Scott 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.
It's true, when you break apart the business model, it is a 3rd party delivery/courier service for a niche market. This is not sustainable and has no barriers to entry.
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 will be more efficiently allocated. Having a washing machine in every household, if you step back, seems more than a little wasteful. Imagine giant uber-laundromats, akin to Amazon's fullfillment centers, that squeeze the last bit of efficiency out of the problem of ingesting dirty clothing on one end and spitting out freshly pressed, super-clean items on the other, and the logistics therein.
It's only a first-world problem because it costs $25 a load, which is absurdly expensive for most families. But what if it were $2.50? $0.25? Free if you watch an ad on your TV? Then it becomes truly disruptive.
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 very hard if you start by adding a huge amount of overhead over the original problem.
Having the ability to do your own laundry (especially with small kids) is pretty basic.
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?
If you've ever done any business travel, you know that a week's worth of laundry (Two Pants, five shirts, six pairs of t-shirts, socks and underwear) through the Hotel - usually goes for about $200-$225. If you are thrifty, and order a service, and are willing to wait for a week's delay, you can get your laundry done for about $100, but then you need to juggle logistics of actually getting your laundry to the service and back (and then worry about having to leave early, and stranding your laundry in a remote city)
If you are a freak (like me) - you actually track down a local laundromat, and burn a couple hours on a Saturday Morning doing your laundry to save the company $200, but 95% of business travelers just throw it on the company tab.
My advice to Prim - If they haven't already, reach out to Casto Travel (Typical corporate travel agency) - and every similiarly focussed travel agency, and see if they can get traction with the business travel market. You won't make any friends with the Hotels, but when I see a $250 laundry invoice for a single bag of laundry, I can't help but think that's a market ripe for disruption from below.
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.
If it makes you feel better: pretend you and your wife are immigrants to the United States, speak little English, are raising three children, and work long hours at a laundromat. The Internet, which you're pretty sure one of your kids has on that phone with the white earbuds, calls and tells you that it can offer you $3,000 of business. A month. For the forseeable future. No catch: they just want to pay you money to do that thing that you customarily take money to do.
So, hypothetical you, how frivolous would you rate this company, when it has just told you that you can probably now afford to send your eldest daughter to any school that will take her?
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.
Hatin' from the mid-west. Listen, I don't know about you, but I despise doing laundry. Their pricing is actually cheaper than the laundry mat down the street from me here in SF. It is a win! Plus, I get the tech; SMS when the driver is in route to pick-up and deliver. Time is critical for people working here, and shopping (InstaCart), chores (TaskRabbit/Exec), and now Laundry (Prim) are things I am willing to pay for.
It is true developers/entrepreneurs might have more disposable income here in SF than other cities, but we also have a startup for anything you need. I like the ability to pick and choose what I am willing to pay somebody else to do. Startups should make people's life less shity; I'd say Prim accomplishes that.
There were two inventions in particular that contributed to the empowerment of women: refrigerators and washing machines.
The former made it so that women no longer had to go to the market once per day. Instead, they could do one week's worth of shopping and store everything in the fridge.
The washing machine made it so that they no longer had to spend hours everyday washing clothes.
With all this free time, they could now start working outside the home. So they joined the workforce.
Bottom line: Do not be so quick to dismiss an idea. Things are often more complicated than they seem on the surface and can make a much bigger impact than you think.
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.
Considering that they mention a service in Los Angeles and the very specialized and expansive market in NYC (that serves WAY more than a privileged 20-something tech crowd), your characterization seems a bit unfair.
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.
I don't understand this response at all. "Businesses provide services to people that require those services and have the money to pay for them? Living in a densely-populated area gives you access to such niche services even though they wouldn't work where I live? Madness!"
I'm sure that living in Peoria is a fine choice, but you can't expect the world's startups to cater to you there. And that's OK.
What if you found out that their goal was to reduce the total number of washers, dryers, and irons in the United States? What if washers/dryers/irons are extremely inefficient and that by reaching scale PRIM reduces consumption?
It's a longshot, I know, but try to be a little less negative.
In India, these services already exist but have no mobile platform.
I live in Austin, do not have much disposable income, and have free time, but I hate doing laundry. I wish they'd come here, I'd pay their rates and cut back elsewhere.
I'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?
The crazy thing is, I kinda need a laundry service, but I have no idea how to find one. Do I just go on yelp? It's a form of business I've never used, so it makes me sort of anxious to try it.
Startups that make interactions with businesses less anxiety-provoking tend to get my money.
