67. Modernization of the Laundromat and Bringing Eco-Friendly Options to Customers with Ariana Roviello

Ariana Roviello joins us on the show today to talk about her experience building a laundromat in San Francisco and buying a second one. She has some hard-earned wisdom that she generously shares on building a laundromat from scratch, scaling into multiple laundromats, and running a successful business.

Ariana is also utilizing gig economy drivers to expand the radius of her laundromat business through offering pick-up and delivery through the DoorDash platform. To that effect, she is a panelist in a webinar hosted by Cents that is happening on August 24, 1pm pst/4pm est entitled Pickup & Delivery: The Truth About the Gig Economy. You can sign up to join that webinar here.

In today’s interview with Ariana, we discuss:

Ariana’s background in fashion and marketing
Building a laundromat from scratch in a major metropolitan
Laundry as habit
Advice for new construction of a laundromat
Lease negotiations
Why she bought a second laundromat
Branding concepts for your laundromat
Systems to help you manage your laundromat
Promotions to drive traffic
The power of networking

And so much 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

and i’m pumped you’re here today because

today we’re going to talk with ariana

who owns a couple laundromats in the san

francisco bay area and this is a super

fun conversation and not only that but

she shares a ton of really great and

hard-earned wisdom that she has gained

over the last five years or so of owning

laundry masks this is an awesome awesome

conversation she has a lot of really

good input and a lot of really good

advice for

you know anyone looking to build a

laundromat from scratch anyone who

owns one or multiple

laundromats or anyone who’s looking to

buy their very first laundromat this

episode is going to have something

pretty much for everybody so

plus she’s a lot of fun to chat with

you’re going to really really enjoy it

so definitely tune in for this one a

couple quick things before we jump into

it with ariana is number one

uh she mentions at the end here that

there is a webinar next week that she’s

being a part of and actually i just got

asked to host this webinar super fun

it’s with sense and uh they are talking

about

uh the gig economy and how that is

influencing

our industry the laundromat industry

super fascinating conversation

interesting stuff happening in that

space uh

for us for the laundromat industry so

definitely join that webinar the link to

that webinar as well as the link to

everything else that we talk about in

the show today is going to be at the

show notes which is laundromat resource

dot com show 67 to show six seven um or

if you’re on youtube i’ll put all that

stuff down below in the description so

make sure you check that out um and uh

man join us for

the webinar it’s going to be a lot of

fun i think i’ll be talking to a couple

owners

about their experience um doing pick up

and delivery with uh doordash actually

which since just rolled out so it’s kind

of interesting

business model and i’m really really

curious to hear how their experience has

been so far uh using that could be

really cool thing for those of you want

to jump into the pickup and delivery

space but don’t want to necessarily jump

right into buying a truck and figuring

out the logistics and all that stuff so

fascinating even if you’re not uh

looking to go into that space it might

be a really interesting webinar to jump

into and join uh just to kind of hear

what’s going on in the industry and what

different people are doing to find

success so anyways that link will be in

the show notes lot of my resource.com

show 67 and also down below if you’re on

youtube so check that out uh a couple

quick

things well

here like last thing that i want to say

before we jump into with ariana i don’t

want to take too much time uh but i just

wanted to say a huge welcome to

everybody who’s been joining the

membership at laundromat resource.com

lately there is a ton of you guys like a

lot a lot have been joining lately and i

haven’t really taken the time to

just

take a second and welcome everybody uh

who’s joining over there make sure that

you go introduce yourself in the

new member introduction forums a lot of

cool introductions happening over there

and then jump into the laundromat forums

the commercial real estate or the repair

farm i mean there’s a lot of different

forums going on over there go join the

conversation with other owners i say

this all the time and i genuinely mean

it we are all better when we’re working

together helping each other out not only

are we going to reach higher heights of

success in our businesses but also we’re

going to do it a lot faster when we’re

working together so head over to the

forumslaughtermyresource.com forums

check those out uh and again a huge

welcome to all of you guys who have been

joining the membership over there um i

didn’t i forgot to check the number but

i mean it’s just been

a lot of people joining every day uh for

a while now so pretty cool uh pretty

cool community we got going on here and

just appreciative for all of you guys

who are part of it either as the

membership or just listening here on the

podcast or watching on youtube um

whatever the case may be all right let’s

jump into it with aureonic this is a

cool conversation right after this all

right guys today’s episode is brought to

you by atmosphere tv you may remember

back in episode 34 when atmosphere tv’s

mike kelly joined me on the podcast it

was an epic epic episode if you haven’t

listened to it show 34 lawnmower

resource.com show 34 go check it out

it’s incredible ton of value there one

of the things we talked about is just

the importance of creating a good

positive atmosphere in your laundromat

and i was just rereading the book by

simon sinek start with why

and one of the things that really stands

out to me is that people

don’t make purchase decisions based on

you know the logic of you know any

decision that they’re making to spend

their money it’s more based on a feeling

and an association and so it’s really

important to

create a positive feeling a positive

atmosphere no pun intended uh and you’re

a laundromat to help people associate

this chore that most people don’t like

doing with something positive atmosphere

tv is an incredible way to help improve

the atmosphere of your laundromat and

basically if you haven’t heard of it

what it is is it has

50 plus channels

created specifically for businesses with

everything from

sports clips hilarious fail videos draw

dropping videos from all over the world

there’s automobile channels there’s a

ton of stuff my kids love love love it

and my customers love it atmosphere tv

can be a great way to either supplement

your cable or a lot of us laundromat

