Prim Laundry Startup Throws In The Towel
techcrunch.com"Here, there are services that make life easier but not necessarily better, and that lose money every time they do business but exist thanks to their deep-pocketed investors."
It sounds like Prim did exactly what it was supposed to do: test the market. If there was indeed a strong enough market, they could work on creating a more efficient business without the need for outside capital. Investors are not in the business of throwing money away so people can get their laundry done, yet that seems to be exactly what the author is trying to say.
"Perhaps that money could be better spent helping people in need, and maybe so could the founders’ time."
Startups are incredibly capital efficient at testing needs. Even if there is nothing there, a lot of experience and knowledge is attained. Could such capital have been better allocated elsewhere? Probably not when you look at the potential upside.
Could such capital have been better allocated elsewhere? Probably not when you look at the potential upside.
This is a worthless analysis without data.
I don't see much potential upside. This is not a scalable business.
If you think technology-enabled laundry service in San Francisco is a good idea, you might give Rinse (https://www.rinse.com) a shot. We have a focus on making sure the price and product work in a competitive market, and on using spectacular customer service and quality assurance to build a solid brand.
It's surprisingly difficult to build an efficient delivery service. To succeed you need knowledge of the peculiarities of the delivered goods, effective management of the delivery staff, and of course clever software. Route optimization and dispatch are interesting problems, but quality tools for drivers and other staff are just as important!
This seems like a great business to develop in the college market. The options students often have are overpriced and inflexible laundry service or schlepping their duds half a mile into town. Any college you can get access to will be a great testing ground at least.
That's an interesting insight! We're currently focused on serving the urban professionals in San Francisco...
We're hiring a Marketing person to help with this type of question: http://www.rinse.com/careers/
College students have no money...
That's not necessarily true, I live in a college town and many students have loads of money. Most of the new off-campus housing targeted at students is out of my price range, and I'm single, work full time, and payed very well for the area.
Through Prim, these Stanford grads invented low paying jobs with long hours, even by YC standards. I wish somebody would have told them what a terrible idea this is in advance--but more likely than not it would have fallen on deaf ears. People fall in love with the idea of being a startup founder and only hear what they want to hear.