if i get

a little scatter brain

you know you might have to realize i’ll

keep you focused don’t worry yeah

so 26 years old uh married

uh my high school sweetheart at 19 um

like a month after i graduated high

school

i left the house or i left the house a

day i graduated i walked

loaded all my stuff up in my car like i

had it loaded

went to graduation ceremony helped my

family goodbye and left the school

for my you know for life as an adult wow

a month later engaged my high school

sweetheart

who was a year ahead of me in nursing

school and i got engaged

at 19 and then married at 19 as well

and um she was a nursing student at

purdue she’s an incredibly

uh brilliant woman she was third in her

class at purdue

and uh like garnished the highest award

of nursing students

um she keeps me grounded dude i mean

she’s brilliant

you stumbled on you stumbled on gold and

you just locked it up right away

oh i’m not gonna get any better than

this i know i’m 19. but

yeah beautiful downhill if i pass i knew

i knew i had no other chance

i screwed it up along the way but she

stuck with me and i mean i couldn’t be

happier i’ve got two girls two years old

uh leah eight months old sayla i’m

actually in the nursery right now

because i’m supposed to be in my office

but

that got um you know you know how that

goes yeah so

um two young kids uh when a little bit

of my history

uh as far as what i did for work um i

left high school

and uh worked at a summer camp um during

like it was a it was a it was a third or

50 acre property

it was a summer camp and like a

conference center it was a

christian-based organization and i was

part of a two-year program that was

really loose

and um i spent a year in the states

doing

summer camp stuff doing like missions

kind of stuff

and then my wife and i we got married in

uh 2014

and three months later we flew to haiti

uh for an eight month

uh trip in haiti um oh yeah it was like

it was like a year-long honeymoon not

really

as i said but but we were super pumped

about it and and uh

not to drag out the story but uh we were

in contact with this organization

um and for a long time we knew the

people who ran it

but we got down there and we realized

things weren’t

what they we thought they were and the

americans who were running the

organization

left uh three days after we arrived um

and to go like go back home for a month

um and you’re on your own we’re on our

own i had to learn to drive down there i

had to learn to you know we split i mean

came we came like 80 fluent in the four

months we were there so

long story short um because this kind of

plays into um kind of way that i’m wired

and like

my like the genetics of my of the men in

my family the way we’re wired

and even though i’m working for a

non-profit and uh you know a

christian-based organization

i was i’m always very focused on the

details and like

a lot of people who are in this industry

are or in ministry are really passionate

but they’re terrible at the numbers and

they’re terrible at

management that’s what we learned they

were just you know all and so i was like

hammering them on management stuff

things that they just weren’t you know

they weren’t getting in so we ended up

having to pull out a pull out of that

organization uh

within four months of our eight months

trip that we were there we were at a

uh we were in an orphanage um and a

school uh

a an elementary middle school there that

we were administrators of and helped

organize so anyway i got dengue fever

the last week we were there we pulled

out of that and we ended up flying to

puerto rico

to teach it to school so i spent my wife

and i spent four months in puerto rico i

taught

11th grade there and my wife was a

teacher’s aide

and helped with the nursing department

there and so um

when i was in um puerto rico um

i got a job offer to come back to the

camp after that and actually and

and actually develop a program they said

you know you’ve had a vast

amount of experience we like the way

your organizational skills and those

kind of things

come back and actually develop a real

program because i was kind of invited on

to do

an internship but it wasn’t really

formal it’s like hey we like you just

come on and then

they hired me so i ran this i ran this

program and in the meantime

i was developing an internship program i

was a programming director at this camp

i was building high ropes courses i was

inspecting high ropes courses

uh like zip lines rock walls i was

building that stuff i was traveling

across the country

um you know with like team team

development leadership development

i was doing corporate events with like

salesmen of a huge bank uh

a bank that had a bunch of branches i

was bringing them all in like 100 people

went to this whole day of leadership

development with them and

had grown men crying by the end of it

really cool stuff when it came to team

development and i drove a school bus for

the local school during all that

i want to get connected with the

community so i drove a school bus well

my time was coming to a head there my

wife was a nurse at the time

and um i i i kept getting job offers for

different things my dad offered me a job

to work for his company which we’re

gonna get into

uh but i was like so i was ready to move

out of out of ministry-focused life

and uh get into uh the secular world if

you will as i would refer to you know

get into

business not uh not ministry and uh

then i got another job offer from a um

from a church in northwest indiana where

close to where i was from about an hour

from where i was from and the

one of the pastors there was a

missionary i was really close with in

puerto rico he had moved up there

so i was like oh man everything’s coming

together so i go up there

again i spent a year there and i was

kind of like yeah this just ain’t

working like i just

i i was i was i was too focused on a lot

of other things you know and i and like

there’s always just churning inside of

like to just do business stuff and uh so

anyway um that was uh 2018

uh in 2017 2018

and my dad offered me another job he’d

offered me a job since i was 18.

and uh he what he had done is he started

a company in 2003 uh

based around the laundry industry at

laundromats um

and since i think he offered me a job at

18 after the internship he offered me a

job and then after that you know

so he kept offering me this job saying

anytime you want to come on i’m ready

you’re

getting chased down by the laundromat

industry i was i was getting chased down

by him

um i had other people in ministry like

hey come work at my church we love what

you’re doing

um you know i had other camps offering

me jobs they wanted me to do some

programming and internships hey can you

run can you develop this internship

program i can’t

and um you know i just i i

there’s always this drive inside of me

and i’ve never had a conventional job

i’ve always worked odd hours

and you know it’s just the way my

family’s wired so finally in 2017 2018

i took the job with my dad uh to work in

the laundry

so that’s kind of me up to this you know

up to this point now a couple years

later

and so um i’m working really

closely with in my father’s company

right now and um

yeah so there’s my there’s my

introduction getting up to the laundry

industry

yeah well let’s dig into that in a

second but real briefly how did your dad

get into

laundromats yeah so um we

my dad’s only lived in two houses his

whole life

um he grew up and won as a kid um

and then and then um he moved when my

grandparents built a new house so he

moved with them to this new house when

he graduated he bought the old house

that he lived in

and they moved and when i was a kid they

moved and he lit and then he moved into

their old house so he’s lived in two

houses his whole life two houses twice

what he trousers twice yeah that’s funny

and um he’s

uh he’s gonna be 55 years old um and so

it’s a town of 800 people

um rich history with our family there

and um

we were farmers uh so you probably know

orville redenbacher

yeah popcorn yeah so our family’s had a

contract with orville rudenbacher for

uh several uh generations where we so we

we um they would buy from us as a

contractor buy from us so we would

uh plant popcorn pulaski county is one

of the biggest producers

of counties that produces popcorn so we

we harvested popcorn and soybeans

my dad had done a lot of other he’s a

dave mintz is the first one to ever say

it serial

entrepreneur that i’ve ever heard i’m

like oh my gosh that’s not my dad

he raised hogs my mom was eight months

pregnant shuffling hogs going to market

you know

um what a great image oh my mom’s a

tough woman

yeah so uh and uh so he raised hogs he

built grain bins you know the big bins

that stored rain he built those

uh he was amway when amway was going he

was a huge guy in amway

he started his own mlm uh in his 20s

he started he actually had two mlms and

it grew so big and defunct because he

couldn’t keep up with it like it just

exploded

he was advertising like usa today for

his mlm so he was doing that uh he

started

my um my grandpa my great-grandfather

were real estate agents

so he got into real estate as well again

it’s a small town it’s not like

where it is like where i live now which

is like you know dog eat dog

you know i mean it was just really laid

back my wife or my mom got her

a real estate license they were spouses

selling houses

and um yeah and uh we trick realty so he

did real estate

so he’s always had his hands in a

different pot in the meantime he was

teaching um t-ball

and he was a fire chief of the local

fire department um actually has a has a

patent

on um a life-saving device that he that

he manufactured you know in his 30s

uh i mean he’s got he’s just he’s a very

i mean you could sit and talk to the guy

forever

yeah and uh i like that so yeah so we’ve

got i got four siblings i’m the middle

child my older

and my older sister right now is a

chiropractor my oldest brother’s a

firefighter my two youngest siblings are

accountants

um so in 2003 in our small town of 800

people a laundromat came up for sale my

dad’s

second cousin or third cousin you know

owned it you know she was real old and

the place was a dump

and my sister at the time was turning

16. so he said i’m gonna

buy this laundromat i can make a little

bit money but um

if i buy this laundromat i’ll have my

kids clean you know how my kids take

care of it it’ll be there for it’ll be

one of their first jobs i’ve

you know we i worked since i was nine

years old all of our siblings did we

worked on the farm we picked up rocks i

don’t know if anybody knows what picking

up rocks is but

you walk through a field and you

literally pick up rocks and put them in

a wagon so that the

plows don’t get destroyed and the

combine doesn’t pick them up

so you know when you’re nine years old

expecting something a little more

uh creative than when you said i don’t

know if people know what pickup rocks

means

i was expecting it to be some euphemism

for something but no it’s like picking

up rocks it’s literally picking up rocks

in the

in the middle of the summer in the dead

heat and i’d recruit like other fourth

graders with me and like hey

my dad will pay you four dollars an hour

and we can go pick up rocks all day

yeah so anyway genius yeah he bought

this laundromat in 2003 my sister was

turning 16.

