Jorge and Alejandro built a laundry business for themselves in Miami, Florida. They developed a laundry pick-up and delivery system called Hamper App to help them take in sales and manage their business. As their business grew, they started thinking of ways to scale out. That’s when they started partnering with other operators nationwide to offer high-quality laundry pick-up and delivery across the country.

Their story of grit and progress is inspiring and is peppered with practical tips, advice, and wisdom to help you grow your laundry business!

In today’s show, Jorge, Alejandro, and Jordan discuss:
* How they got into the laundry business
* Their first move when developing their business
* The importance of data collection
* How to advertise
* What kept them working hard on their business
* Pick-up and delivery vans
* When to quit your 9-5 job and go full time in your business
* How to hire your first driver
* Scaling out to multiple laundromats
* Pricing your services
* 24-hour laundry turnaround
* Branding
* Developing an app and turning it into a business

And much more!

Listen To The Podcast Here

Watch The Podcast Here

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By Laundromat Owners.
For Laundromat Owners.

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AtmosphereTV We’re brought to you today by my friends at AtmoshereTV! Now You may have heard my interview a few months back with Mike Kelly from AtmosphereTV where we talked about what a simple change in content on your TVs can do for your laundromat by getting depressing news stations OFF and something much more fun, entertaining, and family-friendly ON.  Since then, Atmosphere has grown to 50+ channels included in their service with everything from Surfing Dogs to Extreme sports, hilarious fails, and jaw-dropping videos from all over the world built specifically for business use. Atmosphere can be used to supplement your cable or you can completely cut your expensive cable bill and use Atmosphere 100% FREE saving thousands a year! Use my code RESOURCE when you check out or click the link or image to have your setup fee waived or contact Mike.Kelly@Atmosphere.tv for more information!

Laundromat Resource Marketing If you need help building or managing a website for your laundromats, let the experts at Laundromat Resource Marketing help you design and build a custom, professional website for you! As experts in the laundromat industry AND in web design and online marketing, we at Laundromat Resource Marketing are able to provide you with a professional website at an affordable price. We’re always transparent so there are no hidden fees. What we quote you is what you pay. Satisfaction and performance guaranteed! With no contracts to sign and guarantees like that, why not let us take care of your online presence while you focus on welcoming all of your new laundry customers? Click the logo or link above to find out more information. 

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    Episode Transcript

    what’s up guys it’s jordan with the
    laundromat resource podcast this is show
    71 and i am pumped that you’re here
    today because today we’re going to be
    talking with jorge and alejandro
    about how they got into the laundry
    pickup and delivery business
    and how they grew that into hamper app
    and what they’re up to with hamper app
    these days it’s a very cool story a very
    cool journey they’ve been on so i know
    you’re going to love hearing their story
    but you’re also going to pick up a lot
    of great practical
    knowledge practical tips they they bring
    a lot of that stuff uh in this episode
    today so i know you’re going to get a
    lot out of it and i want to jump into
    that with them just a couple quick
    things before we do
    number one there are a lot of people
    jumping in on laundromat resource
    joining the free membership over there
    joining the pro membership
    over there and it’s been a ton of fun to
    see that to be a part of that and to
    help that grow we’ve got a lot of
    interesting and very cool and i think
    super useful things that are coming down
    the pipeline right now with laundromat
    resource that we’ve been kind of working
    on behind the scenes for a little bit so
    i’m very excited to start releasing some
    of those things uh but i just wanted to
    remind you um hey if you have a
    membership over there free or pro or
    whatever
    or if you don’t go sign up for one
    because man get the free one you got
    access to a whole bunch of tools and
    resources
    and uh and and the forums over there but
    get over there jump into the forums go
    meet some people introduce yourself in
    the introductions forums let people know
    where you’re at who you are and what
    you’re up to uh with your laundromat
    journey and go interact with some other
    people who’ve introduced themselves
    welcome to the community and uh and go
    ask a question answer question in one of
    the other forums i mean there’s a lot
    going on a lot of cool
    interactions i just
    maybe it’s just me but i just really
    love that
    so hey it’s been awesome thank you guys
    who over there doing that and if you’re
    not yet go check it out go see what’s
    going on over there come be a part of it
    okay uh so with that said i mean we have
    a lot of other stuff going on too
    besides just the forums we got a weekly
    live webinar and speaking of which
    there’s a lot of cool webinars coming up
    um including uh which is not really a
    webinar but i’m doing a live q a with
    dave laundromat millionaire wins
    wins men’s on wednesday
    uh september 30th at uh 4 o’clock best
    coast pacific time
    and 7 o’clock
    least coast east coast
    i have not made fun of the east coast in
    a while and i just thought you know it’s
    about time
    we you know knock them down and notch a
    little bit over there so anyways come
    join dave and i for the live q a it’s on
    the laundromat resource youtube channel
    uh i’ll put the link
    to this and the forums and everything
    else that we talk about in this episode
    will be in the show notes a lot of my
    resource dot com slash show 71 show
    seven one uh if you’re on youtube
    they’re down below in the description so
    you can check them out there uh so come
    join us for the live q a dave and i
    might be doing a webinar here pretty
    soon i’m doing one that i’m very excited
    about with andrew the human encyclopedia
    cunningham two-time guest one of the
    favorite guests
    that i have had on this podcast uh it i
    mean he just knows his stuff and he and
    i are gonna be talking about how to sell
    your laundromat so i know a lot of you
    guys maybe that’s not gonna be directly
    applicable to right off the bat but let
    me just say a little pitch for it even
    if you’re not thinking about selling a
    laundromat right now is number one if
    you own a laundromat you probably will
    sell a laundromat at some point in time
    and andrew has a ton of great tips on
    what you can be doing now to make sure
    that whenever you do sell your
    laundromat you will get the most money
    for that laundromat the most bang for
    your buck the most value
    for that business
    so come for those tips if you don’t even
    have a laundromat yet uh andrew has some
    really really good stuff
    uh for you even if you’re planning on
    buying one uh because he’s got some
    things that you can do from day one that
    are gonna ensure that you’re building
    equity in your business
    and whenever you are ready to sell
    that you will get top dollar for it so
    come join us for that one you can check
    that out and see what other events we
    have going on at
    dot com slash events a lot of cool stuff
    going on we still got the youtube
    rolling we got the blogs going out every
    week i mean there’s a lot of cool stuff
    happening trying to help you find
    financial freedom through laundromat
    ownership all right man i feel like that
    was a lot of stuff and i’m not trying to
    like pitch a bunch of stuff to you but
    i’m just excited about all the cool
    things going on uh so make sure you come
    check out lottermyresource.com and
    browse around a little bit find out
    what’s happening and uh man all right
    without any further ado except for
    this short message from our friends
    atmosphere tv
    we will jump into it with jorge and
    alejandro right after this alright guys
    today’s episode is brought to you by
    atmosphere tv you may remember back in
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    kelly joined me on the podcast it was an
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    the things we talked about is just the
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    just rereading the book by simon sinek
    start with why
    and one of the things that really stands
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    don’t make purchase decisions based on
    you know the logic of you know any
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    their money it’s more based on a feeling
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    and you’re a laundromat to help people
    associate this chore that most people
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    atmosphere tv is an incredible way to
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    atmosphere.tv
    all right guys welcome jorgen alejandro
