Every time we stay in a hotel for more than a week we need to do our laundry at some point. You could always pay for the laundry service at the hotel, but these usually end up costing more than buying a new piece of clothing instead. With the rise of smartphones (that we just call phones now) and Uber clones, why couldn’t you make an Uber for laundry or maybe something smaller just a simple laundry pick up business.
Idea #31, part 1: Uber for laundry
Everybody who has a car could be an Uber driver, then why not do that for the washing machine.
Everybody who has a washing machine and a car can be a cleaner for your new cleaning service with a cool apps and everything.
How it work
When you need laundry to be done you go on the app and tell them what you need to clean and when they can pick it up.
The cleaning consultant receives a notification and can take the job or not.
If he picks up the job, he needs to get the dirty clothes and then wash them at his place of choice.
How it make money
The cleaning consultant receives 70% of what the client paid of the job, but they have to provide laundry detergent, softener, etc.
Note that probably it would need to have standard bags and have a rate for each of them to control the price more easily.
Problems
My wife quickly pointed out a few problems with it, aside from letting strangers wash my torn out underwear. Why would you give your laundry to a random person instead of just dropping it at your local laundromat for probably cheaper. How is the service consistent if it is a random person each time? If that is not a problem, and price is the issue, why not use task rabbit or Craigslist to find someone and use that person every time instead of a random service who takes a 30% cut.
Alternative, Idea #31, part 2: Apps for a laundromat
This business model is probably well suited for laundromat. You can usually do this kind of service where you can drop off your bag of dirty cloth and they will wash it and fold it for you.
The cost is lower than in a hotel and it could charge a little extra for the pickup at your place instead of you dropping it off.
You could either pay for a delivery guy (or gals) or use a service like Uber deliveries.
Alternative, Idea #31, part 3: Offer multiples services like mixing laundry pick up with cleaning services
You could integrate previous Idea (#29, #28) and offer cleaning service while taking care of the laundry. Either your cleaning staff pick-up the laundry when they’re done cleaning or they do it on site (not really a good idea, you’ll be liable if you broke their washing machine).
Services like this elsewhere
I had the idea back in 2010, but since then a lot of these services have popped up. Some, like wash.io, started in 2013 and have failed for some of the reasons my wife described. Others are still going, like Naki Laundry and Press Cleaners just to name a few, so the model still holds up. They usually include washing and dry cleaning.
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