Bhanu with Lavender Laundry shares his story about how he grew his wash and fold pickup and delivery business in Tukwila Washington to five figures in just five months. He previously used a competitor’s software solution and the delivery business never took off. With Curbside Laundries, Bhanu’s revenue keeps going up and up like a staircase.
Speaker 1: 0:00
Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt episode 22, 0 to five figures in five months, I wanna welcome Bonu with lavender laundry who took his pickup and delivery business to huge, huge numbers in less than six months. What I’d like to welcome Bonu with carpenter laundry . He is such a success story, and I’m so excited to learn more about your story and share it with people because you’ve got two things in common. One is you’ve taken your business with a curbside LA washing bolt and pick up and delivery solution. And within one year of using our service, that’s grown to like five figures within few months, and then it’s just ballooned and ballooned , um , like a staircase, just the constant growth. And the other amazing part about it too, is you’ve done all that in one year and you’ve got a full-time job. And so I’m just excited to learn how you managed all that.
Speaker 2: 0:57
I had a , my job and , um , and I wanted another income service . So was , uh , looking into, you know, other businesses and stuff, you know, and, and I had some success with other businesses. So, and I , uh , I was looking for like a laundromat and , uh , I found exactly what I wanted, you know, so a laundromat in tuck Washington, once I bought it, you know, I, I wanted to, you know, increase my income. I mean, my, my place is a huge place is like 3,700 square feet. And , um, and there was like some room in the bag . So I started thinking, you know, what I could do with it. There was some rooms that the old owners use for tanning beds, you know, tanning, what
Speaker 1: 1:35
Is it with tanning beds and laundromats I’ve seen that . And I don’t , I’ve still ,
Speaker 2: 1:40
Yeah , exactly. Yeah . So they were not generating you a whole lot of revenue. So, you know, there was no point of keeping him , I got it , those , and then I started renting out the rooms, you know, to like a barber shop and , and there was a tax guy who to room , you know, rent, you know , place . And , um, so I did that. And then, and then in the meantime, you know, I was looking for ways to other ways to, you know, created my revenue for the laundromat. I , um , I started looking at laundry services and there was not a whole lot of computers in my area. No other laundromats were doing it. So I started doing, you know, I built my own website and I used clean clouds. Yeah . Clean clouds . Yeah . And I didn’t have much success with it, you know, and one day I was , uh , I was searching on online , you know, for other ways, you know, to make more money right. For the Lama . And , uh , and I CA came across you guys and I started watching a video and, and it was great, you know, I mean, everything I wanted . And so I , you know, watching all bunch of videos from you guys, and finally, you know, I contacted you guys and , um, pretty much, you know, went from there.
Speaker 1: 2:44
Yeah. It’s, it’s amazing to me because a lot of people say, Hey, I got this software solution where they’re looking at pick up and delivery software solutions . They’re like, Hey, this is only 50 bucks a month or whatever it is. And , and so they’re looking at it completely the wrong way, because they’re like, Hey, I’m saving some money on my pickup and delivery solution. And they completely forget about the customer journey for a lot of these software manufacturers. They’re not looking at the entire customer journey and how they find your website, how they find you, how, what happens after they place the order and all these different pieces you have to get, right. Because it’s a consumer product. So they’re saving a couple hundred bucks a month or whatever it is. And then, but what is the opportunity cost? Because now you’re making five figures a month and before with a different software, it was,
Speaker 2: 3:32
Yeah, it was, yeah. It was not that, you know, that much, the thing is we couldn’t get traction on, you know , commercial, you know, customers with the , uh , after we launched the, the website with the curb website , um, we start , you know, getting , uh , commercial, you know, customers within the first month. I think it was like , it was within the first month we started getting , uh , one commercial customer. Right. That was the starting point. And then we started getting more and more. So our first one was naturopathic place and we had that and we still have them as a recurring, you know, business customers. And we start getting more and more.
Speaker 1: 4:04
What , what industries and commercial clients have you been getting?
Speaker 2: 4:07
We Havelin company, they rent, leans and stuff. They are giving us, you know, business and also a plumbing company. You know, we are getting business from the everyday , you know , I mean , they , they get busy and we get busy.
