
Washio on-demand laundry service shuts down operations - petethomas
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/washio-on-demand-laundry-service-shuts-down-operations/
======
ejcx
I tried washio within the last 2 months for the first time. It was much harder
than using a neighborhood laundromat IMO.

I scheduled for it to be picked up and had to wait 2 days, versus the
neighborhood folks who do it same day.

I paid $100 to do the laundry (plus a $15 recommended tip). I was expecting it
to be cheap since I had a coupon but was blown away. I didn't do the math to
estimate the costs going in. My SO and I, I guess, had a ton of laundry.

All in all, it's expensive and not a wonderful/magical experience. It serves a
fairly basic need and with the price I paid, after 2-3 trips, it is cheaper
for me to buy my own washer and dryer in no time.

I can now use this as a "look I was right" to my SO, because after I got the
bill I said "they are going to go out of business with these prices".

~~~
eropple
_> I paid $100 to do the laundry (plus a $15 recommended tip). I was expecting
it to be cheap since I had a coupon but was blown away. I didn't do the math
to estimate the costs going in. My SO and I, I guess, had a ton of laundry._

That is _bonkers_ expensive. At my old place in Somerville, MA (not exactly a
cheap place to live), $100 would be four large hampers full of laundry and my
shirts would be pressed.

Of course, it's not a VC-backed startup, just an actual business, so it's not
cool.

~~~
benten10
>>At my old place in Somerville, MA (not exactly a cheap place to live), $100
would be four large hampers full of laundry and my shirts would be pressed.

Was the before, or after the 10% Tufts discount though? If you're below 35,
you gotta pretend you forgot your ID, and take that sweet sweet discount. Same
for the Sushi place that's right next to the Tufts-discount laundry place.

In other (totally irrelevant) news from current-Somerviller to (past?)
Somerviller: area around Davis has gotten almost on par with Harvard Square
prices (in terms of rent). Things are crazy around here!

~~~
eropple
You're thinking of the place in Powder House Square, but they don't do pickup.
(Also, Yoshi's was a regular lunch spot when I worked from home.) Teele Square
Laundromat does pickup/delivery and was my go-to. I wouldn't have used the
discount anyway, though; I don't need ten percent off and they work much
harder than I do.

Somerville's prices are disgusting, as is most of the area--I just moved to
Malden, where I've got a really nice 2BR that isn't in a falling-apart house
for about two-thirds of what I'd have paid in Somerville or Cambridge. And I'm
actually a touch closer to downtown Boston for when I want to go out...I
thought I'd be sacrificing something I cared about to move here, but nope.

------
brianmcconnell
While the VC backed services drop like flies, neighborhood businesses continue
as if nothing happened. I've lived in the same neighborhood in San Francisco
for 20 years. The local dry cleaner is still doing just fine, though a bit
older and grayer.

I think the lesson here is that the Uber for X model was predicated on people
being so unhappy with the incumbents that they would switch. Pre-Uber taxi
services were criminally awful enterprises that deserved to get a beating.
Local neighborhood businesses might be a bit low tech, but they know what they
are doing (so there isn't much to disrupt).

~~~
jonnathanson
Yes, plus there's also the size and frequency of the pain point to consider.
Uber makes sense; millions and millions of us need to get somewhere at any
given point in the day, and many of those millions have that need multiple
times a day. An on-demand solution, conveniently at the click of a button on
your phone, makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Laundry and dry cleaning? First, that's definitely not a daily need. Debatably
a weekly need. Second, it's not really a _mobile_ need, and I don't just mean
in terms of the device. It's not an on-the-go problem. Sure, the idea of on-
demand pickup and dropoff sounds mildly more convenient than the traditional
method -- but not so much more so that it's worth the price premium.

------
smacktoward
The best part is that previous reporting on this company (discussed on HN
contemporaneously here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7817895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7817895))
indicated that they _weren 't actually even doing the laundry._ All that stuff
had been outsourced to another company, called "Wash Then Fold" (WTF, nice
touch).

