Nikila Gibson is a serial entrepreneur who has started businesses from preschools to drop shipping to staffing agencies, and now runs a laundry pick-up and delivery business in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has started and grown her business from scratch using mostly word-of-mouth advertising and is growing at a rapid pace! 

Nikila brings grit and determination, hard work, and hard-earned business savvy to her laundry business, and, in this episode, she shares how she’s done it and gives great advice to anyone else wanting to start or improve their pick-up and delivery business. And we have a lot of fun talking about it!

In this episode we talk about:

  • Nikila’s entrepreneurship background
  • Being a single mom and business owner
  • How she got started in the laundry business
  • Eco-friendly laundry services
  • Pros and cons of a laundromat owner partnering with a fluff n fold operator
  • Pickup and delivery without a location
  • How Nikila’s customer flow works
  • How Nikila gets customers
  • Pickup and delivery as a tech and logistics company

And more! Be prepared to learn from a true entrepreneur!

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Nikila's Bio

I am a serial entrepreneur, wife and homeschooling mother of 4. I currently own Lave Wash Laundry Delivery and Autumn Teaco Jewelry. I am also 3rd generation entrepreneur which is rare in the African-American community. I was born into entrepreneurship. When I was born my father was a manager for my grandfather’s business and my mother was a saleswoman. My grandfather at that time on the door to door multi use cleaner company. My father has owned multiple businesses since managing my grandfather’s. He now founded and manages a non profit. My mother went on to own her own child care business during my younger years.

I started my first business at the age of 24 as a single mother of two toddlers a few years after the start of the last economic crash. My first business was a preschool, that turned into a full time daycare, at that same time I used my early childhood education experience in studies to form a subscription service for early childhood education curriculum. I would sell these at events with my two young girls with me. After that I started to learn about wholesaling and I begin drop shipping and wholesaling jewelry to other small businesses. From that business, grew Autumn Teaco, the luxury charm and locket company, now instead of wholesaling we have our own charms designed that is strictly sold through our website only. I also tinkered in eBay and eventually I wanted to be able to focus more on my daughters, now having four, and their homeschooling so I started a employment service called novation staffing that turned into my first logistics business by the same name (I already owned the domain and built under it so I kept the name) logistics business we would run routes for small businesses. So we would set up a schedule where we will pick up their customer orders and deliver them to their customers. I would partner with other companies from time to time to learn more about the business. This is how I learned about Laundry Delivery. One of those companies went under and we continued to deliver for the laundry service in certain San Francisco neighborhoods. I never liked working in food, so we dropped the food companies after that company went under. Did that for a few months and then began Lave in the East Bay. As we were starting Lave, I say a laundromat advertising for wash n fold. The deal was we keep up the care of the laundromat, and we can run out business from it. The main goal of a laundromat owner is to get money into their machines. By partnering with us it stabilizes their income. We did that for less than a year but there were too many blurred lines with the two businesses under one roof so we branched out on our own. From there we partnered with many Laundromats from Solano county to Oakland but under different terms. We have our own separate employees and they have theirs.

Lave wash was started in 2017. There have been many services like ours that have started and failed, I study those so I can see how we can improve on those prior models. For one, we are100% self-funded. We don’t have to worry about pleasing investors. Our only goal is to provide the best experience to our clients. Also some of those are considered tech only companies. Although our main product is laundry, lave is actually a tech and logistics business. We implement technology into our day-to-day operations to make enhance the laundry delivery experience. We have a tracking app that alerts our clients when laundry is on the way and when laundry is delivered. Everything is automated and online for ease of use for the client. From scheduling to billing to notices when laundry is delivered everything is automated. We use technology in the running of logistics for our business and even with the intake and outtake. The goal is to continuously improve on customer experience through the implementation of technology while still providing a personalized service. On the logistics side, we are continuously seeking ways to streamline the process and make getting our product from point a to point b and back again.

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    Episode Transcript

    hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the
    laundromat resource podcast it’s
    show 54 and i
    am exceptionally pumped today about
    today’s episode
    not just because we have an amazing
    amazing
    guest today nakila gibson comes on the
    show
    she’s running a pick-up and delivery
    service with no location
    uh in the bay area san francisco bay
    area and
    it’s an awesome interview she is uh
    just a really cool person has a lot a
    lot
    of uh wisdom to share just from her
    experience um in in doing this business
    for the last four years and even beyond
    she’s kind of a serial entrepreneur
    you’re gonna hear her story
    it’s amazing and there’s a whole lot to
    learn there and she’s also
    super funny we have a lot of fun in
    today’s
    uh episode so you’re definitely gonna
    enjoy that so that i
    am pumped for that super pumped i’m also
    pumped because it’s been
    one year since we started the laundromat
    resource podcast
    and man just to take a second
    and reminisce a little bit we’ve had
    some incredible
    incredible guests on the show i’ve met a
    ton of
    awesome people i know a lot of you guys
    have met a lot of these same people
    um just either through listening to
    their stories here on the podcast
    some of you have reached out to many of
    the podcast guests
    and it’s it’s just been really really
    cool to experience and really cool to
    see
    how it’s been bringing people together
    and bringing knowledge out to
    uh just to our industry and about our
    industry so
    man what a cool wild ride it’s been over
    the first year of the laundromat
    resource podcast it’s reached
    heights that i never even anticipated
    you know we’re almost to 40 000 um
    downloads now and i just i’m just blown
    away by that so uh anyways huge
    thank you to those of you guys who’ve
    been listening for any amount of time
    even if it’s just for the first two
    minutes that i started this
    welcome to you uh but seriously uh just
    a
    fun wild ride i just want to take a
    second to acknowledge that it’s been a
    year
    and just all the cool things that i’ve
    learned hopefully that you’ve learned
    um over this last year it’s just been
    really inspiring and
    transformational for me and i know for a
    lot of you guys too
    so anyways enough of the nostalgia of it
    being one year
    um i i’m you know i’m just really pumped
    for
    this last year and just the momentum
    that we’ve had i’m looking forward to
    the next
    year and just on that note real quick i
    just want to let you know that i’m
    always looking for
    laundromat owners or people in the
    industry who have something to say to
    laundromat owners
    to come on the podcast to share your
    story your experience your wisdom
    so if you’re a laundromat owner that
    listens to the podcast and you haven’t
    come on yet
    you know maybe it’s time to consider
    coming on and sharing your story and
    your wisdom
    even if you only own you know one tiny
    store
    or you haven’t owned it very long or you
    own a bunch it doesn’t matter there’s
    something to learn from everybody
    and uh if you’re interested in coming on
    uh
    laundromat resource.com podcast guest
    that link and all the other links that
    are mentioned today will be
    uh in the show notes which you can find
    at laundromat resource.com
    show 54 is that we’re on yeah 54
    or if you’re on youtube you can also see
    them down in the description so
    um yeah laundromat resource.com podcast
    guest if you
    uh are you know itching to come talk
    laundromats with me come check it out
    it’ll be a lot of fun
    um and also if you know anybody who
    would be good for the podcast i would
    love
    love love for you to connect me with
    them um you know
    just wanting to provide a lot of really
    good
    value for people and to introduce people
    to each other
    uh that’s that’s kind of what i see
    myself doing so uh
    all right enough of that um a couple
    of quick things number one the forums
    have just been rocking
    still um so get on there a lot of my
    resource dot com slash forums
    you know whether you’re uh uh you know
    somebody who wants to buy their first
    laundromat
    or you’re a veteran owner or maybe
    you’re just in a related field in the
    industry or a vendor or something
    a lot of value in those forums and a lot
