84. 20 Years of Wisdom Packed Into 1 Interview with Peter Stern of Mr. Jeff

Peter Stern has held many roles in this industry. He was an integral player in one of the largest privately held laundromat portfolios in the country, managed a fund investing in laundromats, and now works with Mr. Jeff, a laundry pick-up & delivery franchise getting started in the U.S.

Peter joins Jordan on the show this week and shares his long and storied experience in the industry while dropping a TON of wisdom, practical knowledge, and actionable tips for laundromat owners and those of your wanting to buy your first laundromat. In a truly value-packed show, Peter holds nothing back and shares the ups and downs he’s seen in this business to help you better run your business.

In this episode, Peter and Jordan discuss:

Pioneering the laundromat superstore
Starting an energy company for laundromats
Being the acquisitions and operations manager for a large laundromat chain
Tips on scaling the business
The role of real estate and scaling
How to ramp up a new laundromat
Lagging vs leading indicators
Getting customer feedback
A major culture shift happening in the laundromat industry right now
Order value and the importance of trust with customers
Online reviews
Technology development over the years
Culture of care and attention to detail
Hub & spoke model of laundry drop-off services
Checklists
Churn rate
What is Mr. Jeff and who is it for
Looking outside of the industry for inspiration

And way, way more!!

Watch The Podcast Here

TODAY'S SPONSORS

AtmosphereTV– We’re brought to you today by my friends at AtmosphereTV! 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 [email protected] for more information!