At the time, I wondered if there actually proved to be any money to be made
here what would stop Wash Then Fold from just setting up their own app and
cutting Washio out of the transaction entirely. Three years later, here we are
and lo and behold:

[https://www.washthenfold.com](https://www.washthenfold.com)

------
whalesalad
Many times I'd look in my bag to find someone else's clothing. One time I
ended up with a young ladies lacy underwear which kinda made me feel like a
creep.

During my move from SF to Ann Arbor I made the mistake of outsourcing the
washing of pretty much all of my clothing and linens with them. They lost all
of it and couldn't find it for about a month.

Let's just say I am very glad I have a washer and a dryer in my home. Certain
things just shouldn't be outsourced.

~~~
pavel_lishin
On the other hand, I've used a laundromat's "drop-off" laundry service for
about a year, and only once received a piece of clothing that wasn't mine (a
top, and a belt) and don't remember ever losing clothing (although it doesn't
mean it didn't happen - would I miss a pair of underwear or a plain-colored
t-shirt?)

~~~
mgkimsal
it must have happened to _someone_ , because you got _their_ clothing (unless
they just randomly added extra clothes to be on the safe side!) :)

~~~
pavel_lishin
Haha, sure, but the main point is that I don't think it was a catastrophe for
the person who lost their clothes, either - at least, not on the level of
losing nearly all of your clothes for a month.

Plus, since I knew the laundromat it came from, I could just return it and
they could put up a "did you lose this shirt" sign, and have a reasonable
chance of finding the owner.

~~~
enos_feedler
Something doesn't have to be a catastrophe to suck. Losing clothes because the
business you paid screwed up sucks.

------
brogrammernot
This is just a service I don't get the mass market appeal for. Washing your
clothes does not take that much time and dry cleaners are readily available in
every city. So these companies don't seem to solve a real problem, rather
they're just a luxury. Luxury products are hard to maintain:

~~~
et-al
Since I moved to a place where the nearest laundromat is 2 blocks _uphiilll_
and pricey ($5/load), I admittedly did take a quick look into Washio, but
noticed there was a minimum order of $20. It was a luxury service, or a good
for fresh graduates who believe too much in the "your time is money" mantra.

If you want another "wtf, do we need this" service, check out TrashDay.co,
saving us the _indignity_ of taking out our own trash.

~~~
metanoia
> If you want another "wtf, do we need this" service, check out TrashDay.co,
> saving us the indignity of taking out our own trash.

One more startup that makes the statement "assisted living for the young" that
much more true about SF.

~~~
thomasjudge
Wow. Who funded that?

------
hkmurakami
>On top of that, Washio has seen fierce competition over the past few years
from the likes of Flycleaners in NYC, Rinse, and Cleanly, which is already
operational in New York and launching in D.C. in the next few weeks.

Curious what makes one service shut down while others continue. Better
operational efficiencies? Better unit economics? They raised more funding so
it's a matter of time before they all die?

Genuinely curious what makes one die and one thrive.

~~~
peterbonney
>They raised more funding so it's a matter of time before they all die?

I know where I'm placing _my_ bet...

edit: Ok, apparently overly snarky given down-votes...

How about this? Dry cleaning is a low-margin, capital-intensive business that
already has a huge existing base of experienced competitors. If you live in a
major city, your local dry cleaner already has pick-up and drop-off service
on-demand. They can already keep your credit card on file. They already reap
economies of scale by outsourcing the actual cleaning to huge centralized
facilities. How much extra value does a company like Washio think they can
really generate by letting you schedule it via app instead of via phone, and
how much capital investment are they willing to make to capture that value?
This is a tough business, and if _any_ company is going to succeed at
consolidating it like Washio _et al_ are trying to do, they will have to spend
_a lot_ to get there.

~~~
trhway
> If you live in a major city, your local dry cleaner already has pick-up and
> drop-off service on-demand.

if they wanted to be an "Uber for laundry" they should have similarly tapped
into underutilized resources - ie. their contractors should have been doing
the laundry on personal washer/dryers in homes/garages... We'd see garages in
residential neighborhoods full of washers/dryers, without permits, etc... Such
an increased efficiency (due to the disruption in particular by cutting off
the regulations related and commercial lease expenses) would have generated
the required margins like in Uber and AirBNB cases. Of course, whether the
world would be a better place for that - that as usually would depend on
whether you're the one getting that margin :)

~~~
wott
> _We 'd see garages in residential neighborhoods full of washers/dryers,
> without permits, etc... _

Using city water and plugged on the neighbours' electrical power line.