    welcome to the show
    super glad that you guys are here and
    super excited to hear about your story
    and what you guys have going on how you
    guys doing
    excited to be
    for the first time in this podcast
    all right yeah the first time i like
    that
    more to come more to come well hey you
    guys have some cool stuff going on
    you’re doing something pretty unique uh
    out there and we want to hear all about
    it but before we kind of jump into
    what it is you guys are doing can you
    maybe one at a time give us a little bit
    of a background uh on who you are and
    then
    once we kind of get to know you a little
    bit
    maybe you guys can kind of tell the
    story of how
    you got into the laundry business in the
    way that you did
    okay
    okay so my name is alejandro i’m one of
    the co-founders of amp rap um i come
    from a long laundromat owner’s family
    [Music]
    when we came to this country i think my
    mom was working actually in a dry
    cleaning for eight years
    and that’s how i came to actually the
    cleaning service
    uh
    uh business so
    uh
    after school i used to go over there and
    basically i used to help the dry
    cleaning owner basically do the little
    hanger thing
    to make sure that dry cleaning is is
    neat and um and afterwards my family
    decided to buy their first laundromat
    as you know uh their first laundromat is
    like
    it’s really excited everybody’s together
    the whole family is there
    and myself i i also learned the business
    so
    uh we end up having two laundromats
    already in south florida so uh we have
    in three different areas um like count
    on cities
    and
    basically from there um
    i uh i met george my co-founder
    and
    i had an idea um always in my background
    in the mind that i wanted something
    different right
    something for myself i was either it was
    a laundromat or it was something else
    and i told uh george about an idea and
    and george was also wanting to do
    something with me
    so uh women in college which um
    one of the
    good things about college is meeting
    different people from different
    backgrounds yes
    and actually we both are peruvians so
    oh peruvians yeah
    awesome
    funny story real quick my wife
    like not long after we got married she
    went to peru without me for like
    four weeks or something so i’ve never
    been to peru and my wife went without me
    i can’t
    i can’t believe that still but
    yeah
    we all know prairie is really beautiful
    uh beautiful country beautiful people um
    but amazing food
    fyi
    so we went over there um so basically um
    i got into a fight with my dad as you
    know working with family is not easy
    so i gotta turn fight with my dad and i
    told him that you know i had this idea
    with
    um just like bags for college students
    because one of the london that’s where
    we are located he actually is in front
    of the college in men
    and my dad was um
    no
    he was like no no no no no no
    i was like okay so i quit
    so
    so i i just like it
    i decided to quit
    and
    and i s and that that day actually one
    of the
    person who was watching in one of the
    big
    80 pound machine
    working citibank
    for
    10 years
    and she noticed i was super mad and
    everything and basically i told her that
    i was doing my resume
    [Music]
    and
    and uh she told me you want to work for
    city and yeah
    from there i started working for city
    but the idea of
    this
    business was always in my mind
    and
    basically george
    was the one who basically pushed
    everything up to become what it is uh
    it’s ham crab
    awesome
    all right so you have family history in
    the laundry business it’s really
    interesting
    you know i’m always kind of interested
    in the past people take and to get into
    this business because it’s just kind of
    a funny business and pretty funny you
    guys came from peru
    you know was working for a dry cleaner
    ended up buying laundromat you ended up
    quitting
    and you know oh my goodness and starting
    your own thing it’s it’s just you know
    the drama of it all is great it’s great
    yeah yeah
    but then george can tell you a little
    bit more about the story
    from there too before
    yeah well before we get to that you know
    jorge i mean you kind of got dragged
    into this
    industry your family doesn’t own any
    laundry mats right
    unfortunately not yeah fortunately or
    unfortunately
    yeah well tell us a little bit about
    your background and you know maybe tell
    us your perspective of you know up to
    this point so far
    so we met in college we were studying
    business and
    i had before we started hand prep i had
    four years of experience working in
    international business
    i worked for a chinese manufacturing
    company
    selling all around
    latin america and the us
    so so far i have traveled over 200
    cities
    all over the world trying to wow
    try to sell the
    their what they manufacture and i had
    experience doing business so i was
    saving since they won and i had some
    money saved
    and talking to alejandro which he was
    very on the tech side
    and he was talking about google adwords
    and how he was
    increasing the sales of the laundromat
    because he actually helped a lot to
    increase the sales and he knows how to
    repair the machines and i saw this is a
    kind of partner that i need
    to and i was i am more into the
    financial side
    looking into the numbers so
    all my experience has been in business
    and
    trading so
    not as fun as alejandro
    but i have spent a lot of days a lot of
    nights inside the laundromats
    and knocking doors visiting laundromats
    yeah very cool so i mean it sounds like
    a really good partnership that you guys
    have because you guys both have
    you know important but
    somewhat different skill sets that
    you’re bringing to the table you know
    for a complete
    complete business huh
    all right so alejandro
    quit his job
    you know he’s he’s with his with his
    family business he went got a different
    job you’re working in manufacturing
    you know
    did you guys just have a conversation
    and say hey let’s go start our own
    business or how did that work
    so it was kind of like
    weird because um we had this idea and
    george was one of the founders actually
    we were three before
    and the third one was a programmer right
    and we were like okay we have the
    programmer we have the
    the
    the actually
    the business person
    the business and i have the production
    which is me right actually who was gonna
    do all the work and the logistics and
    all that so we have like the whole team
    but then
    uh actually if you look at the company
    actually the company was registered in
    2017 and
    anything actually we everything was
    about to crumble because of the
    developer left the company
    so
    that’s when george was the one who told
    me alejandro we i believe in this idea
    let’s move together
    let’s uh let’s uh basically
    um get a loan get let’s get our savings
    and basically let’s let’s work on this
    project
    like for every single night until like 2
    a.m in the morning so we did that for
    almost a whole year
    uh actually we have pictures and videos
    and we were like
    um
    like trying to figure out how this thing
    worked right so actually the technology
    site right worked
    and it was a whole process it was a
    whole process and and yeah it was uh
    amazing that you know george believed in
    the idea and then we actually
    came out the first year you know when a
    startup usually fails
    we were meeting almost every night in a
    starbucks yeah
    and after two months two three months we
    said why we don’t move together i wanted
    to move out of my house
    also alejandro and we ended up renting
    an apartment and we lived there for over
    two years
    it’s probably cheaper to rent an
    apartment than to drink starbucks every
    single night so
    and we were working we were working in
    and
    we were tagging the drag queen in orders
    that we were picking up
    sometimes spent one two
    or three hours
    so were you
    yeah were you guys were you guys all in
    on this were you guys working
    on the side like also or did you guys go
    full fledge into hamper app
    so the first year it was um
    like
    like any startup um things that you know
    you’re gonna pick up 50 orders 60 orders
    overnight
    i
    i
    will applause if you actually do that i
    mean it’s really hard to do yeah if you
    you’re starting up an online presence
    and nobody knows you um
    the
    the beginning was basically me waking up
    around seven to seven
    uh 7 a.m
    pick up the orders right and then during
    lunch
    in in bank at that time i was a banker
    he got the orders during lunch and then
    at night basically me and george we used
    to pick up the orders together so we
    used to buy the areas in different
    different areas of miami and we
    we actually we were picking up the order
    so every single night we were picking up
    orders and every single like laundry
    lunch i was picking up the orders at
    that time honestly we didn’t know
    anything about like what it was