owners are cutting our cable bill

completely and running atmosphere tv

they’re designed to be used with no

audio but they also do have an audio

option that way you can kind of design

the atmosphere of your laundromat the

way that you want it so get rid of cable

get rid of those news channels that are

bringing negativity into your laundromat

and fill your laundromat with positive

videos that bring positive vibes to your

customers with atmosphere tv and if you

use the code word the keyword the

promo code i don’t know resource promo

code resource then they’re going to

waive your setup fee and now everything

is going to be free there’s no monthly

fee for it

you can use it for free in your

laundromat and it’s going to survive to

your atmosphere so check out

atmosphere.tv i’ll put a link down in

the description on youtube or in the

show notes check it out there make sure

you use the keyword resource that way

you can get that thing for free

and or if you’d like email mike

mike.kelly

atmosphere.tv ariana thank you for

coming on the podcast how are you doing

i’m good how are you thanks for having

me yeah oh it’s my pleasure thanks for

being on i am doing well

although there’s construction going on

over here so hopefully it’ll be too loud

but we’re getting air conditioning into

our house finally that is excited about

that very important i’m happy for you

thank you thank you um all right so

listen

i am excited to hear about your

laundromat ownership experience i know

you own a couple and want to hear about

those but before we jump into them can

you tell us a little bit about you and

who you are and then i want to get into

how did you get into this random

business

yeah

yeah i know it does feel random at times

yeah

my name is ariana i live in san

francisco that’s where i have um both of

my stores um

have been

here for about 10 years but grew up in

the bay area so you know familiar

with the bay area generally um and i

moved here for college and you know

never left and

kind of

to kind of parlay that into how i got

into laundry was um kind of

strange um

i actually went to fashion school here

in the city and i studied like

retail um in branding

like like marketing within a retail

setting so it does apply sometimes it’s

still a retail space but um one of the

projects that we had to do is create

like a sustainable business model um

and for some for some reason i think

probably it was because like i started

using laundromats like when i moved to

san francisco so that was kind of like

top of mind and i figured kind of have

to wash your fashion so maybe there’s

something there and so um

i created just kind of this whole

business plan on how you could create

like a sustainable

um potentially like

have like

like a just like a modern version of

what

most people

kind of experience um and especially for

me like being catapulted into using

laundromats and generally it was like an

unclean unsafe

uh environment like a lot of machines

were not down it was unattended so i was

like how can like we make this better

and

i went like after school i went on to

like work in fashion for a bit but the

idea kind of kept tugging at me

and so i thought i’m just gonna

give it a try and so i quit my job and

then

i actually drove for lyft for like two

years while i like got the money

together and

built out the space and like all this

stuff um so our first location was in

the mission district of san francisco um

and what’s cool about that space is that

we were the first like brand new

laundromat from an infrastructure

perspective in san francisco in like 15

years which was really cool a lot of

people would like take over existing and

then um but we did everything from

scratch which was an incredibly

awesome learning experience i would

never do it again but

it was um

but it was great um so that one’s been

open about four years and then um we

just opened the one behind me

which is kind of in like the western

edition area of san francisco um last

october

and yeah i’m here

five years later like well seems like

100 years but here we are

it hasn’t aged you yet so you’re good

yeah

okay i mean okay very cool story so

first of all you’re you come out of the

fashion industry with marketing and

branding which is i mean there there’s

some over i mean you know i’m looking at

you now and zoom if you’re watching on

youtube you can see that’s actually one

of your stores right

yeah i’ll duck so you can see yeah get

out of there

that looks good

if you’re listening on the podcast it’s

it’s super fashionable

and then you were driving for a lift

right that’s

awesome

yeah it was great it like provided the

flexibility to be able to like meet with

people check out spaces work on my

business plan um i think

i started like i decided to start doing

this in 2014 and then the first location

opened in 2017. so it took me almost

like three years on the dot to like get

the information build a business plan

figure out how we were going to make it

different um and you know

but kind of the three core things that i

try to focus on is like how do you make

the space different how do you make the

service different and then how do you

make sus like the sustainable options

you know different um

that’s kind of how i tried to modernize

the experience as much as possible

yeah very cool well i want to get more

into that and how you did that in a

second

yeah i mean

the first thing that jumps out of me is

holy cow you built from scratch in san

francisco how did you

how did you decide to do that and then

how did you actually do that yeah

again not recommended

sometimes it’s kind of good to be naive

um and

well ultimately like

i needed the space to feel really

different like not like a laundromat and

that’s why i chose a space that wasn’t

and then

ultimately like

you know the whole process from start to

finish as far as like the build-out went

was like a year so it took a really long

time because permitting in san francisco

is a challenge we had to get upgraded

like gas service we had to get upgraded

water service all of which are like not

only time consuming but like very costly

so that’s like

again not recommended um but you know

with that i got to learn a ton my dad

was actually the gc on the project so

that was like actually a really kind of

special time we got to spend a whole

year like working on this thing together

and

and yeah i mean i could probably tell

you more about plumbing and gas lines

than i would ever care to know but um uh

but yeah it’s really cool and um i’m

definitely proud of it um that is not

what we did for the second one we

definitely took over in existing and

then cosmetically kind of upgraded what

needed to be upgraded

yeah we’ll give you uh an excuse for

being naive on the first one

[Music]

