LaundryaGoGo octupled its wash and fold delivery gross revenue in just three years! Yes, EIGHT TIMES GROWTH. Proprietor Peter Lowin describes how the pickup and delivery business model is designed to grow and his secrets to success.
Matt: 0:01
Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt episode 20 laundry of Gogo , two bowls it’s laundry delivery revenue in just three years. I’d like to introduce Peter Lowen . So excited to have you on the show. Peter low is the owner operator of laundry ago , ago. They’re based out of Pasadena, California. Your growth has just been phenomenal. I mean, it’s, it is just so exciting to watch you grow and watch your business grow. So you’ve been with us, I believe since about 2019, just incredible seeing your pickup and delivery, grow your wash and fold grow. And I think a lot of people could learn a lot from you is in terms of how to , how to bring your business to the next level. And I’m just so glad you’re a curbside client, because it’s been a real joy just seeing your business just flourish. So I’m just curious, like how did he get into pick up and delivery? What drove you into that, that direction? Well,
Peter: 0:55
So we owned , uh , two laundromats , uh, and both , uh , laundromats are pretty good size , uh, one in Pasadena and one in Burbank. And about five years ago, my wife and I , uh , looked into doing a third laundromat. Um, and we got pretty far along the due diligence , um, with that location. And then at some point we kind of had an epiphany and we asked ourselves, why do we want to do a third laundromat? Um, you know, especially after we realized how much , uh, of an investment it was gonna be was gonna be close to a million dollars. We realized that pickup and delivery was, was on the radar and there were other , uh , businesses, you know, starting that. And so we decided that we were gonna leverage our two locations to, to generate more revenue. And so that’s what we’ve done. And we , you know, another reason why we decided to do it was we kind of thought it was a defensive play because if we didn’t do it, we were afraid that, you know, there were gonna be, the other laundromats were gonna poach our washing fold business. And, you know, we had a pretty good established washing fold service. And so that’s why we
Matt: 2:16
Gotta do it well , that’s fantastic. And I think you’re right with was fold . What do we know? We know those customers like convenience. We , that’s what they’re paying for. They’re trying to save time. If they’re saving time, by bringing the laundry to the laundromat, they’re saving even more time. If you pick it up and they don’t have to drive to the laundromat and drive back to pick up their clothes, just wanted to dive right in there. Just so people could kind of see the growth that we’re, we’re talking about, just showing the, the chart and it shows you your rate of growth, just the pickup and delivery gross revenue from 2019 till today, these are just astronomical numbers because most typical laundromats would be happy to do what you did four years ago. You know, that would be if they made that per month, they would be happy and they’d be a success. One year later, you’re basically doubling what you were doing the following year and pick up and delivery. The following year went up towards the end of year. It’s basically double triple. Now it’s just off the charts. I mean, at some point you’re gonna be hitting like, maybe I shouldn’t say this, we’re gonna be
Peter: 3:17
Hitting , uh , as much as,
Matt: 3:19
Yeah , it’s gonna be like six figures a month. I mean, you’re , you’re just hitting grant slams and it’s growing. I’m curious, as far as, you know, in July to August, there seemed to be a pretty big bump. And do you , is there something that you attribute that to ? Yeah.
Peter: 3:33
You know, when we first started in 2019, it was kind of like a soft opening, you know, the , the , the first thing that we did was, you know, establish a good SEO friendly website , uh , with the help of curbside. Um, and then, you know, because, you know, it was all new for us. We got a van and , um, and then we kind of like soft launched. Um, we did do some , uh, Google AdWords advertising. And then after that, we continued with that. And then we did some Yelp advertising and for the first six to nine months, myself and my wife, we were the drivers and, and , uh , it didn’t take very long, you know, it just take, you know, a couple of hours , uh , each morning to, to do the pickup and deliveries at the time. And then at some point the website gets its legs on the
Matt: 4:30
Internet. Yeah. It gets traction. It takes time for that to happen. Right.
Peter: 4:33
It , it does . We started, you know, getting increased traffic from the internet and our advertising as well. The Google AdWords I think, was starting to, you know , gain momentum and that also something else happened. And I think it was, oh yeah, it was COVID. Oh yeah. That’s We , you know, we were on a steady path , uh , you know, growing, but COVID really sort of accelerated that, that acceleration kept growing through this past fall and through the winter,
Matt: 5:06
It was growing way beyond that too. I mean, that did make it double what it was before, but I mean, even without that, it was still significant from 2019 to 2020, and then it just, just ballooned again.
Peter: 5:19
So , yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So last year when the pandemic , um, sort of was more under control before, you know, OCN , I kind of wondered whether, you know, this was a , you know, this was a pandemic, you know, benefit , uh , for our business. My view is that it’s not, I think that the convenience of the pickup and delivery service is something that people have gotten a taste for. And people have learned about people are looking for, you know, convenience waste to, you know, save time in their day and looking for services that they feel like is worth it.
Matt: 5:59
Somebody posted it on super sets or our laundromat, they uploaded to Google my business and the photo showed the laundry done by us right next to some Uber food or door dash . And, and also right next to like an Amazon box. So yeah , three different things picked up or delivered to them. And it’s all in one picture. And they’re just, you could tell they’re so proud of it. And I remember reading in some magazine about how COVID in a way, ushered in like a new economy where not just a new economy, but it , it helped fast forward to where things were gonna go anyways, like working from home, a lot of people are doing and getting stuff delivered and, you know, just all these different things that we just thought we had to travel all the way for something. And now there’s more virtual things. And I think pick up and delivery, saving time, Amazon deliveries, there’s just a new way of doing things. Absolutely.