    naturally logistic
    and how to be more um like profitable on
    that site
    so we were
    actually imagine like the whole miami
    area
    we had that area the whole the whole
    schedule opened
    so we didn’t have no way to filter the
    areas so
    having all los angeles or orange county
    all together open
    miami the first year and it was
    it was a nightmare actually it wasn’t
    actually in anywhere because we were
    like picking up orders really early
    uh dropping off the orders in the
    laundromats then it’s staying till 2am
    uh working on the
    on the app basically
    holy cow
    we made a mistake of opening the radius
    to
    sometimes driving one hour just for one
    pickup
    and then had to drive from west side to
    east side
    but right now our system we select the
    zip codes and the hours that we want to
    pick up
    and
    and also in the beginning what we did we
    had the
    back all you can put inside so we were
    charging jasper back instead of per
    pound
    i know there are some companies who they
    still do in that route but it didn’t
    work for uh for us we were picking up
    and we saw the people wait a minute wait
    a minute putting more and more and more
    and trying to push the most they can
    it was made to
    put inside 20 pounds but
    don’t ask me how but sometimes they put
    up to 35 pounds yeah yeah
    yeah people get very
    you know ingenious when they’re trying
    to save money it’s fun to get get like a
    deal they come up with stuff
    okay so
    when you guys were first starting what
    did you guys do first did you did you
    build out a website first or what was
    your first
    thing that you did when you decided to
    start this company
    going back
    okay the the first thing that we do that
    we did back then was
    we launched the ios app which is only
    for iphone users okay
    and we didn’t have anything on the
    website only marketing
    and we didn’t have anything for android
    so we started testing on ios which it
    worked out
    [Music]
    it worked out the people was using the
    app and we said we are not going to
    release the android until we are sure
    that it works and after two years
    we
    put a form inside the website where the
    people and us
    any anybody it was not connected to our
    system it was only a form
    that
    you put your name you put either laundry
    or drag dry cleaning and you and we
    receive the email actually a month ago
    we just released our web app if you go
    to hamperapp.com you can actually it
    will be connected to our system
    oh that must have been
    difficult to have orders coming in
    through the app through your system and
    then other orders coming in just through
    a form that i’m assuming just emailed
    you right like the
    the results of the form or whatever
    people filled in and so you’re having to
    juggle between the two of those
    yes but actually um
    it’s kind of like
    funny but
    when we decided to do um the technology
    side of the company right uh and the
    main idea was to build the app first is
    because we actually noticed that most of
    the visitors based on the data that i
    was getting from my parents laundromat
    it was the most
    people were searching were in the model
    and it was through an ios device
    so we were like okay so
    if people are searching for the mobile
    and it’s an ios device
    let’s just focus on the ios um
    ios version of that of the company so
    that’s the reason why we decided to do
    ios first and afterwards we decided to
    do android
    we we
    right now that we actually uh launched
    we launched the website
    uh we see some traffic coming in through
    the order so through the website but
    most of our clients are more focused on
    the actual experience on the ios
    mobile version and the android version
    than actually or into the
    website
    yeah it makes a lot of sense it’s a lot
    more convenient that way
    uh what and it makes sense to do the
    iphone first because yeah i mean
    obviously
    majority orders are coming in
    that way
    um
    what uh
    oh man i was just gonna ask you a
    question
    uh
    yeah it must be getting old
    draw a blank okay well it’ll come back
    to me
    oh i was gonna say yeah yeah okay i got
    it back i’m back my youth is back uh
    okay so what
    how are people finding your app at that
    point
    so we we
    um first we did our website right and
    the website was just a regular um web um
    printing where you can
    template where you can just download the
    app version
    and that’s how we’re getting uh the
    leads at that time google google adwords
    didn’t have what is right now
    um didn’t have extensions for apps or
    even campaigns for apps itself
    uh that was in
    2017-18
    and uh what we come what we notice is
    that basically we were
    targeting the clients and basically
    retiring again about to download that
    the app
    um a lot of people told us about yelp
    and we actually tried gel for a whole
    year
    and in miami market obviously for us
    unfortunately it didn’t work as well as
    in other markets
    but
    for us
    when we saw the analytics side of the
    company
    based on the data we were getting from
    it we noticed that the adwords campaign
    was actually more productive than than
    actually uh
    from the actually uh job or even uh
    social media campaigns that we were
    trying to yeah
    so you’re running ads to like a landing
    page basically yeah like a landing page
    uh at that time yes at the time yes we
    were like launching to the home page and
    then people just click and then it was
    directly to the apple store or the play
    store and then one
    [Music]
    yeah okay yeah that’s that’s cool i mean
    i think that’s a great
    great system to have
    um okay
    glad i remember that question yeah
    and back then you didn’t have that many
    competitors now nowadays in miami where
    we still run the operations
    we have companies from europe
    companies from us so it’s a very
    competitive market
    which
    we like because we need to
    compete with them and and actually
    two years ago we had to hire somebody
    for seo
    because we said we can not only depend
    on google adwords
    and we’re also doing facebook adwords uh
    facebook ads and instagram advertisement
    and we’re
    we’re going to start testing other
    platforms like twitter
    linkedin
    which we haven’t start but we want to
    start
    recently and
    sometimes what we used to do a few years
    ago we used to text the customers right
    now we have the system who they can send
    the sms text in
    and also
    something that it really worked out
    since we have an app set push
    notifications
    mm-hmm
    yeah yeah
    um what we have noticed is that yes you
    can send certain emails but when you
    send the text notification or even push
    notification you have the ability to
    know exactly what the clients actually
    look like looking and what they actually
    want um
    if they just open the app at certain
    time and waiting and place the order
    um sometimes when you do web web like
    the word version in example sometimes
    it’s just uh yes you can put some
    i don’t want to be that technical but
    you can put some uh events or or
    something
    that tells you you know the clan was
    there certain things but
    saving the data and and actually having
    that data
    going to it
    that database and you can make decisions
    based on that then actually
    is what makes us right now successful in
    certain markets yeah
    yeah yeah super smart and you can tell
    where people get stuck like if people
    make it to a certain point and they
    don’t they don’t go past that for some
    reason then you know you have a problem
    there somewhere
    yeah so there’s a lot of or your offer
    is not right or whatever the case may be
    but gives you a lot of information
    that’s yeah that’s super smart yeah and
    i think there’s something to be learned
    just for
    you know regular owners or operators of
    laundromats or laundry you know business
    uh laundry service businesses who are
    doing
    advertising and stuff just paying
    attention to
    the data and paying attention to how
    customers are behaving and interacting
    with you online or through the apps or
    whatever
    yeah or offline actually too like i mean
    you can notice if people are asking for
    your stuff on delivering or they’re
    actually asking for more if your area is
    more protected to the laundry people
    that walk in
    so maybe that the
    campaign that you’re doing for longer
    service maybe it’s not that effective
    because you know that you’re
    you you have more wealthy aims then are
    actually longer sellers coming in
    so um
    it depends on the market obviously
    certainly it’s you
    like
    in brickell let’s say a brick or area or
    downtown area you don’t expect people to
    come in and watch your clothes you got
    me you expect more control service like
    a longer service or driving in service
    but you go to a neighborhood area
    where people are making around 30 to 40
    000 a year uh you expect more walk-ins
    that you know that they watch your own
    clothes now
    like i said like
    checking your data checking the what’s