    of
    uh people to network with to help get
    you to the next level of your business
    journey
    no matter where that is in this industry
    um so
    check out the forums on my resource.com
    forums and make sure you go to the new
    introductions
    a new member introductions forum and
    introduce yourself over there
    i just i’ve seen more and more and more
    people connecting in similar geographic
    locations
    and connect connecting up that way so
    that has just been really really cool
    for me to see
    um so get over there let people know who
    you are where you are what you’re up to
    and uh yeah and you veterans of the
    industry
    hey you know get over there it’s a great
    place to connect we should be connecting
    with each other
    a lot too so get over there um and then
    the last thing before we jump into it
    with nikila
    uh that i wanted to let you know is that
    we’re gonna start
    uh hosting a bunch of webinars i mean i
    do a weekly webinar
    uh every week on thursdays
    and you can sign up for that at
    londonresource.com at the top of the
    page
    if you’re interested in those but we’re
    going to start launching more
    webinars for a variety of different
    things and we’re going to have
    guests coming in to host webinars so
    number one
    i would love to know what what do you
    want to learn more about in this
    industry we’ve got some people lined up
    for things like pick up and delivery
    fluff and fold that kind of stuff but i
    want to know what you guys want to learn
    about
    in this industry what we should have
    some webinars on and
    i also want to know who you want to
    learn from
    if there’s somebody in particular or
    or something that you want to hear from
    in a webinar let me know
    and connect me up with them so shoot me
    an email jordan
    laundromat resource dot com that email
    will be down below to or in the show
    notes
    or you can just find that on the website
    but jordan laundromat resource.com and
    let me know if there’s any webinars that
    you’re itching to
    take part in because we’re going to
    start getting those out there for you
    guys
    as another resource we are laundering my
    resource so as another resource to help
    you grow your business
    get to that next level all right without
    further ado be prepared for just a fun
    fun
    uh and information pack episode here
    with nikila gibson
    let’s jump into it right now nakila this
    is awesome how
    are you thank you for coming on thank
    you thank you for having me i’m so
    excited oh
    i am so excited i i read through you
    sent me a little bio and i read through
    this thing and i was like oh
    this is going to be an awesome awesome
    interview so i’m really excited
    uh to hear what you’re doing because
    you’re doing something a little bit
    different than most of our guests
    um and we’re gonna get to that but
    before we do can you give us a little
    bit of background on you who are you and
    you know what you know what is your
    let’s let’s try to
    let’s try to weave a story of this path
    that you’ve taken to get to where you’re
    at now
    but give us some background it’s
    definitely a path
    well let’s start my journey actually
    begins before i was born
    all right so yes yes i’m a third
    generation entrepreneur
    which is uh rare in the african-american
    community
    my grandfather owned a door-to-door
    sales business
    and my mother was a salesperson in that
    business that’s how she met my father
    my father was a manager in that business
    so i was literally
    born on the road
    i traveled to um
    let me see before my first birthday i
    had already hit 12 states
    i don’t remember any of it of course but
    right yeah
    so it was it’s in my dna
    yeah you’re still putting the pins on
    the map that you’ve been there even
    though you were less than one yeah
    yes yes but um so that’s when
    my journey started starting with my
    grandfather and then my father
    he has started a few businesses and
    currently
    has founded a non-profit um so it’s just
    kind of been
    always a part of my life i was that
    child as
    um like as a child when you know you
    bring home the
    christmas things to sell my parents were
    like what are you gonna say what’s your
    sales speech what do you say when they
    say no
    it was drilled into that’s awesome
    that’s good training started my
    entrepreneur yes i started my
    entrepreneur journey at a very very
    young age um i
    then became a single mother at the age
    of 22
    with two toddlers and that’s
    was during the last economic crash of
    2008
    and i at that point
    you know i had to make something happen
    so i started my very first business
    which was a preschool um i founded a
    preschool
    you just started a preschool out of
    nowhere as your first business
    well i did i did work in them first so i
    did
    have some experience in some training so
    i did study childhood education
    but i didn’t like the way you know when
    you’re in it you you get to see
    different things i didn’t like the way
    it was going i didn’t like the focus
    that uh was happening within
    certain ones that i’ve worked in so i
    was like well i mean who’s better to
    fix it than myself so i started my first
    preschool
    and i did a preschool instead of a full
    day care so because i did have two small
    children
    um on my own so that way i can spend the
    time
    with you know with my girls i am
    currently a homeschool mom
    of four now but
    so the yes the education has always been
    vital it’s another thing my parents have
    always instilled in
    education as well as entrepreneurship
    um which then gets into late watch later
    on
    but i know it’s a it’s a path it’s a
    path
    it’s a it’s a path i mean we started off
    starting as preschool holy cow man i am
    just
    yes yes so um i started a preschool
    and then that preschool i ended up doing
    a subscription service
    for childhood educational products uh
    and i designed a lot myself that got me
    into
    learning to how to wholesale and then
    from there
    i i started a a wholesale jewelry
    business where i sold necklaces and
    lockets and things like that to other
    small businesses
    that i had stopped doing a little while
    ago right before the pandemic
    which is when all the small businesses
    weren’t able to sell at their venues
    but um i do currently still do jewelry
    but not on the wholesale level
    um but oh man there’s such a path i’m
    just it’s hard for me
    i read this thing and i was like where
    are we we’re all over
    the map we’ve done every kind of
    business yeah
    i’ve done ebay um i’ve i’ve done all
    sorts of
    i am a serial entrepreneur if you
    haven’t figured it out already
    but yes yes so from there yes i did
    wholesaling
    and drop shipping and then from there
    um my preschool had grew into a full-on
    daycare so um then i
    had my third daughter and i wanted to be
    able to spend a little more time
    with her so i kind of started lessening
    the time and then i have my fourth
    daughter i have all girls
    i mean i love i love my daughter and
    would not trade her for the world but
    four girls sounds
    so overwhelming to me i mean one is like
    i mean that’s like my limit
    i’m like pushing the limit yeah holy cow
    okay
    yes so at that point okay so then i
    wanted to be able to spend more time
    with
    my um with once i was having my fourth
    daughter so during um i was trying to
    figure out which route to go
    so i actually started a um
    excuse me an employment
    business so i did temporary employment
    and from there that’s where i learned
    about logistics
    so my employment staffing agency turned
    into a logistics business so we ended up
    just hiring for
    our business and from there we would run
    routes for other
    small businesses and uh
    we we had built a pretty decent
    clientele
    but some of them were like food
    businesses and i didn’t like running
    food i’ve never been comfortable with
    dealing with
    things that people eat so
    from there my logistics business
    we had ended up partnering with a few
    other
    startups and unfortunately some of those
    fell through they didn’t um continue on
    so that’s when we kind of learned about
    the laundry business so and that’s one
    reason why we don’t serve in san
    francisco because
    we have a partner in san francisco so we
    just kind of link up with him
    and we cross paths but uh we started
    a laundry pickup and delivery service
    lifewash
    that is actually a logistics and tech
    company
    because our main focus is
    getting the product from point a to
    point b and making it easy for
    the client as well as on our end
    using technology to implement and excuse
    me implementing technology to
    streamline that process wow
    okay yes now we can rewind
    okay so i mean i feel like we’ve all got
    the map
    of you know yes it’s so logical to start
    with a preschool and end up
    with a laundry pick-up and delivery
    service so um
    yeah so okay talk to me a little bit
    about
    uh you know when you started you started
    a preschool and i’m
    assuming that probably also helped with
    you know having your kids around and all
    of that
    um but talk to me about what it
    what it was like to be a business owner
    as a single mom
    when you’re starting off there oh man
    you know what
    that it actually wasn’t as challenging