yeah as soon as you see like your bank

account hemorrhaging you’re like i’m not

going to do that again so

yeah exactly all right so what uh

i mean tell me about this

build out period how

what was going on during that time what

was getting the permits like what was

i mean

all that stuff is

incredibly difficult to navigate in any

city but when you get into a large metro

area that is

quite

you know quite the chore most often so

tell me a little bit about that

experience yeah it was definitely a

full-time job i

was down at city hall the building

planning department kind of

all the time

we didn’t have like

enough funds to like hire an expediter

or like do anything like that so

it became very familiar honestly

probably a lot of it i blacked out

because it was like so stressful but um

you know it you know for example like

the water meter it was interesting

actually because we were so new from an

infrastructure

yeah they

because we were so new um

like they didn’t know how to calculate

our water capacity the city didn’t like

the water department and because like

our machines were really efficient they

were like we’re not sure to give you

like a half an inch line an inch line a

two inch like so it was like this whole

back and forth and so

they finally settled on like a two inch

water meter line and like

the difference in an inch was something

35 000 or like something wild and i

remember being like oh like

wow like

that’s

that’s really expensive um and

we had to do it there wasn’t really an

option not to but like you know that

like that whole process took

probably five six months so from the

start of like application to like them

cutting up the street putting in like a

new meter um i have so many photos from

that day because i was just like

astounded that we had managed to make it

happen um

and

um yeah like again

costly time consuming then with our with

pg e which is what services are gas and

electric uh you know there’s so many

btus because we had like a lot of dryers

the existing meter would not hold that

capacity so then like pg e had to like

come and build us like a brand new like

meter that took like seven months so a

lot of the time you’re just waiting i’m

sure like the store could have opened a

lot sooner but you know you have to wait

on all these like public services to

like you know you’re just in line with

all the rest of them um

and then

yeah we had to do change of uses which

is a really big challenge in san

francisco um

community hearings it was like wild so

yeah i think

if there’s anything to say on that as

is if you’re just getting into like the

industry and and thinking of like doing

something from scratch like totally get

it i was there if you find like a really

cool space like

it can be a huge incentive and to do it

um just make sure you know like

what type of utilities you have and uh

how long the permit processing takes

or don’t know because if you know you

might not do it it’s true yeah yeah i

know sometimes it’s just good ignorance

is blessed honestly that’s right yeah

well until you’re in the middle of it

yeah

i just bought a 35 000

or more than that two inch water line so

now i’m kind of committed yeah yeah i’m

very committed yeah tell me i mean

this this year that all this was going

on and you’re seeing these numbers come

across for you know

how much it’s going to cost to put in

new meters and this is like before you

even buy machines and do the finish it

like all that like you see this stuff

kind of adding up and you’re seeing how

long it’s taken

tell me a little bit about like how are

you feeling throughout this process are

you

scared that you’re not gonna your

business is not gonna make enough money

or are you pretty confident about it

what are you where are you at in this

during this process like one out of ten

stress level was like 11 at all times um

i was very stressed out um

i kept thinking like and you know we

just had to make a lot of compromises

and like pivot and adjust and so like a

lot of the money went into the

infrastructure and then the utilities

and like i had to make a lot of

compromises on the finishes and how the

space looked and everything like that

and you know that’s just kind of how the

cookie crumbled so to speak and so i was

it was nice for my second one i had a

little bit more

flexibility with that since a we were

taking over an existing so we just

replaced the equipment and then like

added

like more cosmetic finishes so i just

was able to do a lot more like what i

wanted to do um

but

uh yeah no it was like there was

multiple times where i was like oh we’re

not gonna open like there’s no way like

we don’t we won’t have enough money and

i we obviously made it happen but it was

it was a long it was a long year

yeah i can imagine well and i know a lot

of times

so like uh so i have a um an investment

group and we partner with investors and

we’re buying laundromats in real estate

we were looking to build out a

store it was 3 500 square feet and we

got hit

just killed our deal dead in the water

but we got hit with an impact fee of 390

thousand dollars which just

is a fee to say

give you permission to connect to the

water in the sewers before you actually

bring in the big water lines and all

that stuff it’s just that we

say that so i know a lot of times

building from scratch whether it’s

different fees or having to do utility

upgrades or those kinds of things can be

very cost prohibitive which is probably

why they’re part of the reason why there

wasn’t too many new laundromats yeah

totally i know it’s like there’s

probably a reason for it i just decided

not to see that but there’s a reason

yeah but yeah i mean it’s it’s crazy and

it’s it’s a shame because

i know that like especially here in san

francisco there’s a lot of there are a

lot of laundromats that are being priced

out right and then no one wants to

build them because the city doesn’t

really give you an incentive but like

this is a service that’s

not a luxury it’s a necessity and so you

need

you need them and so

um i’m hoping that the city of san

francisco kind of

figures out how to drive people to open

more or to like keep the ones remaining

you know open or who knows

yeah yeah they

do not make it easy

no no the bigger the city the worse it

is that’s for sure

yeah that there’s a lot of wisdom in

that for sure

okay so you go through this year of

building your laundromat i mean all the

stress all the nerves all the doubts all

the money

going out and

you know you come time first of all like

when did you say okay this is actually

happening when did you believe it was it

before you were actually opening or was

it a day of opening you’re like this is

actually happening or did you was there

a point in time where you’re like okay

this is this is going down

yeah i think like

the last thing we needed to do i believe

well you need to get like your health

and fire

signed off

and so i was just like scrambling to

like get the inspection taken care of

and when we finally did it was like

there were probably still a lot of

things that needed to be done i’m sure

there were but again it was a while ago

and some things i’ve kind of just

decided not to remember but um

yeah

but

i just remember being like we just have

to open because we have to start making

money um

and and we did we opened i think on a

saturday i want to say um

and it was slow moving it took a while

to ramp up that was like also

kind of a surprise because it’s a really

you know that neighborhood specifically

was really dense and um

but i think what i’ve what i’ve learned

and

at least in my experience is that like

laundry is very habitual so like when

someone is going to a place to do their

laundry like sometimes changing that

habit to try something else can be like

intimidating or inconvenient even if

like the service or the experience is

better

and so you really have to work hard on

capturing

those new customers in like a lot of

creative ways um

which is a lot of trial and error

yeah yeah so we have a

little marketing company over here in

laundromat resource marketing and we’re

telling clients all the time like when

you’re trying to get new customers what

you’re trying to do is

break their habit of doing their laundry

wherever

they’re doing it now or however they’re

doing it now and get them to start a new

habit of doing it with you and that

is easier said than done like you said

it sometimes it doesn’t even matter if

your laundromat is

better than the one down the street or

or the one they go to currently or even

sometimes closer yeah i don’t still go

to the other one because that’s what

they’ve done forever right yeah and

they’re used to it

yeah so we talk about how you know you

have to do something dramatic

in order to get people to break those

habits right and so like

we had

you know luke luke williford who he

owned him and his brother lee own you

know around 40 laundromats

and they do

have a card system and they do a huge

promotion for like a month or maybe

longer even where you know they’ll

double your money whatever money you put

on the card they’ll double it um you

know dave laundromat millionaire men’s

he uh is getting ready to open a store

here pretty quick and he is gonna i

think he said he’s giving away a month

of free wash you know it’s just