Speaker 1: 4:18
Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. Those commercial clients are golden and because they’re consistent, you’re just dealing with a single payer and they tend to give you a higher quantity. So it’s just the perfect trifecta.
Speaker 2: 4:31
Exactly. Yeah .
Speaker 1: 4:32
And then it’s also, the commercial clients do tend to take longer to acquire. Um , but then the residential are great as the bread and butter. It’s nice because is a lot of them, but all comes down the same thing as taking care of your customers, doing a good job for ’em.
Speaker 2: 4:45
Exactly.
Speaker 1: 4:46
And that’s what I find really impressed if you got a full time job, and I’m just wondering how you accomplished that. Like, how are you able to manage it all?
Speaker 2: 4:53
Well, I, I would say, you know, having a real good team, you know, I’ve struggle with employees a lot. It’s not, it’s not a easy journey. Yeah. Having a real good team that does it, you know, pretty much. So my, my dad retired as a truck driver, so he’s helping me out with , uh , with my pickups and deliveries also. And then I have another person doing , uh , you know, pickups and deliveries. I also, I have helps from friend . I mean, they, they didn’t have a job, so I offered them a job and pre trustworthy and hard workers . Yeah. Having a , having a good team. That’s like the success that ,
Speaker 1: 5:27
Yeah, that is the , the key. And just last week I had somebody say, Hey, and they , they’ve got a really successful pickup and delivery service. And they said, could you turn off the pickup and delivery temporarily because we need to find more team members, you know, on the flip side, we’re, we are spending a lot of money on indeed.com and different, you know, we’re constantly, and we’d rather be in a position of having too many people and manage the hours that way, rather than being in the reverse situation. So I think it is good to have a solid team and then also kind of have some padding, you know, it’s actually, I think it’s actually easier when you get bigger. Cuz if you just have one person and then that person quits you’re in a world of hurt. Exactly . But if you get bigger, you , it’s easier to have padding. It’s easier manipulate hours and give work to the people who are performing the most.
Speaker 2: 6:14
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We guys struggling in the beginning because , uh , you know, we only needed like one or two presents, you know ? And so once we got bigger, we had more people. So if someone calls in sick and uh , you know , we could have somebody else cover that shift. It got a little bit easier.
Speaker 1: 6:30
Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s like taking off with a plane in the very beginning. You know, they’re using a lot of thrust, they’re using a lot of fuel able to get off the ground and pick up and deliver is the same thing you really have to, it does take time to grow. I mean, in your case, it’s just unbelievable, like one year and you’ve got, and I wonder like how much value that adds to your laundromat, you
Speaker 2: 6:50
Know ? Oh , a lot. Yeah . Yeah . I haven’t even looked . Yeah .
Speaker 1: 6:56
Yeah . It’s amazing .
Speaker 2: 6:57
I’m not , I’m, I’m not selling with this , uh , you know, laundry service . Yeah. I’m not selling, you know, I mean , I could , I could grow so much, so much bigger, you know, with this , uh , service. I mean, we just started, you know, like it’s only been like what , um , a year or less. Yeah.
Speaker 1: 7:11
I firmly believe if something’s making money, you don’t sell it because when something is generating money, that is so valuable because in my opinion, money doesn’t have a lot of value. You know, there could be inflation, there could be all these different things and whatever , if you just park your money in the bank that you spend the money and then it’s gone, what has value is something that makes money? So you’ve got an asset. I remember I used to do commercial real estate and this guy, he owned a storage facility that made cleared $50,000 a month. And so I was trying to get him to sell and he is like, why would I sell every single month? I get a new $50,000. And it’s hard to argue that
Speaker 2: 7:49
Yeah, pretty much with this growth . I mean, we had like, you know , drop off customers, right. I mean, we were not, you know, getting , uh , you know, income, you know, so that’s why, you know, I started looking into , you know, pick Penn delivery with the website and everything. I started getting more, you know, drop off customers too , you know, with the website, you know , and they were , they were finding, you know, easier to find things online too, you know? So on the website,
Speaker 1: 8:10
It , around 2010 , we started investing in, or actually in 2010, we had our first website for a Lama. And we , the only laundromat in the , in long beach that had a, and it’s just one page. And we start getting all this business and our wash and fold revenue went to about $8,000 just because we had a website and nobody else did your online presence that determines your success or failure just five years ago, 2017, half the laundromats didn’t have websites when people did wash and fold , they, it was the afterthought. It was because they had an attendant there just to keep the Raff out or to fix , you know, make sure they could refund machines. So people didn’t tip them over type thing. And, and so they had , they said, I’m gonna be attended and people keep going up to my attendant and asking, Hey, could you watch this for me? They got into washing full Delta , pay the wages. And if you do that without the web presence, you’ll make between 520 $500 gross, which really just doesn’t pay for a whole lot.