Episode Transcript

Read the Transcript Here

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

laundromat resource podcast this is show

84 and i’m pumped you’re here today

because today we’re talking with peter

stern

and it is an incredible conversation i

mean we i have like a few pages of notes

that i was taking during this interview

there’s so much good information so much

good knowledge that peter drops he’s

been in the industry a long time

and he’s had some unique roles in this

industry too so we get into a lot of

that and i pin him down on a whole bunch

of details

about how

he and his company has been uh

successful

running a laundromat over the years so

there’s a lot of really good information

if you’re an owner or if you’re looking

to be an owner this is one that’s gonna

have a lot of very practical tangible

stuff for it so super pumped about that

before we jump into it with peter real

quick i want to say you guys are punks

not really but uh uh last week on the

episode i

announced that uh the analysis

calculator

that we launched for pro members who get

unlimited use you can try it for free

london resource.com calculators by the

way that link in every link in this

episode will be on the show notes a lot

of myresource.com show 84 or if you’re

on youtube down below

but anyways i announced the analysis

calculator i’m super excited about it i

think it’s going to be an awesome tool

for anybody buying

their first second thousandth laundromat

it’s going to help them analyze deals

and determine the valuations of

laundromats quickly and accurately so

i’m super excited about it but you guys

kind of flocked to it in force and

crashed it for you know like half a day

or maybe even a little bit more than

half a day so just wanted to say that if

you went to try to use that analysis

calculator and it wasn’t working when

you tried to go

i just want to let you know that it’s

there so you can go try it now lauderdam

resource.com calculators

and give it a shot and again pro members

unlimited use unlimited access to that

but even if you’re not a pro member you

can try for free download the sleek pdf

that it spits out for you really really

cool

but anyways this week

i am super excited i have a couple of

short books coming out um they haven’t

come out yet

one is on

uh the whole due diligence process

everything you need to know about due

diligence

probably the most crucial part of buying

a laundromat and doing it the right way

that’s why i wrote a pretty

comprehensive book on how to do that due

diligence that book is coming out here

in the next few months

however

ebook version of that book i have thrown

into the um the pro membership there so

pro members if you are out there you can

go download that uh the definitive guide

laundromat due diligence uh right now

it’s included in your membership uh if

you’re not a pro member just go be a pro

member it’s gonna be a no-brainer uh i

think it already is but there’s a lot

more even coming up over the next few

weeks um the uh the other book that’s

coming out is on how to finance or

different ways to finance a laundromat

deal so that’s coming out and that book

will come out

pretty soon here for pro members 2

well before its actual launch so

excited about those pro perks there and

there’s more coming can’t wait to share

next week’s uh with you i’m super

excited about it okay the other thing i

just wanted to say is

you know welcome to everybody who has

been over joining the uh the membership

over at laundromat resource whether the

free

or the paid membership uh welcome to

everybody and one of the things that

i have loved that’s been cracking me up

is some of your guys’s profile pictures

and we’re ranging from like very

professional

you know looking like i can tell you

you’re serious you mean business

pictures to a lot of very hilarious uh

hilarious pictures i’ve been

thoroughly enjoying your profile

pictures over there so uh hopefully you

guys are enjoying each other’s pictures

too so whether you’re commenting on you

know the forums or whatever the case may

be and you’re seeing those pictures i’m

just i’m loving it guys i am loving it

so uh continue to do that make sure if

you are a member over there make sure

your profile is filled out and what

that’s going to do a few different

things for you is

you know number one is going to help

people get to know you a little bit

better and uh man the whole

you know saying quote or whatever your

your network is your net worth like i

mean it’s so true and you know the

people that you’re spending your time

with the people that you’re learning

from the people you’re interacting with

do have a huge impact on you so when

you’re hanging out with other people who

are going in the same direction of you

as you who have similar goals as you

it’s just going to help you reach them

so much faster so go fill out that

profile go upload a picture i’m always

curious to see you know if people are

gonna upload the serious business like

uh which is awesome and i think it’s

really good or the hilarious which is

also awesome and really good so i just

wanted to let you guys know some of you

guys are really cracking me up over

there all right uh enough of that

enough of that um last week i said that

i was going to give away

dave menses book hard copies signed hard

copies of dave mintz’s book laundromat

millionaire to

at least one person who commented on the

forums this week i’m gonna give two away

and in order to let you know who the two

people are

that are getting the book i’m gonna

bring my daughter on to tell you uh just

because she’s hilarious and i let her

pick at random the people who we’re

gonna win so i’m gonna bring her on and

then we’ll jump into it with peter stern

with an amazing amazing interview

alright guys i’ll see you when i jump on

with peter

hi my name is evangeline berry and i am

eight years old and today i’m going to

be giving away two laundromat

millionaire books

and so if your name is called

congratulations and if not

okay so the first book i’m giving away

is to alex oliva

yay alexa

next one is

jim bernes

yay

okay congratulations if you won and if

you didn’t

too bad so sad okay

bye

peter how are you doing man thanks for

coming on the show i’m i’m good jordan

nice nice to meet you finally i’ve uh

been uh listening to you for a while so

it’s uh it’s great thank you for having

me on hey it’s my pleasure and i’m glad

to have you on too and uh it’s funny

because i heard about you like a long

time ago

and the the reason your name stuck out

because i thought you were related to

mark stern and then i think it was mark

stern who’s like oh no we’re not related

but i know who he

is think he hates that

no no uh no mark uh a long time um but

god it’s going going back almost 20

years that i know mark uh

good guy great industry guy um so

happy to be associated with them but no

no no relation that we know of okay okay

uh that’s right well okay well then if

you’re not related to mark stern then

can you tell us a little bit about not

not

you’re the most notable

in your tribe i like that yeah

you are now i mean coming on the podcast

you’re pretty much about to be thrown

into the spotlight

blowing blowing up

the new king of uh media move over

howard right

that’s right well tell us a little bit

about who you are and i’m curious how

did you get into this industry

uh so

you know um

you know peter stern a failed uh

baseball player so

that was my

hopes and dreams as a little boy

oddly enough it wasn’t uh getting into

the laundromat industry um that yeah

that wasn’t my first grade uh aspiration

but uh yeah it’s a it’s an interesting

path i mean let life uh in general you

never know uh what roads are gonna

lead you where i actually was a uh

finance major at a school uh

you know was working at uh

pricewaterhousecoopers on the consulting

side so had a much different uh

trajectory or vision or you know whether

it was an investment banking or staying

consulting

um and then uh a

mentor of mine who i interned with um in

college uh was doing the real estate for

alex weiss the the founder of uh lunch

capital clean rate centers

and alex was uh this was you know this

back 20 years ago alex was uh doing some

uh pioneering and some interesting

things in the industry and he wanted

some young blood

so he reached out to louis to see if he

had any young talent and uh it was like

you got to meet you got to meet and i

was like i love you but um

you know a finance background like what

what the heck am i going to do in the

laundry industry like he’s like you

don’t understand this is different you

know big box 24 hours they’re taking it

over the world i’m like

so he he’s a pretty persistent guy um

and he’s like

listen just do me a favor me meet with

alex once uh you know you have a nice

meal

if it’s a waste your time you know to

waste your time but do me that favor

uh met with alex for those of you who uh

are in the industry you probably know

everyone knows alex um

personality bigger than life uh

really charismatic engaging uh

person and we hit it off we’ve been

lifelong friends and uh colleagues and

work uh

for him in many capacities and uh it’s

just set me on this journey that’s been

um you know one hell of a ride

yeah real quick uh i mean alex is kind

of back innovating in this industry

right now so i just thought i’d throw

that out there and if actually if you’re

in if you’re in texas and you’re looking

for an opportunity to get into the

industry

uh alex actually has a couple of

opportunities so shoot me an email

jordantlandmyresource.com if you’re out

in texas looking for an opportunity to

get in the industry and i’ll i’ll pass

on what he’s got because he’s doing some

interesting stuff right now so anyways

enough about alex

so okay so you met with alex and uh he

he won you over he impressed you what

happened yes i came on board at the time

this was uh this was uh late 90s and uh

you know it seemed like

there were there were a lot of different

players there was laundromats uh there

was spin cycle lucy’s laundry there you

know there was a lot of attention and

focus on trying to replicate the

successes of like the blockbusters of

the world or home depot

take this

fragmented mom-and-pop industry and uh

bring in the big box 24-hour parking uh

attended

superstore concept and roll up and

consolidate the the industry um

there

uh as we stand here uh 20 years later uh

not been done there there are a lot

there are a lot of articles and

obstacles in executing in this industry

that didn’t exist and the others um

but you know we were

we went through these starts and stops i

in one of the stops i wound up agreeing

uh depart full time from laundry capital

i went into

business for myself opening up my own

laundromats uh was very successful with

that continued to consult for laundry

capital along the way we always believed

that there was this uh

big picture or this nut to crack in this

industry such massive opportunity

um untapped potential but it was just

you know we just couldn’t get our hands

around it

in the right way but we we kept at it

and uh as you mentioned earlier uh

uh alex is a entrepreneurial mindset by

nature so you know we we just kept on uh

plugging away at different concepts

along the years and different ideas

you know there there was a franchise

route there

and

we you know uh we wound up uh opening a

energy company along the way global

energy which uh is a seller of natural

gas and electric reseller to to the

industry and now uh to other industries

as well

um we oddly enough got involved in the

pawn shop business that we were looking

to integrate into the laundromats that’s

p-a-w-n

by the way because sometimes

with something else um

the other one might have been more

lucrative as it turned out but uh unless

we uh

we we uh we’re in the uh tattoo business

for for a little while um

and then uh alex actually uh

started his uh a real estate company rw

real estate which uh

went on to be you know extremely

successful and uh took on a mind of its

own so uh

we continue to innovate and figure out

uh ways to

make money in and around the industry

while we had this uh core operating

company that was um

you know steady and and served as a base

of operations uh to

you know uh

try to uh try to figure something out

much bigger um and then uh somewhere

along the way i’d say

about um

five six years ago we were looking into

uh executing a peer-to-peer concept in

the industry i i was a big believer uh

that that this was natural for for the

industry that um you had uh it you had

the recipe for success there we always

believed on the wash and fold side

the workers really drove that business

and very tough business to manage

control

on a corporate level