Take Uber for an example: there are Taxis all over SF. But hailing one is intimidating. So I'd rather push a button.
The difference in fees don't matter much to me. I'm paying Bay Area rent, remember! The money I spend on laundry and taxis and food delivery and whatever is basically a rounding error - too small to meter.
Same's worked with home cleaning. Established dinosaurs aren't moving quickly enough or don't understand what users want in sites/apps in many cases, IMO.
To an extent you are correct although your snarky tone is lame. The same could be said of towncars and taxis, for example, but Uber has absolutely brought a new spin to the market taking large advantage of the internet and mobile to organize constituents and offer enhanced service. I don't think laundry has quite the opportunity but I don't find it necessary to belittle the effort here since there is obviously room for improvement.
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.
I'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-brainer.
"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 rates? A laundry business probably has pretty slim margins, and a good one probably can get plenty of customers without offering discounts.)
- 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?
I would have loved this service when I was in grad school. I lived a mile from the nearest laundromat, and I would have to put a load in my backpack and truck it over on my bike. Laundry took literally all day to do. Add in bad Florida weather and the experience was downright miserable.
I wonder if it would be cheaper to crowdsource laundry service, like an airbnb for laundry. My washer is unused all day and it would be awesome if I could rent it out. My roommate tends to be at home too during odds times of the day and probably would be willing to do loads if it meant getting paid a nice fee.
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 roughly 10 minutes to get there, buy food and get back. Yet I still find it inconvenient. And after I get rid of that inconvenience, there will be something else that will start to bother me, a smaller inconvenience than the last one, but still bothersome. So where does it stop? I always think of those kids you see around, whose life has been completely removed of all unpleasantness by their overprotective parents, and who are spoiled/irritating beyond belief. Will we all turn into that?
Expanding on that, we probably won't all turn into that in the near future, because the inconvenience that we'll have removed will be taken care of by another human being, who in turn will take on all the unpleasantness. So there will be a class of people who do all of the "boring" work so the top class can "do what they want". It's already long established in things like house-cleaning, gardening etc. And the argument I get into is, why do "we" get to do what we want, and "they" get to do the work we (and in most cases they) find a waste of time. The counter-argument I get is it's a job, people get paid, and people can make any work enjoyable for themselves, even if it's picking up groceries/laundry for others. And I argue that if they can make any work enjoyable for themselves, why the hell don't we make picking up groceries/laundry enjoyable for ourselves? Or is making a boring task enjoyable again reserved for that other class of people, who don't have the means to avoid it?
This is quite a tangent, and I still think it's a cool idea, we're all working on projects which serve to remove pain-points for people, and abstracted away, you could argue my points for any business in the world.
Still, I'd like a start-up that instead of shifting my inconvenience to other people, removes my feeling of inconvenience itself. Once someone teaches me that, I'll be set for life. Maybe we can revive Marcus Aurelius and give him a few million dollars.
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.
> Still, I'd like a start-up that instead of shifting my inconvenience to other people, removes my feeling of inconvenience itself.
A program that instills resiliency into people (a dual n-back for virtue) would change humanity forever. I could see it happening through future versions of the Oculus Rift.
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.
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.
Come on, Xuwen. You run a laundry service. Your shirt should not look like it's spent the last week on your floor. The guy with the faux hawk is wearing a shirt that looks how I want my shirts to look. The very least you can do is use your own product and show why it rocks, and that means wearing a freshly cleaned shirt.
Purple Tie doesn't have 24-hour turnaround and doesn't serve my office every day. It's not that hard to make sure I send an order while I still have several days' worth of clothes left, though.
It'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.
I'm confused by all of these start ups that appear to be trying to disrupt TaskRabbit. From my perspective, Prim seems to offer the exact same service that I can hire via TaskRabbit so will have the same overhead cost structure (tech, marketing, etc.) but limited revenue opportunity (only clothes washing vs. any task). My TaskRabbit does my laundry and then also does whatever else I want. She does the laundry at her house, using idle equipment that she already owns.
I don't get it. Online laundry shops have been there for years. I've had my laundry picked up, washed, folded and delivered a few times.
Why does it need a Y-Combinator backed-startup? Can't wait to see a job posting asking for a "full-stack engineer". This is a typical laundry business: there's hundreds of them everywhere, all "startups" (in the original non-techy sense) who make money. They don't need a Techcrunch article, or any of that hype.
Not only it doesn't seem to "need a startup", I wonder what the founders and YC thought about the barrier to entry to the market. If there are already several competitors in this space, what would be the expected good outcome? A single company outlasting its rivals and leveraging economy of scale?