Speaker 2: 9:07
Yeah, exactly. Yeah . And , uh, you know, when I built my website, I had several pages, but they weren’t as detailed as, as the website that you guys build super easy for customers to find information. And also also the , the keywords, you know, there’s like, you know , so much keywords, you know, in the website. So it’s easier for you to rank , uh , hire on Google. Most of the areas, you know, I mean , for commercial laundry service, I’m at the top. So, you know, that’s , uh , I’m, I’m pretty happy about that. My website was okay, but you know, it was not ranking as high as the website I have right now with curb website .
Speaker 1: 9:41
If you’re looking at Renta cars near the air , airport Pertz and budget, and all those different places are like jocking for position and they’re spending a lot of resources in that. So it really comes down to it’s like winners take all it’s competitive, so you yeah. Really need the best. And then just sort of final question. What , what would you say to somebody who’s considering getting into pick up and delivery?
Speaker 2: 10:04
I would say , um, go for it. I mean, initial, I mean, don’t think about the initial investment, you know, like, I mean, you gonna , you gonna get so much more back, you know,
Speaker 1: 10:14
In any thoughts on like Uber or door dash to use for your drivers versus
Speaker 2: 10:21
I , I don’t think , I don’t think that’s gonna work. You lose your control, find your own employees and , um , and have them, you know, do the pickup and theories .
Speaker 1: 10:29
Terrific. And, and then one thing Peter low with laundry at Gogo was describing how this is a, this business model is designed for of growth because you start get , you get these repeat customers, you keep bringing new people in. Is that what you’re finding or is it all new customers or what are you seeing in terms of customer? Oh
Speaker 2: 10:46
Yeah, we get, we get new, new customers, our recruiting customers and also commercial customers. I mean, yeah. They are finding it easy to, you know , find us on Google. And we just had a customer, a commercial customer. It was at one time , but they give us over 2000 pounds of laundry . Wow.
Speaker 1: 11:03
Yeah . That’s awesome.
Speaker 2: 11:04
Yeah.
Speaker 1: 11:04
Like bags of money.
Speaker 2: 11:06
Yeah. Bags of money. They actually bags bags for recycling please . So, you know, I’m pretty happy about that. And , uh , the software that , that you guys have, the pures ship and everything so easy to, you know, navigate.
Speaker 1: 11:20
Yeah. And I , I can’t wait this year for 2022. I mean, it does take time for development, but a big push is a lot of automation we’re gonna help you, like bring in new customers, get your regular customers ordering more often with a higher frequency. So whatever you’re making right now, it’s just, it’s just gonna balloon. Even if you add one new customer we’re going to , it’s just gonna be tied in where it’s gonna help your customers just order and order and order more and more and more it’s it’s gonna be. Yeah. So we’re, we basically tripled our development team and we’re just dedicated to just having the best software out there.
Speaker 2: 11:53
Awesome. Best . I’m pretty excited about that.
Speaker 1: 11:56
Nice. Well just , well thank you again for being on the podcast. I think your story is so inspirational because you’ve been in it for about one year. You’ve just said ridiculous revenues that people would be happy if their entire laundrymat made that in a month. And this is just one facet of your laundry. We’re , we’re glad I’ll be able to help out. Thanks .
Speaker 2: 12:14
Thanks, Matt and curbside laundries.
Speaker 1: 12:16
Terrific. Well, thank you. Thank you for tuning in. If you like the show, please click like or subscribe. It really helps us out. If you like to learn more about the curbside laundries, pickup and delivery and point of sale solution, please go to curbside laundries.com. See you next time.