    as you would
    have thought it was it’s more
    challenging
    um at that point because i was so young
    i think i was so
    naive even though i had experience with
    um
    everything i’m so sorry my my
    three-year-old yeah there’s
    there’s four of them quite your sister
    will turn it on
    you know the joys of working from home
    right
    hey man we are all dealing with that all
    year so
    we get it yes so uh okay i’m so sorry
    let’s rewind back
    um so running a business as a single mom
    so
    that was an easy transition because of
    the type of business
    and my older two girls like they
    literally went everywhere with me so
    they were
    so easy because they’re literally always
    with me
    um i have photos of us with our first
    booths and they’re like sitting there
    with them you know and i have the booth
    with the subscription items and
    you know they were just amazing
    absolutely amazing they made it so easy
    but also they were like my experiment so
    i was able to test out my products with
    them
    and be like okay this really works and
    also with my daycare we did a lot of
    projects so i was like okay this you
    know this really works and
    i would build an entire curriculum
    around it
    and then that would be a part of the
    subscription subscription service
    so it really at that moment with that
    particular business
    it wasn’t as challenging as
    later on in life with other men
    with more children i was just so young
    and just
    you know i said naive just like you know
    hey going with the flow
    and plus we’re right in the middle of a
    financial crisis so it’s kind of like
    hey what do i have to lose
    yeah yeah you know we just make it work
    so it was actually a lot of fun because
    i was able to experiment and really
    start learning and getting my foot in
    the door
    with my own thing rather than watching
    my parents
    you know do their thing yeah
    oh that’s awesome okay so you did a
    bunch of stuff you did
    uh you know the preschool you had a
    subscription
    service you talk to me about starting
    this employment staffing agency how did
    you
    how did you get into that that’s kind of
    yes
    it is very interesting so i actually got
    into that because my sister
    is my younger sister she is a dental
    hygienist
    so she would go on temp jobs and there
    was
    a an agency in our
    area that did strictly dental and i
    thought that was the coolest idea that
    this person did strictly dental you know
    and i’m like oh cause you know you
    always hear about the different types
    but not
    one that has such a specific niche so i
    was like that’s so cool
    i want to try that out too so
    so i picked the niche which was
    logistics and
    um went from there just kind of you know
    experimenting and learning and talking
    to
    different people and um at that time it
    was also timing
    uh i believe it was indeed or one of the
    other companies they had
    an option for recruiters to be able to
    sign up
    and get like behind the scenes uh
    job listings and things like that and
    then be able to recruit for those
    so i kind of just had good timing as
    well
    it was a good timing but it was also me
    just trying to figure out
    which way i wanted to go
    you know in life like let me try out
    some different things and in staffing i
    get to learn about all sorts of things
    that are out there
    yeah yeah it worked out
    yeah that was a good point so how did it
    turn
    i mean you said it turned into like a
    logistics
    business and that led you to laundry so
    what do you mean by that how did it turn
    into a logistics business so
    we ended up partnering with some
    startups like i was saying some
    logistics startups
    and logistics i mean on the smaller
    scale so the smaller scale logistics of
    moving it
    from city to city not nationwide to
    nationwide
    so between moving from city to city they
    so i actually kind of learned from those
    startups like
    how does the business work and um you
    know
    my husband was my main employee
    can be the main person i would send out
    when i didn’t have anybody else
    how amazing is that that you just get to
    be like hey you know what you
    why don’t you head over you know down to
    the next town over
    you get to just kind of boss them around
    and that’s your job that’s amazing
    yes
    okay i’m so sorry one more time nikoia
    come play with your sister so sorry okay
    yes so yeah right it was wonderful so he
    um would go out sometimes of course we
    had other employees as well the other
    people we sent out but
    with him i could really get feedback
    right yeah
    i would ask you know i would follow the
    routes and i would ask him
    because we would and we ended up setting
    up our own system
    um as well so we would have their system
    and then we have our own system
    and i would be able to flip back and
    forth and kind of compare
    and and you know it was a real like i
    would literally and my job was pregnant
    at the time
    and i would we would be up at four in
    the morning you know
    preparing for these routes and
    you know me the whole time just up like
    watching the routes and
    putting things in and tracking and
    dealing with customer service
    you know it was just a whole thing
    yeah but yeah so and that’s what we did
    and then like i said that particular one
    went belly up
    so when it did you know we looked at the
    list of clientele because now you know
    everybody needed this additional
    logistics i was like well instead of
    just doing staffing let’s just
    help out these companies that are ready
    you know we’ve already been working with
    them they know who we are
    you know we’ll just take over from there
    but i just didn’t want to deal with the
    food companies so we
    didn’t do those but we did offer to the
    other companies
    and one of them just happened to be a
    laundry
    service so with with dealing with the
    laundry service
    he was amazing i mean he taught us so
    much you know he had his little area
    that he covered he was interested in
    going in any other areas that he’s like
    really established
    in the bay area like me in san francisco
    so
    he just taught us everything like he
    taught us so much and was willing to
    kind of like
    talk to me about everything and it was
    if it wasn’t for him we would have never
    gotten it started like i
    can’t give all credit to that particular
    partner
    but he was amazing and that’s how we got
    started we went from
    helping out another startup that ended
    up closing down
    to then taking over their clientele
    because now they’re closed and the
    clientele’s reaching out to us like hey
    what do we do now we’re like okay we got
    you covered and
    thankfully i had already been looking at
    systems and comparing systems
    so you know and then i got all the
    technology
    set up and i was up for days out of time
    uh
    coding and tech in the background
    um and you know phone calls at two in
    the morning
    you know like to people overseas so that
    they can like
    help me with other texts yeah big
    journey
    um and just trying to you know quickly
    get it together because we didn’t have
    very much time
    because they needed service to continue
    you know they needed their businesses
    to continue on so we just like okay
    we’ll just pick up from there and then
    you know over time
    we kind of lessen those other ones and
    then just focus strictly on the laundry
    and then from that point um you know we
    were working with
    the particular partner in san francisco
    and
    uh but there was nothing going on in the
    bay area so
    i just happened to be uh searching for
    you know new clientele
    and just kind of doing my research and i
    came across a laundromat
    that was looking for a wash and fold
    um person so the deal was you know they
    would get paid for their machines
    and you know we would get whatever we
    charge so i was like oh great you know
    like
    now we can fully go full-blown because
    before that
    um let me rewind a little bit the
    partner that we have in san francisco
    had given us one of their uh larger
    clients
    uh it was the weworks building at the
    time uh
    they was one of their larger clients on
    the other side of the bridge because
    they didn’t service the area they’re
    like hey you know you service this area
    i’m like
    yeah we can service that area yeah we of
    course we do
    we started off pretty well we started
    off with
    you know with a pretty decent uh client
    there
    and and then that’s when i came across
    the
    the other the laundromat that was
    looking for this
    this position but it wasn’t like an
    employee position it was just kind of
    like hey you know keep an eye on
    my shop and you know you can get paid
    whatever just
    get some money in my my into my machines
    and i was like oh this is a thing
    i was like perfect we can do this we
    already have
    you know like our whole logistics set up
    and i had it so then i went to go speak
    with him
    and you know he was telling me his deal
    and i was like okay i was like
    yeah you know like can we run our um
    can we run pickup and delivery and he
    was like oh yeah sure
    and there and that was it
    and there you have it then we started
    and then from there we started making
    more partners but that was
    yeah that was the main start of how we