    actually coming to your site and whether
    clicking exactly and and having that
    history i think it makes actually a
    difference it could improve your
    yourself really well
    yeah yeah super good yeah and you’re
    right online and offline be paying
    attention to how customers are behaving
    and how they’re interacting with you and
    you know those demographics tell you a
    lot of information about what to offer
    and that’s really like i think a lot of
    times
    as business owners we forget
    you know it’s not it’s not what we want
    to offer it’s what the customers want
    and need
    right and so the best source of that
    information is getting it straight from
    the customers right either asking them
    with surveys or paying attention to how
    they’re behaving and how they’re
    interacting and you know what their
    needs are
    um so yeah huge super good super good
    advice there super good advice
    um okay so take me back you
    you guys are like on your lunch breaks
    and after work and you’re
    hustling around working super long hours
    um
    you know probably still buying the
    starbucks even though you moved into
    your apartment because you’re working so
    much right
    uh
    i mean
    what kept you guys going when you’re
    you’re working that hard and that many
    hours what kept you guys going
    we we saw that there was a demand
    we saw we were picking up
    back
    on the first year we were picking up
    per day let’s say three to five orders
    per day not that many
    then we jump to six to ten
    then once we get over 10 per day we said
    first we need to get a bank a commercial
    vehicle
    because alejandro was um
    most of the orders sometimes you you
    don’t sometimes you don’t know you might
    get a surprise
    and we were also getting commercial
    accounts i think one once in a while you
    you go to a house and you ended up
    picking 150 pounds
    which does five bags
    and then where do you then you have to
    go back to the laundry to drop off and
    then to pick up so we got a small
    commercial vehicle that we is a nissan
    mb200
    and then a few months after we hired our
    first driver
    then right now right now we have three
    drivers full time and we have two
    commercial bands
    nice only only for miami area which
    that’s where we run the operations and
    we have commercial accounts and we have
    all type of customers
    yeah that’s awesome i mean
    i love
    kind of the progression of that where
    you
    you grew the business to a point where
    you guys felt like i don’t know i’m just
    kind of picturing alejandro driving
    around with a bag of laundry on his lap
    and he’s like packed in with all this
    laundry right uh you know and
    you grew it to that then you said okay
    our next step is buy a van
    so you went in and got a van
    and you know from there you went and
    hired a driver and then kind of went
    from there hired a couple more drivers
    and bought another van and you know and
    that’s how and that’s how you scale
    right that’s how it works
    um okay so
    you’re at what point i mean do you guys
    still have your same jobs is that or are
    you guys doing this full time now
    uh i’m doing that full time at the
    moment and then george is actually moved
    to dallas right now recently he got
    married so hey congrats thank you that’s
    why we are expanding in austin and
    austin and houston
    area and i need to find a local partner
    here in dallas well dallas is so big
    that i think that we will need at least
    four partners yeah yeah
    yeah awesome so
    so um
    we decided uh
    what we decided to
    to start what was the question i’m sorry
    uh
    oh man that if we if we quit that we’re
    jobs oh yeah are you guys still working
    yeah
    in 2019
    yeah i quit my job
    uh three years ago and and yeah
    of course the first year is kind of
    tough
    because putting a
    job that actually you know is paying
    everything
    it’s kind of tough how to
    go down a little bit on my expenses but
    i you know i i know the hamper app is
    gonna it’s working and it’s gonna work
    in the future
    and basically uh
    i did
    decided to dedicate a hundred percent of
    my time going out to hamburg and
    actually
    um i’m traveling to different states
    every single maybe every every two
    months to find new partners
    and try to you know drive around the
    united states basically yeah yeah yeah
    that’s awesome that’s awesome so i mean
    i’m kind of curious about that like
    because that is a big step to quit your
    job and go full
    full-fledged with this thing so what
    what was it like how did how did you
    know when the time was right to
    to quit
    when you have enough orders that you
    know that
    you know when your manager tells you if
    you’re okay because you look so tired
    and and basically uh when you were
    selling i was giving loans uh per small
    uh loans over maybe half a million
    dollars every single month
    and
    micro loans like 20 30 000 to different
    people and and basically i was so tired
    that i was no performance as good
    and
    the company was requiring more time with
    me like i i
    like it was more of operation science
    once i decided to you know i’m going to
    drive full time for hamper for like six
    months
    and then from there
    we were like okay now we need to hire a
    driver because alejandro has to do all
    your stuff for the company
    doing other stuff in the company and
    everything so it is is i’m more into the
    operation person and i always um
    i’m happy of doing that always
    uh of course as
    as we have our good like if you give me
    a book of accounting and you give me
    like
    you know finally the expense of this and
    and why is uh you need to pay your
    payroll and all that for me that’s not
    my side you just hand it to jorge right
    yeah yeah i can do that no problem here
    you go
    yeah exactly and and and
    and now is is i’m more into the
    marketing and yeah
    and basically managing other other areas
    of the of hamburg right now
    yeah at the moment
    yeah
    yeah well i mean maybe you guys can talk
    to me a little bit about too like so
    quitting your job is a huge step right
    and that’s you know to be honest with
    you i talked to a lot of people in my
    coaching consulting calls and that’s
    their goal right is to quit their jobs
    you know to run their own businesses and
    you know have
    i mean i think i think a lot of people
    don’t realize how much work goes into it
    you know to get there uh sometimes but
    uh but i mean that’s a huge goal but
    another big step is making that first
    hire
    you know hiring your driver for the
    first time can you guys maybe talk to me
    about how
    you decided to make that decision and
    how
    how it worked out i mean because now
    you’re adding on
    more labor expenses right
    so you got to make sure the business can
    support that and you
    you know you got to be supported too
    you know with your
    you know your expense your personal
    expenses and stuff so talk to me about
    how you decided to make the hire and how
    that how that went how you guys did that
    so hiring our first driver was not as
    difficult now that you have still
    the government supporting with coffee to
    certain people and
    at least in inferiority that now the
    minimum wage is rate is going up
    from 758 an hour to 10
    10.50 which is nothing compared to
    california yeah
    15
    around 15 an hour so
    at least
    two years ago no wow three years ago
    when we hired our first driver
    uh it was not as difficult we we went to
    craigslist.com
    we
    back then you used to pay only 2025 for
    a net right now it’s 45 50 dollars per
    app
    and
    we interview i would say four or five i
    don’t remember that that many until
    that same person who started working
    with us right now he’s our logistics
    manager so he handles the three drivers
    because we’re busy running the company
    and we’re busy
    spending on other areas of the company
    that he handles the drivers but
    right now hiring hiring a driver
    is
    kind of difficult at least in our area
    because
    number one
    interview time they might not show up
    they will say
    i’m ready i’m ready i need the job does
    the job that i want so much flexibility
    yeah
    and then they don’t show up then they
    might show up one day or two days
    yeah and
    the
    the training part was actually
    um
    right now what we do is that we spend at
    least one one week with the driver and
    the driver the manager right now spends
    one week when you
    a new driver
    and
    and basically that’s how we train them
    um our platform right now we have a
    driver app other than the ios app
    and the user app we have a driver app
    specifically that tells them exactly
    what orders um
    and we’re trying to make it more easier
    for them to don’t think
    exactly where to go what what what
    exactly what order they have to you know
    pick up first or drop off after so uh
    right now corona resistance does
    everything so we are um even uh being
    more uh
    investing more in that side of the
    company
    because uh we have noticed that more
    like clients in 2017-18