we believed with technology you could

innovate and

create a peer-to-peer concept the

problem was is that we weren’t

technology company by by nature you know

we didn’t have engineers on staff uh you

know what wasn’t in our dna

and um

yeah we

couldn’t uh

we realized very quickly it wasn’t gonna

be something that we could execute

in-house but we we loved the idea and

then you know there were ideas of these

uh pickup and delivery services that

were watching like like washio uh and

there was a huge demand for the business

we saw

uh various uh companies in new york

doing it and and then around the country

and uh you know

we we saw that

these companies were very good at uh

creating the tech and a marketing

platform um

and and

they they were able to piggyback on some

logistics apps that were already out

there in the marketplace but nobody was

really focused on the

back end solution of the processing so

we always believed that that was the

equation that the

quality and consistency of services was

going to be

what won there um

and again

old operating company we’re trying to

figure out this internally

and then uh after uh you know uh banging

our heads against the wall

long enough we said you know what

we’re not the ones to figure this out

there’s all these uh

bright young players

looking to get into the industry they

they have the tech

uh experience their uh

they have the energy of the passion and

quite frankly they have the you know

they they don’t have the

cynical nature of 20 years of uh things

not working so they come with a fresh

perspective and and that’s healthy like

you know where we

say no that’s not gonna work because

they just start doing stuff and then

that doesn’t work they pivot do

something else and that’s really what we

believe was needed so

uh alex and i got together we went on a

hike we were trying to figure out how to

uh you know uh figure this all out and

we said you know what

let’s not recreate

the wheel here let’s not um you know try

to do everything ourselves

let’s launch a venture capital firm

let’s

place bets on some of this town out

there that is is looking to get in this

industry there’s lots of capital looking

to come in there’s lots of young uh

talent and founders and software

engineers that are looking to get but

they don’t have the industry expertise

but we can be that value-add we we

understand the industry really well we

know what it needs we know its landmines

um we thought we could be really good

strategic investors so

that’s what we did we launched this fund

um you know one of our early investments

and success stories was sense who is a

pos so far as a service business that’s

really blowing it out of the water um

so and then uh then in my due diligence

i came across mr jeff which uh

was a international company based out of

spain but had a worldwide reach sold

2000 franchises across the globe uh

really focused on the app-based concept

pickup and delivery wash and fold

service business all the aspects that we

believe are a huge growth area huge

directory um

for the future of the industry and they

were bringing the

all the tech uh

and and all the marketing uh chops to to

really make this happen and it was a

franchise concept which we love because

we we always believed that that end of

the business counter business it needed

the tlc of an owner operator

so did extensive due diligence uh

met with the ceo another dynamic

brilliant uh personality um and uh we

wound up making a substantial investment

in mr jeff uh and also agreed to partner

with them to help them launch in the u.s

uh and in doing so

i i also full disclosure invested

personally in mr jeff as well um really

excited about the concept became so

excited that uh agreed to switch over

full-time and and help them launch here

in the us so that’s what uh that’s what

i’ve been busy doing for like the last

six months

it was like quite the whirlwind that you

you know kind of went through uh going

from

something totally different than this

industry and then wind it up where

you’re at right now

uh so let’s rewind i mean i want to ask

you about

mr jeff here in a little bit but before

we get to that let’s rewind

back a little bit

uh what so

when you when you started working you

know with alex and all that what was

your what was your role

yes so i i ran the operations of the

company for a little while

i did some uh

acquisitions uh in the in the early days

and then uh

then moved more into a strategic role

and uh

i was uh svp where i i work on

strategic growth and um uh

planning and trying to figure out a lot

a lot of it was um

you know outs after i i really you know

after getting out of the operations

day-to-day operations of the business i

knew it really well and then after

running my own laundromat knew it even

uh better uh but then i thought i could

come in from more of a high level and

figure out a 20 000 foot view of how we

can approach things differently not only

in the company but in the industry as a

whole

yeah that’s cool so i mean you started

kind of in the

smaller specific role with the

acquisitions and operations and then

kind of

expanded out to you know some of those

higher level thinking things which is

pretty cool can we talk just for a

second about

you know when you were running

uh when you were running operations what

you know what what was it about what you

guys were doing that was making you guys

so successful i mean you guys scaled up

you know

one of the biggest if not the biggest

you know

owners of laundromats and so how did

what was it about the operation what

were you guys doing that allowed you

guys to scale so big

well so i think it first and foremost in

the in in this

in that industry and especially in big

box when you’re you know building 5 000

square foot uh laundromats with parking

real estate is critical to scouting it’s

probably

one of the biggest hurdles to that big

national play and and development um

it’s uh you know it takes a

lot of time to find uh the right site

you know vetted for

development and um and then the actual

execution

of the building and then then ramping up

stores so that that whole process i

think we became um

you know really proficient at

and uh

we also

as opposed to the spin cycles and

laundromats that were you know uh backed

by um

third party capital um you know they

sort of had a pressure to grow and grow

quickly

and we never did so i think that we

uh every every site was evaluated

standalone you know a lot of due

diligence go in um you know and we we

were able to

really uh

pick quality locations i i think that

that that was key

and then um

uh in a capital intensive business that

you know takes along the the ramp is is

critical so the speed of the ramp and um

through like listen we we made a lot of

mistakes early on and figured stuff out

but uh

you

you constantly learn and then um you

know keep on uh

building your process and we we got

really good at uh ramping stores quickly

i think that um

you’re seeing more of it today but

when when we

were first starting um

wasn’t a lot of marketing spend in in

this business and we always believed in

spending the marketing and um you know

that would get us to the

ramp faster and uh that made the dri

investment more more successful then um

you know when it came to operations

like listen uh

everyone loves this business because

from from the outside it’s a simple

business and i

and that’s true uh

at its core right

um but

there’s an art to executing the

simplicity day after day seven days a

week 24 hours a day 365 days a year

um and that that takes a

special type of uh operator and

commitment um

to you know making sure that uh

all all those key aspects of the

business are just uh taken care of

consistently the the cleanliness your

equipment working customer service um

you know as soon as you get arrogant and

think all right i got this i can look

away for a moment those things will

start to slide

and they don’t slide like

um overnight

it’s it’s like the boiling frog it’s so

gradual that you don’t notice it and

what i’ve always said in in this

business is that um

sales are a lagging indicator of

performance

so what happens is that

you you don’t have that

instant uh feedback mechanism to tell

you whether you

whether what you’re doing is right or

wrong

and

because of that you can get fooled into

complacency to think okay well i

i stepped off the gas a little bit and

nothing bad happened so i could and then

six months later

you see the ramifications of that and

then

it’s going to take another six months to

get it back

of hard work and consistency so

um just having that conviction and doing

the right thing day after day is is

really important in this business

yeah well i mean i think that’s

interesting because you’re dead on with

you know the sales being the lagging

indicator i’ve seen that in my own

business i would say for myself

personally you know that consistency day

after day after day and just being on

top of things all like that’s the

hardest part for me and it’s not the

part of the business that i love

actually

but it’s super crucial but i’m curious

if sales is the lagging indicator i mean

do you have anything that you’re looking

at as like a leading indicator

um so

like listen this has been

it’s been an interesting journey

especially with mr mr jeff because now

we’re getting more insight into our

customer base and metrics and in real

time data uh we didn’t have those tools

so really it’s it’s old school and it’s

in your stores talking to your customer

base talking to your

employees watching the business um you

know

it’s it’s a presence that that that you

have to have um there’s certainly

uh metrics that that you can look at but

like i said you know it was more

i’ve always been um

shocked by the amount of people in this

business that um

have a disdain for their customer base

and

that’s a it’s always been a puzzle and

an enigma to me and you know i so for me

when i you know was running the

operations or when um i ran my own

stores it was talking to your customers

they’ll tell you

i mean

it’s

there’s no secrets let’s say exactly

what’s going on how they feel what you

could do better and you gotta listen um

you gotta listen to the feedback uh that

that’s that’s your bread and butter

they’re they’re the ones putting food on

your table um listen to them and the

more the more you open up that dialogue

and and establish that trust with your

customer base the more you inform them

and uh

the better polls you’ll have

yeah so are you i mean

where were you back then were you

do were you doing that as you were

scaling up i mean i imagine that gets

more and more difficult

to do at specific locations at least as

you start to scale up are you training

employees do that or are you

getting snapshots at different places

and kind of trying to apply the lessons

kind of across the board how are you

handling that

yeah so you know that

if you’re asking about like in my own

stores which you know was very small i

was able to do it and execute on a

personal basis and i was able to

instill that and model that behavior for

my managers and then for my staff and

you created a culture

around that that that just became um

prevalent and and persistent and if you

if you were continuing to lead that then

then others followed and and and that

was effective i i did find uh you know

like in in a uh

a chain you know uh as large as clean

right that um it it does become harder

and harder to

to do that on a personal level and then

building that culture

around that becomes harder especially

when your turnover is high and you’re

you’re

working with the

um employee base that that’s constantly

changing so that’s um

that that’s

quite frankly been a challenge in the

business for for scale and growth um

and the the good owner operators that

are hands-on um really have really have

an advantage in there um you know

so and i think the way that the business

is changing um it’s even more and more

important because when when we first

you know when we were first going at

laundry capital um

but it was mostly self-service

the customers did their own work you’re

more focused on keeping your equipment

running and uh your stores clean and and

listen having somebody friendly with a

smile that that yeah

was important but it wasn’t the make or

the break

of the business um because

there are a lot of stores across the

country that operate unattended you know

so that

that really but now you’re seeing a big

shift towards service

more of this hospitality nature is more

and more important and um

that’s a culture change in the industry

that it’s a dramatic shift and i’m not

sure

everyone’s quite figured that out yet um

and and how to execute that in in in the