    did it
    but um also to rewind a little bit
    because we
    do uh we are we do have a special team
    we’re not just a pickup delivery laundry
    service
    we specialize in eco-friendly and
    nonsense products because um in
    researching
    i i’ve learned that and also experiment
    not experimenting but experience with
    talking to clientele a lot of people
    don’t like the harsh detergents it’s too
    much there’s a lot of sensitivities we
    have a lot of clientele
    that our cancer survivors are
    elderly severe allergies our daughter
    has very very severe asthma so i kind of
    i was already familiar with what
    products
    to use that would be safe cleaning and
    help reduce the allergens
    and things of that nature so it it
    that was our niche i was like well you
    know if we’re going to do it i i don’t
    want to just
    do it i want to be of help to
    to whoever helping in more than one way
    more than just doing their laundry
    like i want them to know that we care
    about their safety and we care about
    what they’re breathing in and you know
    because a lot of people don’t think
    about like their bedding you sleep on
    your bed for
    you know six to eight hours eight to ten
    hours you know and you’re laying there
    on your pillow and you’re breathing in
    all these chemicals you know things like
    that so i wanted to really kind of
    educate
    our clientele and just be that peace of
    mind
    to the people that need a laundry
    service but can’t
    use the laundry service because there’s
    too many chemicals involved you know and
    that’s why we don’t
    with directly in order to get proper
    candles a lot of chemicals
    yeah yeah pretty much entirely
    yeah well i mean i think that’s really
    cool i think i mean obviously the bay
    area is a great
    location to have that niche um you know
    there’s certain areas of the country
    where you would just be hearing crickets
    right yes yes san francisco is a great
    or that the bay area is a great
    place to you know to be doing that so
    that’s awesome i think that’s
    obviously i think that’s great you know
    for you know the environment
    yeah people’s health and everything um
    yeah but it’s awesome too that you
    found uh a solid niche that yes that you
    can grow and promote
    and educate and all that so uh all right
    i want to go back for a second
    to finding this laundromat who that was
    looking for
    a somebody to do their wash and fold i
    mean not to do their wash and fold but
    to do wash and fold
    in their store and look for it um
    okay so where did you find that you said
    you saw that online or something yes
    uh-huh it was online
    um i was searching
    you know i was just searching um all
    throughout everything i was like on
    craigslist and facebook just trying to
    build a clientele list of people to
    reach out to um
    in my research and then i came across
    that one so he was looking for weekends
    only which was perfect
    because um you know we want to be able
    to really focus on our
    own building our business as well and
    um yeah so with him he was looking for
    weekends only
    and we were going to be uh
    you know just mainly keep an eye on the
    shop
    and we would uh be able to be in charge
    of the washing fold
    he had recent just recently purchased
    that particular laundry mat
    but um he had a history of laundromat
    ownership in his
    family and there was already
    a lady that had been there for quite a
    few years
    that did the monday through friday and
    he wanted to expand to the weekends
    got it uh okay so
    i mean i i hear this a lot and i think
    it appeals to a lot of owners
    because you know you can kind of get
    some
    quote unquote free labor and and also
    some income from somebody else’s
    work into your business so not a bad
    setup
    but i also know that it’s not always a
    good setup so i’m curious how your
    experience was
    uh doing that what are some of the pros
    and cons of
    of doing that you know maybe from your
    perspective and maybe even from an
    owner’s perspective
    so the pros are that
    well from my perspective as someone that
    is starting a wash and fold
    it gives you the opportunity to
    learn your clientele learn your
    demographics see if it works for you
    because it is a lot of work it’s not to
    be taken lightly at all it is a lot of
    work
    especially pick-up and delivery and i
    think a lot of people are like oh well
    you know i already have wash and fold
    i’m just gonna ethic and delivery and
    they don’t understand
    like it’s it’s a complete other type of
    business
    um and it’s a lot of different things
    that go into it whether
    when you just have a right you know just
    the laundromat but the pros are that it
    gives you the opportunity to
    try to test it out work on the
    demographics with low
    risk and kind of learn you know what
    you’re going to do and how you’re going
    to do it
    for us the cons were that we started to
    have
    a blend of businesses uh the clients
    didn’t
    couldn’t differentiate between our
    business and their business
    so they would come to us with the
    laundromat
    issues and we’d like well we can afford
    it
    and then people would come to him for
    wash and fold delivery
    pick up and delivery um questions
    and he would like well i can afford you
    to
    you know to me to tequila but like i
    said there was somebody there monday
    through friday
    and she didn’t do pick up a delivery and
    she didn’t have a credit card processing
    she didn’t have all these tech
    things that we had so it just ended up
    being
    too um
    too much blurring of lines between the
    two businesses so that’s something that
    uh if you decide to go that route
    that you should definitely um
    find a way which i couldn’t figure out a
    way we ended up leaving within our first
    year
    to to keep the the line separate
    you know the lady that was there monday
    through friday had her name
    on the window but we didn’t want to
    advertise
    that way you know because we still
    wanted to make sure our business was
    completely separate even though we were
    using their facilities
    yes yeah yeah i mean
    like i said i think there’s pros and
    cons and it is a really great way to
    just get your foot in the door right
    like
    if you’re trying to start a pickup and
    delivery service you know
    if you are lucky enough to live in a
    house with
    you know a washer and a dryer then you
    can use that to a very small extent
    you’re going to outgrow that real fast
    yeah
    you cannot do that type of capacity we
    what depends on the demographics of
    course of your area
    we run a very large area
    um because we are one of the only pickup
    and delivery services in our area
    and well that goes that route so
    there’s no way we could we have to use
    other facilities but yes yes yeah
    it grows very fast
    yeah i’m i’m sure i mean sometimes if i
    get a little bit backed up on our
    personal laundry it’ll take all day to
    do laundry at my house just
    our one house so yeah uh you know when
    you’re doing other people’s laundry it
    can it can add up real fast so
    it is a great way to get started get
    your foot in the door um
    and you know sometimes i’ve even heard
    where owners will
    you know if they have if they have the
    capability of doing this we’ll discount
    a little bit for a bulk or something
    like that so you might be able to even
    negotiate some of that
    yes um but you know i’ve talked to
    owners who’ve tried this and from their
    perspective
    there’s pros and cons too you know and
    so
    you know some of the some of the pros
    are hey you get somebody in there
    who is you know cleaning the place up
    and
    right taking care of the place ideally
    um some of the
    some of the cons though is that you’re
    at the
    uh you know if if you don’t have
    somebody who
    is like you who’s gonna be doing what
    they’re supposed to be doing yes
    and they’re a little more wishy-washy
    then you may not have somebody cleaning
    up your place for you
    and it may not be as nice and that’s
    another
    con because we got to a point of being
    so busy
    that we weren’t able you know we’d have
    to
    have another assistance we have
    assistance with the laundry and
    with the um washing fold
    obviously with the with the laundry and
    with the the um
    cleaning of the place it ended up being
    too much
    so that’s another con yeah and that’s
    that’s not a money-making part of your
    business
    right cleaning it up so that’s an extra
    thing and you want to be focusing on the
    money-making parts of your
    exactly okay so you said i mean you said
    you left
    that partnership after you know less
    than a year
    so so what are you doing now what did
    you what did you do from there
    so from there we went and we started
    just talking to other laundromat owners
    and trying to see who else
    we could to partner with
    that and you know make our own little
    deals so from there we made our own
    deals
    and uh we partnered with three
    other laundromats so one we have
    emergency access to overnight
    and the other two are daytime access one
    in the bay
    and one where we’re centered at in
    fairfield okay
    okay is the are
    are they just are they just getting the
    turns from you or
    is there anything else they have their
    own attendance