something dramatic to snap people out of

those habits

so that they can experience your

score but

you’ve gotta i mean that’s gotta be in

your budget you’ve got to have that

planned out pretty well and there are

costs to something like that

but it’s tough like you said

yeah i mean the first we like when we

opened the second location we did like a

full weekend of free um we tried to

advertise that as much as possible and

we got a pretty good um

yeah like a pretty good outcome um

because you just really what you’re what

you’re asking for is just for people to

try you even if it’s at your cost it’s

like try us like if you don’t like it

and it’s free then like i gotta fix

something usually that’s not the case

but um

but

yeah just to get people here but i also

find that you know even if people know

that you’re around like

i have this problem too like uh

sometimes there’s like a restaurant in

my neighborhood that’s maybe been up in

like six eight months and i like you

know go a different way and see that

restaurant i’m like oh like is this new

and they’re like not really and you’re

like oh come on so you know um i have

tunnel vision sometimes and like i’m

sure that’s the case

for laundromats and you know the second

one is just under a year old and i think

it’s also been helpful now that like the

pandemic isn’t as intense um we

obviously still have problems but like

i see like a huge shift in like

uh revenue like once things kind of

opened up in like may june um

so hopefully hoping that continues

to be the the way it goes yeah i mean

that’s been a huge curveball for

everybody right not just laundromat

owners but like any business i mean

everybody really and so

everybody’s kind of trying to make

adjustments and figure out how to

you know either weather the storm or

even try to thrive in the midst of it

you know but yeah and we’re so lucky

that you know we’re you know laundromats

are deemed an essential business and we

got to stay open and everything but it’s

it’s still

super hard and you know a lot of i like

our commercial accounts like you know we

got hit there because they’re just not

operating and so it’s a trickle-down

effect and um

i’m grateful like i said that we we got

to remain open but now it’s kind of

rebuilding the business and getting

things back to where that where it was

yeah so okay so i mean you went through

this whole

process of building

this laundromat from scratch in a major

metro area and survived

okay so yeah

for me when i got into when i got my

first laundromat i had this horrible

experience lost a lot of money a lot of

heartache you know

stuff but learned a lot of really

important lessons and ultimately it’s

kind of what led me to

starting this podcast doing laundromat

resource all the stuff we’re doing over

there

so i’m curious

you have learned some hard earned

lessons through building you know your

first laundromat do you have any advice

for anybody who’s either going through

that process or who’s thinking about it

or who’s about to go through that

process of building a laundromat

yeah for sure i would say

i would say if you have the option to

maybe buy an existing do that first i

mean

for for comparison’s sake like first one

took a year second one took two and a

half months to flip so like

that’s

a huge delta of time that you’re saving

that and then if you do decide that you

want to build from scratch i would

really encourage you to make sure that

the utility capacity is there that’s

like what’s gonna suck up your money

a lot and then um also plumbing is very

expensive i don’t know how it is in in

other places but san francisco requires

you to use

copper for everything and then cast iron

for everything so you can’t use like

plastic anything so like the cost is

just

pretty astronomical um

and so

again all lessons that like were learned

like when you’re ready when it’s too

late um

yeah and then i mean i’m sure like i’m

not the first one to say this but just

make sure that you have a strong lease

and that your terms are

are good um

and

you know negotiate

you know negotiate as low of a rent as

you can because you know at least for us

like you know water is really expensive

in san francisco so like that’s a high

cost for us and you know depending like

whether you have attended or unattended

stores like obviously that affects like

what your labor is but like you know

there can be some like

good overhead in this business so you

just want to make sure you’re keeping it

as low as you possibly can which

you know easier said than done sometimes

but um yeah

yeah

can you

you don’t have to if you don’t want to

i’m kind of putting on a spot here but

you want can you talk about the lease a

little bit like how did you guys

negotiate that did they give you time to

build out or were you paying rent

yeah um

like for our most recent one

we asked for

i believe it was three months free rent

while we were doing the build out i was

hoping to like turn it around in like

two months and it i mean we were pretty

much right on schedule but i just didn’t

want to be obviously paying while we’re

fixing it up plus you’re adding value to

an exist to their building right like

you’re putting in money um so that

should kind of be a given but some

people

but that i mean it was a it was a

it took a long time to negotiate and

there was almost a time for the second

one where i kind of walked away because

i felt like

if i wasn’t gonna get the terms that i

thought were appropriate then like

it wouldn’t be worth the headache in the

future so

luckily like you know we came to a

mutually beneficial

agreement but um but i think the

negotiations themselves lasted like

two and a half months so it was a while

yeah about the amount of time is the

whole build out yeah exactly i’m like we

could have done this a lot sooner but um

but yeah i would i would just say and

then also like

please do have a lawyer review it like

don’t not pay for that because it’ll

it’ll save you money in the future for

sure

yeah what if there’s there’s a saying

about that it’s like i don’t

skip over dollars pick up pennies i

don’t know i can’t remember what the

saying is but yeah i mean it and i tell

people this all the time too i mean i

think that’s great advice right like

don’t skimp out a lawyer for the lease

you know if you’re if you’re planning on

spending

thousands tens of thousands hundreds of

thousands of dollars

don’t skimp out on the things that are

going to save you right so whether

that’s a lawyer

you know to look over a lease or a

purchase agreement or even a consultant

who can tell you hey it’s gonna be

really expensive to build out new

because you’re gonna have to get all new

utility things you know utility meters

and

copper piping throughout you know if you

have somebody to tell you that stuff up

front or hey watch out for these red

flags if you’re buying an existing store

from a seller or here’s some of the

tricks

that sellers try to do to inflate their

income or to hide expenses from you you

know those kinds of things like don’t

skimp out on those things that are

relatively inexpensive that can save you

thousands and thousands and sometimes

more dollars a hundred percent i mean

it’s so worth it and sometimes on the

occasion i do consult for some people

that are looking to kind of get into it

because they’re like okay let’s make

sure that we’re not making mistakes and

you know i hope i can

help people

not do some of the things that i did and

learn from what i learned and you know i

i found it really challenging to get um

information just like a baseline when i

when i was first interested in in the

industry to get a sense of like what

machines cost what like

baseline rents were like i just couldn’t

get a lot of information and it was a

challenge and i don’t really think that

should be the case because i it you know

i think the more people like get into

the industry the more of it it’s going

to evolve and like

get more modern and like have just more

at our fingertips and um and so yeah i’m

always

happy to help if i can

yeah i think that’s awesome and i love

hearing that i mean i know that about

you already because you’re on the

podcast you’re sharing about your

experience and stuff but i think there’s

been so long just a culture of not

sharing that information or not you know

being open about some of that stuff that

in our industry

that

you know it’s it’s always refreshing

when there’s people who are

you know in the industry you’re saying

hey here’s you know

here’s kind of what i’m looking at

baseline rent like you’re paying too

much or they’re asking way too much or

you know that’s a good deal

totally yeah no it’s important i mean if

you know work work together i mean

most of the time you know just it’s a

big country like you’re probably not in

direct competition with

you know i maybe i wouldn’t tell all my

secrets to like the person directly next

to me but you know there’s there’s some

wiggle room there and so uh

yeah happy to happy to share

i’m not wearing that awesome okay so uh

so you

bought or you built your first one you

said that was like

four or five years ago what was that uh

yeah we opened four years ago four years

ago

and

about a year ago you

open the second got your second one

what caused you to want to get second

one

[Music]

