I'm a user, Prim is awesome. Hoping they branch out a bit, and can help me do my dishes too (only 50% kidding).
Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
131–140 of 216 posts
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#132Yet 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?
Non-tech New Yorker here. I have a laundry unit in my apartment, but I drop off my laundry for wash-and-fold at the laundromat. It costs me about $15 every one-and-a-half weeks, on par with lunch.
You find having someone else do your laundry ridiculous. That's fine. I find every dwelling having its own laundry infrastructure similarly silly.
Given that there is already a robust wash-and-fold industry in New York which, to a large degree, already offers delivery, this start-up appears to be doing what tech does best. It has found an existing, de-centralised value chain and is using technology to make it work better.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#133I had an argument about these type of services when Instacart showed up, not a well-thought out one, but here goes. My first thought with these services is always "that's cool!". I'll save time, won't have to bother with some boring task etc, no more inconvenience! Same reaction with Instacart. Then I questioned that reaction. The store where I buy all my food is roughly a 100m away from my apartment, and it takes me…
Not a 'challenge':
Are you or aren't you describing the whole of non-medical, non-moon landing human technological progress? (Yes, 'progress' is a loaded word, but depending on your perspective, that may be the point.)
Neolithic Rev. onward, it's been specialize, optimize, specialize, optimize. What's Excel do that you can't do with an abacus?
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#134Next, 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.
This already exists - http://www.oberweis.com/web/default.asp My parents (suburban middle class family) still use the service to this day. How do they justify it? The milk is better quality then anything that's mass produced in the grocery store (and my parents still go to the grocery store regularly) and doesn't contain all of the growth hormones. I would argue it is very niche though.
Touché. I should have googled beforehand.
Of course, a $3.00 delivery fee hardly seems extravagant compared to Prim charging ~33x the average cost of completing a load of laundry in one's home.
Any reason they don't just buy organic milk?
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#135Sheesh. The objections on this thread (SV bubble), expected objections (first world problems) and counterarguments to both (don't worry! time saved will go to raising kids, curing cancer & cooking quinoa!) make this discussion sound so puritan.
Curing cancer is great. So is raising children. Exercising. Reading. Etc. But are we saying that a laundry service is only valid if it can be justified with time spent on something wholesome or saintly? Prim sounds quirky in that it's startup-ish, but basically it's a service that does your laundry. Some people don't want to do their own laundry and will pay money to have someone else do it. Simple.
Do people that start a business doing other people's laundry really need to justify themselves?
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#136I'm under the impression that pick-up-and-drop-off laundry has been a common business in larger cities for the last, oh, century or more? Is this just a "...yeah, but this time it's on the Internet!" business model?
Yeah, I was wondering. It might have a nice web frontend, but otherwise... I was using a service like this in London about five years ago, and I'm pretty sure it's been a available as a service for as long as there have been people wanting clothes cleaned.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#137I had an argument about these type of services when Instacart showed up, not a well-thought out one, but here goes. My first thought with these services is always "that's cool!". I'll save time, won't have to bother with some boring task etc, no more inconvenience! Same reaction with Instacart. Then I questioned that reaction. The store where I buy all my food is roughly a 100m away from my apartment, and it takes me…
I think you have good points not far from what I was getting at in my longer comment elsewhere in the thread--that of shifting personal inconveniences from mundane chores onto other humans who are likely making far less than the user of this service, and don't get to benefit from the 'value'.
They still have to go home and do their laundry.
Funding and celebrating startups should evaluate the value that is offered to users and to the people who staff the companies. There's a lot of workers who are going to get the shit end of the value proposition here.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#138Sheesh. The objections on this thread (SV bubble), expected objections (first world problems) and counterarguments to both (don't worry! time saved will go to raising kids, curing cancer & cooking quinoa!) make this discussion sound so puritan. Curing cancer is great. So is raising children. Exercising. Reading. Etc. But are we saying that a laundry service is only valid if it can be justified with time spent on some…
Absolutely not. This business is common all over the world and as old as houses.
I'm not objecting as such, but I do wonder what's novel about it. I suppose making national/international business out of it is quite novel as most operations of this type tend to stay small and local.
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Let's say I'm an entry-level freelancer who bills out at $100/hr. It's 5PM on a Wednesday. I need to do the laundry because I have a client meeting tomorrow and they usually look at me funny when I wear crumpled tee shirts that smell kinda funky. I could do one of two things: 1. Work for an hour, generating $100, and spend 20% of that getting someone else to do my laundry. (Plus, I get to drink beer when I'm working…
>> Let's say I'm an entry-level freelancer who bills out at $100/hr.
Where is $100 an hour entry level? Wowsers...
Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome
#140I had an argument about these type of services when Instacart showed up, not a well-thought out one, but here goes. My first thought with these services is always "that's cool!". I'll save time, won't have to bother with some boring task etc, no more inconvenience! Same reaction with Instacart. Then I questioned that reaction. The store where I buy all my food is roughly a 100m away from my apartment, and it takes me…
:)
a start-up that instead of shifting my inconvenience to other people, removes my feeling of inconvenience itself
I don't think getting a stoic to do your laundry will have the desired effect. I get what you're saying. But this is a matter of right tool for the right job. Marcus Aurelius for figuring out if you should do your own laundry or use Prim. Laundry services for doing the laundry if Marcus says it needs doing.