    doesn’t expect now what you know clients
    currently they do expect like this
    freaking eta
    at 20 10 and 10 p.m you know why we’re
    working into that like that private
    company we’re working on um making more
    into the
    micro
    micro management of pretending exactly
    that kind of what time around what time
    the driver is going to arrive and
    exactly the location of the driver
    more than ever now clients are being
    more
    um
    pity on basically they want to know
    exactly like so they don’t spend two
    hours in the in their house for nothing
    so
    uh we’re working right now on that on
    the parallel company and make it easier
    for the driver so for us is the training
    part of hiring a new driver
    is not a heart the hardest part is
    is finding the person that actually want
    to spend
    the time
    on the training and actually
    uh doesn’t wanna
    you know actually wants to work yeah
    i think everybody’s feeling that pain
    right now there’s a whole lot of heads
    nodding with you as they’re listening to
    this because i think you know not just
    laundry owners and laundry service you
    know providers but you know across the
    board everybody’s struggling with
    getting people to hire and it’s you know
    you can easily get your hopes up because
    somebody seems very enthusiastic and
    they seem like a good candidate but like
    you said a lot of times people don’t
    show up
    and you know it’s it’s very frustrating
    right now so
    a lot of people can you know identify
    with that and hiring drivers i think
    in general is is difficult anyways for
    whatever reason i’m not really sure why
    that is but
    for whatever reason it can be very
    difficult to hire drivers specifically
    too
    yeah
    i think the hardest part is when when
    companies they want to hire drivers when
    they
    request them to drive their own vehicle
    um i think it’s a lot easier when you
    when you provide the vehicle and they do
    the math actually and you they end up
    earning the same thing and they end up
    done for like for example
    or each or stuff like that
    they actually do the math and they
    measure the how much they spend on gas
    the creation of the vehicle and all that
    i mean
    i sometimes even make more with with
    like a delivery company that actually
    provides
    the ban so
    if anyone is hiring someone and of
    course they need orders um i i would
    recommend it to hire with a band
    it will make the hiring more more easier
    actually
    yeah like our drivers actually sometimes
    when the vehicle is out or tires out
    they
    they always ask for the gas if they
    spend if it is like ten dollars or
    something on gas
    uh they they’re telling us look you know
    are your reimbursement that money back
    to us and we’re like young because you
    actually drove those for him for the
    company there’s no problem but
    they they always behind okay when is the
    vehicle back to operation because they
    know that you know that’s how they make
    the real money
    but only if you have the volume if
    you’re starting
    on the pickup into above it’s not worth
    it
    for one two three like we said in our
    first year we were doing just five
    orders per day which it was not
    overnight
    so in the beginning
    if they want to test the waters
    the manager somebody helping out the
    laundromat they can start doing the
    first pickups and drop-offs and actually
    it will help to learn
    to know who’s your customer
    yeah data you can get a lot of data
    there’s but getting to know
    the neighborhood where you’re picking up
    getting to know the first customers who
    might
    more than willingly if they like the
    service they will refer
    they will remember
    so we get some um
    some reviews online not only we we like
    the the service we like hamburg but they
    also
    remember they put the name of the driver
    or the person who picked up a drop off
    yeah
    yeah yeah i love that and i you know i
    think there’s a there’s a lot to learn
    when you actually do something
    uh yourself and i had another guest on
    walid
    uh who
    has a pickup and delivery service up in
    new york and or a business up in new
    york and he you know he recommended the
    same thing hey you know drive for a
    little bit so that you know
    what it’s like you get a feel for that
    you get to know your customers
    especially your early on customers
    and you hear direct feedback from them i
    mean there’s a lot of perks to it so if
    you can do it
    you know there are there are a lot of
    perks to that for sure
    okay so take me back to
    miami and your business so you
    you know alejandra you’ve quit your job
    and jorge are you do you live in you
    live in texas now i moved to texas two
    months ago i decided to start doing my
    mba
    awesome uh in university of austin
    they call it uh duty
    and
    the main the main reason um
    what i moved to dallas is uh
    number one my mba my wife’s family they
    live here
    and i actually love love the city i love
    the state and
    i’m i want to expand into the midwest
    area
    there’s a huge opportunity there’s a
    huge potential here and i want to get
    partners here
    i still
    i haven’t quit but i don’t have a
    nine-to-five job
    i can i can work i can answer calls i
    can
    i’m right now i’m more into
    just getting sales for the company and
    managing the sales team
    that’s my main role in that company and
    i believe i believe in hamper app
    we have personally invested
    a lot of time a lot of money over six
    years
    and
    i don’t pay myself nothing yet so i’m
    hamper app and we keep reinvesting
    right now we have the
    we are able to hire six full-time uh
    developers
    five six years ago we only had one right
    now we have six full-time
    and we have also one that is the manage
    the whole team because we need to have
    the web the website the web app
    we need to have the
    iphone the app we need to have the
    android app
    we have the driver app
    we have in the store
    the pos
    where the partner they need to update or
    any anybody who does the order need to
    update
    the the actual order because you you
    need to charge
    your receiver back
    and then if you have a
    laundry item like a comforter
    or anything that you need to update and
    and
    so i haven’t yet but i
    i’m full committed into the company and
    i and i see a huge potential
    [Music]
    yeah i think
    yeah i think there’s a lot of benefit to
    you know move into a new area and and
    starting to develop relationships there
    so okay take me back just for a second
    uh okay so you guys i mean you guys
    developed hamper app for you guys right
    and for your business
    tell me about when you decided to kind
    of branch out a little more what made
    that
    what
    what gave you guys that idea to partner
    with other people and you know license
    out your app
    so what happened was that
    um i i focus a lot of the seo and the
    marketing part of the company
    and when you start getting calls from
    your competitors
    asking you hey we like like how can i
    join you guys
    like and we’re like oh we don’t do that
    or or they’re asking us um
    and me and george we were like okay so
    let’s go and expand to this market which
    is like two zip codes away from us
    and then we’re like
    we’re like okay no but we need to focus
    on one market first so what do we do
    with these clients that we have in that
    market
    right and and we were like
    we actually didn’t study and actually
    was a local study
    right
    and we were like
    let’s let’s go to
    let’s go to different language owners
    right and let’s ask them right
    will you join this platform
    or and and basically our idea one of the
    ideas was either
    in the beginnings of hamper i was
    open the platform for everybody so let’s
    say that um
    you’re in that set code of
    331 and you have like three laundry
    months and around that area so basically
    they can’t download that and they will
    see the three three uh three london mats
    right and the issue that we notice and a
    lot of london demands owners they know
    is that
    um
    when you have a laundry like a kind of
    laundry
    uh
    what exactly is your competitor lowers
    up the price per pound like for like
    five cents or six cents or 10 cents and
    they’re in the same platform
    so what happens as a client myself i
    would go and i would check it out i
    would like check you know what like
    let me check how how well they do the
    work now
    what’s going to happen is that the
    client is either going to get confused
    between choosing different laundromats
    right
    and the laundry owner is going to lose
    that client itself um
    what happened if you actually like that
    service so you you’re into a platform
    that basically is not commitment to to
    one one laundry so a lot of the laundry
    owners were asking us okay so if you
    want to work with me you need to give me
    all this area
    right obviously for us we noticed also
    that
    covering all the big areas are
    impossible because of success
    right
    so right now we have around in miami
    area we have around
    probably like four corners