honestly i

drove by this laundromat and it had been

closed for like some time i think like a

couple of years

but i noticed there was a release

sign on it and it’s like four minute

drive from my house and there’s no other

laundromats in the vicinity

so i was just like i’m just gonna like

call and see like what the rent is like

i just wanted to like you know i

i was pretty sure i wasn’t gonna do it

and then um

alcoholic walking into a bomb pretty

sure i’m not gonna take it

or a tattoo somebody with tattoos

i’m not getting one yeah i just want to

check it out talk to my friends and yeah

yeah and so

i did that and then i think like pretty

soon after they i like went in

to check out the space and you know it

was definitely outdated but like well

kept up like you know i didn’t have to

do anything from an infrastructure

perspective which was

very nice um

and the rent was like very reasonable um

and i was the only i guess they had had

like a lot of applicants for like

different types of uses like cafe or

something like that but i was the only

like applicant that like wanted to like

keep it a laundromat and i think the

landlords like wanted to wanted to do

that if possible um

and so

yeah again after like two plus months of

negotiation it ended up working out um

and then

yeah we just you know kind of turned it

into a

turned it into a lingerie so we have

like you know card readers and we can go

into all of that stuff but like how we

kind of modernize

the the space a bit

yeah

yeah i do want to talk about that in a

second uh

your in your whole brand too that’s

pretty cool that’s your background too

all of that uh okay but real quick on

the second one

how

how big is it compared to your other one

is it smaller bigger comparable

um so ironically it was a bigger space

but i have less machines in the second

one um

you know a lot of learnings

from the first one so like the first

store for example we have five size five

different size washers and i felt like

there were like there’s a size in there

that’s like too close too similar to

like one of the other ones and so it was

like sort of underutilized and i think

honestly it was too many options for the

customer

um so i kind of decided to go like the

in and out route for this one where it

was like you get three options like

yeah small medium large um

and

so the way that that kind of

formulated it it just was less um i

think we have

21 washers at our second location and 23

at our at our first so not like a huge

difference um

and then

yeah i think like square footage wise

like the second one is definitely bigger

and this one has an office so i work out

of this one primarily um it’s just much

easier and

but

less per square foot which is

all right

yeah yeah yeah that’s awesome yeah so

that worked out

yeah and that’s that’s one of the

benefits of you know kind of getting

your foot in the door is you have a lot

more like you said baselines for things

because

you may not have known beforehand

that

pretty decent feel on rent because you

wouldn’t have had a baseline for it

having that

second one you’ve learned lessons you

learn you know put in

less options of machine i mean all that

stuff is you know and i think i talked

to a lot of people who are nervous to

get started because they want to make

all the right decisions

and uh

sometimes you just got to make the best

decisions you can get your foot in the

door and then then a lot of

opportunities open up for you for

learning and also just opportunities in

general

yeah the first one is by far the hardest

and i’m sure you can attest to that um

it’s yeah you just you don’t know what

you don’t know and then

you have to make the best decision with

the information that you have and hope

that it works and guess what a lot of

times it doesn’t and you just have to

pivot and

yeah kind of adjust

accordingly

yeah okay well can we talk for a second

about your brand i don’t know if you can

hear this i can hear a little bit yeah

it’s crazy loud it’s like right above me

we talked a little bit about your brand

he tells what it is and how it kind of

came about

yeah i mean it still kind of stemmed

from my school project uh the name

changed i think in school it was called

suds and buds so we kind of made a

departure from that name um but you know

i wanted it to kind of be like a simple

name to the

to the point i guess people ask me all

the time if it means like laundry and

french but it’s just a made-up word um

and

it’s lingerie right andre yeah yeah yeah

and

yeah accent mark over yeah like on the e

because i mean a lot of sophisticated

pinkies up a little bit

yeah

um but

yeah i mean ultimately because my

experience

at laundromats was subpar um

i thought there was a lot of room for

improvement it felt like the standard

was kind of mediocre and especially in a

city like

san francisco that’s like so innovative

i was actually surprised that there

wasn’t

something

better and so you know that was my goal

was just to like try to improve what the

model was or like what i had experienced

i know that’s not across the board but

um and so

you know

first of all like you go into some

laundromats um and

a lot of the times it’s just like not an

environment that you want to be in and

so i was like okay like how can i change

that and like i really love design i

love branding i love you know packaging

so i was like how can i apply those

things to like this and so

that’s kind of where i started um

and just kind of creating like what i

wanted

the space to feel like uh

clean and like bright and crisp and then

like sort of playful so like a lot of

our verbiage on like our signage or

um kind of on our website like i kind of

wanted to be like you know not so

serious at the end of the day you’re

doing laundry so it doesn’t need to be

super serious business um

and so that was kind of step one and

like i said for the first one i had to

compromise a lot like aesthetically

because we just wasn’t in the budget and

this one i got to have more fun i think

like um for this one i don’t know you

can’t really tell but we got like this

really fun tile that like i’m pretty

obsessed with and um it just made the

space like kind of come a lot live it’s

like a blue tourette so it’s like kind

of fun and um but still has like

a calm essence about it so um that’s

where we started yeah with the space

that’s kind of like what i

wanted to do and then service wise like

both of our stores are fully attended um

you know we want to make sure like we

can like

kind of inform customers on like not

only how to use the machines or like

maybe what to do for a stain but just

like kind of be there as a point of

reference and i i do know that’s like a

huge reason why people come to us is

because like

you know they can

if they have a question or if something

goes wrong or whatever they can just

talk to someone that’s there um and i

think that the the people

like start to identify with like

the laundry attendants and like they

form a relationship and it can be really

fun um

so yeah both attended we do full fully

processing like we do wash and fold

orders and self-service um

and then third was like sustainability

um you know it’s it’s it’s a business

that uses a lot of things right like

huge amounts of water so

kind of first order of business was

finding

um washers that like used

the least amount of water um um so we

use electrolux and it’s been it’s been a

great brand for us the maintenance is

low which i appreciate um and

and um

has kind of the automatic weigh-in

system so it kind of saves us a bunch of

water which is great

um and then also we provide free soap

with every wash it’s like an

eco-friendly

powder detergent um

you know it encourages people to try

something like you know eco-friendly we

also know like what’s going into our

washers which is really helpful

um and then all like

the like we do like alternative bleaches

vinegar dryer balls we try to encourage

people to use that versus kind of the

more toxic um alternatives and you know

everyone has a way that they like to do

their laundry so not here to like

guilt or shame anybody but just kind of

show them an alternative if they’re

interested

is it uh are you giving them like a

baggie of powder is it automatically

uh we like powder right so yeah yeah

it’s powder so we

we pre-measured them out in like little

um jars based on what size washer you’re

using and then you just like go up to

the attendant and they’ll give it to you

um and then everything else we sell for

like a dollar like the the alternative

like bleach the oxygen brightener

um and like vinegar and stuff like that

yeah yeah you sound very san francisco

right now

i’m sure i’m sure

everybody in the midwest is like oh i

know they’re like but but tied

i’m down with it i’m down with it

uh yeah i know but seriously i think

that’s pretty awesome and i like you

know i think a lot of people not

everybody but a lot of people who are

owning laundromats are looking for

ways to

use their laundry mats for good right

and so whether that’s you know improving

it so the community has a better

experience in helping improve the

community or helping with the

environment or both ideally

you know so i i think that that is

a pretty cool way to use a very ordinary

chore right to tap into being able to do

something bigger than just your chore

right you’re

you know contributing to

you know being more environmentally

friendly and

educating people you know

so i really love that

um so okay so

lingerie i mean you know listen as

somebody who is pretty much overflowing

with class i’m gonna give that a thumbs

okay and you can tell i mean it’s yeah

it’s oozing it’s

hard not to see it it’s you can’t tell

right now but i’m like really

restraining myself from keeping that

pinkie up just it’s like it’s bad

just give it up

so pretty cool how are you

uh if you don’t mind me asking how are

you

