An unfortunate name in the light of PRISM revelations.
I read it as Prism as well.
Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
41–50 of 216 posts
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
"This service is maybe $5 more expensive than taking it to a wash & fold yourself..." Which means the price might not be sustainable once the venture capital funding runs out, and would have to be raised to cover the company's real expenses. Think about it: - Prim is probably paying as much as anyone else would for the laundry services. (Why would a well-rated laundry service give Prim a discount from their usual rat…
Though by that time, with their customer base, they can guarantee bulk economical washing machines directly from manufacturers, discounted rental space, and hybrid or electric cars to further cut down costs.
"they can guarantee bulk economical washing machines directly from manufacturers..."
Do the people running this business know anything about actually washing clothes? What makes you think they could set up and operate a commercial laundry themselves and make a profit doing it? These are a couple of young Stanford grads who originally wanted to do an "in-video advertising platform".
"discounted rental space..."
Why would someone rent them commercial space at a discount?
"and hybrid or electric cars to further cut down costs..."
I don't think cars are economical for doing laundry pickups. How many 20 pound laundry bags can you fit into a car before having to go back to the laundry to drop them off? That would waste a lot of driver time, which is probably much more expensive per hour than gas.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
As fellow (hopefully that's a safe assumption) an outsider looking in, I have to agree with this. It also just generally frustrates and disappoints me that so many brilliant young developers and entrepreneurs spend their time fixing textbook first world problems instead of addressing the poverty, disease, crime, and unrest which still plagues the world.
entrepreneurs look for problems with money in mind. philanthropists look for money with problems in mind.
I really like that.
As rising high school senior, I often struggle with this -- the question of whether to get rich any way I can and then make my mark on the world (a la Bill Gates), or whether I should strive for my money-making to also be genuinely (in my opinion/worldview) beneficial for mankind.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#44It's interesting to see the great lengths the TC writer goes to to justify (primarily to himself, it seems) this idea as socially valid. I would have thought the efficiency benefits of passing off home labour to specialised businesses would have been patently obvious, especially to a technology journalist. Do we really still stigmatise people as being "lazy" just for wanting to focus on their specialisation?
I also notice a similar prejudice among commenters here. Come on people, this is basic economics.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#45This looks like a horrible business. It's old (one of the world's oldest professions) and it doesn't scale (huge marginal cost). It uses unskilled labor with repetitive motion--factory like conditions. Competition is fierce: a dry cleaner already exists on practically every city block. Can someone explain the innovation? To me it looks like someone who wants to do a startup more than they have original ideas.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#46Next, we'll see the return of the milk man and we'll almost be in time for living just like exactly a century ago. These are not fresh, new ideas.
I'm hoping for a doctor that makes house calls.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#47It's interesting to see the great lengths the TC writer goes to to justify (primarily to himself, it seems) this idea as socially valid. I would have thought the efficiency benefits of passing off home labour to specialised businesses would have been patently obvious, especially to a technology journalist. Do we really still stigmatise people as being "lazy" just for wanting to focus on their specialisation? I also n…
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Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#48Yet another startup that caters to the 20 something tech crowd with too much disposable income and too little free time on their hands. Do people in Silicon Valley ever leave spend time outside Silicon Valley?
I disagree with this. When I was a poor grad student, laundry was the greatest time sink of my life. I spent many Sundays trucking loads of laundry between my apartment and my laundromat a mile away. $20 was definitely a reasonable sum to have that time given back to me. And I'm sure many of the other people I met there (often mothers who were disciplining unruly children) would have said the same thing. If you think this is purely an entitled tech worker problem, you've never spent significant amounts of time in run-down laundromats.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#49Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#50Scott Wiener came to Google and gave a talk about pizza in NYC [1]. It was an interesting talk but one thing I remember was this: he said that you can't just cut up a sell a pizza by the slice and replicate what you have in NYC.
The point of this is that pizza by the slice is a culture that comes about and continues to exist for historical reasons, namely that Manhattan (in particular) is densely populated and people walk a lot, which has a bunch of other consequences. You can't just replicate that.
Also in NYC we have wash and fold laundromats. I walk five blocks to work and pass four of them on 8th Avenue. They're open 7 days a week (one from 7am-11pm every day). They will pick up your laundry and drop it off or you can drop it off and pick it up yourself.
Typically you pay $0.60-1.00/lb (plus something per load) for this and drop it off in the morning you get it back the same day. There are historical reasons for this but again it survives due to cultural and infrastructure reasons.
So something like this doesn't really work in low density car-dominated locales like the Valley.
I'm a little confused by Prim because ultimately they're just a courier service for clothes that subcontracts the cleaning to local laundromats. Okay...
But I question the demand for this given the economics and different culture.
This also highlights to me the benefits of living high-density as lots of things become possible. Effective public transport for example.