(Obviously YC is smart enough to give this a thought, curious to know what they think)
I keep thinking that logistics is THE issue here. I understand all the comments criticizing the idea, but the idea is awesome! Who would not say otherwise? Pick up laundry? Amazing! I want it now!
But the question is on the margins and prices. Sending a truck around is no joke and it costs money. You clearly see it because Prim drops USD 10 after the first bag. That is huge (40% discount guys).
How would I go about this? Create a scheduling service. Tell people their price drops if they find other people in the neighborhood. Tell them you make it cheaper if they schedule a day of the week. Reduce the requirement. 1 bag is big for a single person, but maybe half bag no, and what about if you say, ok, if you find another half bag 0.5 km from you we come anyway?
Look at this 2 dimensions: price and quantity. You can reduce price, you can reduce quantity (the half bag), you can reduce both. Then apply these 2 dimensions to a group purchasing model. You get benefits all over the place: incentive for customers to invite other customers, no risk in running on negative margins and better deals with the laundries.
You really can play a lot with this once you look at the real aspect of the problem, which is logistics. I would love to hear your comments on this guys, this is an issue many similar start ups face.
I Just did my laundry in a Singaporean Laundromat last weekend (Thompson Plaza) - One thing that sets them aside, is that in addition for "Self Service" - where you pay $15 to use a (small) washing machine and then a Dryer, you can also have your laundry done for you at $2 - $4 per item. They will basically put your laundry in the Washing Machine, then Dryer (at too hot a heat, I noticed - never Dry your laundry with the highest setting), and then fold it and put it in a bag for you.
You need to drop it off, and you need to pick it up.
My bag of laundry that I did for $15 ($5 washing Machine, $10 Dryer, on medium - so 1 Hr, would have been $10 if I had used it on High) - would have cost me $60 if they had washed it for me - And I had to both Drop it off, and come pick it up.
There was a very large queue of laundry waiting to be completed.
Prim should immediately look at expanding into Singapore - there is clearly a market for this service - and I have every expectation that something more convenient than having to drive your laundry over to a laundromat would be a big hit - at least with the people who drop their laundry off at Thompson Plaza.
So now we have the Uber for housecleaning, laundry/dry cleaning, cooking, shopping, babysitting(?), and at some point everything else under the sun that falls into the consumer home services umbrella. These business use technology and economics of scale to deliver convenient on-demand services at a reasonable price, with the thesis that the price becomes increasingly more reasonable with continued local density and national scale.
Is there a path to this where a large home services company is formed as a roll up of all of these types of services? Once the actual services and logistics models are proven and ironed out, it would at least on the surface appear to be many major benefits to a roll up: additional scale economies from logistics / transportation, cross-training and utilization of the service workforce, single platform for payment, cross selling services, and of course your run of the mill shared services among legal, HR, accounting, etc. I think to me the point on cross training and utilization of the service workforce is especially poignant, as these services see a lot of demand volatility, so having multiple service lines help smooth out labor productivity.
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.
Sheesh. 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?
Do people that start a business doing other people's laundry usually find themselves celebrated as a 'startup' and receive venture capital funding?
This is a news story because it has YC's name attached.
The objections and counterarguments, to me, provide valuable insight into what kinds of startups ought to be both celebrated and funded, as well as to gauging wider public reception for a service that is going to have to rely heavily on some significant pickup and economies of scale to not be a wasted investment.
That, and there are plenty of other social, economic, and environmental impacts a service like Prim poses that many, including myself, consider to be of significant concern and worthwhile evaluation in funding and celebrating such a service.
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.
[+] [-] cletus|12 years ago|reply
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.
[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mayGAx9ngvo
[+] [-] epa|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gfodor|12 years ago|reply
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 will be more efficiently allocated. Having a washing machine in every household, if you step back, seems more than a little wasteful. Imagine giant uber-laundromats, akin to Amazon's fullfillment centers, that squeeze the last bit of efficiency out of the problem of ingesting dirty clothing on one end and spitting out freshly pressed, super-clean items on the other, and the logistics therein.
It's only a first-world problem because it costs $25 a load, which is absurdly expensive for most families. But what if it were $2.50? $0.25? Free if you watch an ad on your TV? Then it becomes truly disruptive.
[+] [-] jacquesm|12 years ago|reply
Having the ability to do your own laundry (especially with small kids) is pretty basic.
[+] [-] marknutter|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghshephard|12 years ago|reply
If you are a freak (like me) - you actually track down a local laundromat, and burn a couple hours on a Saturday Morning doing your laundry to save the company $200, but 95% of business travelers just throw it on the company tab.