    yeah awesome that’s it they just we they
    just get the
    money in their machines yeah they just
    get the turns that’s it good
    it’s uh do you did you guys do a formal
    like agreement or is it just kind of
    it’s a verbal agreement
    so right now we’re in verbal agreements
    um
    we soon uh
    maybe going into formal more formal
    agreements
    but at this point i guess we do also
    know that we’re dealing with
    the virus so a lot of even though
    they you know people still have to do
    their laundry people are afraid to come
    into the laundromats
    so the ones that the main one that we
    use
    doesn’t have as much volume as they
    would have had pre
    corona so with doing that
    keeping it informal it gives us the
    flexibility to kind of like okay you
    know
    as your business starts to pick back up
    you know if we need to pull back and
    move to a different area you know our
    space everything out between the two
    then we can
    you know so it’s kind of like we’re all
    working together at this
    point just to make it through we’re
    making it through
    the the virus and you know keeping their
    doors open
    and keeping us with um access to
    keeping our doors open yeah yeah
    yeah is there are there any uh just like
    curiosity are there any
    i’m just trying to think through like
    what if you come in with like a lot of
    laundry
    and you’re taking up a lot of machines
    or maybe you’re having to wait for
    machines i mean have you run into that
    at all
    yes we have um but like
    this particular one right now isn’t
    doing the volume that they normally
    probably would be doing pre uh pandemic
    but we’re courteous like we’re not going
    in there and just going to take up all
    the washers and make it to where we want
    them to have the terms
    that way they keep their doors open for
    us as well
    we don’t want any complaints or you know
    or anything like that so we are
    very very curious and i believe that
    comes from
    us working prior you know in a more
    formal
    type of agreement you know but with
    every uh with the two owners that
    were three one of them is kind of more
    formal because we have overnight access
    to his
    his uh laundry mat so of course that’s a
    little
    you know different because he’ll open
    the doors for us but the other two
    you know we we just you know make sure
    they know who we are we talk to them we
    let them know what we have going on you
    know is it okay
    of course you know they’re not they’re
    not going to say no
    yeah right uh no you can’t come do your
    laundry like no you’re going to bring in
    you know
    2 000 pounds yeah wait what
    you can come on down here and do the
    mine that’s fine but they do have a
    business to run
    so we make sure that we are courteous to
    their
    clients and even though i don’t have to
    and they have attendance there
    if there’s a problem with the machine
    and i know what to do i help them you
    know if somebody
    is confused about the dryers or i stop
    and i you know i assist
    because i mean i know and then and i’m
    grateful you know that
    we’re able to have the partnerships that
    we do and that you know
    and that they are are very they’re very
    wonderful people you know
    very wonderful owners and we haven’t had
    any problems and we try not to give them
    any problems as well
    so you know there are things that we’ll
    do just to kind of show our gratitude
    like yeah you know we can help with that
    or you know yeah
    and things like that and just to you
    know keep it keep it
    good and beneficial for them as well
    yeah and to be good people because
    you’re good
    right yeah okay so
    uh all right so you’re working with
    these right now three different laundry
    mats
    are you are you using like a
    software how well first of all how are
    people finding you how do you how do you
    how does somebody order a pickup service
    from you yes
    so we are on yelp and google
    and of course the social medias uh
    instagram facebook
    uh like i said we are a tech company as
    well
    so we have a lot of tech iterations
    up there so they’re able to schedule
    online
    oh we also oh yeah with yelp they can
    also schedule but we
    from any of those sources they’re able
    to schedule online directly
    excuse me straight to our scheduler from
    there
    it gets pinged to our calendars and it
    which pings to our logistics apps
    that’s on the back end on the front end
    all they do is they schedule
    and then their credit cards are vaulted
    for future
    billing because of course we don’t know
    how many pounds they have
    and it’s all automated so they they get
    auto auto build after
    pickup and yeah we just kind of make it
    seamless
    and and that’s it they get text
    reminders so they also get a text alert
    when we’re on the way
    and a text alert when it’s been
    delivered and picked up
    uh they also uh have
    paperless invoice you know to their
    email so they get invoices to their
    email so everything is there
    um everything is held on our end to
    where we can pull up
    you know their prior things there are
    more integrations we want to add in the
    future
    but right now it’s pretty seamless
    and like from the moment they schedule
    to the moment that they are picked up it
    can be completely contactless
    and yeah but it’s pretty easy but they
    find us
    on online google yep instagram
    facebook yeah awesome so are you doing
    uh are you doing any marketing
    or anything not at this moment we
    actually are mostly word of mouth
    and search yeah mostly word-of-mouth
    search however
    we will be um having an intern this
    summer
    that will be working with our social
    media because i do know a lot of
    uh you know behind the scenes tech
    things and
    helping them with digital marketing
    right yes
    yeah that’s awesome well that’s pretty
    cool to be able to
    kind of grow business and and not have
    to worry about marketing up on the front
    end and
    be able to get going that’s awesome yes
    uh okay i mean you this is interesting
    because you dropped
    a little just casually you just dropped
    a little statement in there and you said
    you know that you are a tech and
    logistics
    company right not a laundry company a
    tech and logistics company
    yes can you tell me a little more about
    that what do you mean by that i sure
    can so laundry is our product
    we can actually run any product we can
    run
    anything from tissue we can do food we
    can do laundry
    anything anything that needs to be moved
    from point a to point b we can move it
    with our systems
    however laundry is our product of choice
    so that’s the logistics part like we
    have of course it’s more complicated
    than that but just
    right now at the logistics part because
    we we don’t have to even though we do
    have our own employees that do the wash
    we don’t uh vendor out that’s another
    thing we don’t vendor out
    i do it with assistance and even though
    we have our own employees
    we we can easily
    vendor out if we chose to we don’t have
    to actually touch
    any wash and fold if we don’t want to we
    can strictly just move it from point a
    to point b
    however there has been other startups
    that have done that and it didn’t work
    out i’ve done a lot of research
    so we choose to have our own employees
    in these different
    settings that way we have more control
    over the process
    uh so yeah so there’s a lot of logistics
    things
    that go with that so um like i said the
    alerts and then just the whole process
    of mapping everything we service from
    solano county
    through san leandro so that’s about a 50
    mile radius
    yes and we only go up one way there’s
    actually a whole other side that we can
    right now we go up one one way up to 680
    and it’s a lot in between there
    there’s a lot of cities and we have to
    kind of map out
    the routes and where to go and it’s
    pretty complicated
    it’s pretty complicated especially
    traffic flow and in the last year with
    dealing with
    corona there’s been so many changes
    to the traffic flow that it’s been a lot
    of work we’ve been focusing more on
    logistics than anything else
    yeah no kidding yeah it has been pretty
    crazy
    um and you know then integrating all
    those systems together
    so with the tech we’re constantly trying
    to find
    new and improved ways using technology
    to streamline the process um on both
    ends on the consumer end
    and on the business end to where it
    would be um
    easier a lot of the systems that they
    are putting out right now
    are actually kind of complicated so if
    you own a laundromat and you want to
    set up um a pick-up-and-delivery service
    and you want to have some of these
    different things
    it’s a lot of work like if you don’t
    have experience with technology or
    somebody that can assist you with it
    the integrations and then you know
    there’s always something going wrong
    with it like lately we
    have to go through and try to fix a few
    things because some of
    our clientele had been getting an alert
    that we were like 40 minutes away
    we were actually like five minutes away
    you know so and that’s not
    that’s not good
    they’re still wearing the clothes they
    want to wash when you show up at the
    door
    they’re like they’re like what do you
    mean they got another thing to say hey
    we missed you
    that’s never good so there’s a lot of