he said i’ll pay your car insurance i’ll

pay your gas you got to buy your own car

i’ll pay your car insurance i’ll pay

your gas all you gotta do is on your way

to school every morning spend 30 minutes

and clean the laundromat

just clean it up i think she lasted four

months and got fired

oh no because she lie i think she lied

you know she said

i cleaned this morning and she didn’t

that happened a couple mornings and

finally you know he fired her he’s like

no you’re dead

yeah so then he took you know he took

care of it now when he bought this he

completely you know

renovated it um he had a distributor uh

a maytag distributor

a good guy but again my dad’s a very

self-made man he wouldn’t ask anybody

for help he just thought

i’ll run the numbers myself and figure

out what it’s going to do so then my

brother turned 16 two years later he

said okay

same deal i’ll pay your insurance i’ll

pay your gas which for a young kid is a

pile of money

you know insurance and gas it’s like oh

yeah yeah what a deal 30 minutes a day

he lasted a month he got fired

so then he didn’t give me the chance he

said i you know your

your other two siblings failed you don’t

even get the chance pay for your own gas

and your own

insurance i don’t care so um

he had that laundromat couple and within

two years he kind of went

well this is pretty passive income it’s

not bad uh i mean he wasn’t making a

pile of money but he’s paying his

you know he’s paying for the building he

paid for his equipment note you know

it’s like okay and you know i sho i got

someone to clean it my you know

my mom cleaned it and he’d go collect

and do all that stuff

he goes i’m gonna go to the next town

which uh was a couple thousand

and you know maybe maybe fifteen hundred

or two thousand he said this place needs

a laundromat

which hindsight i’d never put a large

amount

you know that’s that size in my opinion

you know just where i’m at now but

he says this could use a laundromat well

they didn’t didn’t have a laundromat to

buy

um there was no space to lease you know

it wasn’t worth it the square footage

you know for what we could do so finally

he says i’ll just build a strip plaza

um he had no i mean he had no capital i

mean you know

my you know my dad scraped and dug for

everything he ever had and worked and it

worked extremely hard

um and i commend him for that but he had

nothing so he found property

on the edge of town right on the edge of

town that was not city property so he

could bypass a lot of

city issues and the guy who owned the

property

it was just a big field a big cornfield

so he said look let’s go let’s go two

thirds and a third on this project

he said that’s it basically said you

provide the the real estate and the cash

and a portion of the cash all front the

other i’ll borrow the other

other bit of cash and i will and i will

build the whole thing out

and i will be a tenant for this company

you know so i will

you know so i’ll put a laundromat here

so he builds a strip plaza and i know

how many square feet it is it’s a huge

building

it’s actually two separate buildings um

that have

upwards of 12 or 13 possible tenants

in there he builds a laundromat in there

about 2000 square feet

um in the meantime 50 square feet for a

town of

1500 2000 people you’ll learn about

indiana real quick

yeah okay awesome yeah so yeah about

2000 square feet including office space

storage space

okay yeah um and um

in the meantime a lady puts a tanning

salon in right next door

okay she’s she started failing at it you

know just terrible she

she always wanted to run a business but

never knew how and was failing at it so

he says well how about i got an

attendant on duty how about you

all my tenant will take care of the

transactions you know

and clean the beds and all that stuff

she said no i don’t want to do that well

finally she just went back to him

once later and says okay you want to buy

it from me because i’m i can’t you know

i can’t sustain this

yeah sure i’ll buy this candy salon from

you

and this was pre-netflix um so he

decided i’m going to open a movie store

in this town

so he opens a uh called the video mall

so he opens it you know you would go and

you rent dvds

um and so uh he was three tenants of

this 12 or you know

15 tenant building he was three of those

tenants and

in a roundabout way paying himself you

know as a tenant and

and working in that direction and um you

know to build that he basically borrowed

everything i mean borrowed against the

house

uh anything he owned he borrowed against

any i mean he had

he was uh leveraged about you know about

of his max uh most of his life he was

leveraged and he always told himself he

could go bankrupt before 440

and he could still survive you know he

could still dig out of that yeah and um

so you know that whole plaza filled up

um now most now we

um uh now it’s mostly government

contracts bmv

uh dcs stuff like that which are great

if you own rental property those are

some of the best tenants you can have

uh because you know they’re gonna like

their anchor tenants there you know

they’re gonna be there a long time and

they’re not too picky

about a lot of things and so they’re

really yeah so actually

um just the end of the last year we just

got out of that uh

we sold our third in that uh in that

strip plaza

so now we don’t have any ownership in

that and i’ll circle back to that

so bouncing forward uh he went to the

next small town

and said and found a laundromat there

that was a piece of junk i mean and

and someone had just bought it two years

before uh like a banker and a lawyer or

a doctor and a lawyer

you know and they you know they had read

the brochure that said all you got to do

worry about how you gotta carry all the

quarters around you know what i mean and

they just ran that thing in a hole

and uh so he came in bought the real

estate uh

bought the business and uh in four weeks

uh did a complete flip on that um and i

was

15 at the time or 14 and my brother was

16 because i remember getting up at 5

o’clock every morning and driving the

hour to that store and working in there

with him um they had pits i remember

digging out pits

and uh you know ripping down walls we

cut out uh 30 foot of block to put

windows in

uh all we did ourselves you know as him

and and uh

yeah yeah i mean that’s just the way you

do it and so i i distinctly remember

one eating burger king because i never

got fast food couldn’t have fast food

where you’re from

and i remember pushing the big block

wall over a brick wall over when we put

windows in

so finally he’s going okay well these

are kind of doing all right so then he

goes north

uh so that was east a town so then he

went back to

uh the the where he put the strip claws

and go directly north and he

about about five or ten miles and he put

in a he tore down

bought a dairy queen pour down the dairy

queen and built new

a laundromat about two thousand square

feet a town of 7 500 people

um and um and a car wash a single bay

automatic car wash

on the back end they had enough room on

the property so he built the laundromat

in the car wash

uh again extended himself upon that but

you know you go a couple years start

everything starts paying for itself okay

now you got some stuff to borrow against

them

um these are awesome you know these are

all small towns 800 people

um you know about two to three thousand

people and then five to six you know

five to eight thousand people you know

that’s what these towns are

yeah so it’s kind of okay you know and

so he’s like uh you know i’m doing well

in the meantime he’s still farming

still doing real estate still coaching

t-ball and um

and still fire chief of art of the town

i mean i don’t hardly ever see the guy

you know what i mean but

you know he made it when it counts um

and uh so anyway

then there’s a town north of them down

down the main highway called valparaiso

which is where i currently live um this

was in 2009

uh a town of 35 000 people found a

laundromat there and a dry cleaner

laundromat dry cleaner 4 000 square feet

uh 4500 square feet

and um it was again just a crap hole i

mean just uh

i mean just you know everybody seen him

this one was probably the most extended

he ever made himself he bought this one

for a pile of money

um did a uh and did a full renovation

again

um ripped all that you know ripped all

the old equipment out and i think his

uh i think his equipment note was three

or four thousand dollars and

up to this point this we’ve done all

maytag everything was made tagged

um so this this one was maytag this was

2009.

uh got all new equipment and and he ran

it for maybe a month or two with the old

equipment before he got the new

equipment in

we got his new equipment in his note was

three or four thousand dollars

and his utility savings were more than

his equipment notes

so he paid for his equipment with the

utility savings you got

because it was so old uh gas bills water

bill everything went down so much

and uh in that in that purchase he

bought a dry cleaning plant

so then we became dry cleaners um and at

that point we moved from

ladybug laundry we were ladybug laundry

to ladybug cleaners

uh so that was um that was when he

decided to sell the farm

we had a big uh i was 15 or 16. we had a

big auction

farm auction sold all of our tractors um

you know

pickup trucks grain uh grain trucks um

and then the land uh that he didn’t own

any of his land

it was all within my family so that went

back to the trust of the other family

and

other people were in a department uh so

he decided i could make a living now i

want to

i’ll sell the farm and you know i i he

was tired all of his kids were in high

school at this point a lot of kids are

in high school at this point in sports

and he’s like i just couldn’t i want to

i was never there for anything you know

he’s so busy

when you’re when you’re in real estate

when are you looking at houses in the

evenings

you know what i mean you know and and

when you’re farming

you’re farming in the fall in the spring

during football season

and baseball season track season you

know and so he couldn’t beat any of

these things

yeah finally said i could make enough

money i could make a comfortable living

he never

never really wanted to get rich just

wanted to you know just make a

comfortable living

and that was in 2009 well the recession

hit real hard on us

and he’s overextended as much as he

could be and now we have a dry cleaning

business

which he completely ripped everything

old out and put new all new dry cleaning

stuff in

and the dry cleaning i think dropped

about 70 percent

business dropped about 70 it’s very

similar to what we’re in right now yeah

drag cleaning yeah and um he we he put

everything up for sale

he had a laundromat broker and put

everything up for sale he couldn’t

scrape by

uh he was i mean he was bleeding

everywhere um

but what that did was it made him look

at all of his numbers again

and hold tight to things started cutting

employees who he realized some employees

had been stealing from him

he realized he had employees that

fabricated a job

we had a general manager basically she

fabricated this general manager position

always acted like she was really busy my

dad trusted her with his life

and realized that at 10 o’clock in the

morning he needed to solve a problem and

she was drunk at her house

you know what i mean so it’s like oh so

you know you cut out that you cut your

expenses way back and

uh you pull out he pulled out a

recession and we pulled out strong

um and then there was a uh five or six

year period where that we didn’t we

didn’t grow we just maintained

you know trying to pay pay everything

off and then he uh

he bought another one in a town of 30

000 people again uh

yep just moving on up man yeah this

trajectory

i mean oh it’s yeah it’s at a good pace

you’re going to one of those cities in

china that have like

two billion people in i don’t know about

that yeah i don’t know about that

uh and so yeah so i i know i’m really

uh really dragging this out but moved to

a town of 30 000 people

again uh zombie mat i mean you know

a third of the machines running

everything junky

so he buys that one he

renovates it and then the year that i

moved to valpo so that was the

where the dry cleaner was the year i

moved up there to work at a church

um is when he bought another one in a

town of 35 40

000 people he bought another one and see

those those three were all within 15

minutes of me

so it’s kind of like okay i kind of

moved into where his business was moving

no for another job so then we moved

there the year i took a job in valpo he

bought this other one and then that was

the last

of what he did before i stepped into the

company basically so there’s

there’s everything leading up to uh

before i got involved in 2018.