best way

so you know i always say like

especially on the on the wash and fold

side because washing fold is all about

trust

people uh in retail always focus on

average ticket which i think in

it’s it’s good for certain aspects but

what they’re missing in wash and fold is

the average value

that people are leaving in washington

folks the average ticket might be thirty

forty dollars right for a bag of laundry

but how much value is in that clothing

could be upwards of a thousand dollars

or if it’s your favorite pair of jeans

or t-shirt it’s invaluable it’s

irreplaceable so

trusting who you’re leaving with that uh

to process those clothes is

critically important and um you know

that that that takes a different level

of customer engagement

um and i think we can learn a lot from

like the restaurant industry when when

you know when you go to a restaurant um

you know do you want to go to a place

where nobody knows you or do you want to

go where they know you by name they have

your favorite table they they already

have your drink ready like that that

sort of approach this business i think

um is is what’s really gonna make it

work in on on the service sector of the

business and that that’s where i believe

all the growth is

yeah i mean i love that kind of

framework of thinking where

you know i mean it is trust and i like

the

i have i haven’t really heard anybody

talking about you know the value of the

order and how much i mean i mean we know

kind of you know implicitly or when

something goes wrong customers let us

know right we lose something or

something

you know gets torn in the dryer or

something like that which happens

sometimes you know we hear about you

know hey this costs us much money you

know that that kind of thing but i

haven’t really heard that as like a

metric and you know thinking about it in

those terms

does

kind of i think add a little more weight

to the

you know that service side of the

business and you know how much

uh trust there is in people and there’s

kind of two maybe there’s more but two

that i can think of on top of my head

ways to build that trust and one is like

you were saying

get to know your customers personally

you know and and get to know them by

name and and hopefully they’re gonna

refer you and transfer their trust to

people that they know they’re trusting

you to people that they know so that

they’ll also trust you because

you know your cur your current customer

trust that they know trusts you or to do

it more

i’ll probably say and and to do it more

on uh on on the bigger scale and the

more public platforms like a google like

a yelp those kinds of things where

trust is also transferred maybe not by

somebody that you know personally but

but by

the masses right and so that’s why

you know getting

good reviews you know offering good

service is one thing and it’s definitely

going to help your business but taking

that one extra step and trying to

purposefully get reviews and

intentionally asked for reviews

actually is another way to kind of build

that trust uh and and again the the more

valuable

the product is for the customer the more

trust you need to build so anything you

can be doing service wise to build that

trust is going to be huge for your

business

100

and i i see it in my own

service uh like when i when i’m looking

for a new service like we’ve all become

like these uh

uh hack consumer research uh consumer

reports people where we’re going through

reviews and cross-checking sites because

you know uh

it’s it’s not just the rating you want

to make sure the reviews are valid and

that they you know they that and you

want to check all right

is this uh propaganda or is it real and

people know the difference and they want

to see even that the negative reviews

that they were like when i see

like listen you’re going to have

negative reviews it’s inevitable

hopefully otherwise you don’t have

enough business if you don’t have enough

volume in business um then you could

have you know six five-star reviews but

which by the way

people see also there’s not enough

reviews that’s a red flag but you know

when you get into hundreds uh if not

thousands of reviews you’re gonna have

some negative ones and

what i look for is is how the business

respond

and the really good ones you’ll see that

they’re all over it and they’re

responding and owning up to any mistakes

and criticisms and and taking care of

the customer so

this is uh

it’s a it’s a new world it’s it’s

changing fast and i i think um

i i think you hit the nail on the head

like um that’s that’s a big part of the

trust nowadays and

i i go back to emphasize that point of

the value like if you’re just uh

if you’re just ordering a hamburger

you might just take a uh you know um

uh a gamble uh one night in order from a

new place without much research right

like uh

i i take my food seriously but

one one meal like i’m not gonna put in

hours of research but

for that you know for a thousand dollars

worth of my clothes and my favorite

stuff like you know

i’m gonna i’m gonna put some effort into

that and then the residual effect of

that is because i’m i’m not just doing

this once i’m i’m doing it every week

after that so it’s it’s worth it’s worth

the research um so

i think i need to keep that in mind

yeah that’s huge i mean i i love i love

that i love that and i think that that

will be you know just for for anybody

listening that’s a that’s just a great

mindset to have especially if you’re

doing somebody else’s laundry whether

it’s pick-up and delivery or you know

just a wash right full the drop-off

you know laundry service uh i mean i i

like thinking about it in those terms

because those are the terms that our

customers are thinking about it and even

if it’s not even if they’re not

explicitly thinking i’m giving over a

thousand dollars worth of clothes

to these people you know

guess what

don’t deliver their clothes one time and

find out how much you know they one item

yeah why not

yeah i know

and you know the

that’s what that’s what i think like uh

all like a lot of the big uh

you know uh

venture capital back players like washio

missed in this industry is um

the

the error rate the margin of error that

we have in this business is so small

when you think about the

the countless items of clothing we

process you know in and out every day

you know the jeans the shirts the socks

yeah

i mean how many articles of clothing and

screw up one

uh pair of jeans one

t-shirt uh you know a comforter like

just one

and you know i mean it’ll wreak havoc in

in your in your day so like to think

about the

the

accuracy rate or the the quality rate

that you need to have in this business

you need you need to be uh

incredibly on point um and you know it’s

a testament to what a lot of good

operators out there do day in and day

out and people when they go back to your

question like what’s the key what what’s

this what’s the uh

you know uh

essential aspects to success it’s it’s

hard to describe in this like

magic bullet of something that’s going

to be so poignant and so

earth-shattering that people you know

you know blow people’s brains it’s like

doing

stuff consistently well time and time

and time and time again that that’s

that’s

that’s the secret

that’s really hard to do

yeah it it is really hard it’s really

hard to do even just in

like self-serve laundry especially right

now where it can be difficult for people

to find good help you know if

i’ve i’ve gone through periods where

i’ve cycled through

you know attendance because yeah for

various reasons and

you know

it’s hard to it’s hard to provide a

consistent

environment even let alone a service but

even an environment right you’re cycling

through people and that just adds a

whole another layer kind of on top of it

which kind of brings up

your people need to care

about the customers and about the

clothes like they they have to you know

uh be incredibly conscientious

and

in return like to make that happen you

have to care about them

and i think that’s a common mistake that

that happens in this business uh people

focus on uh on on the the dollars and

cents and they they’re so anxious to

look at their revenue and check their

receipts of their cash register but um

you need to you need to invest time in

your employees uh

you know um a lot of great operators or

owner operators and family so they’re

vested in the business but if you’re

gonna have people working for you you

gotta care about them

yeah

yeah i think i love that i wrote down

that quote you know your people need to

care

about

you know the the people and the clothes

but in order to make that happen you

need to carry care i love that i love

that

so okay so i mean we’re talking about

this is

i’m just i’m going down the rabbit trail

here uh this is you know what we’re

talking about is

creating that consistent

you know consistent experience that

consistency every every

you know order needs to be processed

correctly you can’t be losing stuff you

know you can’t be ruining stuff

what kinds of

systems or processes do we need to be

putting in place here and how do we

you know how do we set that up uh

because it seems like i’m i’m getting a

little nervous now talking about this

because i’m like wow the responsibility

seems very heavy you know is this a

responsibility i want to take on so what

tools or what systems or processes do we

need to help us

kind of yes

i think technology can help a lot

unfortunately because the industry was

so fragmented uh for so many years and

there wasn’t

there wasn’t the investment in

technology infrastructure that there

should have been or compared to other uh

major retail industries that you’d have

this uh

technological advancement and infusion

from a technology standpoint um a lot of

the systems have been left behind

that’s changing so it’s coming in so so

using that

will help i i mean i do know that um

building that culture

is important of attention to detail and

and to make sure that uh

it’s one thing to create a process but

uh to make sure it’s followed

you know at a very high hit rate is uh

is extremely important and

so i i’ll go back uh one of the things

that we did during the height of the

pandemic i was still uh working at

laundry capital and

because we have

so much trouble

uh staffing during that time we’re we’re

in new york so

queens and brooklyn we were the

epicenter of

of it all and it was uh horrific and

you know we were struggling to number

one staff our stores in general but

number two

more and more people wanted wash and

fold because they didn’t want to be

inside a closed environment with a bunch

of people so there were more and more

people dropping clothes off

as a result we shifted our operation

to this hub and spoke concept where we

shut down one of our uh biggest stores

to the public

and it just became a wash and fold

processing facility called it the hub um

and so

every day in new york we picked up from

you know our uh

40 locations brought it to the central

processing facility uh did all the

clothes and and and shipped it back out

i i i think

at the height we were doing 14 000

pounds of clothing a day

massive undertaking and uh didn’t really

have the technology built for that so

now we had to answer that question how

do we do this much volume and

you know have the consistency and

quality my question right now is how do

you especially when they’re coming from

40 locations not only

do you have to wash clothes and not ruin

them you have to wash clothes and not

lose them but now you can’t mix them up

and now you can’t send them back to the

wrong

locate like the the level of complexity

there has given me more anxiety so i

mean how did you guys solve that

so you know and it was it was uh it

happened so fast that like we didn’t

obviously nobody knew the pandemic were

coming and it wasn’t like we

you know sketched this out for six

months and debated we just jumped into

it so um i had to like really figure it

out very quickly on the fly and i you

know i thought back to a book that i

read many years ago and it was a

checklist manifesto um

you know and it’s incredible like you

know so

when when you take the airline industry

and like you use them as an example and

like they’re the quintessential example

for making sure little things are done

extremely consistently that seems stupid

that

how could i forget to do this or you

know it’s it’s not a big deal but they

have a culture ingrained in them

that is unbelievable and that’s why you

know the fail rate in the end

airline industry

is you know um astonishingly low i mean

because

we all know if uh

aircraft you know drops out of the sky

or crashes

it’s kind of strapped it’s traffic to

the world it’s headline news um

and

they they have you know so many guard