kind of managing all of this are you

using i mean you said you’re doing like

a a drop off like fluff and fold service

are you using like a software are you

what’s the tell me about the logistics

how you’re putting all that stuff

together

yeah um

so when we opened the second store we

transitioned from our previous kind of

laundry pos system um to sense um

fairly new company uh but they are doing

really cool things um i think um and

especially

since kind of one of my top priorities

is like

you know keeping things as modern as

possible um that’s they’ve been really

helpful so like they are the they are

the pos that we use for all of our wash

and fold processing um

and um

and excitingly i mean you’re catching me

kind of right on the cusp of this but

they just kind of launched a

um a partnership with doordash so we can

now offer like on-demand pickup and

delivery which is like huge because we

just didn’t have the infrastructure to

you know we’re small like to do like

trucks and

and other drivers and the logistics of

that is like pretty crazy right and like

i applaud the operators that do that

because that is

a completely secondary type of job um

and so

so it’s been really great i mean it’s

just launched but we’ve seen some pretty

great feedback so far and have been able

to like you know sign additional

commercial accounts which is like really

awesome because that’s like revenue that

you can count on and it’s it’s repeat

business and so before we just didn’t

have the key there’s a barrier to entry

right like no commercial account is

going to want to like

do a lot of pickup and drop off um if

it’s super consistent so we weren’t

really able to get

as many as we would have liked so this

is going to be really helpful um but

yeah we used them and then um

yeah that sense

yeah no awesome i didn’t know that you

were actually using kind of the door

dash integration right started trying

that out so that’s pretty cool yeah i

think it’s an interesting uh an

interesting model especially for

i think it gives a lot of operators who

don’t want to enter into that logistics

business which is pick up and delivery

right yeah

it gives them a way to expand their

radius uh a little bit using

you know a third party driving

service for that pickup delivery so it

basically is still a fluff and fold

business for the owner um you’re just

able to expand your

your radio so that’s pretty pretty

interesting i’ll be interested to see

how it continues to play out because i

think

poor dash uber lit like all these

you know kind of gig economy

you know things are are kind of

penetrating in all kinds of different

places in our society right now so it’s

really interesting to see that um finger

kind of getting into our industry and

i’ll be interested to see where it goes

from here

i mean i’m so excited about it i

remember like years ago

chatting actually with someone at

doordash and being like oh you guys

should like get into laundry like i

would love that and it was just like a

very beautiful surprise that

sense

did that for us so i think it’s it’s

awesome

yeah that is pretty cool

um okay so

your lingerie

class full of style

right i mean right on par with me

side note nobody has ever called me

classy once

i’ll be the first

maybe i should go into your laundromat

one time and then see

the comparison

yeah yeah

you can kind of judge

using sense to manage that’s pretty cool

too

talk to me a little bit about

what it’s like owning two stores mm-hmm

uh as you know i mean you went from

building one from scratch

to running one to now owning two have

there been any unique challenges has it

been pretty much the same

you know

what’s that been like

you know i mean there yeah there are

definitely like

more challenges it’s it’s more time

consuming in the sense that i have to

kind of bought back and forth um

versus just having to go to one employee

management can be a bit more challenging

because now you’re dealing with two

schedules two stores um

but there are pros right economies of

scale like you can buy more of one

product at a discount split it up like

stuff like that like our like our

supplies but um

you know so far so good um

yeah it’s it’s good i’m i’m happy to

have both like i feel i feel good about

the decision

but it’s just

yeah it’s just like double the work

yeah are there

i mean are there any plans to

you know

number three

like the place to go in san francisco or

the world yeah

um you know i it’s it’s funny i

i’m open to it for sure i think

uh like most of us like the last year 18

months has been like super wild i also

just had a baby so like that shifted my

focus a bit and boy or girl girl um yeah

yeah so she’s she’s still pretty little

so it’s like you know you got to kind of

reprioritize a little bit but

i’m open to it i’m really curious to see

what happens with our stores in like the

next year or two and then we’ll probably

make a decision based on that um but

i mean i yeah i would be open to it i

think that

san francisco could probably use a few

more if i were up for it

yeah i mean i definitely could use a

laundry mogul

and so

yeah let me know when you find one

i think i did i don’t know

i may be talking one right now and i

just want to ask like don’t don’t forget

us little people oh yes no never are you

kidding you’re what look at this

platform you got it going on oh my gosh

yeah great i mean

not not to simultaneously excite you and

depress you but this is probably the

pinnacle of your life

no i’ve peaked it’s very obvious so okay

yeah uh awesome okay well i mean this is

so cool to just kind of hear your story

and how you got in and

you know i want to hear a little bit in

just one second about your actual

businesses we have a section called down

[Applause]

to business

over and out

okay that’s where we just talk a little

bit about

the business um so you have

two locations right

how far how far from each other are they

it’s a good question maybe two miles

yeah so i’m talking like a 15 minute

drive that’s what i don’t know like an

hour commute

no no no

uh yeah it’s like a 15 minute drive it’s

not bad at all

and then i live in between them so it’s

like i can kind of

talk back and forth

just throwing this out there very san

francisco thing to do with free

for you to ride your bike to and from oh

yeah no i would not trust myself on a

bicycle in fact i’ve crashed almost

every single time so i stick to my

four wheeled vehicle

i crashed on my bike not that long ago

embarrassingly i was going straight

there’s nobody or nothing else around i

was on a paved road and i just went down

oh man that is brutal there’s nothing

like falling when like fully falling

when you’re an adult like it doesn’t

happen very often and it feels very

disorienting yeah you know what yeah and

there’s shame associated with that

100 i’m just gonna put it out there

there’s shame associated with that so

yeah yeah yeah so i’m still trying to

recover both physically and emotionally

well it’s good that you told everybody

about it i know it’s out there now and i

feel like that’s the best way to do it

right just put it out there

you know if you’re going to take your

cracks take your trash i’ll take my

knobs and then

somebody else will fall

yes

so if somebody out there could do me a

solid and fall that would be awesome

uh so all right so you’ve been in the

business for about

four years maybe a little bit more than

that

i’m gonna give you extra credit because

you’ve been in the business

that whole year for sure that you were

building

for sure yeah i like to say i’ve been in

it for

eternity was it like seven years because

that’s when i started and it was like

yeah you’re just learning i mean we

didn’t open until 2017 but before that

it was a lot of work for sure yeah i’m

gonna give you the full seven years

worth of credit thank you i appreciate

it yeah and uh

now you’ve learned a lot i feel like you

can’t really stop it too i mean i feel

like there’s probably things you need to

learn right now

and managing too but at some point

you’re going to get bored with you and

be like

easy i’m like

i don’t know what boredom feels like so

i’m excited yeah yeah it’s like too easy

so let me just get like eight more real

quick yeah yeah i mean two eight they’re

all the same it should be fine it’s like

kids you know i mean you just had is

this your first one that you just had

yeah just had the first one so i can’t

let me just tell you as a extremely

embarrassingly

experienced parent here uh

with two kids that i mean once

you know

once your kids like

year and a half it’s pretty much just

easy like just autopilot just like let

them go wild all right cool well i’m

excited i’m excited for that

so you might as well just i have

neighbors right

there that have 11 kids yeah it’s it’s

easy

11 is that real

yeah for real they have 11 kids they’re

awesome they do have eleven kids

bless them so someone shoot four eleven

quarter mats and eleven kids perfect

people can manage a laundromat so and

maybe that’ll work

you gotta have somebody to pass them on

to yeah family business so

you heard it here first arianna

coming your way which would also be an

awesome

title for a tv show reality show 11

laundromats eleven kids so yeah call it

my memoir it’s gonna it’s gonna get wild

locked in right now on both

all right

let’s see how it goes

uh good

i don’t know we’re like

evolving over here but in a really good

way a lot of fun business plans ahead

yeah uh talk to us a little bit like how

much does it cost to do laundry in san

francisco

guess that depends on where you go um

i think you go to the classy

the classiest place in town

um so

i’ll give you this store as an example

um we second one the one in the back my

second one yeah second one

um so we have three size washers we have

like an 18 pounder a 30 pounder and a 60

pounder um our

our

18 um is starts at 550 and then um

30 pound is 750 and then our 60 is 12.