that was awesome like just such a

whirlwind like he

your dad is just i mean he’s done so

much and he’s oh it’s incredible covered

like a lot of ground

in yeah a relatively short amount of

time

yeah and so to give you a breakdown of

where the layout was francisville town

of 800 people

head north east 30 minutes winamac that

was the second one with the shopping

plaza

from there head directly east at half

hour and that’s where and there’s

another one and then if you go back to

the shopping plaza directly north

uh 20 minutes you get the car wash in

the laundromat

and then you head northwest 45 minutes

and you get valpo and then within there

from 30 minutes

is michigan city and uh laporte so the

three biggest ones up north

and that’s when that’s when it kind of

clicked for him uh he goes oh

i can do i can do a little more than

make a living off of this

uh this you know there’s more to there’s

more to laundromats than what

everybody’s ever

you know whatever he’s ever thought

about them yeah

yeah okay so 2018

what what does he own at that point when

you step in what where

where are we at what’s our count at yeah

um so the count was six

six laundromats one two three four five

six

seven when i stepped in we had seven

sorry eight he bought another small town

laundromat

that’s five minutes from his house he

just bought it and renovated it so we we

were at eight at that point by the time

i stepped in we officially had eight

but two of them were brand new so we had

six and then two of them were just brand

spanking new

okay so you’re yeah six eight like right

when you started

right and did you did he still own the

tanning he did salon okay still on the

tanning salon

we closed the video the video store

years ago um

still owned uh a third share in that

shopping plaza

um and i didn’t mention we had two dozen

rental properties at the time

we owned uh what was called town square

apartments so we owned an old apartment

complex

we had trailers we had small 800 square

foot houses

we had tons of rental properties so he

was again always digging i mean one time

he bought a trailer

moved it to and physically moved the

trailer to another property that he

owned

like an acre you know what i mean he was

always wheeling and dealing and getting

good

good deals on stuff and again going back

i remember being 10 years old and he’d

buy a house to put us in rental

and i remember going there 10 years old

ripping the carpet out just me and my

brother

you know what i mean and stuff like that

so yeah so at this time he

he had started selling some of his

rental properties and he probably had 10

mineral properties left and eight

launder mats and a tanning salon in a

car wash

okay oh and and two check cashing

businesses sorry

and we had and so the one that had the

car wash also check cash checks

and one of the other laundromats cash

checks as well so we had check cashing

it within a laundromat and

what else you got going on in that back

pocket over there it’s hard to keep

track of

uh yeah when you really think about it

it’s like it just grows

yeah i’m kind of curious and maybe you

don’t really even know and that’s

totally fine but i’m just kind of

curious i mean you mentioned like

he he didn’t really have a ton of

capital at least starting out

right and i know he he used how is he

how is he acute i mean when you say like

he doesn’t have a lot of capital

which i think a lot of people can relate

with right and then you say

oh he owns six laundromats no seven no

eight oh and a tanning salon

oh and two check cashing oh and a car

wash oh and rental properties

oh and you know like so you say all that

right and

i think a lot of people are like okay

well like how did he do that

right like how in the world i mean

obviously he was hustling

obviously he was leveraging everything

you know that he could and obviously he

was putting a lot of time and effort

into it

i mean you mentioned like hey he was all

over the place he was there for the big

stuff but maybe not for some of the

smaller stuff

and you know that’s kind of the nature

of like hey if you want to be successful

you got to put

100 110 into it right but i don’t know i

mean do you have any insight into like

yeah so the first thing is i think he

probably he probably mortgaged the house

three times in total i’d imagine you

know that’s a big one

um but but i’ll tell you i’ll tell you

what did it

there’s a couple big factors one the

dude the dude can make a deal like

nobody else

i mean he just he just it’s a lot of

years of experience a lot of doing the

wrong thing but also

just understanding a lot of people don’t

realize they have the upper hand

in a negotiation they’re too passionate

about it so they’ll con

they’ll consign to something they don’t

want or that’s not that you know that’s

not their perfect um

that’s not the perfect ordeal so a lot

of times you know he always told me when

i was a kid

and i wanted to go buy a new bike you

know from somebody he said

don’t be don’t want that bike so bad

that you can’t walk away

if if he won’t come down on his price

okay

and he took that into his business you

know i sometimes it drives me nuts

because he’s so stingy

but unless the deal’s perfect he won’t

he won’t get into it so that’s the first

thing

the second thing was we caught the

people who owned the laundromats we

caught them

at the at the very end and even though

we’re buying the real estate

um they knew their business was not

worth anything

and so basically all we were purchasing

was a property and maybe a little bit of

cash to say

here’s a good faith you know to say we

appreciate you working with us

never used a realtor for any of these um

which is another thing

you can negotiate so much better if you

don’t have a realtor um and no offense

to realtors and some people need them

but um yeah

yeah yeah i know that’s what you’re

where you come i’m totally kidding

but he was a realtor so he knew all that

you know he knew all the legal jargon

um and that was never a big issue but

what it does is it

it allows it allows us to negotiate much

better and not

have an intermediary in that whole

process and you can be a little more

creative than

you can with most realtors right like

there’s not going to be too many

realtors that are going to find

a farmer with land and say hey let’s do

a two-third one-third split

i’ll build like that kind of thing

because the realtor

doesn’t get paid like that right like

they to they want exactly

they want a traditional kind of

transaction generally speaking unless

you’re

exactly good realtor so you can be a

little more creative you can

you know you can wheel and deal a little

bit more and you can negotiate the way

you want to negotiate if you’re putting

it in the realtors hands

then you know you better have a realtor

who’s a really good negotiator

too right at the same point right and so

we bought on uh i know he bought stuff

on contract

a lot of stuff he bought on contract um

you know which helps you don’t leverage

a bunch

but we’re also in a small town where uh

his banker was the person he went to

high school with

um and in a small town you know

it’s funny because i see so many people

struggling with their banks i saw

someone you know say they had to pay

they had to pay to have their cash taken

i mean and i like that is the stupidest

thing i’ve ever heard of you know i

you know that before we threatened to

pull our accounts from the bank they’re

like whoa

whoa you know we’ll take care of this

for you so that’s another that’s another

thing

the banks would never let us over um

overextend ourselves

but they knew what we were doing and

they knew that

for the most part we were borrowing on

property that was probably worth

that was worth more so they’re like you

know what’s yeah sure

you take that you got a good down

payment you’ve got a good business

history my dad’s always had good credit

uh good business history you you tandem

that with buying some stuff on contract

building capital and all your other

stuff and we always borrow you know we

always borrowed against everything else

that’s just what you did but i think

what really

i mean what really uh set it all in

motion was um

he did have he did have equity in

property

and so you know even if it was if it was

a 40 000

house you know what i mean he still had

equity in that and at any point

you get to a point when i think the bank

just realizes okay i can just take

everything this guy owns

you know what i mean it will be fine and

so he bought a lot on contract but most

of it

most of it came down to we never paid

for anybody’s physical business

we always flipped it and uh my dad just

knew how knew the art of the deal i mean

he knew how to negotiate the deal

and i tell you what he yeah he’s good

i mean i’ve watched him go into a

conversation and i go out like

you fly dog you sly dog so i know in the

beginning we bought a lot on contract or

you just got creative yeah you traded a

small track to land you know guys

you know there’s a lot of tax advantages

the trading that you know trading that

way

he’s very good with that um so we traded

you know we trade properties we buy on

contract

uh and then just fight and dig and you

know and a lot of this the reason he

still had a farm but he never

he could never pay himself in any of

this in his mind the laundry rats were

just build equity

we’re just we’re just the pride and the

end game was the own property own

property yeah

and then i’ll be i’ll sell it all right

i’ll sell my property i can retire on

that that was the end gate

i mean so you know he didn’t make a dime

but he was still at the car wash at one

o’clock in the morning fixing a

hydraulic line

you know what i mean or you know this

this and that so uh never paid himself

in that that process to begin with

i mean my dad not to jump forward my dad

never had didn’t say for retirement i

was

probably 45 45 or 50. he never saved for

retirement

yeah well and you know there’s something

to be said for having cash flowing

businesses

that in property that are your

retirement right like

oh absolutely yeah i mean that’s that’s

what his savings was for retirement was

all the stuff he was sitting on

yeah yeah yeah real quick uh just

everybody’s on the same page what do you

mean by

buying on contract uh so yeah so buying

a property on contract so basically just

saying

um look i don’t a lot of times what i

say

you know what we’ll say is um i want to

keep my cash flow open

so i don’t want to tie up all my

reserves uh you know i’ve negotiated

that deal personally they

you know i i keep my cash flow open in

case something else comes

comes up it’s a huge tax advantage for

you if i can pay you over the next five

years for this

so you write up a simple contract well

not so simple but

uh you know you write up a contract that

says um instead of buying

instead of purchasing this you know

borrowing to purchase this whole

property

or using my cash reserves for that um

over the next five years i will pay you

um i your you are loan you are giving me

that one essentially so i will give you

x amount of payments which equals what

you’re asking for this property plus the

six percent

you know interest or or sometimes you

can go eight percent if you know you can

cover it

you know a guy would say but but but

most of the time we can get under six

percent what the bank will give us

you know you can say look four percent

because because one they’re cutting

there’s some tax advantages of that for

them they’re not having to pay that lump

sum

and two now they’re garnishing interest

on on something that you know they’d

have to invest somewhere else to try to

get interest on that so

sometimes you can negotiate a lower

interest rate and it’s and it’s backed

by a hard asset that they already know

too and exactly you know so i just

wanted to real quick uh

you might you you might know buying on

contracts as

seller financing it’s just another way

of saying seller financing so just i

want to make sure everybody’s on the

same page so we all we all say

you buy on contract that’s just that we

always say around here and you know

another thing that he did

again art of the deal he approached some

wealthy people in our town

you know that again he’s friends with

farmers real estate guys you know big

moguls

and um he never needed to borrow the

money for a new project from them

but he’d say look i’ve already got it

financed the bank’s giving me six

percent

what are you making on the you know what

are you making on the cash you have now

then they’d be like

oh half a percent okay i’ll give you

i’ll give you three and a half percent

you know what i mean if you can if you