    um in your city in my city
    in miami-dade we have four
    four different partners that basically
    work with us and provide us to
    well we have actually five we’re not
    including the commercial uh site that we
    have
    and that’s the benefit of our platform
    that we get a lot of leads of everything
    so um
    we have um around we worked with four
    different laundromats
    operation site in our site
    and
    and basically the
    serverless sorts certain circles to
    other partners but going back to your
    question how when we decided to sell
    or or provide other other laundry owners
    our platform it was when people were
    actually asking us
    asking us to join and and we were like
    sorry we don’t or or we were like
    we don’t have the way to do it and
    that’s when we
    when
    george and i decided to go to the clean
    show
    and
    and go with the demo version of the
    tablet
    yeah
    because you know you have you have two
    options
    you want to expand into a new territory
    into new city
    either you buy a laundromat or you
    partner somebody
    you get a wholesale price with somebody
    but then you need to
    hire your own drivers in the other area
    and it will take at least
    four
    years for what we were expecting to get
    sales of
    30 40 000 a month per month
    so we said we have developed
    such
    technology
    and there’s a
    more opportunity for us to keep
    investing most of our time and money
    into the technology side
    we already had a and on the marketing
    area and
    right now we have a customer support so
    we can provide all these tools for
    existing laundromats who wants to start
    doing pick up and drop off who who wants
    to start doing deliveries
    so
    right now
    we we back then we had a big territory
    in miami
    we had people interested and we said
    okay so you you won miami beach
    you can have this area this other person
    this other area
    and now they’re running and
    we take a small commission and everybody
    wins but they have access to
    to our features which is a technology
    side
    the customer support
    we answer calls from 7am until midnight
    we have
    three people right now working full-time
    maybe if they watch the video in a
    couple of years
    we might have more people we will
    require but we’re working on the
    technology side so they make
    less goals we keep improving and we see
    why we get the calls and why is the
    people calling
    to to improve our website and to improve
    our driver app
    yeah
    i mean it’s awesome i mean you guys have
    grown up the platform a lot i mean tell
    me about your experience at clean show
    what was that like and you know how did
    that help you
    you know kind of launch your
    licensing your partnering side of the
    business
    we went to our first show to our first
    show
    this show is every four years correct i
    think it’s every two years
    except for covered years and okay so we
    we went to our first show
    in georgia which was like six six years
    ago or seven eight years ago i don’t
    remember the time right now we were just
    going to look but our first show where
    we got a booth a 10 by 10 booth we were
    exhibitors
    we wanted to test the waters we wanted
    to see talk to talk to other laundromat
    owners to see if they liked the idea
    and
    we had we had um
    we only got two partners from the show
    which you right now
    have launching a new partner into our
    system it can take us a few minutes back
    then we didn’t have it and they wanted
    to have the android
    and we they used to ask oh are you
    available in android 2 are you available
    in android and we said no
    so that’s something that they
    they wanted to
    release in the area
    oh i want the app tomorrow i want the
    app in a week and we said
    we’re still tweaking and we haven’t
    released yet it’s going to take us three
    months and that’s something that they
    didn’t help us but it helped us to
    understand what the actual
    operator or what the actual new partners
    and we are we we can’t wait for next
    year we already got a booth for next
    year
    and hopefully
    awesome at 20 30
    who knows how many we can get
    like like your sense again like we went
    to the
    show and we were um like
    like we actually went to expert it was
    kind of like inspiring to know exactly
    what’s out there and me and george we
    were like okay we’re gonna spend this
    amount of money to get a booth
    but we’re gonna
    like sell it as as much
    as we can and actually work and we got
    any a lot of feedback of other other
    london owners which was a good time was
    harder right now you can put a form
    online or question and obviously
    you’re going to get a lot of feedback
    but back then there was not just thing
    as a form a podcast or either
    or even a um a uh
    like someone that can actually guide you
    on how to start a technology company on
    on
    of a laundry service right
    so that was actually a really good
    experience um going there and we’re
    excited about going back there with
    everything that we’re going to show up
    and actually i would love to send you
    the picture of our booth so maybe you
    can show it here so yeah
    yeah definitely do that
    uh and i’ll i’ll include it
    um
    real quick i haven’t asked you this yet
    um i think i know the answer to it but i
    haven’t asked you
    so when you guys started this business
    and you started picking up laundry and
    doing it
    how was the laundry actually getting
    done
    who was doing it where was it getting
    done
    so
    the laundry was actually being done in
    my parents laundromat
    and my parents are used as i started a
    podcast they’re really hard when it
    comes to business
    and hard decisions so
    i agree in a price per pound with them
    and basically we’re making the margin
    out of that
    um
    actually
    honestly and i’m telling you straight up
    the truth i uh
    we went to different laundromats
    before
    and a lot of launch events
    a lot of london
    and mats they say no to us really yes
    because they didn’t know about this
    remember we’re talking about 2017 when
    there was not not just as technology and
    i think watch club was getting into our
    market and and there was nothing much of
    of
    of the idea of picking up delivery as
    right now as 2021.
    yeah but it was uh my parents actually
    does uh some of the laundry laundry and
    then when we got into a certain volume
    we just started getting more partners
    that actually uh cover our areas that we
    carry on
    and and then
    basically after they
    grow up their business then we decided
    to get another partner obviously we
    talked to them all of them our partners
    and tell them look
    uh you still gonna keep this volume of
    your laundry so you know
    stop you know don’t fire anyone you’re
    still going to keep this amount of
    laundry um just that you cannot
    provide that much of a service with us
    so we decided to take it to another
    laundromat
    and then the other laundromats you know
    basically uh is following the other ex
    seed of accounts that they cannot
    perform now we have commercial accounts
    um that basically give us around 500 per
    day or 600 accounts per day
    and and it’s amazing because we have
    pounds
    yeah yeah 600 pounds per day and we have
    a truck
    that basically
    i would finally fix it up and fix them
    up so we work with partners that they
    don’t want to they don’t focus that much
    on the technology side which we do on
    the sales part
    and then what we do is we provide work
    to them
    so sometimes the headache comes to the
    longer order when they trying to start
    everything by himself
    and they don’t know where to start and
    that’s the hardest part
    yeah yes i mean it seems like a good a
    good partnership there because you guys
    have the infrastructure built out and
    are able to offer that
    and other you know other people who have
    you know
    the the physical assets
    for it you can partner with them to
    you know
    it seems like a good a good marriage
    there yes and also like if you consider
    i don’t know if you uh i um
    we have my friends laundromat that we
    provide them like around six thousand to
    a thousand pounds you know per month in
    that area specifically
    just having that amount of cells extra
    coming from outside your door
    how much value brings up to your store
    yeah
    that’s not surprised that people were
    turning you down if somebody’s like hey
    i want to come do a bunch of laundry at
    your laundry i’m a laundromat i’m like
    yeah okay like exactly right and
    a lot of a lot of
    and we go to
    we go and target different markets that
    actually they’re doing pick-up and
    delivery right
    and we tell them look we like to work
    with us and they’re like no we have our
    own brand we do our own pickups and all
    that and we’re like okay but
    we don’t like more clothes
    to pick up
    you don’t like they don’t lose anything
    right and the good thing about our
    strategy in this case is that
    most of our traffic that we’re getting
    right now
    so that
    so we we
    our main focus right now yes is
    marketing but our branding so
