Current corporate customers of Feather Laundry

Mantra: Customers First

I haven’t written about my business in I don’t know how long. The business has gotten so busy that I can barely keep up. I have a store now, and an employee. Major milestones have been crushed and I don’t have time to celebrate. Things are moving fast and so much has happened that I cannot possibly do it justice with a single blog post.

It’s funny how when your time becomes more scarce, you become more acutely aware of exactly what matters. The number one priority, far above all else, is the customer. Orders that come in must be done to the customer’s satisfaction, bar none. That part of the job is now 70–80% of my time.

You would think that is not so bad. I could spend the rest of my time doing administrative work, like big picture planning, marketing, accounting. Nope. The rest of my time is devoted to maintaining the store and solving myriads of issues that arise. Putting out fires, so to speak.

Here are some examples:

• one of my two washers went out so I replaced it with the one from my house. But that old one drains super fast so when both washers drain simultaneously the drain overflows.
• One time the store flooded and water seeped into the neighboring restaurant.
• When it rains, it rains inside my bathroom.
• My landlady had a stroke and her husband asked me to cover for her while she was in the hospital.
• My employee had pneumonia and was out for a few days and I had to cover her work and mine.
• My phone was stolen out of my car while I was unloading laundry into the store.
• Car broke down once.
• I avoided a wreck on the interstate by swerving and nailing a curb, resulting in only a flat tire.

And through it all each and every customer has been taken care of.

Plus, I’ve been doing hours upon hours of laundry. I know, I know! I should hire another person, but my cash flow will not permit it. I had to borrow money from my brother to cover the February rent and it’s ending up a negative cash flow month.

But the business is headed in the right direction. I’m projecting a 30–50% increase in sales by June. I have 2 new corporate clients, a dermatology clinic and the Dallas Zoo, each of which should generate roughly $1k a month in revenue. On top of that one of my two major loans will be paid off in April opening up another $1k a month in cash flow.

This week I have to hire someone. There’s enough laundry backed up now that I need 2 employees. I’m not financially ready to hire someone but I have no choice. The thing with the new corporate clients is that they are billed monthly. So we do a month’s worth of work, for which I have to pay the employee, and then I invoice the company, then they send me a check a month later. Given my current cash flow, this dynamic is devastating.

Nonetheless, I will persist. I feel like I’m only 2–3 months away from profitability. And I have enough cash or enough access to cash to make it another 2–3 months. I’m moving in the right direction at a steady pace.

One of the most important things I’ve learned is that corporate clients are better because they are guaranteed long term income. Normal people come and go, corporate customers stay.

I’m beginning to understand what it is going to take to build a scalable long term multi-million dollar business. Namely, the capacity and infrastructure to execute a large volume of orders, and sales and marketing teams to bring in those orders. My current store, with only 2 washers and 3 dryers, has a conservative capacity of $25k a month in revenue. I already know that the next location will be a pre-existing laundromat with the infrastructure and capacity already in place. That location will be the one that will be replicated in other cities.

Ok, enough writing. I have to get some sleep. I’m glad I wrote this. I needed to write it just to get a small glimpse of the big picture. I haven’t had any time to even think about the big picture lately. I made time.

I said before that being this busy focuses your mind on what’s truly important and so here it is:

1. Customer orders.
2. Maintaining the infrastructure (the store, the machines, the car, the employee).
3. Keeping cash flow above $0.
4. Considering the big picture and following the north star which for me is being in multiple cities.

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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Tightrope Juggling

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My Plan to Increase Sales