rails in place to make sure that these

errors don’t happen and it’s this um

religious obsessive

uh attention to detail and

cross-checking and

that was uh you know a lot of the basis

for

the philosophy behind what we set up

you know

that i set up in the hub that

we had um

every step of the process a

check-in uh cross-check so you know they

said there was

pick up at the stores then they had to

sign it off to the driver driver checked

it in we checked the weights at every

checkpoint to make sure that you know

because sometimes maybe you’re missing a

bag but then the check of the weights

would tell you um you had tickets uh on

the outside of the bag i had tickets on

the inside of the bag in case the ticket

came off um

you know and when the clothes went to

the washer

the

ticket followed it and when it

transferred because sometimes you’re

going from the washer and you get

interrupted and then you have this card

of clothes that nobody knows where it is

so every single step of the process and

then you know it comes

down to

inspect what you expect and um you know

the classic mantra so

you know you couldn’t just create this

system

and expect it uh to just magically

happen you had to check that it was

happening all the time and

and when people knew that it was being

checked then you had to have built-in

rewards for people

doing the right thing i always like to

say catch people doing the right thing

and

recognize and and and praise them for

that and um you know we just built that

culture where uh the the quality and

consistency was rewarded and uh reveled

in and you know

that everybody was uh really really

focused on this

yeah i mean

first of all uh checklist manifesto is

awesome i’m gonna link it just in case

anybody wants to

uh check it out you can check it out on

the show notes or if you’re on youtube

the link will be down below

uh super good and you know

airline industry surgeons i mean like

the you know the people who have to do

things right

uh have

like you said they have these checklists

they cross check you know at at all

points there’s multiple people

checking just to make sure

that you’re doing things right and if

you’re you know going back to

that value metric of you know here’s

here’s how much this load of laundry

cost that somebody just dropped off into

my care you know well

when you’re doing 14 000 pounds of

laundry you know the value of that every

single day is

significant so you want to make sure you

get it right right so but the same you

should have the same exact mindset if

you’re doing 100 pounds of laundry a day

or what you know wherever you’re at on

that spectrum you need to have that same

mindset

so and i’ll tell you like there there’s

been uh

when i go back to the

the washios of the world that um and

there’s been

i won’t name them by name there’s a

number of others that are still around

um you know i think everyone has

struggled in that that online on-demand

pickup and delivery service laundry

everybody struggled with the the same

thing is that um it’s really

it’s really hard to acquire customers in

this business

and they’ve struggled i i believe

because

they didn’t control the quality and

retention has been a huge issue

so if you’re going to fight really hard

to get a customer don’t lose them yeah

like i i think you know and it’s more

exciting to get new business everyone

everyone loves that like they they love

the marketing side and they love me it’s

it’s more glamorous it’s more fun but um

if you can’t keep your customers

then you can’t win in this business so

retention is the key and

it’s it’s not sexy it’s not glamorous

but this this is the nuts and bolts that

need to be done in this business daily

to retain your customers um

and

you have them already and so so many

customers come in organically but um

i think that hanging on to every single

customer and fighting for it in this way

through the quality and consistency is

incredibly important and and i think

it’s um

i think it’s a lot i think that that’s

one of the biggest mistakes about uh

outsiders into this industry is there’s

an arrogance that um

that you know

they just focus on getting the customers

and not not keeping customers

yeah yeah well and i mean like you said

if you’re if you’re getting new

customers yeah it’s exciting

you know what’s a lot more exciting than

that is

making good money by providing a good

business right like yeah

yeah sure you can say i got you know 100

new customers this week or whatever but

if you just lost

99 of them like you just wasted a whole

lot of money and you know so

you’re on this constant treadmill just

churning through new customers um and it

you know

it’s a

it’s a very uh

slippery slope and dangerous business

model to to be on

yeah and you know and when we’re talking

self-serve you know one of the speaking

of which i mean one of the metrics i

don’t hear talked about a lot is that

churn rate and self-serve it can be

difficult unless you have a card system

it can be difficult to determine a churn

rate but that is definitely a metric for

the wash and fold and for the pickup and

delivery that should be that’s one of

the kpis right key performance

indicators

should be that churn rate so you should

know

when you acquire a customer how long

that customer on average is going to be

there and that’s going to help you

determine lifetime value and all that

and then you can start to implement

ways to you know extend out that

timeline for the average customer right

and that’s where you start you know

optimizing that business you start

making more money you know and and you

know that you’re providing a better

product at that point too

it’s it’s interesting because

there’s never really been

great data in this industry no we don’t

know our customers we don’t know the

customer habits and

um it’s always been an incredibly

consistent business in terms of

sales once the store is ramped like it

stays consistent so there’s lot there’s

been this long-held belief that um you

know it is a steady business uh

um from

uh customer churn that that you don’t

have a lot of turnover but um you know

now that i i’m working uh with mr jeff

and we have insights into uh

customer data and we’re able to track

customer habits i think that people are

going to find very soon that that a lot

of their assertions and assumptions

about

the customer habits in this business are

are

false

and

that that

that

sales have largely been a matter of uh

capacity

in this business

that you know you have a certain amount

of equipment you have peak periods and

you know most

busy good performing stores um

well if their all their equipment is

running their equipment’s spinning

during those periods and and

like there’s there’s an overflow that

goes to the laundromats or it’s

but whether those they don’t know

whether those customers are the same

customers they just know that the same

machines are spinning at the same times

well

you know

to me there’s an unbelievable power uh

and massive opportunity to be unlocked

if we understand the customer habits and

then we can change that dynamic

even out the

demand curve of this business offer them

incentives to come during off-peak

periods make sure you’re remarketing and

capturing customers

there’s there’s

a tremendous amount of power that i

think is coming

down the road um when when we now begin

to understand and know our customers and

uh what their needs are and um how to

market to them and how to retain them

how to um

re-engage them when you they left like

wouldn’t it be great to know that a

customer left you and understand why um

and then target them to get them back so

all this

hasn’t historically been done really

well in the industry if if at all and uh

really exciting uh excited about what’s

in the pipeline with the technology to

come

yeah i did uh i did actually a couple

podcasts on data i did one we’re just

talking about the importance of data and

how we haven’t really been using data in

our industry at all you know for the

most part and how that is going to be

the in my view that’s going to be the

biggest unfair advantage for the people

who are jumping on the bandwagon now and

learning how to use that how to collect

that data how to organize that data how

to use that data to make better business

decisions

i’ll link that podcast episode for

anybody interested i got a lot of really

good feedback

on that one but i also did an episode

talking about

how

that

that very fact the fact that the data is

super powerful

is is

a little bit of a concern in this

industry in my view and i don’t hear

anybody else really saying this but in

my view and i’ll just put myself on the

limb here you know with a lot of the

manufacturers offering

you know

pay through their systems

uh and and tracking that data getting

that customer data not a big deal until

now that these manufacturers are

starting to

you know buy up distributors build

stores put stores in the in the places

where their customers are

and you know they’re working on a

different level because they have a huge

swath of data that they can make those

business decisions on so something

interesting also to keep an eye on in

this industry that data can be

a double-edged sword and i think unless

we as owners and operators are

are trying to get into that data game

early i think we’re going to get left

behind if not by other owners we’re

going to get left behind by the

distributors and and not distributors

but the manufacturers

uh there too so interesting i

agree with what you’re saying and you

you just need to look laterally to any

other uh

massive retail industry and look how

data has changed the game and it’s um

if you ask any

uh ceo of any major retail chain um you

know

owning owning their customer

one of the

critical aspects of their strategies

today

and

right now the launch mat industry

the owners on their revenue they don’t

own their customers

so i think that that’s that’s something

be on the lookout uh that down the road

yeah i

want to let that sit for a second

because i mean that’s a that’s a pretty

that’s a pretty powerful statement right

there you know the owners own the

revenue not the customers and you know

and i think that

you know data data is the ownership that

we’re talking about right like the

customer

you know patterns the customer behaviors

you know all this data that you can you

can

snag and analyze and make decisions off

that that’s what we’re talking about

we’re talking about ownership and so

yes i mean the customers are coming to

your

store so that your customers but

that that data is is where the real

money is uh you know on the bigger scale

i’m i’m interested to see you know how

how you kind of keep going and alex and

and people like you guys

who are now getting better and better

access to that data how you’re going to

be able to and how this whole industry

is going to be able to

evolve and change and

uh and grow and you know i’ve already

i’ve been saying for a while like even

over the last five years this technology

has increased and there’s been more

interest in the industry and there’s

more savvy

business owners coming in this industry

is changing

rapidly and it’s becoming much much

much more sophisticated uh than it has

been for you know decades you know

before and so i don’t know it’s just

kind of interesting i think that right

now is a really interesting time to be

in this industry because there’s a lot

of change happening and whenever change

is happening

wealthy i think it’s i think

i think we’ll look back or maybe not us

but our kids or grandkids will look back

at this period of time and this will be

pivotal time in history so i think it’s

not just an interesting time to be in

in the laundry business or any business

i think it’s

an interesting time to be

a human

and i don’t say that lightly if you look

at the advancements in ai that that you

know are in the pipeline or even you

know starting to permeate society

and you look at the rate of change in

society that has occurred and it’s been

i mean the pandemic just poor

kerosene on a trend that was already you

know

pretty

significant in society but

we haven’t seen a rate of change like

this i mean if you if you study history

and go back and you know look at the

industrial revolution and that that was

a bit of a time but th this

and it’s hard to

appreciate while you’re living through

um so

but

it the

the force of magnitude that’s occurring

um right underneath our feet is uh

seismic

and for anyone to think that uh

the status quo if they if they’re just

continuing to

ride out this wave the the

the way they are today i you just you’re

gonna be left behind um if you’re not

forward thinking uh today yeah i i it’s