and so

yeah i think uh it was interesting

similar prices at our other location as

well uh people were initially kind of

had like sticker shock um because i

don’t think that’s what they’re used to

they’re used to like the two three

dollar range for like let’s compare it

to like an 18

pounder but um

ultimately what like i tried to

it’s kind of like a sort of like a

re-education i guess and just like

letting them know like why it is that

the wash is this much but like guess

what your dry is going to be like

probably a third less than what you’re

used to as well

um you know

so kind of at the end of the day

you’re spending a comparable amount of

money

but hoping it’s a better experience for

you you know that’s also free um

detergent included in that price we

offer sanitizing free sanitizing on all

your washers before you use them so that

like making sure that the drum and the

dispensers are cleared out for you and

then

and yeah and yeah wi-fi we have

you know fun music

i’m talking about it’s all about the

vibe yeah we set up we try to set up a

good vibe actually i think our like

sandwich board sign

says something about good vibes so

there you go right on the money

look at that

good vibes all right yeah that’s pretty

uh yeah it sounds

pretty

like yeah you know for like a like a

good

experience

totally

um all right well so i’m assuming

because you have wash and fold and

you’re offering sanitizing all that

stuff are both of your laundry mats

fully attended yep

fully attended at all times

um from eight to ten every day

have you

has it been

like relatively easy making sure you

have employees and being able to keep

them have you had any struggles with

that i know that’s a lot of owners have

been having problems

fighting yeah and keeping employees

lately

has that been your experience or has

been pretty smooth

i mean

definitely yes i mean i think that’s

kind of a constant um you know this

industry can have some high turnover

for sure um

we try to you know i want people to

enjoy coming to work here and so

we try to like offer like small

incentives like monthly things or you

know we do pay

like above average um because i want to

like retain those employees um

and then

but yeah i mean i think it’s like

especially right now it’s like a hard

time for everyone like the work force is

just

weird and

and there’s just not a lot there’s just

like not a lot of candidates um

so yeah it’s definitely a struggle i

knock on wood like we have a pretty good

team right now and so i’m very grateful

but yeah for sure it’s it’s it’s

one of the top stressors as i’m sure it

is for other operators is like finding

and

keeping good employees

yeah yeah it’s yeah thing has definitely

been a problem and i think weird is a

good

word for yeah

has been really weird

yeah you start seeing like the major

fast food chains

having banners out in front they’re like

paying 20 an hour

totally i was at fedex the other day um

and they were saying that they were they

were hiring and that they were giving

people a thousand dollar sign and

sign-on bonus geez i was like oh should

i like go work for fedex no i think i’m

going to put in an application after we

get off of this yeah yeah yeah

yeah i just did yeah yeah everyone knows

now that fedex is hiring yeah yeah

exactly

uh fedex feel free to send your check

yeah yeah

we are supported by

this episode is sponsored by mcdonald’s

and fedex yeah unfortunately

yeah unfortunately we cannot offer that

but we tried to offer other good things

yeah totally and i think that’s what

it’s about like you offer what you can

offer and then just finding like

creative ways to have good vibes you

know it’s

a lot of people are

working for

a boss and not a specific amount right

so if you are able to run

well there’s a i was just reading this

reddit or linkedin or something like

that where you know they’re

saying that basically it’s like people

when people quit their job

almost always people quit

their bosses not the job not the job

itself putting their bosses so if you

can provide

a good working atmosphere you know

people are willing to

you know be able to make a little bit

less or not i’m not saying that you

should pay less than you can but you

know being able to get a higher quality

higher caliber employee

when you really focus on and really work

towards having a good working

environment yeah it’s important i i

really i really

i think that is something that we we do

well at is just making sure people feel

comfortable

and yeah like coming in and um

i you know i work really closely with

everyone that works here so like i i

want to have a nice relationship with

them too and so um makes makes my day

easier and my life easier and um yeah

right now we’re really lucky to have a

really solid team

yeah that’s awesome

so i think i see back there

card system is that true are you doing

card coin both hybrid uh we do both um

yeah we have fast card like cci um

card readers um

and we still offer chlorine at both

locations um

and we don’t have like a laundry card

system it’s just like use your card

directly on the um

on the reader

yeah have you ever timed

how long it takes to put 48 quarters in

that machine

i’m always like i’m always shocked when

people

do it i’m always like you know like you

could just

one swipe and you’re good to go but some

people prefer preferred the coin that’s

fine but yeah for the bigger machines

it’s pretty wild what you should do

as a promotion you should set up a

tournament

where people use your 60 pound washers

with quarters

and give the one who puts all the

quarters in the fastest a free wash

yeah now you’re getting people to use

your 60 pound washers

for only the cost of one wash i mean

that is genius wow

good job a bracket that goes like every

saturday the brackets get smaller

all right yeah

i have to i’ll have to see what we can

do with that

you might have to be like the mediator

though

i’ll do that too

with bruce buffer let’s get ready to

rumble yeah yeah we’ll take that yeah as

soon as you can come up here and do that

we will definitely do that tournament

100 in on that and i am not only do i

not live that far from you uh my family

all lives right around there so oh great

all right the jordan berry 60-pound

tournament tournament that’s what we’ll

call it

this oh you’re committed now you’re

committed i’m i’m 100 in i’m i’m gonna

make t-shirts for all of us all right

yeah i’m excited i’m excited

all right that turned that turned really

good really fast

uh so talk to me about

your specific involvement in the

business like

how much are you involved how much are

these running kind of on their own and

like maybe how many hours are you

spending

businesses or managing them

yeah um i mean it’s definitely

changed now i remember when we first

opened i was working like

i don’t know 16 hour days like every

single day

forever

and i’m glad to not have to do that

anymore um

i usually with the new baby right yeah

like at a certain point like you just

can’t you’re like i have a child to take

care of but um

yeah i so

uh i’m just kind of getting back into

the full swing of things after kind of

not really taking some time off because

you kind of can’t but like

taking a little bit of a step back and i

have an incredible manager so um she’s

been with me for a couple of years and

um was really helpful during during the

time i needed off um

really i i think i try to automate as

many things as i can um right like

there’s that’s what you want to use

technology for um and then

um but i would say

i don’t know it it fluctuates a little

bit right like some weeks are like

really wild and i’m like it’s all day

every day and other days

um other weeks it’s a little bit more

fluid but i would say maybe on average

what time is it 30 35

maybe um

but yeah it kind of yeah it ups and

flows we have like a lot of systems in

place now that have been really helpful

and then

again like um

yeah my manager has taken some off my

plate that so like i can kind of focus

on more stuff at home or maybe growing

the big the like the business big

picture and not having to do as much

day-to-day which is not my

forte so um

i’m a better big picture lady

you’re just trying to get out of mopping

[Music]

