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Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

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Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

#161

Post by wellboy »

pg wrote: post #55
marknutter wrote: post #10

Yet 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?

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'd rather try to make their idea more scalable. Prim is super unscalable, it takes ages until they have critical mass in another city and before they can scale there are already a dozen competitors --> Not a billion dollar company.

Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

#162

Post by nikster »

napoleoncomplex wrote: post #126

I 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…

The truth is, there is no inconvenient tasks. The only way to remove inconvenience is to enjoy the things that you do. The only way to do that is to be completely present in the here and now - concentrate on setting one foot in front of the other on the way to the convenience store. Notice the miracles all around you - the plants; the other people; the raindrops; etc.

You don't need anyone to teach you this, you already know. All you need to do is pay attention.

You'll get unhappy if you think of your trip to the grocery store as an unpleasant thing you need to "get over with" so you can do... what exactly? Laze on the couch? Is that your perfect day? All tasks become pleasant when you put your full attention into them. The suffering only occurs when you wish you were doing something else.

I sometimes think what I'd do if I were a billionaire. I'd buy a huge yacht and fill it with models. And lots of property everywhere. But then maybe I'd spend all my time managing my yacht, my properties, and my portfolio. Hold on, that doesn't sound like fun at all. Maybe I'd hire managers for the yacht and the properties... then I'd spend all my time managing the managers. Doesn't sound like fun either.

Maybe I'd sit on a beach and do nothing. But then I could do that right now. Ta.

Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

#163

Post by ronilan »

jacquesm wrote: post #157
eitally wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No kidding!! With two toddlers I do laundry daily, and frequently the cycle is "remove clothes at bath time and put them directly into the washing machine".

If only because if you don't wash it right away it tends to start walking around all by itself, and a few days later it will talk back to you.

I washed my toddler daily and still started walking all by himself and talking back to me :)

Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

#165

Post by jacquesm »

ronilan wrote: post #163
jacquesm wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only because if you don't wash it right away it tends to start walking around all by itself, and a few days later it will talk back to you.

I washed my toddler daily and still started walking all by himself and talking back to me :)

That's a warranty issue ;)

Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

#166

Post by king_jester »

kneisley wrote: post #60
codex wrote: post #45

This 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.

This is basically like Seamless, but for getting your clothes washed instead of getting yourself fed. It organizes and simplifies a very chaotic market and presents it with a nice brand, and what sounds like great customer service. Also, you send them a picture of your key and they'll come in and get your laundry. That's both innovative and awesome.

> It organizes and simplifies a very chaotic market and presents it with a nice brand, and what sounds like great customer service.

Are laundry services really a chaotic market? Generally people use the laundry services available where they live (washer/drying in apt./house or in the building/development) or use a laundromat which is usually a local business. The vast majority of laundromats I have been to offer a wash and fold service, although pickup at home is less common.

> Also, you send them a picture of your key and they'll come in and get your laundry. That's both innovative and awesome.

Is this really that innovative? There have been personal cleaning services that will do this kind of thing since forever.

Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

#167

Post by jusben1369 »

jacquesm wrote: post #119
gfodor wrote: post #116

First-world problem? Sure. It's pretty hard to not laugh at the image of the surely brilliant Stanford engineer doing laundry for hipsters in the bay area burbs instead of out curing cancer. But, think about what happens if this actually works out. Think about the amount of time that will be returned to people, at scale. Think about the amount of capital that will be freed up. Think about the amount of resources that…

Trucking laundry around, having another worker load/wash/unload/iron and then the sorting / tagging / customer service issues associated with that seems pretty inefficient. It just adds overhead without removing any of the original work. It may be that the washing machines can be more efficient at scale but for that to be the dominant factor the process as a whole would have to be super efficient as well and that is…

I actually don't think that's right. The benefits to the planet of removing 1000 small (household) washing machines and dryers and replacing them with say 10 commercial ones is very very substantial and more than offsets the "work" that's wrapped around providing this as third party service vs doing it yourself.

Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

#168

Post by matthiasb »

Marriott just charged me $200 to wash a single bag. I did not realize it would be so expensive. Each item had a safety PIN with a number I had to remove myself. This service sounds like something I would be interested in when I am traveling and I don't want to carry a heavy luggage with me.

Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

#169

Post by jusben1369 »

patio11 wrote: post #156
olliesaunders wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the overall effect of this startup will be the opposite of what you just describe. Prim isn’t creating more dirty laundry, it’s consolidating the laundry jobs into batches that will be performed by fewer businesses than would otherwise overall. If you happen to own one of the laundromats that Prim doesn’t want to use you will see a reduction in your business. There is a saving grace for that situation however,…

I think they're probably competing with non-consumption rather than with their suppliers. Note the market segmentation and markedly higher prices, for example. (I have some accidental knowledge on this due to previous HN threads attempting to value laundry services as a perk from Big Daddy G, so I happen to know that weekly laundry pickup costs about $800 a year in SV, which is a sizable discount relative to this.) T…

Yes I agree with patio11 here. What they're essentially doing is "growing the market" for commercial laundry. In theory 80%+ of the laundry they're processing would otherwise be done inside the home. If they hurt anyone via disruption it's the kid at Sears selling washing machines and dryers.

Re: Prim (YC S13) Does Your Laundry. Pickup, Wash, Fold, Delivery, Awesome

#170

Post by aroman »

lobotryas wrote: post #89
aroman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well I think "both" is the first alternative described: get rich any way you can, then use the money for real good. I think Bill's Microsoft was definitely not very interested in "Don't be evil" -- monopolistic practices, stealing ideas and technology from Apple (who often stole themselves), trying to kill free software (see: home brew computer club), etc.

Don't get me wrong. I have tremendous respect for Bill -- I look up to him and give him a LOT of credit for his recent work and humility. But I don't think Bill did "both". He definitely fell squarely into the first limited category: being a ruthless capitalist to get rich, and then trying to figure out how to actually bring some tangible good into the world with that money. (See also Andrew Carnegie)

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