Growing Pains
Things are moving so fast I have taken up journaling again to keep my sanity. There’s just so much going on that I have to write some of it down or it will pass by the wayside, and a lot of the stuff is too important. Last month we averaged 7 orders a day, and each order is a pick up and a delivery. That’s 10–15 trips a day I’m making. I’m on the road at least 5 hours a day now, sometimes more.
I had to fire an employee because she was sending people’s laundry back without matching and folding the socks. She was even sending them back inside out! And I know she knew how to fold socks. I was furious and I’m sure I lost some customers because of it. Finding good people for this job is not easy.
I got lucky with my first employee. She is a superstar. She can knock out 200 lbs. of laundry in a 9 hour shift. I’m working her to the bone, not by choice. There’s just that much business. I hired a new lady this week but she moves in slow motion. I have to start riding her to move faster because we have deadlines that have to be met.
Of course, the good news is being too busy is a good problem to have. And I’m going to ramp up my advertising because i need to force myself into more and more dangerous situations so that I can get better at solving these sorts of problems. Specifically, what I want to get better at is managing the cash flow and building the team to be able to handle the volume.
One of the problems I have now is that our biggest customer pays invoices 30–60 days after the work is done. Meaning I have to have enough cash flow to maintain until those big checks come in. And since they’re a seasonal client (mostly summer) the beginning of the summer is rough if I don’t have the cash flow. And right now I don’t.
But if business keeps going at this pace I will definitely have decent cash flow by next month, without a doubt by the end of June. And I have to prepare for more growth by stabilizing the employee schedule. This week is a training week so I’m paying extra for 2 employees to be there.
Right now my goal is to have a team that can handle at least $20k a month in revenue. That’s 333 lbs. of laundry a day. It’s doable. It’s a balancing act because if sales grow too fast we won’t be able to handle the volume and the customers suffer. But if sales grow too slow we go out of business.
Ideally I need to have an employee come in at 8 am and work til 3, then the other one come in and work until the laundry is done for that day. That means I have to train them on how to hand off a shift. Building a business includes building all the processes that govern how the business operates. That itself is a never ending process. And it’s something I’m going to focus on right now.
This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a Dallas startup called Feather Laundry. For your reference here is the Table of Contents for the series.
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