My advice to Prim - If they haven't already, reach out to Casto Travel (Typical corporate travel agency) - and every similiarly focussed travel agency, and see if they can get traction with the business travel market. You won't make any friends with the Hotels, but when I see a $250 laundry invoice for a single bag of laundry, I can't help but think that's a market ripe for disruption from below.
[+] [-] pg|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patio11|12 years ago|reply
So, hypothetical you, how frivolous would you rate this company, when it has just told you that you can probably now afford to send your eldest daughter to any school that will take her?
[+] [-] aroman|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] nodesocket|12 years ago|reply
It is true developers/entrepreneurs might have more disposable income here in SF than other cities, but we also have a startup for anything you need. I like the ability to pick and choose what I am willing to pay somebody else to do. Startups should make people's life less shity; I'd say Prim accomplishes that.
[+] [-] enraged_camel|12 years ago|reply
The former made it so that women no longer had to go to the market once per day. Instead, they could do one week's worth of shopping and store everything in the fridge.
The washing machine made it so that they no longer had to spend hours everyday washing clothes.
With all this free time, they could now start working outside the home. So they joined the workforce.
Bottom line: Do not be so quick to dismiss an idea. Things are often more complicated than they seem on the surface and can make a much bigger impact than you think.
[+] [-] dannyr|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] physcab|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antiterra|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] icambron|12 years ago|reply
I'm sure that living in Peoria is a fine choice, but you can't expect the world's startups to cater to you there. And that's OK.
[+] [-] kumarski|12 years ago|reply
What if you found out that their goal was to reduce the total number of washers, dryers, and irons in the United States? What if washers/dryers/irons are extremely inefficient and that by reaching scale PRIM reduces consumption?
It's a longshot, I know, but try to be a little less negative.
In India, these services already exist but have no mobile platform.
[+] [-] the_watcher|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Felix21|12 years ago|reply
Its really unfair to for anyone on the sidelines to criticize the man in the arena.
Be the change you want to see in the world: if you feel they are solving the wrong problems, go solve the right ones.
[+] [-] wiml|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jes5199|12 years ago|reply
Startups that make interactions with businesses less anxiety-provoking tend to get my money.
Take Uber for an example: there are Taxis all over SF. But hailing one is intimidating. So I'd rather push a button.
The difference in fees don't matter much to me. I'm paying Bay Area rent, remember! The money I spend on laundry and taxis and food delivery and whatever is basically a rounding error - too small to meter.
[+] [-] prawn|12 years ago|reply
Same's worked with home cleaning. Established dinosaurs aren't moving quickly enough or don't understand what users want in sites/apps in many cases, IMO.
[+] [-] pbreit|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nursie|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwilson|12 years ago|reply
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-brainer.
[+] [-] greenyoda|12 years ago|reply
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 rates? A laundry business probably has pretty slim margins, and a good one probably can get plenty of customers without offering discounts.)
- 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?
[+] [-] physcab|12 years ago|reply
I wonder if it would be cheaper to crowdsource laundry service, like an airbnb for laundry. My washer is unused all day and it would be awesome if I could rent it out. My roommate tends to be at home too during odds times of the day and probably would be willing to do loads if it meant getting paid a nice fee.
[+] [-] napoleoncomplex|12 years ago|reply
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 roughly 10 minutes to get there, buy food and get back. Yet I still find it inconvenient. And after I get rid of that inconvenience, there will be something else that will start to bother me, a smaller inconvenience than the last one, but still bothersome. So where does it stop? I always think of those kids you see around, whose life has been completely removed of all unpleasantness by their overprotective parents, and who are spoiled/irritating beyond belief. Will we all turn into that?
Expanding on that, we probably won't all turn into that in the near future, because the inconvenience that we'll have removed will be taken care of by another human being, who in turn will take on all the unpleasantness. So there will be a class of people who do all of the "boring" work so the top class can "do what they want". It's already long established in things like house-cleaning, gardening etc. And the argument I get into is, why do "we" get to do what we want, and "they" get to do the work we (and in most cases they) find a waste of time. The counter-argument I get is it's a job, people get paid, and people can make any work enjoyable for themselves, even if it's picking up groceries/laundry for others. And I argue that if they can make any work enjoyable for themselves, why the hell don't we make picking up groceries/laundry enjoyable for ourselves? Or is making a boring task enjoyable again reserved for that other class of people, who don't have the means to avoid it?