can buy my buy my loan and they’d be

like bingo

done so then all of a sudden you just

you know again you just you’ve just

taken your payments way down

and now you’re paying somebody else off

uh you know for a lot less interest so

i know i know um i thought that was when

i was younger and i heard that i’m like

dude that’s brilliant

yeah i’ve never thought about that so

again you just fight you just fight

everything you can and think okay how

can i cut you know how can i cut this

out how can i cut these people out

and make it you know make it happen well

i mean i’ve been taking notes

and i just wrote down i don’t know eight

or nine

different things that he’s doing in

order to

accumulate these assets with little or

or no money right and

i just wanted to ask you that because i

think a lot of i do a lot of coaching

calls with people who

are like i want to get into this

business i don’t have a ton of money is

it possible

you know how can i do it and you know

you’re only limited by

the amount of work you’re willing to do

and the amount of creativity you’re

willing to

conjure up and how to get this done

right and there’s probably

a hundred other small or big things that

your dad did

to you know make these deals happen yeah

and going

going back to that i don’t want to um

you know he was able to cut some pretty

massive expenses

in these things by being the plumber and

by being the electrician and by being a

contractor

he my dad used to build houses um he

does all of his own renovations he

he went to a trade school to be a

mechanic so um

you know it doesn’t seem like much but

if i can cut out five thousand dollars

out of a build out

you know that’s five thousand dollars

that i’m not extended on or if i can cut

out ten thousand dollars so

he would always leverage his um you know

he’d always leverage his abilities as

well

skill set yeah yeah and his skill set

and a lot of these towns we moved into

um you know we could do that in uh it

wasn’t a big deal to work side by side

with the plumber

uh which he went to high school with you

know our license plumber he went to high

school with you know to

help him out you know and work with him

and hey i’ll go buy the tank i’ll bring

the tank here i’ll put the tank you know

i’ll set the tank up i’ll buy the water

here i’ll put the water heaters in you

know that kind of stuff you just come

and plumb it for me so it’s those kind

of things that’s like

you know um build ups can be very very

expensive and every dollar you can cut

out of those

for small town guys it means the world

i mean i mean it means from being like

staying up at night if you can pay your

bills to being like

i know i can rest a little bit easier

because i did some of this work and you

know i know things are going to be okay

yeah totally and i think a lot of people

you know are very anti that

and for for good reason in certain

circumstances but i think when people

are starting out

and especially if you don’t have a whole

lot of money to work with

that’s the way to go right small town

big town doesn’t matter like you need to

put in

some sweat equity you know you want to

get to a point where you don’t need to

do that maybe

or maybe you don’t i don’t know it

depends on the person but

you know you might want to get to a

point but a lot of times if you’re

starting out especially if you don’t

have money

you need to figure out ways to do

exactly that right reduce your expenses

put more work in

you know i hear a lot of high achievers

which i really i

i resonate with and i agree with but a

lot of high achievers are like

you know hey if you know you don’t want

to do your own repairs in your

laundromat because

you know you can go use that time to go

do something else

maybe but maybe not you know if you’re

starting off what’s your time worth yeah

they say

and your budget’s real squeezing you

don’t have a lot of money to work with

and you’re

you know not making a whole lot of money

in your laundromat yet well maybe you

need to go get your

your hands dirty a little bit and do

some repairs until you get to the point

where you can

right or to hire that plumber and they

say what’s your time worth

yeah i always say not worth anything if

i’m not making money that’s exactly

my time’s not worth anything and you

know in 2009 2010

time’s not worth anything if you can’t

make money if he’s going broke yeah yeah

very true no it’s very true and and

everybody operates differently that’s

one thing i love

is you get so many hard-headed opinions

in this industry

but then you make them understand that

real estate in one place is so much

different than real estate in another

place and like oh maybe there’s

different ways to operate maybe

maybe there is different ways to do

things and uh you know

and and my the only reason our company

is where it’s at is because of all the

sweat equity my dad had to put in

because it’s time for in some aspects

wasn’t worth much

but now his time’s worth more than

anybody would ever pay for it because

he’s been in florida the last two months

fishing

which is awesome yeah awesome well and

that’s one of the cool things about this

podcast right

is like this business is such a simple

business you know compared to

so many other businesses out there right

but

there’s so many different ways that

people approach the laundromat business

that i’ve i’ve been blown away by the

diversity of the ways that people

approach and run their businesses so

it’s been really cool for me to hear

stories you know like like yours and

your dad wait i mean we haven’t even

gotten to you yet we’re

gonna get into you man it’s even worse

well let’s jump into it i mean okay 2018

or so you got 800 mats and a thousand

other businesses so

what’s what’s going on here now when you

enter the picture i’m ready to um so

so um both uh the the

that live 10 years in puerto rico that i

spent time with down there we were both

working at this church

and um it was very unhealthy um

for those of you working church may have

experienced things like that i know you

got a similar background

i was a youth minister there and and um

things were just not very healthy and

and both of us were ready to get into

business

um we we you know we wanted to get in

that his uh wife’s

uncle uh was a big fuel mogul he had a

big company that

that sold fuel to gas stations and job

sites and stuff like that

he’s been recruiting him to be a

salesman my dad’s been recruiting me to

come work for the

business so um i i you know um

about six months before that my dad

offered me a job again so hey look

you can work at the church and you can

work for me there’s enough time to do

both

so that i approached church said hey

i’ll work for free for the church as

long as i can go work for my dad

and i didn’t really like that idea so

anyway i i i quit fully at the church

uh i told my dad i needed a week off to

remodel my bathrooms with my wife she

was begging me to remodel the bathroom

yeah i got to take care of the wife

first yeah oh yeah absolutely

and i was terrible about that you know

i’m seven years of marriage now and

finally

it’s like i feel like i’ve learned that

more than anything through what i’m

doing now but

um so um he said well do you want to

meet talk money

what are you going to make you want to

talk about the job details i said come

on over

so um it’s the day after i you know the

day after i resigned from the church

uh he sits in he sits in my he sits in

my living room

on my furniture that’s falling in

because i was poor

um and well poor’s the wrong way to put

it i was very uh fiscally responsible so

i wasn’t poor

but i lived like i was poor because i

was saying yeah i was saving every

dollar in a street life man yeah

yeah but but i was saying whatever

dollar i made because i knew one day i

had to buy a company

i had to buy some kind of business so um

so he sits there and says

i’ll pay you and i’ll tell you the

numbers he said i’ll pay you forty

thousand dollars

um he said he said you’ll probably work

less than you did at the church 40 hours

a week

you know i just need you to repair my

equipment is basically it

i just need to drive around and repair

my equipment at the time i drove a

volkswagen jetta 2000 or 1999 volkswagen

jetta with 270 thousand miles on it

diesel sticks

nice great car great car um

he said you can drive your jet you can

use your data you know you get from

store to store

and you just need to fix stuff and this

is the this was this was the um

one conversation that changed our whole

relationship and i said how about this

so i started i ought to immediately

start negotiating with my dad right back

at him yeah right back in him i said how

about this

how about you pay me 30 000 oh you’re

going the wrong way man what’s happening

and i said but but you buy and you buy a

company vehicle

a truck said i’m going to need a truck i

mean i’m gonna be hauling plumbing

around i’m gonna be on tools around

parts around

uh you know plywood and all this kind of

stuff build

said you buy a company truck you save

that ten thousand dollars that you would

have to pay into my social security

and all that stuff and you save all that

and you have a company asset

you know what i mean so i i i framed it

a way that makes sense to him

yeah but but i said but i got to use it

for personal use too

he goes first time has ever said this to

me in my life you know what that’s a

good idea

and we made a deal right there i didn’t

make anything my wife was working at the

time so no big deal no no kids

uh i knew i could afford it um it was it

was a paid

it’s still a pay decrease actually the

first thing 40 000 was a pay decrease

from what i was i was making

but i knew i could live with it because

i’d be living a much happier life right

so deal is done we shake hands i find a

truck

um with 100 000 miles on it you know 10

grand you know i told them about you

know buy a 1000

truck to cover that you know what would

have paid me a year

um and we began he you know there’d be a

repair

we’d go fix it together he’d show me

what to do and really that lasted about

three days

um before it’s kind of like i’m no

whether it’s nice i’m gonna go fishing

you just you know make sure things are

on it well the way i’m wired

um i you know everybody’s like oh

logan’s new boss you know

at the time we had we had 40 employees

about at this time with 40 employees

so everybody’s like oh logan’s about new

boss logan’s the new boss i’d be like

i’m not the new boss i’m just here to

fix things don’t ask me these questions

you know yeah yeah

well soon uh and within six months um he

gave me two pay raises

and um and i was um

basically uh he would call once a week

and say

you need anything from me they know

things are going well you know and

you know he’d go back fishing or hunting

or doing whatever he did

right and so so basically i just what i

saw was

here was my end game since i was 18

years

old was was to buy my father’s company i

knew since i was 18 but i just kept

having all these other things that i

knew i want to do i knew one day i’m

coming back i would buy like my dad’s

company

i just knew that’s what i was going to

do so what i started seeing was he’s at

the end of his run he’s 53 years old he

always said he’s going to be retired by

55 that’s still his goal when he turns

55 this year

so i was looking at his company going

he’s at the end of his run he’s not

putting a lot of

um he’s not put a lot of heart and soul

into the company structure

his laundromats look great they’re clean

everything’s functional

but he’s not putting much into this as

if he’s got 25 years left in the

business

and i’m going i’ve got 25 years left in

this business

if i want to retire the age i want to

retire i said um

i said that’s gonna change i started

writing handbooks company policies

uh manager handbooks um um you know

operation procedures i started i started

developing all this in my spare time

sent to him and he’s going hey looks

great you know they had company policy

before they had a hand before

i was just tidying all that up i was um

i was training the managers hands on

making sure they were treating their

people correctly

developing our web presence developing

our google presence all the stuff that

he just

didn’t have time for started developing

all that in the meantime fixing stuff

and then in my in my gut i’m going we

need to buy another laundry map you need

to buy another laundry mat you know i’m

just like i’m just hungry

um you know just hungry for it and um

you know i kind of know what his

strategy was we were looking around we

were looking around

um we’re you know uh there’s one in a

town 10 minutes away that i really