    that that goes into it i i really spend
    most of my time dealing with the tech
    and logistics part
    but um it’s just making it a a process
    that is easy on the consumer end
    and also easy on the business end
    um one day we hope to be able to put
    together these systems
    after our trial and errors for other
    laundromats because it really is
    it’s really complicated it and it’s a
    lot of work
    and the tech part you’re always having
    to go through
    and troubleshoot something you know
    so it’s just so and it’s it can be
    pricey you know if you’re going with
    somebody else’s system
    so it’s a lot it’s a lot of work so in
    doing this i’m
    you know even though you know we’ll be
    helping the competition
    the goal is to make it easier on
    everybody like we do want to see other
    businesses thrive as well
    you know so yeah and i cannot get a bad
    rep because you know if
    if they get a bad rep and they’re like
    oh i don’t ever want to try laundry
    service again yeah
    totally totally you know yeah
    here i am standing here in my underwear
    because you said you weren’t going to be
    here for 40 minutes and
    you’re knocking on my door
    uh that’s funny are you doing um
    are you doing residential are you doing
    only commercial are you doing both
    we do both we do um residential and
    commercial
    um we are going to in the next couple of
    months be starting
    a subscription service with our
    residential to get a beta we’re going to
    give it a try and see how that works out
    just to make it easier on the budgeting
    and things so you have to have us back
    so we’ll be able to tell you how that
    goes
    yeah oh yeah i’m i’m excited right now
    like i’m excited to hear how your
    business is going to grow and just i
    mean if you’re already
    running a nice business with no
    marketing or anything
    you know i’m you know sky’s the limit
    for you guys
    like you said there there are a lot of
    cities yes
    around there and there’s a yes it’s
    pretty densely populated so it is
    there’s a lot of business to be had it
    is it is i know
    we haven’t even touched our we’re still
    in our our
    beginning stage yeah yeah
    that’s exciting right it is very
    exciting so
    very um very bay area of you to be in
    beta
    you know for your subscription service
    very very
    yeah yeah you have to remind me uh after
    this i need to
    uh connect you up with mark vlaskamp
    he’s doing something
    similar he’s out in austin he came on
    the podcast yes
    and that’s another good area yeah and he
    yeah
    actually a lot of similarities to the
    bay area in austin yeah
    but he’s doing something similar he
    doesn’t have a location and he’s
    um you know he’s got a pretty booming
    pickup and delivery service yeah yeah it
    would be a good one for you to
    definitely definitely i love the network
    yes yeah yeah and if
    if you’re listening you haven’t listened
    to mark’s podcast i mean it’s an awesome
    episode so i’ll put a link in the
    description or in the show notes
    so you can check that one out just in
    case but speaking of not having a
    location
    are you guys ever planning on getting a
    location or are you gonna
    um keep utilizing uh you know other
    people’s locations
    do you have a plan there yet no um i
    have a halfway
    plan yeah that’s fine yeah you know
    because
    we actually are growing very fast very
    very fast so i don’t foresee
    us being able to continue this
    way but i would still like to
    keep my partnerships in a way so we’ll
    probably
    just have some volume there and then
    move the rest to our own facility in the
    future yes yes
    so we do have to have yeah yeah
    and i think it makes a lot of sense you
    know once you have a certain volume
    especially if you’re planning on
    focusing on pickup and delivery
    you get cheaper space uh
    you know in like an industrial area set
    up yeah yes
    there where there’s no walk-in customers
    but you’re not focusing on that
    anyways exactly yeah you can run that
    and
    and you’re not paying the retail premium
    for doing exactly
    yes yeah it’s pretty significant yeah
    and we’re located in fairfield
    california
    and most people are not familiar with
    fairfield california but it’s actually a
    big hub spot for logistics businesses
    we have a lot of factories a lot of
    industrial space so we’ve been keeping
    an eye out
    corona has kind of slowed things down
    you know with that
    but um everything happens for a reason
    so it gives us an opportunity to really
    step back
    from the busyness i mean not that it’s
    not busy it’s definitely still busy
    but it just gives us a time to you know
    kind of recenter and focus
    and and focus more on our our future
    goals because you know we do want to be
    able to help
    as many people as we can that’s the main
    thing of our business to be able to
    give people that peace of mind and
    freedom
    to not have to worry about the longest
    chore on their list
    yeah yeah oh my gosh man i don’t
    so many people hate laundry yes i’m one
    of them so
    um yeah well awesome uh okay
    the i had one more question darn it um
    i mean i have a lot more questions but i
    had one that i wanted to ask
    right now but i can’t remember what it
    is because i’m getting old um okay
    if i think of it i’ll uh i’ll i’ll shoot
    it out there to you but uh
    we have a section on the podcast called
    down to business
    [Applause]
    and down to business just an opportunity
    for us to get to know
    your business a little more uh in a
    little more detail to see
    you know what exactly you’re up to over
    there in the bay area
    um okay so you’re in the bay area we
    already know that um and you own
    zero laundromats yes zero laundromats i
    like that
    uh when did you when did you start this
    oh 2017.
    2017. yes yes yeah um okay cool
    so you’ve been doing it for almost four
    years now four years
    yeah wow wow okay
    that’s awesome uh yeah
    what i do
    i mean you’re at different locations and
    stuff so you may not know how much it
    costs to do laundry
    does it vary
    it does vary it does vary um usually
    within
    50 cents of each other per location
    there the 60 pounders typically range
    between
    um 6.75
    to about 7.25 okay 750 depending on
    because there’s some locations that do
    upwards of 750.
    the uh 30 pounders
    are wait are those 40 pounders
    30 40 pounds
    nobody really knows how much 40 pounds
    of laundry is anyways
    including me so
    575 to 625 you know so they’re right in
    those type of ranges
    per machine um so
    when we do it of course you know things
    are separated out
    so it’s
    we charge per pound when we’re washing
    we are looking at um like if they have a
    a
    load of wipes and a load of you know
    colors darks and so on
    we put those together so sometimes
    one person may have you know
    two or three or however many machines um
    of course we try to convince as much as
    we can to save on costs
    because we we are um
    you know we don’t have our own machine
    so we do want to try to stay on cost
    there but we also try to make sure that
    the clients
    close are still separated out as well
    [Music]
    so
    her clients well not to say per client
    we spend about 10 to 15 percent of our
    income
    excuse me of our gross revenue on
    machines
    okay that’s not that bad actually i
    would have expected it to be higher
    yes yeah that’s good it’s good
    well oh what kind of poundage are you
    doing like how many pounds of
    laundry that’s more of like pickup
    delivery metric
    yes yes so poundage we
    do on average
    about five to
    six sometimes 700 pounds a day
    um we run three days
    on our schedule but um so that’s another
    thing that’s unique about our business
    we don’t run seven days a week
    we run um three days for pickups
    but we have four wash days
    so yeah because of the two day and next
    day turn around
    so we run monday monday tuesday
    and thursday with wednesday being a wash
    day
    and we
    yeah about five to seven hundred pounds
    uh a day
    that’s pretty good yeah that’s pretty
    good it could be for some days you know
    it just kind of depends because we do
    have some temporary
    you know clients that come and go and
    they might we have some
    contracts that aren’t all the time and
    then i’m also trying to think like okay
    pre corona like right now
    there’s a lot of businesses that have
    shut down unfortunately that won’t be
    coming back to us
    but we do we do pretty well we do pretty
    well
    yeah that’s pretty that’s pretty awesome
    um
    i forgot to ask you this before but with
    your speaking of your logistics company
    how are you keeping track of everybody’s
    laundry you know like yeah you’re going
    to different locations and yeah
    you know what do you just whack the
    desk how do you how do you keep track of
    everything
    so everything is uh scanned in
    and i kind of list it so all the
    businesses go
    in one area and all the
    smaller residentials go in another area
    and then we have the large bulk pickups
    from usually they’re like your families
    that you know once a month or
    just need to get it down that one time
    and
    those buildings 32 pairs of underwear
    yeah
    just wear one day and then give them all
    yep
    so we separate out separated out by size
    in business so residential has two
