This seems awesome -- I wonder if there's a market in offering this as a perk for employees, either just doing normal pickup/etc. at home, or letting smaller startups offer onsite laundry dropoff/pickup as a perk. It would kind of suck to take your clothes to work if you took transit, but if you drive, throwing a bag of laundry in your trunk and picking up a bag of clean clothes on the way home would be easy.
Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
81–90 of 216 posts
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's say I'm an entry-level freelancer who bills out at $100/hr. ... 1. Work for an hour, generating $100, and spend 20% of that getting someone else to do my laundry. I know you're just an entry level freelancer, but $25 is actually 25% of $100.
You're only right if he would be doing laundry every hour. Let's say he works 8 hours a day for $100/hour. That's $800 a day. For 5 days a week, that's $4000. Let's say he does 2 laundry a week, that's $50 which is 1.25% of his salary. No brainer. rdouble: thanks. I hope I can learn from your "expertise".
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Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#83Even if I have the money, I don't want more human servants, I want more automation so that the sum total of menial work done by people goes down. How about a robot that does laundry? I'm thinking of a third robot that interacts with our existing and totally fabulous washing machine and dryer robots instead of a human.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#84Yet 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?
When the PC first came out, it only catered for the rich. Same with cell phones, cars, etc.
How about restaurants? Why should people eat out when it's cheaper to cook at home?
If founders listen to people like you, nothing will be built.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#85Even if I have the money, I don't want more human servants, I want more automation so that the sum total of menial work done by people goes down. How about a robot that does laundry? I'm thinking of a third robot that interacts with our existing and totally fabulous washing machine and dryer robots instead of a human.
Isn't that what will ultimately happen? Once a business has the financial incentive to optimize how it's done they will eventually get to automating it when that is possible/economical.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
These founders merely did what I advise every startup to do, build something for which they are initial market. So essentially you're complaining that the founders are members of the demographic group that they are. But that seems unfair; they can't help that.
I'm sure it'll make money since it's exploiting the lazy. The folding is a nice touch, but it's essentially useless since it puts unwanted creases and wrinkles in clothes. They aren't following tag instructions, either. Based on this, here are the steps that are actually useful: 1. Separate white clothing from non-white clothing. 2. Place white clothing in washer and add soap. 3. Place white clothing in dryer. 4. Pla…
Right... "exploiting". I guess that's what every business that charges money for something the customer wants to obtain is doing.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#87I'm a subscriber to this service and I can verify it is awesome. I'm rarely home (nor does my apartment or building have machines), the wash & folds close to me are known to lose laundry, and I absolutely don't have time to sit around and wait for my laundry in a laundry mat (you know, startup taking up all my time). This service is maybe $5 more expensive than taking it to a wash & fold yourself, so it's a no-braine…
"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…
> - Can the extra $5 pay for the cost of the person who is picking up and delivering the laundry (a truck driver probably gets much more than minimum wage), the fuel and maintenance of the trucks, insurance, office space, computers, etc. and still provide profit for Prim?
That would depend on how many different pickups/dropoffs the drivers can get per units of time/fuel.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#88Even if I have the money, I don't want more human servants, I want more automation so that the sum total of menial work done by people goes down. How about a robot that does laundry? I'm thinking of a third robot that interacts with our existing and totally fabulous washing machine and dryer robots instead of a human.
Isn't that what will ultimately happen? Once a business has the financial incentive to optimize how it's done they will eventually get to automating it when that is possible/economical.
Only if people are willing to put up with having more servants in their lives in the interim. But if not, people will just keep doing their own laundry and the business will fold, or perhaps just reach a level where for some people it offers a slight improvement on existing laundry services. Whereas a laundry robot would be really quite the revolution, it would end up being a new mandatory home appliance after dishwasher, stove, fridge, washer, and dryer if it worked out. But then again, it's probably super hard to build such a thing.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Why not both?
After making his fortune, Bill is now working to better the world by using it to power his charitable foundation. If you're really confident then both tasks are within your reach. Don't listen to the nay-sayers who'd rather we all work as volunteers for the Peace Corps
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#90Yet 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?
When the PC first came out, it only catered for the rich. Same with cell phones, cars, etc. How about restaurants? Why should people eat out when it's cheaper to cook at home? If founders listen to people like you, nothing will be built.
To be fair, in places that aren't the Valley wash-and-fold services are a dime a dozen, the product is heavily commoditized, and availability is high. You wouldn't need a high-tech web-based provider of laundry, because there's a perfectly good low-tech one already doing it, doing it cheap, and doing it well.
This is not a case of a new product being upmarket before working its way downmarket. It's a case where something that exists at rock-bottom prices everywhere else is being introduced to the Valley at a premium, because for some crazy reason the SF/Bay hasn't figured out laundry by now.
This feels like a business that solves a Bay Area Problem. The question is how many other geographies are there where there is sufficient demand, insufficient development of local alternatives, and the income level to support this kind of pricing.
I think it's safe to say that this sort of service doesn't stand a stone cold chance in hell in a place like NYC, where laundromats are everywhere, pick-up-drop-off services a dime a dozen, competition fierce, prices low, and being VC-funded with a cool mobile app doesn't earn you many (if any) points.