Peter: 6:51
And you know, my wife and I have have , uh , kind of a unique experience we bought and to a national house cleaning franchise in 2006. And we owned that business until 2016 until we sold it. You know, this pickup and delivery service is similar in terms of the convenience that it provides a household. I find a few different similarities between the two businesses. The first be the business model is very similar. The business model is fundamentally designed to grow because the bulk of our pickup and delivery business, I think , uh , between 60 and 80% are regular recurring customers. Right? And then we have another percentage of customers who don’t use this every week or every two weeks, but they use this regularly. That’s about 60 to 80% of our pickup and delivery business, as long as you keep taking care of, of , of those customers. And which is why I believe, you know, customer service is really, really important in this, then you keep gaining new customers. And so you keep gaining new customers on top of your, you know, existing customers. And so the model is designed for con continued growth
Matt: 8:13
Is so well sad . I mean, that’s what it’s all about. And I , and I think that caught us by surprise too. I mean, we saw the numbers, but it’s took us a while to interpret it as we’re growing. And that’s exactly it. We were, it’s all about retention. You know, I get people calling me, Hey, and they’re making really good money, but they’re like, how do I compare it to other people and this and that. And it’s like, it doesn’t even matter what number you’re at right now. It’s all about the Delta. What is the change? What is your rate of growth? Because that’s gonna determine your future. Yeah .
Peter: 8:40
Because of COVID and because the economy has changed, we don’t know what the, you know, each next six months are gonna bring, we may not experience the same speed of growth, but I strongly believe that we will continue to grow. And if we’re not, then you ask yourself, why aren’t we growing? And maybe it’s because of advertising. Maybe it’s because of this. Maybe it’s because of that. And you make adjustments.
Matt: 9:08
Exactly. That’s a fun part about the business. You can make adjustments, you could advertise to your existing customers, get them to order again. You could advertise a new customer. So they find you, there’s a lot of different tools at our disposal. You know, a really great part about you is you are no stranger. You’re calling and saying, Hey, you’re looking for advice, looking for ways of growing your business. So , and so a lot of it was just dialogue and just talking about your situation and some people go on a it, and you’re like grabbed it by the bull by horns and said, Hey, let’s go figure it out. And, and I think that’s a big reason for your success as well. At one point you’re, you’re growing and you decided to pull back on advertising. And I thought that reason was very interesting. It’s because at that time you had a , maybe it was a single, like one van at the time. You knew if you on growing, you’re gonna have to maybe buy another one. And you are at a sweet spot, you know, where everything was very, and if you buy another vehicle, then it just adds more pieces. So I just, right . If you could talk about that, as far as the reason to pull back on advertising,
Peter: 10:09
We had grown so much and so quickly that we needed to high more staff. The time between every additional vehicle is it’s a big jump. You reach up to a point where, you know, I think I’m gonna need a new van, but you know, the expense of a new van and really not only the van, but the commercial auto insurance is also consideration. And then the most expensive piece is , is the driver for the van, right? So the additional payroll. So we were having a hard time finding staff. And so, yeah, we just, we pulled back all of our advertising , uh , that was about a year ago. And we have not gone back to advertising. We’ve been growing organically.
Matt: 10:54
Ultimately if they’re scheduling a pickup and delivery, either going to your website. And so it’s, and it’s all connected to your web presence. And that’s one thing to consider as well. Like you’ve got the website, which really helped you grow a whole bunch. And, but then it’s also all the different , um, your online
Peter: 11:10
Reputation. We have an advertised anywhere print or internet for, for a year.
Matt: 11:17
You know, that’s amazing because I see a lot of places, they , they get going and they’re relying a hundred percent on Google AdWords and they’re spending thousands of dollars. And then when you look at their customer acquisition costs, it’s through the roof. And it’s really hard to make money if all your leads are coming by paid advertising. So we, we do spend, you know, a couple grand at super sets to get more customers up , but we get way more just like you, we get way more customers just organically. So it’s all about the website presence and all the things that go to factor. That’s great that you could have the website and make sure your reviews are good and do a good job. And then you don’t have to pay for advertising. If you ever want to hit the gas pedal, you can, if you want to, but you’re already doing fantastic as it is exactly
Peter: 12:00
Matt . And that , that reminds me of another reason why we kind of pulled back. The advertising was we had , we were growing so much, you know, when you have so much more volume, invariably, you know, different things come up, more phone calls , um , more issues, you know, kind of come up. My wife and I, we have big aspirations to be able to travel next year. Our daughter is , uh , going off to college in Spain for a year. And we wanted to be able to digest all of the growth before we decided what we wanted to it to do in terms of growth, knowing like you said, you know, we can put, you know, we can press down on the gas pedal when we want to. And you know, that may happen sometime, you know, this coming year continued growth isn’t necessarily ideal for, for every business, especially, you know, when we’ve grown, you know, this much already, that’s the thing is you can accelerate the gas or you , you can pull back a little bit depending on what you want to do.
Matt: 12:59
Well, I just wanted to thank you for yeah. Being on the podcast, because I think your story’s phenomenal. And I think it really puts perspective in like one approach of doing it. And the whole reason you got into pick up and delivery, and also just taking care of your customers, because exactly what you said, this is a growth business it’s designed for growth and that’s because of retention. So that’s such an important factor and just, I’m so glad you’re a client of ours and , um, just wish you continued success.
Peter: 13:25
Thank you. Thank
Matt: 13:26
You. If you would like to learn more about the curbside laundries wash and fold point of sale , pick up and delivery solution, or about the topnotch laundromat websites that we make for our clients. Check out curbside laundries.com. If you enjoy the show, don’t forget to click like or subscribe.