This is quite a tangent, and I still think it's a cool idea, we're all working on projects which serve to remove pain-points for people, and abstracted away, you could argue my points for any business in the world.
Still, I'd like a start-up that instead of shifting my inconvenience to other people, removes my feeling of inconvenience itself. Once someone teaches me that, I'll be set for life. Maybe we can revive Marcus Aurelius and give him a few million dollars.
[+] [-] nikster|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] wildermuthn|12 years ago|reply
A program that instills resiliency into people (a dual n-back for virtue) would change humanity forever. I could see it happening through future versions of the Oculus Rift.
[+] [-] bobwaycott|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] netcan|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] redthrowaway|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bobwaycott|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbhl|12 years ago|reply
Purple Tie does laundry at $1.69/lb (10 lb minimum, so $16.90 minimum) and also does pick-up at home.
How is this better?
[+] [-] prodigal_erik|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throaway823467|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] corporalagumbo|12 years ago|reply
I also notice a similar prejudice among commenters here. Come on people, this is basic economics.
[+] [-] bigchewy|12 years ago|reply
What am I missing?
[+] [-] nayefc|12 years ago|reply
Why does it need a Y-Combinator backed-startup? Can't wait to see a job posting asking for a "full-stack engineer". This is a typical laundry business: there's hundreds of them everywhere, all "startups" (in the original non-techy sense) who make money. They don't need a Techcrunch article, or any of that hype.
[+] [-] Nimi|12 years ago|reply
(Obviously YC is smart enough to give this a thought, curious to know what they think)
[+] [-] kfk|12 years ago|reply
But the question is on the margins and prices. Sending a truck around is no joke and it costs money. You clearly see it because Prim drops USD 10 after the first bag. That is huge (40% discount guys).
How would I go about this? Create a scheduling service. Tell people their price drops if they find other people in the neighborhood. Tell them you make it cheaper if they schedule a day of the week. Reduce the requirement. 1 bag is big for a single person, but maybe half bag no, and what about if you say, ok, if you find another half bag 0.5 km from you we come anyway?
Look at this 2 dimensions: price and quantity. You can reduce price, you can reduce quantity (the half bag), you can reduce both. Then apply these 2 dimensions to a group purchasing model. You get benefits all over the place: incentive for customers to invite other customers, no risk in running on negative margins and better deals with the laundries.
You really can play a lot with this once you look at the real aspect of the problem, which is logistics. I would love to hear your comments on this guys, this is an issue many similar start ups face.
[+] [-] ghshephard|12 years ago|reply
You need to drop it off, and you need to pick it up.
My bag of laundry that I did for $15 ($5 washing Machine, $10 Dryer, on medium - so 1 Hr, would have been $10 if I had used it on High) - would have cost me $60 if they had washed it for me - And I had to both Drop it off, and come pick it up.
There was a very large queue of laundry waiting to be completed.
Prim should immediately look at expanding into Singapore - there is clearly a market for this service - and I have every expectation that something more convenient than having to drive your laundry over to a laundromat would be a big hit - at least with the people who drop their laundry off at Thompson Plaza.
[+] [-] pfisch|12 years ago|reply
You don't need any VC money to do this....this is like running a baby sitting service....
[+] [-] ajiang|12 years ago|reply
Is there a path to this where a large home services company is formed as a roll up of all of these types of services? Once the actual services and logistics models are proven and ironed out, it would at least on the surface appear to be many major benefits to a roll up: additional scale economies from logistics / transportation, cross-training and utilization of the service workforce, single platform for payment, cross selling services, and of course your run of the mill shared services among legal, HR, accounting, etc. I think to me the point on cross training and utilization of the service workforce is especially poignant, as these services see a lot of demand volatility, so having multiple service lines help smooth out labor productivity.
[+] [-] rdl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uniclaude|12 years ago|reply
This said: Prim is cheaper (like, half the price!), offers a guarantee, and deals with a third party laundromat, which is a good idea for scaling.
Cool.
[+] [-] netcan|12 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] bobwaycott|12 years ago|reply
This is a news story because it has YC's name attached.
The objections and counterarguments, to me, provide valuable insight into what kinds of startups ought to be both celebrated and funded, as well as to gauging wider public reception for a service that is going to have to rely heavily on some significant pickup and economies of scale to not be a wasted investment.
That, and there are plenty of other social, economic, and environmental impacts a service like Prim poses that many, including myself, consider to be of significant concern and worthwhile evaluation in funding and celebrating such a service.
Also, that's really not what puritan means.
[+] [-] Nursie|12 years ago|reply
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.