The Road to Profitability

This week I hit another milestone which was getting the 60th customer. But that achievement took a back seat to all the other things that are going on. Here are my current concerns -

• Runway — I’m running out of money. I have about $3k left in the bank. I know my brother’s $10k investment will mostly go towards obtaining a physical location. The answer is obviously more sales. I would like to avoid getting a loan to stay afloat, but I think there may be no other choice.
• Physical Location — I’ve chosen a location and I’m meeting with the real estate agent as well as 2 different contractors there on Tuesday. I’m taking bids from the contractors on how much it will cost to put 3 sets of washer / dryer hookups in the unit. I’m making a big bet that this place will pay for itself with foot traffic ($2k of expenses per month).
• Expenses — I’m still not paying myself and that has to come to an end soon. I have to make an effort to increase sales as best as I can. The next few months are going to be the toughest financially. I think a loan or investment before the end of this year is highly likely to keep it afloat until it reaches profitability.

Profitability is the most important milestone for this business bar none. I am specifically defining the point of profitability as the point in which the sales pay for all the expenses including my own salary of $800 per week.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I have a quarterly report coming up. Sales taxes are due soon. I’ve made a marketing deal with a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader for an endorsement on Instagram. I’ve done 2,000 lbs. of laundry since launching in March.

Suffice it to say that there’s a lot going on. There are a lot of problems. I know deep down that the best way to solve all of these problems is to increase sales. The best way to increase sales is to make partnerships with trendy Uptown Dallas apartment homes and get my flyers in their elevators and mail rooms.

Sales cures all. I need to be working towards getting to profitability as quickly as possible. I hope that I look back on this moment and say that this the point where I started really going after these partnerships and deals.

That’s all I have for today. I know this is a short entry but I have other work to do and I want to keep my commitment to publishing a post every weekend.

This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a 2016 Dallas startup called Feather. For your reference here is the Table of Contents for the series.

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