wanted really really bad

we both did like we wanted one of that

town and we about

didn’t walk away from the deal but she

just went she thought she was on a gold

mine it was worth nothing

yeah we walked away from that one so um

i’m i’m finally settled into the into

the uh corporate life of my with my dad

on you know running this business with

him and

um he’s pretty well like i mean one time

he called me and apologized he said i’m

sorry

um you know i know we’re not really

talking much and you’re basically

running this thing

you need anything from me i know man i’m

loving it you know

it’s it’s great i’m really enjoying it

so um we scout a couple towns that we

want to move into

and we find a couple things we walk into

one like okay we think this is the one

and uh nothing really happens he doesn’t

make any moves on it so i go in there

i say hey uh so it was split in half

half of it was laundry it used to be a

full laundry he cut it in half and tried

rent out the other space it’s 4000

square feet total

2 000 and 2 000. big yeah

yeah uh big to you guys

yeah and i walk in i leave my phone

number with the attendant

my dad was actually coming up north

we’re gonna go over some um some

uh some business together and uh

i get back and i’m working on a drain

valve and an old maytag

mfr and and i’m 10 minutes it’s 10

minutes from when i handed my number

and i got a phone call i don’t recognize

this number

get up hey i hear you’re interested in

renting out this other part of this i

said well i’m gonna i’m gonna

i’m gonna cut to the chase but i’m not

interested in that i wanna buy your

laundry match

he goes i’m so tired of this thing

you know i just where are you at right

now i’m in valpo

i live in val i’ll be there i’ll be

there in five minutes

he comes there in five minutes not two

minutes of talking to the guys he was 30

some years old

not not within two minutes of talking to

the guy on site at

my at my facility we drive to that town

30 minutes away

drive to that town we talked there

within within 30 minutes we had a

handshake agreement on friday i mean on

a price and a deal done

and uh closed in 30 days uh

flipped it in five weeks so i’m a full

demo

me and my dad and two guys uh

which was terrible i mean one o’clock in

the morning

or like up at five in the morning there

until one o’clock in the morning for

three weeks long days yeah

um and you know gutted the whole place

all the i sold

i sold the equipment to a guy in quincy

illinois uh he didn’t have enough cash

because corona this was during um

coronavirus so this was 2020. we bought

this one

um he didn’t have enough cash because he

had night clubs that were shut down

but um he had a 57 chevy bel air

so i traded him or he gave me cash in a

chevy 57 chevy bel air for a bunch of

washing machines and dryers i just had

to get it out of there i had to get it

out of there

my dad likes classic cars so basically i

negotiated that whole deal

um you know i negotiated the property

negotiated i mean i worked on i did the

permitting i did our subcontractors

basically that whole project and he just

showed up and did a little work and gave

it some advice

you know and signed the paperwork uh

that’s awesome

yeah and there was um i remember i mean

i remember us both

um you gotta forgive me

my relationship my dad got real close i

i remember getting

i mean being in tears um it was like the

day we you know we put the final

sign on the wall and we were ready to

open

and i remember crying and hugging and

saying you know another one done

you know what i mean it was just like

there’s so much pride and when you’re

doing that hands-on work

we enjoy that yeah you know part of me

enjoys

working that late at night and doing

that kind of stuff and you know we could

have paid somebody to do all that been

closed for three months but you lose a

lot of money in that process and we

enjoyed doing that

and the pride you feel after doing that

i mean we’re talking brand new

uh signs out front brand new parking lot

brand new roof uh and then

a complete i mean this drop ceiling down

and go into the brick walls

i mean and all new plumbing everything

and the pride you feel after doing that

and it’s like boom

and then um we open up no no promos

we’ve tried grand openings in the past

you know and they never worked out

so we just open okay you know you’re

busy all right

okay it’s like whoa we’re we’re busy

whoa we are really busy and there was

four uh three other laundromats

and we and we made it all and we made an

offer to all three of them actually

with all three owners one one had two

stores and he was like i’m not afraid of

competition blah blah blah

my water heaters don’t work and my

customers don’t know any different and

i’m like

this guy’s this guy’s kind of scumbag

yeah i gotta hear me saying this if you

listen to this i doubt he does

like i really don’t want his properties

he’s really just kind of trashy the

other guy was

over a basement with concrete pillows

that held the machines i’m like i don’t

want this properly

yeah that’s yeah oh they were they were

both a mess

um and this one was a mess too but it

was it was i knew i could do something

so all of a sudden it was like and we

had projections for what this store

could do

um and we hit them within a month i mean

in a month’s time we were at that

projection

yeah with no grand opening or anything

just kind of opening the doors

and that was another question i saw

someone ask so

i get a lot of phone calls and i talk to

a lot of people in the industry like how

long before you know they just opened

their store in a week how long before

you get profitable

and one of the things you asked about um

you know how do we get the money all

this kind of stuff

uh we’ve not opened a store yet that we

have been we haven’t paid our

notes in the first month from from that

store um

we’ve been immediately profitable um

which is like i didn’t realize it’s

unusual but for us

what do you attribute that to um

location

i mean we always but you know um we

almost always buy an existing laundry

um and so there’s already clientele

there and you know really i attribute it

um i attribute it to uh

there’s that store is already making a

decent amount of money

um you know and i know what my my

multiplier is if i can make it nicer

and so almost always within the first

month you know the notes come and if we

can’t pay them

you know from that store then i know we

i mean we’re almost there so basically

and we see profits in six months um

which is i mean it’s just

it’s incredible i mean i can you can’t i

mean i can’t say how blessed we are to

see that

um so you know all of a sudden in a

month’s time this hits his projections

and this is the biggest this is the

biggest

most populated area we’ve ever been in

and see dad and i realized when he

when we were at six stores or i’m sorry

when we were at eight stores

we realized um the populated areas was

where it was at you know what i mean we

just you mean it’s like

you never thought about that it’s like

it went from i can make a living to i

can

one day have all my kids working for me

and with me you know we can build

something we can actually build

something

so we did that one and immediately it’s

like oh my gosh this is doing real well

holy cow look around us look at all the

crap around us you know

and we’re like oh let’s let’s hit it

again so we closed like may 1st on that

property

opened june 5th on that property and i

had somebody i had a lady call me

um who want to put an atm in there i

don’t do atms very often

uh they’re just i’m 24 hours unattended

at night and i don’t do atms they

usually

are problems but at this store the

clientele needed an atm

so i’ll tell you what she goes you have

a really nice facility i’ve never seen

anything like it can i put an atm in

there and i said i don’t really do atms

she goes you looking for other

laundromats i said ah you know we’re

always open love to make something

happen you know again

our you know our um reserves

got flushed on this you know usually we

finance the building

and the equipment and then we pay cash

for the build-outs we fork out all the

cash for the build out we don’t borrow

on the build out

so our reserves were you know were

depleted our operating note um you know

was about depleted

um because we we hold an operating note

most time and

so she says can i put you know looking

for the laundromats i said i’ll tell you

what

you can find me another laundromat you

can put an atm in this story and that

store she calls me two days later

i got someone on the phone she passes

over to an old man

uh yeah hello he says hello i said she

says this guy’s looking to buy your

laundromat

you want to sell it yeah well let’s meet

a week later my dad’s on

vacation i go meet with the guy he goes

well we’re just looking to leash right

now a dollar a square foot

what what i’ve never heard of a dollar

square foot now we’re talking

um a dollar a square foot not a month

we’re talking

a year a year a year

because we had to put 20 grand in the

parking lot 20 grand on the roof

and i mean there’s you know it was like

he’s basically saying if you put the

improvements in i’ll give it to a dollar

square foot a year

you know what i mean holy cow yeah but

still i said i’m not gonna

i’m not gonna put i’m not gonna put the

um investment in this without owning the

property

well we’re just looking to lease this

the laundromat closed a year and a half

um there’s a four thousand square foot

building or 3200 square foot building

closed a year and a half um and uh this

was like in september this happened

and uh he said well i’m looking at elise

i said okay call me when you change your

mind a week later he calls me

all right here’s the price i want for it

i’m like oh

now i know i wanted to give it to me for

a dollar square foot you know

you know you wanted nothing for it yeah

so we

negotiated that down a little bit and um

we first

we purchased the property um and that

was so that was

in like four months after opening this

other one because like when opportunity

knocks man

you gotta be the one to answer the door

that’s right so i said dad you ready to

do another one

and he’s like i’m tired of working he

says all the time

i’m tired of working and i said he said

but it looks good let’s do it

so before and typically before we close

our deals this is really important for

the longer your clothes the more

clientele you lose so before we

typically before we close the deal i’ve

got everything arranged i’ve got my

subcontractors walked through the

building

i’ve got submitted for permits i’ve got

everything lined out i don’t wait until

we close for that

but i know a deal is going to happen i

make sure everything’s taken care of

ahead of time most of my deals are

subject to permits

so i i i say i don’t want to buy it

until i have my permits

um so you know i make the deal subject

permits there

so we did that one uh in five weeks no

sorry that was i take that back that was

three months it’s been closed for a year

and a half i thought

we can afford to take our time spend

more time with our families and spend

three months

so the first month um i got it we gutted

it down to the block

um i didn’t pay i didn’t pay for any of

that to be done i hired some local

scrappers and there’s enough

enough machines and copper left in there

that that was their payday they stripped

the whole thing they took everything to

scrap yards stripped all the way down

the block walls

and their payday was the copper and the

machines you know

weren’t worth anything so the first

month was completely free you didn’t

have to pay for anything got down to

block walls

and i got a contractor and my my subs in

there and uh

you know again you cut the corners where

you can dad and i get in there we cut

the concrete out for new plumbing they

need all new plum intellectuals

we cut the concrete for that we haul

that concrete away and dump it in our

you know dump in our backyard not

you know on a farm somewhere right um

you know um and then you just make it

happen boom one thing after another boom

boom boom i said dad let’s try grand

opening i see everybody on facebook

doing grand openings let’s try it

two weeks free wash and the reason i did

that was i had two other comp

two other people who were might have

been in competition and it’s been closed

for a year and a half so i didn’t have

clientele

let’s just slam people in here facebook

ads

giant banner open for you know we’re

free wash two weeks

um never could we have been prepared for

what happened

um our grand opening averaged 20 turns a

day

20 turns a day i mean i’m telling you

[Music]