funny i i was watching um

a documentary on uh it was blockbuster

and netflix and you know like it was

just uh

it was hard to for blockbuster to

conceive the changes i mean it was hard

for the major studios of hollywood to

understand like that they were giving

away

you talk about owning

their users they were giving away their

content just because it was incremental

revenue to build this behemoth of

netflix while they’re just accumulating

all their users

and when you look at the value of that

today

i mean if anyone understood it

they clearly never would have done it

i’m sure there’s

tons of executives uh

kicking themselves today but it was um

amazing and you know um

so i just and

that’s not that long ago yeah i know

well yeah and it’s crazy because it’s it

you know what’s funny is i don’t know if

it’s funny or not but

the

the rate of change is

it’s

like impossibly fast right now but

what might be even faster is

our

how how quickly we get used to things

think about

not walking around with a phone in your

pocket like i’m not that old but i

didn’t have a cell phone until i was in

college

i didn’t walk around with the phone and

even when i had a cell phone in college

i could play that little snake game you

know where it went around

that was pretty much it you know what i

mean like that and and now

not that long ago

you know or not that not that farther

ahead i can’t even imagine like my i

operate a business with my phone and a

laptop like that’s

insanity and

you know that didn’t even exist

you know not that long ago so

yeah i i a couple years ago

my kids are

16 now but uh so they

i don’t know if you remember there was a

trend the polaroid cameras became

big again so they they saw it they

thought it was cool so i bought it for

them for christmas they opened it up and

so you had the camera and then you had

the

you know the cell phone package with the

film in this and uh one of my voice goes

dad what’s that and i’m like oh that’s

the film he goes oh

what’s film

yeah

those are the moments where you’re like

oh man i

i got old somewhere along the way yeah

yeah yeah

i was excited i i i have those moments

constantly you constantly reminded

i’m explaining to my kids that phones

used to be plugged into the wall and

they just

they they could not comprehend it so i

was watching that i don’t know if you

said you see licorice pizza

no the it’s a movie like set in the 70s

so yeah like they show like i mean i i

tell my kids imagine like you had to

you’re interested in a girl and you had

to call their house and speak to their

parents first to get her on the phone

they’re like no you had to say yeah like

that’s what we had to do like it was and

then i explained the whole phenomenon of

like all right well

you know you had a phone like and you

answered it downstairs but then you

wanted privacy so you wanted to go

upstairs so you had to like leave the

phone off the hook you had to go and

take the other phone off though and

they’re like i mean you can see like the

deer in the headlights like of what you

know

oh man i don’t know how life just

went so fast see what i’m talking about

you do it so fast right and that’s i

mean but genuinely that’s happening

right now in our english i think i think

used to it is not even the uh

the right word it’s uh you know

dependent on it not dependent yeah

exactly

and borderline addicted to it

um absolutely we can’t go back

could you imagine like we couldn’t

function

yeah no i know and but you know kind of

to bring it back to topic like that’s

that’s what’s happening now and i see a

lot of owners kind of holding on

to that

old school business model where i mean

listen if if there’s any time to be

forward thinking in our industry it’s

right now and you don’t have to be like

some crazy innovator but you need to be

kind of on the crest of that what you

need to be on the front end of this

thing

otherwise you’re going to get left

behind and yeah you know i i just

i’m worried about you know

who’s going to be picking up the pieces

if a bunch of laundromat owners are

getting left behind you know

we’ll see

it will be

i i think uh a very

very interesting next five years in in

this industry with the amount of capital

the amount of technology

and

the

rapidly

changing uh habits of our consumer base

um with pickup and delivery

and more people

just valuing their time differently

switching from self-service to full

service like i i think it’s uh

like i said a seismic shift

in the industry and um with with these

periods of transition

uh creates great turmoil but it also

creates great opportunity so

things will shake out and there’s gonna

be some you know major winners but

unfortunately i think uh the people that

stay stale will

ultimately lose out

yeah and i mean just you know to your

point i i genuinely get contacted at

least every other week by some venture

fund who’s looking to enter into the

business uh who’s looking for

you know some input into the industry or

some insight or a board member or

something and i i’m contacted all the

time

in fact i have a call later this week

with one uh and so

you know that to me that’s just telling

me hey people outside of our industry

are seeing

how far behind we’ve gotten you know

inter in comparison to the rest of

things and are one and are thinking

there’s an opportunity

but i mean it might be too late for them

now i mean it’s uh

you know like we’re like the last of

mohicans in in retail right so uh i

remember going to the icsc show uh 20

years ago

and

landlords didn’t want it laundromat

wanted nothing to do with it as a dirty

seedy business

you know and and now

you go to a real estate show and people

are clamoring for the retail use so low

default rates um you know where

where where the uh you know when when

you look it’s always been recession

proof uh our business

it’s amazon proof

um you know it’s uh

it’s

it’s a traffic uh traffic generator

which is uh you know key to

all retail right now right how do they

get people away out of their house and

you know moving into stores um it’s a

consistent use so there’s all these

aspects

of uh

the laundromat um

use that has made it like the the prize

pony of the show now and um so i think

i i definitely think that um you know

you’ve seen things come

full circle and uh there’s um

there’s there’s a definite um change on

the horizon for the business and you

know

but now you’re gonna see that

there’s gonna be an evolution of it so

because

because it’s so prized and because it’s

so valuable and so sought after there’s

an influx of capital now that technology

finally comes you’re able to reinvent

itself and um you know there were sort

and this is horrible to say and i always

like drove me crazy but there wasn’t a

lot of innovation or advancement in the

laundromat industry

because there was an attitude was like

yeah well

they have no choice

this is what it is and we’re doing like

people were doing fine

that’s that’s about to change yeah i

think you’re absolutely right

well speaking of being

you know up in front of the wave uh

let’s talk about

mr jeff and what it is and and and what

it does so why don’t you tell us what

what is mr jeff

mr jeff is uh

a business and box concept so

dna the company is technology-driven the

chief uh

product and technology officer he got a

phd in

15 years ago so you talk about being

out of the curve uh

brilliant and uh

the

the company was uh

you know founded on on the roots of

technology and started in in laundry but

the vision is much

bigger the vision is so we have other

verticals as well that are developing

there’s jeff fit there’s jeff coffee

there’s jeff uh works jeff beauty so

it’s creating an ecosystem for

everybody’s daily needs and the the

concept is um

you know a hybrid of uh bricks and

mortar

bridging that bricks and mortar to the

online and pickup and delivery

so the typical mr jeff location is 500

to 1000 square feet

um you know but

beautiful bright clean box um

where people can either come in uh drop

off their laundry or dry cleaning items

uh and then they can have a delivered

home or will pick up and deliver or they

can pick up and you know uh

drop off and pick up themselves so there

there’s there’s an optionality there for

the customer base and what we found is

because of what i mentioned

uh prior because of that trust factor a

lot of people like to see the physical

presence of the store um but rather than

create this massive store and massive

infrastructure and a huge capital

investment it’s it’s much smaller like a

mr jeff

a typical box here in the states you can

get into for 150 175 000

all in

um so

that

that lower cost of entry but you still

have this uh brand equity and

credibility of the bricks and mortar

people can see the cleanliness they can

see

uh the uniform staff the beyond the

shared professional uh behind the

counter

you can see the um

you know professional marketing and then

the apps there so and a lot of times the

first service they like to come in and

talk about how they want their clothes

uh folded how what type of detergents we

use and so forth and so on and then

eventually convert to online but um it’s

it’s a franchise model um the the

the uh

the mantra or the mission of the company

is to democratize entrepreneurship

so we’re looking to make a um

uh low cost of entry low barriers to

entry to get hard-working entrepreneurs

into business

and equip them with every tool they need

to run the business so

mr jeff will provide

the drivers app they’ll provide the um

customer facing app they’ll provide the

business suite um the marketing platform

there’s a chat bot that’ll take them

through everything that they need to do

to execute an online marketing program

on their own there’s a jeff academy to

learn everything you need to know about

the laundry and dry cleaning business

how to process clothes and then how to

run a business in general and then every

franchisee gets assigned a partner

success manager who’s there to uh with

them you know from the time they sign

that franchise agreement to find the

location to build out the location to

launch their grand opening and then

every day thereafter for whatever needs

they have to to support them

in the business so

you know for me miss mr jeff gives the

you know it

it’s the combination that had always

been missing in this business

so you get the

big company branding power the big tech

behind you the big uh marketing

capabilities everything that uh

consolidation or the lack of

consolidation

didn’t provide historically but then you

give that into that you put that in the

hands

of the owner operator and as i mentioned

long before the owner operator executes

on the quality and the consistency and

hiring the right people and making sure

they’re caring about their staff and

making sure they’re caring about the

customer and providing that hospitality

so the the combination between

uh all the uh

fixed assets that would be very

expensive uh and nearly impossible for

an individual store owner to build jeff

has built and then they’re giving that

platform to the entrepreneur to go out

and make their business successful

yeah that’s that’s awesome and i it’s

kind of an interesting

uh niche within

the within the market because i think

you know when i think of

laundromats and where

a lot of laundromats are going it’s kind

of like what we were talking about

earlier some of those big kind of box

store-esque you know i see looking

around la here when i’m up in the bay

area a little bit like bigger

uh bigger laundromats are

are

you know kind of the thing now

but this is more

you know that

that smaller location but wider

radius of service model which i think

actually works and i’m generally

speaking

not

uh not a huge fan of

self-service laundromat franchises

but in terms of pickup and delivery i

think it might make sense a lot it

definitely makes sense in my mind more

than

uh you know

a self-serve only type franchise model

yeah

me too by the way um i i’m not uh

or at least yet i i don’t see the value

in a self-service franchise

and largely because

when i was at clean right and for years

and you know uh working on

other concepts as well

we tried uh you know and others tried

and failed spin cycle had 200 stores but

there wasn’t branding power on the

self-service side um and a clean ride

when we sold the store um we would make

the new operator take down the signage

and put up new marks and you know like

there was no difference between a clean

right center and joe’s laundromat um

i i have a hard time

understanding

what the value proposition is of a

franchise system that’s gonna take

six

eight percent off the top line of

revenue

what are you getting in return for that

well you know like that you could go to