    we get around
    i think 120
    135 000 uh impressions per day in the
    whole united states for free
    and and we’re getting these from las
    vegas from uh texas dallas and san
    antonio los angeles and sometimes those
    orders cannot be performed because we
    don’t have unfortunately no partners at
    that moment on that market
    yeah
    yeah but yeah well you need to get those
    partners let’s get them going
    isn’t it slipping through your fingers
    yeah and actually uh people that
    actually uh
    uh
    trying to do pickup and delivery or have
    an extra income you know it’s a good way
    to start
    or if they’re doing their system laundry
    mat and they have their own laundry
    service and picked up on delivery
    and you’re not picking up enough
    you don’t lose anything working with a
    platform like hours
    right so it’s a good way to
    to work with like to get more income
    yeah
    love that uh
    okay i mean super cool i mean you guys
    have like a lot of cool stuff going on
    it seems like you’ve built up your your
    personal
    side of the business uh you know pretty
    well and then you’ve just started to
    kind of expand out by partnering with
    other
    owners and now
    you know
    do you still you still are you still
    doing your
    stuff in miami your
    pickup and delivery business
    yes we still run the operations uh in
    miami certain areas of miami
    which is it’s not a
    very big city but we have divided in
    different with different partners but we
    still and that’s where we have the three
    drivers and the two
    bands
    to be able to cover that area
    and
    that’s a recommendation for anybody who
    wants to do a pickup and drop off
    most of the companies what they do is
    they pick up in the morning
    so if they just want to open in the
    morning or certain like two hours in the
    morning usually seven to nine
    is not as competitive as
    working on it on a saturday and
    maybe sunday too or at night
    that’s something that we stand out in
    miami and some of our partners they do
    the same but not all of them because we
    give them the flexibility to choose
    which hours they can work
    they tell us
    when they expand and they have more
    orders they will expand the hours but
    definitely something that how we stand
    out with so much competition in miami is
    that we have two two um schedules in the
    morning and at night so from 8 to 12
    and then from 6 to ten
    yeah
    that’s awesome and that’s a good tip too
    you know looking for
    gaps in the market where there might be
    availability and opportunity
    you know to to pick up customers that
    aren’t being served right now because
    people are picking them up in the
    morning and not in the evening or not on
    the weekends or whatever the case may be
    super smart love that i love that but we
    already did that mistake
    and also we did that mistake that opened
    too many hours when you also give too
    many options to the customer he might be
    like
    i can have them anytime and they don’t
    schedule anything in advance and they
    expect
    that you show up in in 30 minutes 20
    minutes so
    it’s a balance but
    before we even before we even started
    licensing our system
    we had
    10 000 of orders in prior experience
    before we
    right now we have done more than 20 000
    so
    we’re talking from our personal
    experience and like alejandro said
    we’re learning from different states
    right now we are in garida
    most of our partners 60
    are there and then we have in california
    and also in texas so
    we’re still need to learn from other
    states like new york and definitely we
    will learn and
    and the the us is a
    huge market
    what um one of the tips that i would
    recommend that george was talking about
    is that don’t mind on increasing prices
    rising because
    um when we started the company we were
    like
    i think was 129 per pound
    or something and
    and i was like no no george don’t raise
    the price because we want to be the
    lowest one in the area
    and honestly
    sometimes um
    it’s not the case and people actually
    don’t want to order with you because you
    are too cheap
    and and that happened to us in in south
    beach actually
    one of the marches that we were starting
    with right
    and we were charging 139 per pound or
    149 and we were like okay you know this
    market charge usually 169 179
    um
    at that time we lost a driver
    unfortunately and
    we raised the price crazy high because
    we didn’t want no orders from that area
    trying to
    deter people from ordering exactly so
    then what happened it was the opposite
    it was the opposite so the opposite was
    that we got a huge volume from that area
    because of that reason because of the
    of the
    increase of pricing i think the official
    price it doesn’t have to be too high
    of course
    like but
    like it has to be on the market price
    don’t go
    from this price increase in prices
    depending on your cost
    or expenses yeah the the first first um
    perception from the customer might be
    like oh they’re not going to do a good
    job because they’re only charging me 130
    140 per pound but
    [Music]
    learn your market study your market and
    once you know that most of if you have a
    competitor charging two and another 150
    you can do 180 190
    yeah
    yeah
    yeah not sorry for not thinking that 125
    i’m gonna take all the market
    right
    yeah i think that’s a really good tip
    you know we talk about this a lot how
    a lot of people are afraid to raise
    prices and it’s just funny how you guys
    kind of stumbled on it by trying to
    drive away customers you’re like oh
    we’ll just jack up our prices and then
    we don’t have to worry about that area
    until we have a driver again
    uh but the actual opposite happened and
    i think that i think you’re right the
    perception
    is is key and that plays into your
    branding also right like how people
    perceive your brand
    and the pricing they’re closely tied
    together
    you know if you’re branding yourself as
    you know the
    the cheap option
    then
    you know
    that might appeal to some people but
    uh you know
    that may or may not be the demographic
    you’re going for and it may or may not
    be the best business model for your area
    too so and also the person that is
    paying 129 pounds
    sometimes
    is expecting a lot more
    or like discounts and all that on your
    service than actually the person
    actually paying 179 199 per pound one
    two
    only five per pound and he’s different
    i’m talking about pricing in miami so um
    it is it’s a lot different so
    right now we
    we recently raised prices
    again
    and
    honestly we didn’t see that much in
    effect the first month uh and we went
    back to the regular sales
    so of course you’re gonna lose like
    anything
    also when you increase your bending
    prices other
    persons that walk into the laundromat
    are going to go to they’re going to
    complain about the extra quarter
    but when they notice that the difference
    of service that you’re getting from from
    that 25 cents
    what makes the difference is
    the ac your tv is working the machines
    are clean
    and the same thing as the pickup and
    delivery right you’re on time
    and the closest ones correctly but when
    you open the mic back it smells really
    good
    so all that makes and actually worth
    the extra money they’re paying for so
    yes they leave but they end up coming
    back because of that uh because of those
    without those reasons
    yeah providing that value is
    key you can’t you can’t charge whatever
    you want to charge if you’re going to
    give terrible service right
    that’s that’s how it goes and i think
    that’s why a lot of you know the best
    people out there the best business
    owners out there
    say hey don’t you know don’t be the
    lowest option out there in fact be be
    one of the higher options out there but
    just provide
    more value than everyone else and people
    will be willing to pay the price because
    you know it’s worth it to you know pay
    and you know we’re talking relatively
    small amounts right an extra quarter
    extra dime or whatever per pound
    you know but if the quality and the
    service and the experience is that much
    better people will definitely pay it
    yeah
    and and
    we suggest on that turnover time
    to keep it on 24 hours
    how come
    [Music]
    let’s you
    how come because we have some of our
    partners who have uh tried 48 72 hours
    and they don’t have that many orders
    compared like people don’t want to
    to have their their laundry
    for three four days
    somewhere else like they want to have it
    back
    the next day
    we also have a subscription service that
    some of those customers they can they
    say okay we can get back next week
    it’s only less than one percent but you
    have all but people they want fast not
    the same day service not overnight only
    commercial accounts
    which they need their stuff back to to
    work
    and
    but for the regular customers like
    they wanted to have it the next day
    that’s that’s what we recommend
    yeah awesome good tip awesome tip