and obviously it’s all free yeah right i

mean i i was like

um i mean i i was blown away

um i mean we were emptying our dryers

because you saw to pay for your dryers

we were emptying those things non-stop

because they were just filling to the

brim and um yeah so so the first week i

take that back first week was 10 turns a

day second week was 20 times a day

the two weeks because i mean and people

and never my life have i heard anybody

complain that we didn’t give the dry

away for free as well

i can’t give everything away come on

yeah so so i was in and this is 24 hours

mind you we were doing this

free wash 24 hours that’s why we were

able to hit 20 turns a day you know

it was just packed in there i mean slam

pack and so we just opened that february

1st that was february 1st

of this year so we’ve been open a month

a month and a half

and we’re again we’ve already we’ve hit

our projections uh on that store

um and um uh i’m trying to buy another

one in that town right now i’m getting

ready to make an offer on one in that

same town because

it just that unfortunately it’s where

michael jack it’s gary indiana where

michael jackson’s from um and um

when it’s gone downhill really bad uh

unfortunately and they’re trying to

rebuild the town and so it just needs

nice facilities in there yeah so yeah

trying to make something trying to make

some more moves happen there and um

and that has been the most challenging

story by far but that brings you up to

date

um other than that i um i had a site

review yesterday i’m trying to rebuild

our wanted valpo actually trying to move

the location there i got remediation to

do because of the old dry cleaner there

but yeah 10 laundromats um five

urban five roll and

um uh my dad’s been on vacation for the

last two weeks

of two months last two months yeah

that’s awesome

well real quick about the grand opening

i mean

what’s the ver i mean i know it’s still

pretty early what’s the verdict do you

think

it helped your i mean i know obviously

you got a ton of people in there the

first two weeks

has it helped your business since then

are you gonna do it next time

i’m gonna do it differently next time uh

i’ll tell you that right now

um because um i think it hurt

my unpreparedness hurt us um

we were so busy that story got so dirty

so quickly

and our i mean our our um our business

model is based around cleanliness that’s

what’s made us successful

yeah um and that’s what made everybody

successful is cleanliness

um and it was embarrassing some mornings

to walk in there

um you know none of my 20 i i all of

them are 24 hours now all 10 or 24 hours

and i’m and i’m not attended from 6 p.m

7 a.m i have no attendant there and

they operate great this one i’m actually

uh heading back there tonight at six at

six o’clock to train

to train a night attendant uh myself

because i’ve over extended my my

managers over at that store

and so i’m going over there to train

them tonight uh because it’s just been

problem after problem there they’re so

busy it gets so dirty

and at my other stores

my clientele is different and they take

care of their store they pick up their

dryer sheets

you know they take a paper towel and

wipe up their soap when they pick up

their dryer sheets

how’d you get that to happen man that

never happens because

because i’m i’m semi roll semi-roll

still and it’s just good old i mean

indiana people are just good old home

folks you know what i mean and they’re

just nice people

and they feel you know they have

hoosiers yeah they apologize if you know

if uh they spill a little bit of water

on the floor yeah i mean i mean hoosiers

are great people

so they you know they’ll get dirty on a

busy weekend totally yeah but but this

one i’m i mean i’m saying so bad that it

looks like

it looks like someone hasn’t been there

in a week and so my grand opening may

have you know i had somebody call me

being dramatic but you know i’m going to

call the town attorney and i’m gonna

call the mayor and i’m gonna call the

governor because

this is not up to you know i’m gonna

call the health department blah blah

blah

blah blah blah you know and it’s true i

was embarrassed to walk in there as bad

as it was

and i went i can’t go unattended i i

can’t do that that’s not gonna work

so uh the numbers will work out so i’m

actually gonna be

that that’s all within the last couple

weeks you know what i mean i’ve been

i’ve been just real and trying to

every every market is different yeah

every market is different and what and

the strategy i thought we had it nailed

down

i thought we had laundromats to a t then

we moved into this town and it’s like

yep this ain’t going to work you know we

got to try something else

and the crime that talent really really

bad so even developing a position to

protect your employees

is very tough so i’ve got a pretty good

idea we’ll see how it works

wow i mean that’s it’s kind of it’s kind

of cool to hear

like just the amount of experience you

guys have had and that you’re still

evolving and you’re still you know

learning and like you said every mark is

different

and so you know you you’re just gonna

keep keep kind of tweaking things

feeling things out

until you find out what works for that

market and

and apply the lessons probably to your

next i don’t know however many

i’m kind of curious about what do you

see as some of the big differences

between

you know small town rural laundromats

and

your kind of bigger town more urban

areas obviously other than income you

know you know i mean that’s just a huge

factor there i mean it really is

and that influences what you can do in

that store how often you can put new

equipment in there

um how much you can pay people how long

you can be attended

um um and what else you need to produce

to be able to make a store pay for you

know

be able to have an income that’s why i

have check cashing at two locations

now that is even taking a big downturn i

never do that again but i already have

all the equipment there

is you know um the attendant you know

the store is not busy so it doesn’t get

really dirty in the rural areas

so you can maximize what your what your

attendant and your employees do

at my at my big stores i could never do

chick cashing because they’re cleaning

all the time and helping customers

that’s the other one they’d be sitting

around twiddling their thumbs for a long

time but they cash checks so

there’s extra income for us keeps my

employees occupied and i’m already

paying the overhead for the employee

there

saying that’s why i got a car wash i

have the space for it uh my there’s

already somebody there who can attend it

and can help that if there’s problems

you know so i do that same with tanning

i’ve already tanning beds over there

i’ve already got the tenant on duty so

you maximize that what i find in the

rural areas is

you’ve got to find more ways to maximize

on your real estate and on your

employees you know your overhead costs

and since you know overhead costs don’t

change much

from being being uh 12 hours a day to 24

hours a day

you know other than keeping the lights

on your overhead doesn’t really change

we started going 24 hours one more door

lock ropes which i think someone just

said

a couple podcasts ago yeah um yeah so

our door locks broke automatically locks

broke we said i just leave it open

and it’s like oh man people are really

respectful at night let’s just leave it

open

so the other thing is i’m not i am not

afraid to go 24 hours in rural areas

because people are so much more

respectful of all our equipment um you

know the people are just nicer in rural

areas i mean that’s just the nature of

the game unfortunately where i’m where

i’m at

um so there’s a huge difference there um

and you know i’ve looked at doing ups

drop stores at those locations

um you know there’s other there’s other

things i’ve looked at you to maximize

those locations

you know even selling detergents over

but i don’t want to deal with inventory

but

you know if i was only in rural areas

i’d be selling detergents over the

counter

you know i would be selling hangers i’d

be selling um you know

bag the bag holders i sell bags but i’ll

be selling bag holders um

but the other thing and the reason that

we weren’t afraid to get the dry

cleaning was we knew the dry cleaning

could pay for the attendance

if i can pay for the if i can pay

payroll just by what i make in dry

cleaning

you know i’m afraid to call it a zero

you know zero game there

yeah so yeah i think that’s really good

i think you know i i get

asked a lot by people in smaller towns

like hey you know

is it doable in smaller towns and and

how do you make it work you know in a

town that has

2 000 people 5 000 people or whatever

and i think that’s

i think you hit the nail on the head

right you’re always looking at ways to

maximize your income

you know so whether that’s adding a

little storefront whether that’s adding

a dry cleaner or tanning but whatever it

is you know like you said your overhead

is going to be

what your overhead’s going to be so you

know wring out as much

as you can and go ahead go ahead no no

go ahead yeah

well i was gonna say that i always

because i get a lot of calls from

small-time

small-time guys as well and uh you know

what i always say is

your business is gonna be better if you

have an attendant find a way to pay for

that attendant

yeah not using your coin your coin

income find a way to pay for that

attendance yeah

and uh you know and and i always

recommend talk to your local dry cleaner