    different types
    and the businesses have one type and
    then from there it gets separated again
    who’s right now we’re not doing same
    days because of
    the virus we need more time to implement
    our
    safety procedure we’ve always had the
    high safety procedures but now you know
    we’ve taken it up a step
    because of those sensitive clients i’ve
    told you about before so we’ve kind of
    always had them so it wasn’t a major
    change for us on that area
    but from there then it separated again
    into
    who goes back next day who goes back in
    two days
    yes and then it’s it’s all input into
    our systems
    that’s where the system i built so it’s
    kind of like it’s kind of yeah
    where are you storing stuff like when
    you do we do have a storage
    no we haven’t we do have it storage yeah
    we have our own storage building
    okay yeah okay i was gonna say man is it
    in your garage right now
    in your in your spare room uh
    awesome well the rest of these are the
    just out of curiosities this is really
    irrelevant but i curiosity the
    laundromats that you’re partnering with
    are they coin stores are you putting
    quarters in all these machines all day
    long
    uh some of them are one of them is
    the well two of them excuse me two of
    them have coins one of them
    is a card or they have a part option yes
    yeah
    okay do you use the card option or do
    you use the coin
    oh card store going back and forth
    okay the one that we use the most is
    mostly coin based
    um and you know we just use the coins
    i’ll run down to the bank
    so because we know we’re also in the
    middle of a coin shortage as well
    a lot of things going on there but um
    yeah
    but you know since they know who we are
    if they if they happen to run out of
    quarters and i run out of quarters and
    i’ll just like hey
    we’re out of quarters and they’ll refill
    the machines for us
    yeah yeah well you could see that being
    actually like
    one actual problem for an owner if
    you’re coming in
    with 500 pounds of laundry that’s a lot
    of quarters and you could empty them out
    real quick and there was exactly another
    person yeah right and we don’t want to
    do that so we usually bring in our own
    yeah man quarters are heavy though those
    they are five they are
    yeah oh gosh man those are so heavy
    well you should see the tellers face the
    first few times we come in now they get
    used to us but they’re like
    how many quarters yeah
    i’ll tell you man it’s really tough to
    look
    cool walking out of the bank when you’re
    carrying
    five hundred dollars a quarters under
    each arm you just
    i just i can’t impress any of the
    tellers walking out of the bank with
    those things because they’re just
    i don’t know if i need to bulk up or
    what thankfully our business account
    says laundry service so they don’t ask
    too many questions
    yeah well my favorite is i i used to
    come in with my
    when i first bought my first laundromat
    it the change machine only accepted ones
    and five so i come up with a huge stack
    of ones and fives to the bank
    wow i found out down the line a teller
    finally told me there was a rumor that i
    was stripping
    that’s where i got all these ones and
    fives
    so i took that as a compliment but
    all right we’re getting derailed here uh
    let’s get back to this thing this is
    serious business over here
    yes uh all right we have a section
    called
    secret sauce listen up it’s the secret
    sauce
    and secret sauce is this what’s one
    thing that’s working well in your pickup
    and delivery business that other
    owners who are doing pickleball delivery
    could utilize in their business and help
    them out
    well honestly the thing that i think is
    the
    most important that um just in
    conversation with other laundromat
    owners and people wanting to start
    picking delivery i think it’s overlooked
    and it’s something very simple very
    basic and it doesn’t cost you anything
    and that’s taking the time with your
    customer like really getting to know the
    demographics of your area and what their
    needs
    are um i think it gets overlooked so you
    know like it gets overlooked you’re like
    okay i got the laundromat and i’m
    already doing this and i see the people
    that come in
    but taking that time to kind of ask them
    how their day is and kind of you know
    see what else
    they could need and getting in the
    community and seeing what can be
    provided
    to really be able to connect with your
    clientele i think that gets overlooked
    when it’s the most vital thing
    is to be able to see what else you can
    do for them
    rather what they can do for you um
    as far as anything else learn as slowly
    like day
    by day take some time to learn a little
    bit more about technology um things are
    going that way
    you’re still gonna have clients like we
    do have clientele older clients that
    call us and like hey i don’t know
    anything about this check
    help me out right yeah but
    they’d like not having to write a check
    or to um
    just be able to put the card there and
    it’s there and they don’t ever have to
    worry about the other children can and
    they don’t ever have to worry about it
    you know and we’ll call them up you know
    if there’s any issues uh they
    they like you know the easiness of it
    after they get past the first
    steps of it but uh it’s everything’s
    going that way so just taking a little
    bit of time
    to to to learn
    about um how to use tech to make it
    to make your business easier for
    clients like the quarters like we’re
    speaking with the quarters if that
    laundromat had
    um had a card machine you know where i
    can just do a card even if it’s one
    even if it’s their card and not my
    credit card then
    you know how some have like their cards
    then
    that would be so much easier we probably
    would do even more at that particular
    laundry mat because i have to worry
    about the quarters you know
    right yeah you know like just those
    little things like that
    to make it easier i think implementing
    some tech into your
    system does help a lot it helps you be
    able to keep track of things
    as well you know with your business
    those are awesome
    tips and i have a genius idea for you
    since you’re such a serial entrepreneur
    since those laundromat owners are not
    upping their technology i think it’s
    time for you to invent
    a speed quarter loader so that you can
    load those machines up real fast
    and just really get good at that
    yes that’s funny
    i’m always looking for new ways to
    improve yes go ahead honey
    so sorry no that’s okay uh awesome okay
    so i’m looking forward to that and i’ll
    buy one when you get one
    okay good uh okay we have another
    section called
    pro tips pro tips
    and pro tips is hey you know let’s keep
    it uh
    pick up and delivery specific but what
    advice would you have somebody who was
    wanting to start pick up and delivery
    service
    so wanted to start a pickup delivery
    service um
    advice to give them
    if they want to start it the way that i
    did
    not having their own machines
    is to take the time to go in and network
    with
    the laundromat owners take time to learn
    a little bit about the business you know
    like i was you know naive about it but
    not 100 because i did have
    a mentor you know someone that could
    kind of guide me
    and if i was doing you know something
    right or wrong of course we you’re going
    to make mistakes
    but just to have that guidance help so
    you
    you know go in and speak with them and
    then that way
    also you don’t leave any sour taste in
    their mouth
    you know like like who is this you know
    like yeah they’re happy you’re bringing
    stuff in but then
    also be courteous you know things like
    that but pro tips
    i would say um research
    really research i you know a lot of
    people look and they’re like
    like they look at the business they’re
    like oh well i can wash clothes you know
    it should be pretty easy
    but it’s not it’s a lot of work the
    laundry’s heavy
    um you have to have storage space you
    want to make sure um i go
    and research the detergents that i’m
    using on the um
    oh i forgot the name of it is the epa
    site but it’s a site and they have all
    the different type of detergents there
    and their ratings so you know a through
    f and
    just to kind of you know but take that
    time take a little bit of time
    to research what you want to do and try
    to find a niche
    if you can’t and then hone in on that
    and then
    then you’ll be okay you know um try to
    find something that sets you apart
    from everybody else i like that
    yeah i think that’s really good um
    advice you know especially at the end
    there when you you know find your niche
    find something that sets you apart and
    go from there because you can always
    scale
    bigger yes but if you start too big
    it’s too broad it’s like that hole if
    you’re trying to target everybody you’re
    targeting
    right and so you know start start in a
    niche like i mean i love what you’re
    doing you know the eco-friendly
    yes customer and you know if you can
    expand it from there you can expand it
    to
    you know different kinds of services or
    however you
    but starting in that niche and really
    nailing that
    allows you the opportunity to grow from
    there so i like that