------
gjolund
Not a surprise.

Most of the "my mom used to do this for me" service startups are destined for
failure.

If you can afford washio, you can afford a maid.

------
jypepin
So, washio is like the 3rd laundry service I used in SF that shuts down and
makes me go to the next competitor.

I understand fierce competition + low margin + high growth required is needed
and profitability is hard to reach, but so, I wonder what it takes (or how
many similar failures) for the "market" to balance and finally come up with
something sustainable.

By that I mean, ok, we've seen X number of the exact same laundry services
failing. If the business model has been proven unsustainable multiple times in
a row, why founders continue to try and investors continue to believe?

I'm wondering if at some point some kind of balance can be achieved where
founders/investors will only build something that can be sustainable? Like, ok
I'm happy it get cheap and fast laundry service right now, and i don't mind
changing provider regularly, but if at some point the offer is a little more
expensive and takes a little longer (the sustainable business model) then I
guess I wouldn't have a choice and use this one (still better to most people
than going to dry cleaning or wash my own stuff at the laundry 2 blocks away)

~~~
st3v3r
"I wonder what it takes (or how many similar failures) for the "market" to
balance and finally come up with something sustainable."

It already has. As others have pointed out, just about every laundromat and
dry cleaners already offers these services. Just not through apps.

~~~
jessaustin
Why isn't someone providing apps for these businesses? Perhaps apps aren't so
important...

------
dreamcompiler
Why couldn't busy people just hack this on top of Uber? Call Uber to pick up
your clothes and take them to the dry cleaner of your choice and pick them up
the next day. Maybe Uber's TOS don't allow for pure cargo, but surely there
are courier services that do. Maybe it would be more expensive than Washio,
but there are a lot of people in SF with more cash than time.

~~~
buckbova
Throw a tub of soapy water in the trunk. Air dry from the antenna.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Offer your passengers a 20% discount off their Uber ride if they spend it
folding shirts.

~~~
yongjik
We're Uber for laundry... on Uber!

~~~
djcapelis
I believe translated to modern startupese that's:

We're putting laundry onto the Uber platform.

------
JohnDoe365
There is nothing wrong to see actual people. What would you do with your free
time gained from not doing "administrative" tasks like seeing the laundry /
buy food?

1\. Work more (for your boss)

2\. Spend money on XYZ so that at the end of the month your account is cleared
and you have to work more --> 1.

~~~
electic
Or:

1\. Spend more time with your kids.

2\. Spend more time outside looking at the birds.

3\. Working out at the gym.

4\. Go to the movies.

5\. Playing video games.

And considering you might make enough money, this trade off might be worth it.
Plus, a lot of folks hate doing laundry.

------
hokkos
>That mission began from our kitchen counter, and led us through an incredible
journey over the last few years as we became the nation’s largest dry clean
and laundry service.

[https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

~~~
Dramatize
I wonder if they are using 'incredible journey' ironically. Surely they know
it's a clique.

------
wehadfun
notable angel investors such as Ashton Kutcher and Nas

How do companies get Angel Investors from these people?

~~~
frankdenbow
They each have associates/partners who look for startups in the usual places
and share deal flow with other investors.

------
jblue
My laundromat recommended me to use Sudzy
([http://www.getsudzy.com](http://www.getsudzy.com)), they use free
pickup/delivery from/to my laundromat, same price and allow me to get
notifications about the progress. After using it for 3 times this month, I can
tell it's the best solution for New Yorkers.

------
wehadfun
[https://www.foldimate.com/](https://www.foldimate.com/)

I was curious if it existed.