they probably want more business

you know you got somebody there let’s

you know make it happen just just do

that

without much space you don’t need much

space a hallway is all you need a little

hallway or a little corner

i mean hang a dry cleaning and lock it

up and so it’s it’s those things that

you can just you can use

and you can say okay if i can just take

care of payroll

by doing something other than coin that

means everything that comes in

for my coin my coin op is going to be to

pay

for you know everything else yeah yeah

looking at it genius love it

what’s i mean do you what’s your do you

have like a goal

like what you’re what you want to do

i mean it sounds like you’re building an

empire out there my goal my goal is um

and they better watch out my goal is um

if luke wilford’s gonna try to own every

laundromat in the world and i’m going to

own half

so he can and so we’re going to be

battling now oh yeah like it’s like a

big

a game of risk

i hate risk i’m more of a monopoly guy

i’m going to hole up in australia and

see if you can penetrate my

you know um i love what luke’s doing

i’ve talked to luke once i can’t wait to

meet the guy uh

love his faith love his fa the way he

treats his family love the way he treats

his employees love the way he does

business

great dude um my goal

one of my goals to be with my family

more um my goal is to retire at 45

um and when i say when i say retire what

i mean is not

have to be actively involved in

something you want your kids running the

business so you can be fishing for two

months

or somebody else you know somebody else

i trust yeah i want to

i want to be retired my dad was always

55 so i want to beat him by 10 years

yeah that’s what i’m talking about but i

also want i also want something that

might

that my kids don’t feel pressure to get

involved in

um but there’s the opportunity for each

one of my and i want to have a big

family that each one of my kids can have

a hand in

if they want to be in uh five i want

five kids

okay my wife doesn’t want that video but

we’ll see what happens just get it

get another wife tell her hey if you

don’t want more i’m going to add another

wife

don’t tell her that i’m just kidding

we’ll probably end up adopting if she

doesn’t want to have another kid but

she’s a champ so

um but really my goals um

from a young from a young from a young

adulthood um

the moment i stepped foot in puerto rico

i saw a need that i

of a lifestyle that i really enjoyed and

my real my real goals are more

philanthropic than they are

than they are business-minded um i i

love

i love philanthropy i love um helping

people

biblically speaking god said he owns

owns a cattle on a thousand hills

and um and i think what what the bible

really speaks to

is um god puts other people in care of

those cattle

so i want to own as many cattle as i can

so that he can call him when he needs to

to give to organizations that need that

help

um you know because there’s so many

passionate people and and non-profits

fire departments and children’s homes

and you know

uh orphanages um you know even even even

outside mission organizations uh and

third world countries

that i’ve been in contact with um you

know who are just like me if i just have

the resources they’re so passionate

they’re very they do a great job they

just need resources and i want to be the

person to be able to step in with

resources to make something happen

and my real end goal is to be able to

build a build a separate camp in puerto

rico

i’ve got a property uh there i’ve been

watching forever

and my real goal is to actually put a

couple laundry mats in puerto rico

um and then build uh and build a um and

build a

summer camp there but but sky’s the

limit i i i i don’t have a number in

mind i take the opportunities

as they come uh just i just chase after

them and you know i want to be ready for

any opportunity that hits and

i’ll build as many as like as many as i

can i’m trying to set up the company

right now in a way that

um that um is not hindered by our growth

but that is excelled by our growth so

trying to make sure we’re in a place to

do that

that’s awesome i love that and i love uh

i don’t know i just i love the

philanthropy goal and

you know just thinking a little bit

outside of the business right and using

the the businesses as the tool to

to build the life that you want to build

right for you for your family and for

communities right whether that’s here

you know in indiana or

in puerto rico or wherever that might be

so i love i love that and i love

i don’t know i just i like thinking of

my businesses as as

a path for me to build out what i

what i’m my real goals right my my real

ambitions and

yeah and so i like that you’re thinking

that way i wanted to be an extension of

my lifestyle and what’s you know what

you know

and and when the rubber meets the road

you

you can’t sacrifice the business for

other things but i told my wife i said

basically what i want to do at 45 is i

want to start a new career she rolled

her eyes at me she hates the things i

say sometimes

at 45 i want to start another career and

i want to be a philanthropic one i don’t

care if i’m

uh you know i i want to be the head of

an organization or i want to build

my own non-profit i want to do something

else that i can take the resources

from what i’m currently doing in my

investments and be able to funnel that

without

without without demolishing what i’m

already you know what i’ve built up

and take what my dad is uh my dad is a

huge a huge giver as well he has been in

his personal life and his business life

and i want to extend that my dad’s work

i feel um i feel like i’ve cheated the

system a little bit in some ways

um and you know it’s like i want to be

able to be an extension of what my

dad’s generosity as well yeah well i

don’t i don’t think it’s cheating the

system i think it’s

you know standing on the shoulders of

giants right it’s like yeah you know

that whole

yeah that whole thing right and you can

take it to even another level like

your dad laid an awesome foundation

for you and for you know that business

but

you know there’s more to go like the

sky’s the limit like you said so

love it man well i want to take a couple

seconds to get down to business

and talk a little bit about your actual

some some of the details about your

businesses

that’s cool with you absolutely okay

well

we know you are in indiana right

can you give me like an idea of like how

many

square miles are your laundromats within

how far apart are they from the

northwest to the southeast

uh it’s kind of where my quadrants are

like um

it takes me two hours drive time that’s

highways all highways basically

so um so basically i’m at a radius of i

think um

50 miles maybe okay if i go to the

center point radius of 50 miles

uh i used to be able to get if i did

like if i did like a 30 minute repair at

every store

a day i could get every store in a day i

can in like a 10-hour day you know i

mean it’s like

bouncing around you know right um but um

but i split up in a region so then my

north my north which in my urban region

those are all within um basically 10

miles

and then my south those are all real

spread out they’re all within a half

hour

you know or um if you go to the if you

go like the center one of those they’re

within a half hour of each other two

that are ten minutes away two that are

ten minutes or twenty minutes away and

then

two that are 30 minutes away yeah

they’re kind of you know kind of split

up into two different zones

okay cool that’s pretty good i mean it’s

enough distance especially with some of

the smaller town ones like they

obviously can’t be too close together

because right you know there’s not

enough people for that so

yeah my my laundromats pulled from a lot

of smaller smaller

those the the town of 3000 is big

compared to all the 500 and 400 towns

around it

yeah right yeah so and you guys right

now you’re at

ten laundromats but looking maybe to add

some more

yeah i’m always i’ve got an accepted

offer on a new

building that i’m trying to build out on

but the city i’m in is very difficult

and it’s to replace the current one

that’s got some contamination from the

old dry cleaner

so that’s part of my tin that i already

have i’m trying to rebuild and then

um there are a couple locations i’m

currently scouting and i’m in contact

with owners there to try to keep

building that up

we’re just at a place in our company

where we can we can see some serious

growth

yeah exciting about that yeah yeah

and so okay so you’ve you’ve kind of

been on the periphery of the

of the business for like 18 years or

something right

yeah yeah but yeah since 2003 i’ve been

i’ve been working i’ve been

stripping paint off of floors when i

feel like that was a bad idea

and yeah yeah i remember pressure

washington the car wash at one o’clock

in the morning when i was like 13 years

old

freezing cold oh yeah fun

good memories but you’ve been you’ve

been full-on in it since about 2018 or

so so

three years or so yeah three years it

feels like a lifetime already

yeah i bet i mean you’ve gone you’ve

done a lot in those three years so

um all right what what does it cost to

do do laundry in indiana

yeah we we um we we try to stick to a

very mcdonald’s style of business

whereas you walk into our facility and

you know it’s a ladybug

um which by the way i didn’t i didn’t

elaborate on that sorry to

backtrack uh my sister is the one who

named ladybug

um when she was like 13 or 14 or 14 or

15.