    yes okay we have uh our last section
    called recommended resources and that is
    you know
    i mean it’s what it sounds like but do
    you have any resources that you
    recommend
    uh to help people grow themselves or
    their business yes
    i do um i don’t know if i can get all
    the titles right
    i’m gonna try but um i definitely
    recommend
    again i’m big on research i’m big on
    reading and learning more
    uh so although we haven’t had to do
    much advertising or in it we’re mostly
    word of mouth
    i do spend a lot of time reading and
    studying
    um how to write how to copyright and how
    to
    write advertising and do digital
    marketing and things like that
    uh of course regular marketing you know
    paper marketing and
    other type of advertising is very
    important as well but
    um with our our logo
    and our brand colors we you know i took
    the time to research
    brand psychology you know like
    psychology of the colors and make sure
    it represents
    what i want our business to represent
    so taking the time to really build your
    brand even if you are a single
    location you know build a brand around
    it like build
    yourself up and build a name for
    yourself but read
    uh there’s one called influence
    it could have something else with it i
    just remember influence
    and um another one that’s called
    what is it called it has something to do
    with a cat
    i’m so sorry don’t strangle the cat i
    believe or something like that something
    about a cat i remember
    i’ll get it for you so you can add it
    into the the notes there
    yeah yeah no don’t strangle the that’s
    an awesome title for a book
    yes but i do a lot of market research
    a lot of research not market research
    well i do that too but a lot of
    reading on marketing so i just say pick
    up
    whatever you can on marketing digital
    marketing
    copywriting and sales and
    read as much as you can um if i hadn’t
    been a little more prepared with i would
    have had all the titles that i have
    like a ton of books i literally buy
    books
    every two weeks at the most and that’s
    with four kids homeschooling
    and running a full-time business on a
    part-time schedule
    and i still literally go like they know
    me at barnes noble and always having
    books
    in here you know so it’s like continue
    to just
    anything you can find on copywriting
    marketing um
    and uh digital marketing yeah
    yeah awesome awesome awesome and
    and ironic that you don’t really do any
    marketing but you’re doing
    a lot of reading yeah but you will be
    doing marketing
    right but you’re like i said we’re a lot
    of um word of mouth
    but i talk my husband we talk to our
    clientele often
    that experience that you leave them with
    is your marketing
    so that’s why we make sure i
    you know don’t do anything to leave a
    sour taste of course you can’t please
    everybody but you know like for the most
    part
    i am who i am but i use those
    pointers in my real life every day in my
    talking to my clientele and the way i
    answer the phone
    i answer the phone with a smile even if
    they can’t see me
    right so that way it’s portrayed that
    way you know like they can hear it in my
    voice
    so all those type of things are part of
    my marketing yeah
    which ties right back into your secret
    sauce so yes very nicely
    interwoven together it just makes it
    sound like you’ve really thought through
    all this stuff so
    yeah i have i know i can tell
    well hey this has been awesome it’s been
    so cool to hear
    you know just your path to get to this
    weird little industry that we’re in
    and uh and then how you’ve been doing it
    like how you’ve been
    running your business and um you know
    and growing it and
    yeah just everything that you’ve been
    learning along the way and appreciate
    you coming on and sharing your story
    with us sharing your experience with us
    and your in your wisdom and knowledge
    with us i know it’s going to help a lot
    of people out because i get
    asked all the time how to start a pick
    up and delivery service but people who
    don’t own laundromats so
    uh so this is awesome and there’s a lot
    for us laundromat owners who want to
    either start or or grow our pickup and
    delivery businesses
    a lot of good stuff in there so thank
    you so much for sharing
    last question for you is you know
    there’s probably people listening here
    who want to pick your brain a little bit
    more
    ask you questions that i didn’t ask or
    or whatever what’s the best way they can
    get a hold of you
    well the best way is they can email me
    so they can email me
    at our business email which you’ll have
    linked there but it’s you know
    in gibson at leastwatch.com they can
    also find it on our website as well
    they can send a comment i always
    answer my emails and
    anything on messenger so if they find us
    on facebook or instagram and they want
    to send me a message
    they’re more than welcome to um i love
    talking business like you see i’m a
    serial entrepreneur so i’m always
    always something you know i love talking
    when people ask me you know well tell me
    about yourself i’m like well
    i’m a wife mother of four homeschooler
    and a business owner they’re like well
    okay but
    like tell me about you i’m like but that
    is me like
    everything like you want to know more
    about my business or what
    like homeschooling or business
    that’s funny awesome well i’ll have
    links to
    all that in the show notes and real
    quick i
    lied right to your face uh i have
    another question
    okay what are the name livewash or yeah
    where did the name livewash come from
    yes so lave means to wash
    it’s just an old english word okay so i
    i’m very big
    like i said with the yeah yeah
    so i’m really big on definitions because
    of the education part like i love
    definitions and um i
    have the worst time with coming up with
    names but i wanted something easy simple
    to
    you know because i mean most people when
    they call us they’re already stressed
    out with the pile of laundry last thing
    they want to do is
    remember a laundry name yeah right
    it’s you know four letters very simple
    and it is what it is it says what it is
    yeah it’s the cleanest four-letter word
    out there
    awesome well thank you again so much
    uh check this is this has been a lot of
    fun i don’t know
    hope it hope other people are having as
    much fun as we are
    i definitely enjoyed myself well make
    sure you check out legwash.com
    uh nikila thank you so much for coming
    on and
    cannot wait you know i’m up in the bay
    area all the time so i’ll have to
    you know hunt you down or
    open my front door
    uh can’t wait but thanks again for
    coming on we will definitely have you
    back on
    uh after you’ve exploded your business
    yeah
    about that too
    i’m looking forward to that all right
    we’ll talk to you soon
    bye okay bye all right how fun was that
    with nikila
    she is awesome i love love love her
    entrepreneur spirit
    some people say that and they don’t
    really mean it she said it and she
    means it because she has been all over
    the place with
    entrepreneurship and pretty cool that
    she’s landed
    uh with lave laundry or lave wash
    pretty cool that she landed with lave
    wash uh doing pick up and delivery for
    laundry in it uh just a very
    uh entrepreneurial way of doing it um so
    very cool if you have questions for her
    definitely reach out to her because
    she’s learned a lot not just about
    laundry pickup and delivery but about
    business in general so she’d be an
    awesome resource
    somebody awesome to have in your network
    so i always encourage you pick one thing
    from today’s episode there’s
    a bunch of things that you can take from
    every episode but pick one and put it
    into action
    for yourself this week and as we stack
    that on top of each other every single
    week
    putting one thing into action it’s
    really going to lead to a lot of
    transformation
    for us in a positive way as long as
    you’re picking good things
    i guess so yeah so for me one of the
    things i love that she said it’s so
    simple it’s so basic
    and it’s so easy to forget as we’re busy
    entrepreneurs we’re busy business owners
    um but one of the things she really uh
    emphasized is in her secret sauce she
    said
    you know take time to spend time with
    your customers and to really hear them
    and to hear
    you know what it is that they need how
    you can
    uh serve them better um so taking time
    with customers i think
    is something that’s easy to overlook
    sometimes when we’re
    busy sometimes i get so focused on
    things that i’m trying to do
    even even though i’m a people person i
    get so focused on
    doing whatever it is i’m trying to do
    that i forget to
    pause and take time to just talk to
    customers every now and then
    and see you know how they are and who
    they are
    so that’s my takeaway what’s your
    takeaway let me know
    head to the forums on my resource.com
    forums and let me know your takeaway
    over there i want to hear what kind of
    action you guys are taking
    all right hope you guys enjoyed this
    episode and i know you did
    and we’ll see you again next week as we
    kick off
    year number two of the laundromat
    resource podcast we’ll talk to you then
    [Music]

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