    all right we have a section of the
    podcast called secret sauce listen up
    it’s the secret sauce
    and secret sauce is just
    what’s what’s something that you see
    working either in your guys’s business
    or in one of your partners businesses
    what’s something that’s working uh for
    pickup and delivery right now in terms
    of even either
    you know gaining more customers or
    improving efficiencies or or anything
    like that you got any tips for people
    running pickup and delivery
    uh well what i would recommend is work
    on
    um if you’re planning to build up your
    own brand
    right uh work on your your branding
    that’s my my tip number one uh
    i think
    uh
    google could be really
    expensive if you don’t do that
    so that’s something that i would highly
    uh consider to recommend to any laundry
    mart owner
    my side of the company
    uh obviously there’s other things that
    like the branding is the most important
    part because uh that depends on how much
    it’s gonna cost you in the future
    that click of that client
    um
    i don’t know george has any
    yeah something that on the pick up and
    drop off
    talk to
    the driver or if you are picking up a
    drop off
    make some
    cards at least our bags
    they’re green and i will show it i will
    show you in a minute
    and anytime that you walk in a hotel or
    an apartment building or
    when you park your vehicle if you have a
    rapid band they will ask you oh what’s
    your company name can i know more if you
    have a card with a five dollar coupon
    and and with a promo code
    and and you can give it to that person
    that works
    that will work because they’re taking
    something physical or they will take the
    picture with your qr code taking it to
    your website and then they will they
    will remember like that
    yeah i love that tip that’s a i mean
    both of those building up the brand and
    it kind of goes hand in hand right with
    the green bags and you know the rap
    vehicle and all that stuff but you know
    having those cards where when people do
    ask you the questions or give them to
    your drivers people do ask those
    questions it’s really easy to just hand
    that card now they have your web address
    they you know have the way to get uh in
    contact with you they have a way to
    download the app they have your
    you know your business name so they can
    search you um super good super good tip
    but
    give a small commission to your driver
    give him a box
    and he will he he can make twenty thirty
    dollars extra per week and he will be
    extremely happy oh nice how do you keep
    track of that
    by the promo code
    if he’s let’s say his name is nick we
    write nick five
    and
    when when we get the report every week
    when we have to pay the driver we can
    see if has anybody use that code
    oh i love that
    and if you have a driver or or if you
    love to talk to people and you have the
    time
    talk to the the person who works in the
    lobby
    if you go to a hotel and if you’re not
    make friends with the person with the
    concierge and tell them about your
    company
    don’t be afraid of that
    they’re actually they’re looking for for
    people who they can refer to
    i love that right yeah at least right
    now locally in miami in miami beach most
    of the hotels
    they recommend us and
    because
    our drivers talk talk to them
    yeah super good super good secret sauce
    i love those ideas really really clever
    really good and is the uh the promo code
    thing is that integrated within your
    system
    yes
    yeah super cool love that
    all right we have another section
    called
    pro tips pro
    tips
    and pro tips is maybe maybe an operator
    say there’s a laundromat owner who
    wants to get into pickup and delivery
    you have any tips for them on how to do
    that the best way possible
    yeah start doing it enjoying our team
    i mean if they don’t want to
    if they want to do pickup and delivery
    tomorrow
    and they are in the market where we’re
    not
    then we can open their area
    and in one day
    listen one day
    how fast they answer the email i think
    we can have that area open for them now
    the
    the
    the difference is that
    building up like the brand part
    it takes a lot of time so i definitely
    recommend them to if they want to do
    pick up in the day tomorrow and they
    want to test the waters
    definitely to contact us and and you can
    actually you know help them out
    if not
    they can
    they definitely need to have a website
    and they need to have exposure to social
    media
    and then they need to look for a
    platform who they can help because how
    many orders can you pick up to the phone
    if somebody calls you
    so you need to have a platform
    it could be
    the best option a company like us or any
    other company but they definitely need
    to have a software
    to be able to
    to have a list of the order that they’re
    going to pick up that day
    and you need to call that person because
    one two three four max you can do it to
    paper
    and and but then
    you need a an actual technology software
    to help you
    and
    so you need to have that technology you
    need to have the marketing
    and
    you need to have a
    you need to be very you need to be able
    to answer the phone at any time because
    you will be getting calls
    but like alejandro said we can cover all
    of that but if they want to try it
    after they get tired of doing that they
    need to and if we’re available in their
    area
    where we’re a good option and we
    we’re willing to talk to anybody
    on
    our website www.humberapp.com
    and they can find out more information
    and
    we have we have done
    over 20 000 orders already we’re doing
    over a thousand orders per month right
    now and we keep increasing our areas we
    keep learning
    and we
    like i mentioned before we have six
    developers working full-time
    and we’re growing the team
    exponentially to be able to to call to
    help new partners
    guys that was awesome and uh man i you
    know i’m gonna put that link that you
    you know just mentioned hamperramp.com
    uh
    in the show notes if you’re on youtube
    they’ll be down below in the description
    but i’ll have all that in the links to
    everything that we talked about here uh
    will be there so make sure you check
    those out guys is hamperapp amp
    hamperapp.com is that the best place for
    people to come find you if they have
    more questions
    yeah and actually down down there
    there’s an option that they can put a
    um
    partner up with us okay
    and click i will send you the link
    afterwards and and you can uh
    put in the short notes but
    definitely uh if they contact us through
    there uh you’re either gonna be
    receiving a call for me or from george
    uh you know or they can they can send an
    email to team
    t-e-a-m
    hamperab.com
    for more information
    okay
    i’ll put that in the show notes to team
    at hamperapp.com
    [Music]
    guys appreciate it so cool to hear you
    guys story and how you
    you know got into this wacky wacky
    business and how you’ve been able to
    grow it and scale it and now expand it
    out and hopefully you know soon be
    nationwide all over the all over the
    place right just
    hamper apps everywhere thank you jordan
    for this opportunity and we will love
    talking to you
    all right that was such a fun interview
    with jorge and alejandro i love talking
    to those guys hearing their story about
    how they kind of came up through the
    ranks developed their own app and now
    they’re trying to really expand what
    they’re doing offering uh customers a
    better service experience kind of across
    the country and they’re looking to
    expand so cool to hear that congrats to
    you guys hope you guys continue to build
    that business and serve this industry
    well
    guys i just want to remind you that
    listening to the podcast is awesome
    checking out youtube is awesome you’re
    going to learn a lot going to the forums
    very cool reading blog post awesome
    awesome awesome
    all that is so good but none of it’s
    going to get you any closer to achieving
    your goals whatever they may be unless
    you start taking some action so
    i just want you to pick something from
    any time in this podcast episode
    and
    put it into action this week pick
    something put it into action
    and man as we do that every single week
    we’re
    developing habits of putting things into
    action watch what happens watch how your
    life changes
    because that stuff compounds on itself
    and on each other so pick something from
    the episode put it in action
    let us know what you’re doing on the
    forums head to laundromat resource.com
    forums and let us know what action steps
    you’re taking this week all right guys i
    will see you i guess next week on the
    podcast or in the webinar or at the live
    q a with dave
    or
    on the blog or
    you know one of the other million places
    we are right now so
    love everything you guys are doing keep
    it up go take some action and we’ll see
    at whatever the next thing is for you
    alright guys peace
    [Music]

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