a distributor and you know have them

build like

the same box can be built across the

street

with the same technology the same

machinery the the same system and you’re

not paying uh six to eight percent in

royalties so i i i didn’t see um

the value there and that there’s not a

lot that they’re doing in terms of game

changing the self-service end of the

business on the service side

there is a lot that can be done if you

if you’ve ever

you know uh if you if you’re trying to

either build a wash and fold or pick up

and delivery uh program you you know

that you need tech you need logistics

apps you need digital marketing um

as i mentioned branding and trust is

critically important in that side of the

business so

all these aspects lend itself to a

franchise concept in fact like

we’ve we’ve always believed in this uh

in in the industry um we’ve done it

we’ve done it in

different ways where we have a like a

leasing concept or we

whenever we sold stores to uh

to an owner operator in the past um

you saw the over-the-counter business go

self-service business didn’t change very

much if anything it went down a little

bit because

they didn’t invest in the same way of

keeping their equipment running or the

cleanliness or so but over the counter

business went up from that hands-on

owner operator so

we see that

being a franchise business the problem

is is that um

the the the systems and technology and

the marketing platforms didn’t exist so

that’s everything that jeff brings to

the table and and

uh provides

value in in the franchise program uh

um platform and the other aspect is that

that uh

that’s where all the growth is

so i

without trying when you know uh at clean

right

wash and fold sales group can keep

growing year over year where it used to

be virtually uh

you know it was non-existent in terms of

the model when it first started it’s

upwards of 20 of our business and some

stores uh some locations even more

so you’re seeing this gravitational pull

towards the service side of the business

that’s

there’s an inertia to it that it’s not

going to be able to stop

and

i just think the habits of society in

general everything is going to

online app

pickup and delivery service so

there’s

there’s no reason why laundry isn’t

going to follow suit

yeah yeah and i think i i’d be

interested to see because you guys are

relatively new in the states right i

mean i know you’ve been here for a

little while but you’re relatively new

right

yeah so we we just we just launched to

come to the states uh

and started marketing franchises over

the summer so our first

our first uh

mr jeff location will be open uh in

coral gables and

hopefully uh i’d say two to three weeks

and then uh more in the pipeline to

follow so you know there’s

it takes time to find locations and

build stores but um we’re starting to

build out stores now as we speak

yeah so i’d be interested to see how

this goes for you guys because i mean i

think you’re hitting it at

like you mentioned before we talked

about before like it’s a very

intriguing time

to be

coming in in that pickup and delivery or

that drop off laundry side

the service side of our business because

i see that as

being one of the big

plays for you know going forward and

where a lot of like you said a lot of

the growth is going to be in our

industry is going to be on the service

side of the business

you know

when you when you think about it from

i i just believe it’s going to be a

disruptive force uh in the industry and

people throw that word around a lot so

you know i i don’t want to sound cliche

but when when you see all the elements

are there that it’s ripe for that so

you know when you look at that

industries that tend to be disruptive

there there usually is a complacency in

the status quo and uh in an inefficiency

that exists

that

just because of the power structure and

the major players that exist they

they’ve sort of forced it to remain

inefficient long term and that that

inefficiency

is equipment utilization

even in a great store i mean

uh your utilization overall could be 30

right so you you know you build a new

big box laundromat today

you know you’re putting

million two million five into it um and

what is

what is the bulk of that payment

majority of that payment is the

equipment um

equipment manufacturers are very happy

with with this model right they they

sell a lot of equipment they sell a lot

of parts and time for a retool you

retail entire store um it’s it’s a great

equation uh

except for the fact that the owners just

can you know continue to load debt onto

their balance sheet um

and uh listen

there has been a decent return but um

there is

a different way to do this and when you

look at uh

the mr jeff model and you see with a

limited amount of equipment

how productive these machines could be

and what imagine a world where you

bought equipment modular or uh in a

modular sense where you know you added

equipment as you needed it so you start

with a couple pieces of equipment as

your business grows you you add more uh

equipment and then you know maybe add

you know pop in another small location

as as the demand grows so that your um

your sunk cost is very light

and

you just uh

continue to have this incredible ri i

mean how happy would you be in your

laundromat if all of your equip all of

your equipment just spun all day long

yeah

yeah no i mean i’d be ecstatic and in

fact we had uh andrew cunningham who’s

been on the show and he was basically

saying hey if your machines aren’t doing

24 turns a day

then you’re they’re underutilized right

it’s even i mean even a great like some

of the most fantastic turns per day

stats i’ve heard are like 10 turns per

day you know people don’t want to share

those because you know they’re right for

competition coming in but 10 turns per

day is awesome

but that’s

still only half utilized like 50

utilized right like

it’s if you’re gonna be a 24 hour store

so i mean that’s

i like what you’re saying and i think it

makes a lot of sense that the machines

that we buy can be

much more productive than

than typical which is why i think people

do um

do bring in

you know pick up and delivery or drop

off service to try to get those make

them more productive right

um but you’re right i like i like what

you’re saying here

and then i think i think eventually and

uh you know

my vision is down the road that um we’re

we’re gonna develop what’s called the

the hybrid model for jeff where we

layer in a very small self-service uh

component

so instead of having these massive

stores we’ll have smaller footprint

stores of

two thousand square feet

and um

and and the rationale we like we we

could never when i was at clean right we

could never pencil out uh small stores

because of the labor component

because you can’t have half a person

working or a quarter of a person

so you needed the bigger stores to

justify the sunk cost of labor

you know if you’re open 24

hours a day that’s 160 labor hours

you really couldn’t you couldn’t justify

a small store on self-service but with

mr jeff it changes the dynamic because

you have the labor fully loaded now on

the service side and to maintain a

self-service operation

um you’re not adding any incremental

labor they need to keep the store clean

keep the bathroom clean um make sure uh

you know the the customers um know how

to use the equipment answer a few

questions but it’s like you’re not going

to have to add more labor to run that so

to me that that’s just a incremental uh

revenue stream but you later on so it’s

sort of you you reverse engineer this

rather than build the massive laundromat

and make a

you know do a little wash and fold

business you have the washing fold pick

up a delivery business and then just add

extra revenue on from the self-service

side

and and you also

now create a

pipeline for new customers for full

service

they come in at a lower price entry

point of self-service or they haven’t

completely trusted leaving their clothes

with somebody they see a friendly

attendant they see them doing other

people’s

clothes um they you know maybe have dry

cleaning items they wash their own

clothes leave their dry cleaning items

and then you

you then convert that customer to full

service and now you have more capacity

opened up for uh additional self-service

so you keep on

feeding that pipeline of sales which

which i think is uh

incredibly lucrative model

yeah

yeah i like that okay so who

who

who’s the right person for

this business who’s you know who

if people are listening to this right

now and they’re kind of intrigued like

who should be who should be looking into

this a little deeper here

so you know i i i think that

there’s certainly a broad spectrum of uh

entrepreneurs who could make this work

um i i do

know

just some uh specific experience in the

past in the industry i happen to believe

that uh small restaurant owners who have

been um

you know really beat up by the pandemic

uh and are have struggled many of them

closed i think that they have you know a

really good

skill set and profile that will uh check

all the boxes of that you know they have

the front of the house hospitality

customer service engaging marketing to

customers especially a small restaurant

that does pick up and delivery because

now they know

uh not uh pick up just delivery

pick up the ingredients

and then uh and then um but they also

have the back of the house experience of

you know that attention to detail and

constant operations and quality and

consistency managing the labor force and

then for them when when i’ve brought

people from the restaurant industry

into this industry

they’re blown away they love it because

the margins are better uh it’s lower

labor to manage um and uh their their

quality of life is so much better um

in in this business so that’s definitely

a target i’d like to tap into because i

think that there’s a lot of uh

great hard-working uh restaurant owners

who have been um

unfortunately displaced and i think

their skills would be

put to good work um in this business but

um i i wouldn’t preclude anybody uh you

know um that that just wants uh

you know

that that wants to uh

get into business for uh you know low

cost of entry um

and uh you know put in putting their

time and uh work hard and and and make

good money um you know i think that it’s

it’s really it’s really that simple

yeah uh i mean out of curiosity is

if there’s somebody who maybe they

already own a laundromat or they own a

couple laundromats uh or whatever i mean

is this something that

you know if they want to add a pickup

and delivery or a drop off or something

like that is this something

for them what would that look like for

somebody who already owns a laundromat

yes so we have uh so i would say there’s

two different profile launcher mod

owners that i would speak to the the

first is

the launch mod owner that sort of uh

been in this game a long time um more

tired was hoping their kids were going

to take over the business their kids

they they did a good job providing for

their kids put them through great

colleges and now their kids don’t want

to work in the laundromat business so

they they don’t have an exit strategy

um they they have a cash flow in

business but you know they’re not

looking to really

reinvent the world here

and

they’re resistant to the change and

don’t want to deal with all that i would

say there’s an opportunity for them

sort of be a sub landlord

to a jeff franchisee

you don’t have to reinvent your business

you don’t have to put in more time and

energy just

give mr jeff but a small spot in in your

launch mat they’ll pay you rent they’ll

feed the machines for the wash and fold

and that can be a really good win-win uh

situation for

an uh operator of that profile

if it’s an operator profile that is

seeing the change on the horizon

seeing this demand for washing forward

maybe they have a competitor down the

street that’s eating into them a little

bit that’s doing wash and fold pick up

and delivery but they’re um

you know

don’t really know

how to get into it or looking evaluating

software systems evaluating marketing

and

just really

uh want a good partner in all that a

whole turnkey solution for getting into

the wash and fold pickup and delivery

side and get in with a growing brand um

i think that that would be an

opportunity for that type of profile of

of operator

yeah that’s awesome

yeah right i like uh i like having kind

of a couple different options there for

for different types of laundry mat

owners so

last question is if anybody’s intrigued

by this

i mean we’ve talked about a lot of

really interesting stuff so there might

be a couple different

types of people

uh who might want to have a chat with

you

so number one i mean it could be

