How I’m Starting Over
Have you ever day-dreamed about quitting your job and moving to a new city to start over? The thought can be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Imagine the flurry of emotions if you took action on that thought, if you actually did it. That’s what I did, and I want to tell my story as it is happening.
I’m documenting this story because I am a firm believer that thoughts fade, lessons are hard to learn, and mistakes are repeated as a result. Stories help us remember and I want to remember this moment and learn from it. And hopefully offer some value or insight to you as a result.
The city I moved to is Dallas, and the company I’m starting is Laundry Loop. This is my story.
What is Laundry Loop?
Laundry Loop is my answer to everything I’ve done wrong in the past. It is my attempt to make a living doing something I love: running a company. I’m so serious about this that I recently quit my awesome $65k job and moved from Tampa to Dallas to form this company. That’s the lofty answer.
The real answer is Laundry Loop is a laundry subscription service. We come to your house and get your laundry once a week, once a month, or once in a while, wash it, dry it, fold it, seal it, and bring it back to you. We will also take care of your dry-cleaning if you like. But please don’t click away! This is not an advertisement! (unless you live in Dallas) :)
Why Dallas? Why Now?
My brother lives in Dallas. He offered me a place to stay for a few months while I try to build my dream and I accepted. Opportunities like this are awesome and rare. His offer was the catalyst I needed to quit my job and without it I would still be living an empty dream in Tampa.
Why Laundry?
One of the biggest mistakes I have made as an entrepreneur is underestimating the importance of size of market. My past startup failures included a poker app, a website design studio, a Medium publication, and a live poker tour. I was passionate about all of them, but none of them could support me financially.
Since then, I’ve changed my way of thinking about startups and entrepreneurship. My most important criteria for my next company became chance of success over passion. I’m passionate about succeeding as an entrepreneur first and foremost.
When chance of success becomes your first priority, you see the world in a different way. You begin looking for the best opportunities! I wanted to double down on my strengths like face-to-face customer service, like building organizations and managing people, like providing a service rather than a product. More than anything, I wanted to solve a big problem for a lot of people. After assessing my own strengths I began looking at the market.
I wanted to know what startups are getting funded? What industries are most popular? What verticals within those industries? I was most intrigued by the push button service industry, a.k.a. Uber clones, a.k.a. “disrupters” like Washio, Task Rabbit, and Home Joy.
I’m intrigued by them because I’ve worked for tips my whole life. That’s over 2 decades of experience in the service industry working as a pizza delivery boy, waiter, bartender, and for the last 8 years as a poker dealer. I have intimate knowledge of what it takes to please people on a personal face-to-face level.
The companies above seek to “disrupt” the service industry by becoming the middleman between the person seeking the service and the person doing the service. That’s what Uber did, so it must work with any service, right?
Wrong. There is a fundamental difference.
What is the difference with the person who cleans your office or your home and the person who drives for Uber? What about a person who can fix your AC or your dishwasher? Or the person who can deal any poker game?
As the task becomes more specific or more difficult, the number of people performing the task goes down and the value of the task goes up. When fewer people are performing a task, there is a wider range of quality.
I’m not arguing that it takes more skill to do laundry, although it does a little. Of course, anyone can do laundry. But do you want a different person doing your laundry each time?
My point is Uber is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to the personal service industry. Most people want to keep the same dry-cleaner, the same nanny, the same favorite restaurant, and sometimes even the same waiter.
Most people don’t want a middleman!
On a deeper level quality matters (ref: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). How can you guarantee the quality of each different maid or nanny or mechanic when you are the middleman? How can you build a trustful relationship with your customer if you are outsourcing the core competency of your business?
You can guarantee quality by being the source, not the middleman.
There is another emerging industry that also intrigues me, which I like to call the “niche subscription” industry which includes companies like Birchbox, Bark Box, Faith Box, etc. I believe these companies have more longevity because they cater to a specific customer, one that adores the product or service. I adore full service laundry!
I have not done one load of laundry since 2007. I have not put a load in the washer, then put it in the dryer, then taken it out of the dryer, separated it, folded it, none of that. I hate the task of laundry enough that I am happy to pay for someone else to do it for me. I would pay double what I pay in fact.
After analyzing the shit out of all of this, I came to the conclusion that a laundry subscription service has the highest chance of success for me.
What is the purpose of this blog?
In one word: accountability. I believe in transparency and public accountability. I believe that by publishing this series I will be holding myself to a higher standard, a public standard. It does not have to be popular to serve its purpose, it just has to exist. Next week I will expand on this point by discussing the core business fundamentals I will hold myself accountable for, and how I will measure them within the context of this blog series.
This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a 2016 Dallas startup called Feather. If you would like to read more, here is the Table of Contents for the series.
Previous story: You Can’t Half-Ass a Startup
Next story: What it Means to Bootstrap
Thanks for reading!