my dad said the motto needs to be we get

the brown out

and my sister’s like how about we get

the spots out ladybug

so we became ladybug cleaners so um our

our our thing is always it’s probably

better than we get the brown out

wow well it does have a nice ring to it

you know it does yeah

so um so we try to make it where our

facilities you know the floors are the

same the walls are the same signs the

same machines are the same

we want it to be branded with that going

we only we only carry three sizes of

machines

uh washing machines and one size of

dryers um

what sizes do you do so i do 20s

i do 40s and i do 60s okay i’m second

guessing maybe going higher and that

carrying a fourth size of 80 or 90

now that i’m moving into some bigger

area areas yeah again you just

because we were on the soft mount model

with 20s you know

because it’s like they were getting so

little turns per day

for half the price heck yeah yeah i mean

i’m going soft mount

yeah so 20s uh 40s and 60s uh

20s are three three dollars or 325 um

well 275 3 or 325 depending on

where i’m at my roll areas three 275

my semi-urban r3 in my urban areas

are 325. um

and my 40s and uh 60s are the same

everywhere

40s are five dollars uh 60s are 750.

cool yeah then my dryers i’ve got a

couple locations that have different

sizes but i moved to a single size

uh because i realized my biggest ones

were ones being used and not my small

ones

um people would be waiting on the big

ones i said i with the space i have and

the capacity i’m running i need to just

do all big stuff

so my i’ve got um i always do the

biggest size

of a stack dryer uh which is 45 or 50

depending on your manufacturer

right yeah five minutes a quarter five

minutes a quarter

yeah wow awesome i mean those

yeah those are good those are good solid

midwest prices right there

oh yeah i like that was like what’s that

compared to the west coast

that yeah yeah no dude the west coast is

cheaper man

that’s what i thought i thought i’m like

man i don’t want to move out there it’s

crazy

when i started doing the podcast i

hadn’t really talked to a ton of people

in the midwest

and they’re like yeah we’re charging

like 14 i’m like

what holy cow man we gotta have like a

thousand pound washer to charge for

that’s what you call a shirt four

quarters you know when you’re stacking

yeah

yeah that’s a lot of quarters uh are

are you running them well before i ask

that what

can you give me i mean i’m sure it

varies super widely

but can you give me like ballparks of

like turns per day what kind of turns

per day are you doing in these

different mats or maybe like a rural

versus an urban

i don’t know how they break down but

like right um i really wish i could um

we could go back in time and redo it

because the first laundry mats we put up

we had six

high capacity which was anywhere from 35

to 60. we had like six in a store

but then we had about 24 20 pounders

right you know we replaced all the top

loaders but we only put 20 pounders in

we’re like that’s all people are going

to use

so the turns per day can be can on the

stainless on those big machines

what we call the stainless you know the

stainless machines in those stores

um turns per day can be four or five in

those rural areas

there’s only six of them you know what i

mean in a town of three thousand people

so i need to put some new i mean we’ve

kind of reevaluated that and realized we

need to put new stuff in there we just

we got other adventures that we’re in

right now so um

but really i mean in my urban area in my

town of 800 people

um i’m not we’re not really making any

money there anymore i hate to say it

that way

um but um we make we do make money there

not like we used to uh because people

people travel more than they used to

they’re not afraid to go farther

i i mean the the nearest walmart to us

is a half hour away

um you know so everybody has to travel

anyway so some people just travel into

their lawn

and that store probably does it’s

luckily does it you know does five turns

a week

or i you know or four turns a week you

know it’s lucky you know i mean most of

those machines just don’t get used

right um whereas my other urban areas

are probably two

uh one and a half to two turns a day um

on the bulk of my machines and then my

busiest store

uh is person um pushing eight turns uh

eight turns a day

on a weekend uh

oh you’re there did i lose you yep nope

you’re back okay

yeah yeah so i was like i was like eight

or nine turns a day on the weekend

um and uh you know it depends on the day

but you know

average of four or five uh you know four

or five three

three to four four to five at my busiest

store the most average three to two to

three three to four turns a day

yeah so they all do more of that

exactly well and that goes back to that

goes back to where the future is for us

yeah um when i bought i’m actually not

gonna be buying

every part of my father’s company uh-oh

you there again i can’t hear you okay if

you can hear me good i don’t know if

that’s my internet uh

rule indiana you know how that goes yeah

um so

that goes back to i won’t be buying my

whole my father’s full company out um

i’m probably gonna have him sell

individually several of the rural areas

and i’m gonna stay locked into some of

the urban areas

yeah um you know that’s just where it’s

at and and what’s your time worth

well at this point uh you know when i

was building out that other store

the week the equipment came and what we

do is we have them set the equipment

and um we do the hookups for it i was in

the middle of hookups and i get a call

that

one of my uh my hot water line under the

concrete burst up i for the store

i go pick up plumbing supplies drive two

hours i was there until two in the

morning

running hot water lines you know over

the ceiling to get to my machines

and it’s like when you’re looking at the

return you get at that store at that

store i do as much in a month as i do at

this other store in a week

yeah so it’s just you know at that point

you go okay

i told dad i said you just go ahead and

sell those and uh and that comes the

other part

uh i wish i wish i could be like a lot

of other people my dad could just hand

me things but

uh he’s gonna bring an outside appraiser

for all this whole this whole system and

uh i got to buy them out at a fair price

legitimate i don’t know what i want yeah

i told them i won’t be buying those

you know you have to make other

arrangements for those smart just

yeah just i mean yeah that’s the natural

flow of business right you’ve scaled

beyond those yeah and peter mayberry is

the one uh

when i heard his podcast we’ve been

debating and i’m like but

just do it stop second guessing yourself

you know what i mean just just get you

know just uh you scale the business well

so just make make your time work more

valuable

yeah love it uh what’s your

attended unattended hybrid

what’s your what are you what are you

doing yeah um

the town of 800 people is actually the

only laundromat it’s not open 24 hours

um just because it’s not busy enough to

be uh everywhere everywhere else

the standard is nine a.m to six pm

attended

the rest of the hours unattended um

my busy locations my two bus two of my

busy locations are eight a.m

to 6 p.m so i just opened an hour

earlier and then my two busiest

locations

are 7am to 6pm and one of those busy

locations is the one

i’m i’m doing a night shift so i’m going

to try a night shift because i looked at

my i i pulled my reports from my

machines and see what i’m doing and i’m

watching the cameras and all that kind

of stuff to see where my busy times are

and when the store gets dirty i’m going

to try to run a night shift from 6 p.m

to 12 p to midnight

and then 4 am to 8 am

yeah i’ll have a four-hour gap which is

which is the slowest part of the night

and it’s not you know i could pay this

to have someone to be there

but they’ll just end up falling asleep

or something and i’ll spyro you know

what i mean so

two four hour shifts um you know with

two different people and that gives me

more employees to pull from when i have

issues

so yeah i kind of like to be over

stocked on employees

it’s smart it’s always a good thing yeah

yeah i’ve had i’ve had multiple times

where i’ve had to go cover a shift

because

an employee was sick or whatever and i

just didn’t have enough

a big enough pool of employees to pull

from right to get somebody else out

there

so and for the most part i like my i

have so i have store managers at every

store and i have two general managers

east district and west district um

and uh i i our stores are getting so

close together they could share

employees

and i i always tell my managers when i

hire them

treat the store like it’s your own and

make decisions like it’s your own

and if you can’t get a hold of me to

make a decision you make it

and i said i won’t be mad at you for

making the decision it was a bad one

we’ll just go from there i give that i i

trust them with a lot of decisions

and one of those things they wanted to

make a decision on was their employees

their hometown will get employees so can

we share employees i said

here’s my advice no i said because when

one employee quits three stores

three stores hurt but you can make that

decision well they made the decision to

go ahead and share employees

and and i fired one because they stole

from us i caught them stealing from us

and the second one

um quit and so three stores were down

two employees

each and it was like oh i was like well

not to say i told you so but uh so but

you get you you trust your you trust

your people to make those decisions and

47. Wheelin’ and Dealin’ Their Way to 10 Laundromats with Logan Wuethrich

Published by Jordan Berry on March 16, 2021March 16, 2021

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