oh man

i’m a pretty good bathroom cleaner i’ll

tell you that much

i’ve got four over here

come on down yeah

awesome

uh larry we have another section that i

think

people who are listening to this have

got to be excited about this section if

they own a laundromat because you’re

doing some really interesting things you

have a really cool kind of business plan

that you’re worth working on right now

and like or working out like you’re

implemented

uh but this is called secret sauce

listen up it’s the secret sauce

and this is for current logger mat

owners do you have maybe something that

you’re doing that’s working really well

or or maybe just any tips for other

laundry bed owners that might help them

improve their business

yeah

um what’s worked really well for us is

so we do like a free dry wednesday every

day and that’s actually like one of our

busiest free dry wednesday every day

every week

every day is free dry wednesday yeah

every day every day is wednesday

might as well be i don’t know the days

of the week anymore um but uh yeah so we

do it every week and we’ve done that

from the beginning and then implemented

it at the second location too and it’s a

very popular day and so i would

encourage you and the reason i started

it is because traditionally wednesdays

are like not great um from a revenue

perspective for laundromat so

um it actually sometimes can beat our

sundays which is

great

yeah um and then on tuesdays and

thursdays we do like a discounted um

wash and fold rate um like a percentage

off and so

that’s been really

really great again like

traditionally can be slower days so it

makes sure that like our um

our laundry attendants are staying

active and busy and processing those

orders um

and so those kind of those two

promotions or yeah two promotions

we’ve done always consistently

never never skip it never stop it um and

so people just come to learn that that’s

that’s the case for those three days um

and so that’s been really helpful for us

for sure

i forgot to ask this earlier but do you

mind sharing how much it costs to do

drop uh fluff and fold drop off yeah um

for a 24 hour turnaround it’s an 180 a

pound okay yeah and then when you

discount it how much are you discounting

it’s 15

okay yeah

yeah

yeah awesome i mean i think that’s

awesome

awesome secret sauce uh you know thrown

in some

regular promotions

during the down times to get you know

more business going those days but also

create some buzz and you know yeah yeah

definitely word of mouth has been really

helpful with those and um yeah people we

get calls off the tape being like are

you guys the ones that do free dry on

wednesdays i’m like heck yeah like come

on over

yeah um so yeah that’s been actually

yeah more so than i kind of wouldn’t

have anticipated you know i kind of just

started it to like get some momentum and

just it yeah like never wanted to take

it away because it’s been it’s been

pretty good for us

can i see a quick

kind of logistical question about your

free dry wednesday yeah do your machines

allow you to program in like wednesday

midnight to

wednesday at 3 59 free or do you have to

manually do that with the machines

what’s the

we have to manually do it technically

there is a way to do it with electrolux

dryers and then in the fast card but

every time i’ve tried to sync it like

the the the card rear and the um

machine like it it doesn’t quite do it

and so

it’s probably something that i have to

look further into but it would be great

if like it would be great if like the

hardware would like automatically just

like talk to the machine and be like you

don’t have to do anything so yeah it’s

manual right now it just you know it’s

not the best it’s not the worst it’s

it’s fine yeah that’s just what you do

yeah part of the team

this is a little bit i mean i’m kind of

pushing the bounds of secret sauce here

i don’t

do this but because your laundry mat

looks so awesome and you have like a

really cool brand you have any like

i don’t know i mean so we were talking

beforehand you were saying how a lot of

times

you know people will come in like maybe

owners like older owners who’ve owned

businesses for a long time would be like

why are you doing these things and you

know

can you talk to us a little bit about

you know

you’ve built it really nicely the

picture in the background looks really

nice

but traditionally our business and i

think this is changing pretty

dramatically right now but traditionally

our business people

you know have got brown tiles and

you know

wood paneling on the wall yeah yeah

flickering lights and stuff um but

i don’t i don’t know do you have any

design tips or or thing or not

necessarily design tips but like

atmosphere vibe

uh tips that

work well for you that you know maybe

can spruce up our laundromats

yeah um totally i think

first of all it doesn’t have to be this

like huge overhaul

um you can do a lot of cosmetic things

that like are lower cost and and not you

know

they’re not gonna

like hemorrhage from your like money’s

not gonna hammer from your bank account

so like that is what i try to go towards

honestly i think of like

and this is probably going to sound a

certain way but like i think of like

trying to do like a consistent color

story like kind of have like we like

we focus on a lot of blue if you can’t

tell and you know like the machines have

like the blue the floor like the tile

over here

and so like it’s all pretty consistent

in that way which i think is just really

helpful and then you know you can you

can play with that right you could do

like brighter colors to make it like

like a really fun environment you can do

calmer colors like we chose but i think

like consistency with colors is really

important um i also think that like

putting like plants or something that’s

i don’t know something like

alive can be like really helpful to just

do make it feel like yeah sorry sorry

guys i’m gonna take it off no no but

just like to make it more

i don’t know like homey and feel like a

little bit fresher

less sterile maybe that’s the way i’m

i’m

that’s the word i’m looking for do you

you do live plants or do fake plants

live plants this one

is a ficus but i killed that one so we

just got a new one this week and uh

i always try to put vicuses in my stores

i’m like oh they’re so beautiful but

like they don’t like

they need like a lot of light and

i finally learned my lesson so we got

like a

i want to say it’s like a fig tree or

it’s like a tall fig tree but that just

got planted this week so i’m pray for me

that i keep that one alive

is it in a pot

no we put like a um

uh it’s a

what do you call when you put a planter

it’s a planter box and there’s like a

gap in between like the 60 pounders and

the 30 pounders and it’s like sizable

and so we built like a proper planter

with like drainage and everything and so

that it’s in a it’s in a planter

you have an indoor planter yeah well it

feeds right into like you know the pipes

for the washers so all the water just

goes off the same same way that’s so

cool

you need a you know what you need you

need a skylight above it we do we have

one over

well it’s well it’s not above the tree

but it’s like right there somewhere oh

okay yeah oh no wrong side this one nope

nope

no it’s this way sorry it’s close

don’t pretend

we do have one uh awesome i mean i think

that’s

you know i think first of all you did

sound very fashion designery stay with

your color story yeah really just like

feel what you know feels good

but no i think that’s helpful and then

like with you know

you know tile like you can like for

instance the first location like i

really wanted tile but we couldn’t

afford tile so i got like a laminate

floor but like that was

i regret

now because it’s hard to clean

but like what i tried to do was create

something

that would yeah like emulate kind of the

same color story and all that stuff

which don’t do don’t do white

for for future reference try something

that has like a little bit of like color

in it but um

but yeah there are other materials that

you can use that are like more cost

effective and stuff like that and then

you know like these lights i got like a

pretty

decent price it’s just like you know

doing

doing the research and and you know

finding

maybe like not getting the designer

thing but getting something that’s

similar or something like that takes a

little bit of time but i mean i

personally enjoy doing it so it doesn’t

it doesn’t feel like work in that sense

but um

always yeah if anyone has any questions

i’m always happy to

help if you like don’t offer that unless

you mean it

we’ll do that and

people will

reach out to you yeah uh

the well there’s i was gonna say oh um

you know just in case you’re

you know

you’re not like ariana and i me and

ariana and me and you know obviously

we’re very stylish and

that i think you take the cake to be

honest well i mean listen it’s not fair

to completely make you uncomfortable

with the compliments but like smoke

i mean i do feel uncomfortable but i

understand where it’s coming from

but no but seriously like if you’re if

you’re not like

that’s not your thing necessarily you

can go online like adobe color there’s a

lot of places where you can go find

you know people like ariana who are very

good at this and put together like color

schemes

yeah together and they’ll be like three

four five colors together that are going

to look good together and you can go

find those and see what you what you

like and use those you don’t have to

come up with this on your own so

i also find that like uh you can’t

really see them because they’re far but

like the stickers that show you like the

instructions for like how to use the

machine are also kind of branded and

i it’s on the electrolux ones um

the directions are like they’re simple

and they’re there but even if you

recreated what they had and just put it

in a more vibrant color like it’s a it’s

a small thing it’s literally a sticker

that i ordered and i just put them on

there and it makes everything cohesive

same with the stickers on the um

on the soap dispenser so it tells you

like which goes and which but everything

is like consistent and and even that i

think can be can be helpful it’s just

like small small things that do not cost

a lot

yeah yeah those little details are

really kind of the

those are the pinky up things right yeah

it really takes you your pinky from here

to here yeah for sure detailed and

that’s what i try to focus on all the

time i i can tell for sure

pretty sure about the details

that was a

dare i say an epic secret sauce segment

thank you and the bars set very high

for the next section which is pro tips

pro

tips

and pro tips is what advice do you have

somebody maybe who is either trying to

build or buy their very first

laundromat what tips do you have for

them don’t build got it yeah yeah

avoid at all cost

you know i think i mean honestly uh

i think this is such a great resource

for people and i wish i had had it when

i was when i was you know starting out

um but chat with some different

operators try to chat with them maybe

some in your town maybe some not in your

town but like

i think it’s helpful just to get other

people’s experiences to just get a

baseline and and then

ultimately

yeah i would say

find a place that has good utilities i

know it’s like not super sexy but like

it’s important and um

and like make sure that you’re like

really good about like negotiating with

your lease um

and then you know find equipment that

that you that you really like you’re

going to be with it for a long time and

i feel lucky in that regard i do i do

really like the brand that we chose um

especially from like a maintenance

perspective it’s been pretty good to us

but uh it does it does take some

homework for sure but i’m sure um

i’m sure jordan or i would be happy to

answer questions if anyone needs to i’m

by no means like an expert but like i’ve

learned a few things and i’m happy to

share that dare volunteer me you

jordan would be thrilled um his phone

number is

i was muted because there’s construction

and i was like

no uh yeah no but seriously i mean i

think that’s good and super good advice

uh all the way around and you know that

the equipment stuff i mean it’s it’s

interesting because

there there are nuances

you know within the different equipment

so trying to figure out what it is that

you’re looking for what it is that you

need and what equipment is going to best

suit those needs is really important so

get a hold of ariana and

yeah

tell i’m basically your new distributor

hello

well listen ariana this has been

awesome this has been very very cool to

hear your story but also get all these

awesome tips and awesome advice thank

you so much for coming on i have one

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!