somebody who just

is intrigued by some of the stuff that

you’ve talked about some of the points

you brought up you know had some

questions for you likes you know the

experience you’ve had and maybe thinks

that you know

you they want to connect with you or ask

you a question or whatever or

maybe somebody’s interested in mr jeff

you know either on the hey i’ll be a you

know a sub landlord or i’ll i’m

interested in being a franchisee

what’s the best way for them to get a

hold of you

yeah so i i as you can tell like i i’m

happy to talk about this industry at any

time so uh anyone who wants to reach out

to me uh

can get me at uh

peter.stern

at mr jeff app.com

that’s app

and uh yeah uh for for whatever the

reason or if people just want to kind of

uh they’re curious about the the

industry and my experience are

happy to i’m always happy to chat with

people in and out of the industry about

the industry it’s been uh you know a

lifelong journey and passion of mine so

um yeah reach out to me anytime despite

the fact that that

you were in first grade it was not your

aspiration no i yeah you know i i still

like i’m uh i’m about to be 47 years old

and i i still play baseball like i play

in like an old man’s league and you know

get up on sunday morning and i you know

there’s there’s got to be a scout out

there that’s going to see the potential

still if tom brady could do it at his

age like

the nfl i i could i could still make it

right like there’s a disney movie to be

made about that’s what i’m talking about

well i have found that the best way to

get seen by the scouts is to be on this

podcast so i’d expect a couple phone

calls

a lot of i mean a huge part of my

audience is professional baseball scouts

they’re looking for an aging uh

rag arm uh

catcher whose knees don’t work anymore

and you know can can sort of it has no

power left you know like i i’m your guy

like i’ll make it happen for your

organization

all right well hey you know what the

giants probably could use you so

it’d be like if you call

peter man this has been awesome a lot of

really really good stuff uh i have a

couple of questions left for you um we

have two segments that i want to run by

you number one is called the secret

sauce

and the secret sauce is basically hey if

you have one piece of advice you can

give to somebody who either now

currently owns a laundromat with all

your laundry mat experience that you

have or who maybe owns a pickup delivery

your choice uh

what what’s the best piece of advice you

could give them to help them improve

their business

yeah so i i think that um

get outside of your business

i think that uh you know uh one of the

mistakes especially when i own my own

stores was that i

spent so much time and attention and

focus inside my box that you become

tunnel vision you also have a uh

you have a bad feedback loop

so as i mentioned before i talk to my

customers all the time but you know

largely when i was talking to my

customers

they were there so they were happy so

they were giving me positive feedback

and that felt good but you know

so i would say you know get outside of

boxing only um into competitors see what

uh competitors are doing and uh and

people out there in the industry in

general but even outside of the laundry

industry um look for inspiration

elsewhere we’ve been behind the curve

for a long time

as i mentioned the rate of change has

been you know uh dramatic which has put

us further the the chasm is so great

between

the laundry industry as a sense today

and where society is going so

get out there and say use different apps

it doesn’t have to be laundry apps um

you know you use different um

services uh you know go out and paint it

when you’re in other retail operations

pay attention to what they’re doing i

think there’s a lot that we can all

bring from the outside and make our

industry better

i think that’s great advice i mean uh

serge is super good advice because

you know number one

yes we’ve been kind of lagging behind

and there are other sectors of the

retail industry that are doing things

more innovatively and stuff like that

that we can learn from but also just

that other perspective you know i found

that

looking outside of

what i’m doing and that’s why i read a

lot of business books there’s really not

a whole lot of laundromat books out

there

you know but uh

there’s there’s a few and but i read a

lot of business books a lot of you know

personal development books all those

things uh biographies you know because

it gives really good

insight and podcasts lots of other

podcasts i mean this is really the only

one you need but if you wanted to you

could listen to some other ones uh you

know but it does give you kind of a

fresh perspective and new you know ideas

to try out and new

um you know points of reference to to

work from and so i think i mean i think

that’s great advice for any laundromat

owner it could be hard to do because

like you mentioned before

doing the day in day out keeping things

consistent you know it

it it’s tough sometimes and it can be a

grind and time consuming but

it’s well worth taking that step back

and

and looking around what’s going on

around you i think that’s great advice

uh the second uh section that we have or

segment that we have is called pro tips

pro

tips and pro tips is for maybe the

person who is looking to buy their first

laundromat or the person who maybe has a

laundromat and wants to start a pickup

delivery or the person who doesn’t have

a laundromat but wants to start a pickup

and delivery uh so pro tips is what

advice

do you have for them to help get them

started in the right direction or what

do they need to know before they get

going

yeah so

uh getting getting into this business i

yeah i think that um

i have uh

in my 20 years in the industry

everyone has like

a friend or an uncle or somebody that

heard about the business and wants to

get into it and uh

so they say well you talk to them and i

reach out to them and i think i’ve

talked more people out of getting into

the business than than getting in and

getting into the business um

and i think that that

well

i i guess i take that responsibility

seriously

if somebody’s coming to me i know

they’re looking

with their nest egg and they’re gonna

you know invest their hard-earned life

savings into a business i don’t take

that lightly so i i think that i’m you

know uh i

tell them the good the bad and the ugly

and i think getting to somebody like

that is important and so um

going to

uh car salesmen

and asking them about why you know if

they think it’s a good idea or how they

should buy this car is not only is not

always the

the best resource

so trying to find an unbiased resource

about getting into the industry where

you can get some facts um you know on uh

certainly i’m not the only one but um uh

i i think like you know listening to

like your podcast is certainly helpful

the coin laundry association is great um

you know it’s a it’s a great resource

for anyone looking to to get into the

industry

but uh you know and then then you gotta

you gotta be realistic with um

your

capital structure and what you wanna do

so there there’s different avenues as

some of them we touched upon today

there’s you know the big box

laundromat there’s the people that want

to you know build a chain of laundromats

in a region um

there’s

more of the the lower cost of entry as

we described with the

mr jeff uh traditional

box if you don’t have

the you know robust capital structure um

to get into so i i would say that

do you know doing all that soul

searching up front um and then

understanding uh

the level of commitment i think that

this is

largely sold as a uh

absentee business to a lot of people and

i think that i i discourage people from

thinking that way

i uh um it’s certainly like i said it’s

a better quality of life than uh

typically in the restaurant industry um

especially if you’re good at uh

recruiting building and uh developing a

staff and

but you know somebody needs to lead them

um and

especially in the beginning building

that culture

is intensive and i think that the owners

should be there and understand their

business uh understand the loopholes the

shortcuts

in order to manage it better so

um i think uh under you know

being realistic about the the time

commitment um and then i i

god i mean this is uh it’s a

i think a different uh podcast to be

honest with you to all the things that i

would tell somebody getting to i mean

from the real estate perspective to the

design and layout of the store to um you

know

what their marketing approach is like

there’s so many things to

consider um that i i just i wouldn’t

take it like lightly especially

especially in the traditional uh if

they’re

putting a large amount of capital into

it so yeah

exposure to competition like you know

the one thing to think about when you’re

putting in a million five asset is not

only

is it going to be successful today but

is it going to be successful 5 ten

twenty years from today and knowing how

you’re defensively positioned in the

market is also important because you

could build it

in a good spot for today but then you

left a prime spot for somebody to you

know take over all your hard work

there’s

there’s a lot so

i would say call somebody like you or me

like you know talk it talk it through uh

spend spend uh a good amount of time

before you pull that trigger

yeah i was just thinking maybe we should

figure out a time where we can do a live

webinar where we can go through a bunch

of that stuff a little more appointedly

with some people and they can answer

some questions i think that’d be a lot

of fun

yeah for sure helpful for people so

yeah i’d love to do it yeah so to sum up

your

your secret sauce and your pro tips is

get outside input

okay

well uh awesome peter this has been uh

incredible again i’m gonna have the uh

peter’s email address in

the show notes and if you’re on youtube

it’ll be down in the description but

just so you know it’s peter.stern

at mrjeffapp.com

and again that that’ll be in the show

notes and in the description uh thank

you so much for coming on it has been an

awesome conversation that just flew by

for me uh yeah i i took a few pages of

notes so i appreciate you coming on and

at least teaching me a whole bunch oh my

my my pleasure jordan hopefully

hopefully your fans get uh some use out

of it all right listen what are you

gonna start believing me when i say that

these interviews are incredible and

you’re gonna love them i mean every week

i know i pretty much say that but these

interviews are so good so full of

practical tangible information a big

thank you to peter

for joining us and and sharing all that

wisdom that he has gathered over the

last like 20 years in the industry so

good well even though this thing was

packed with information knowledge uh

practical tips all that stuff

none of it’s gonna do any good unless

you put it into action right talk about

this all the time so pick one thing from

this interview and put it in to action

okay whether it’s something that uh you

know peter said maybe in the secret

sauce for pro tips or something that we

talked about kind of all throughout the

interview there’s just so much good

stuff in there pick at least one thing

and do something with it this week make

your dreams happen

through the actions that you take all

right uh again thanks a lot for having

so much interest in the in the analysis

calculator that you crashed it go check

it out laundryresource.com there’s

calculators um and again pro members you

know go download that book on due

diligence it’s there well before it’s

come out to the masses so if you haven’t

yet checked out the pro membership check

it out at lawnmanresource.compro

and otherwise we’ll see you guys at

whatever the next thing is maybe the

next podcast episode the next webinar

maybe on youtube

uh on the blog on the website uh maybe

at the laundromat millionaire conference

i’m gonna be there in person live i

would love to hang out with you march

2nd the 4th i’ll put a link in the show

notes or you can check out

laundrymillionaire.com

click on the conference and register and

come hang out with me and a bunch of

other like crazy all-stars in this

industry all right all right we’ll see

you guys later peace

Links from the Show

Become a Laundromat Pro & Join the Pro Community!

Unlock the secrets of laundromat success! Join our Pro Community now to access expert insights, exclusive resources, a vibrant community, and more.

Become a Laundromat Pro and Join the Pro Community!

Unlock the secrets of laundromat success! Join our Pro Community now to access expert insights, exclusive resources, a vibrant community, and more. Elevate your laundromat journey today!