In short
Podcast Summary: The Side Hustle Show - Episode 725
Episode Title
How One Mom’s Laundry Side Hustle Turned into a $12M Business
Host: Nick Loper Guest: Susan Toft, Founder of LaundryLady.com
Episode Overview In this episode, host Nick Loper interviews Susan Toft, the founder of LaundryLady.com, Australia's leading mobile laundry service. Susan shares her journey from a busy corporate mom to a successful entrepreneur with a $12 million business. The episode focuses on her unique business model, the challenges she faced, and how she leveraged personal pain points to create a scalable service.
Key Topics Discussed
Origin of the Business Idea
- Personal Pain Point:
- As a new mom juggling a corporate career, Susan encountered a mountain of laundry that inspired her idea.
- Recognizing the need for a laundry service, she decided to be the solution for herself and others in similar situations.
Initial Steps in the Business
- Starting Solo:
- Launched in 2012, Susan began by personally doing laundry pickups with her toddler in tow.
- Focused on local clients initially, leveraging low-cost Google Ads to gain visibility.
- Scaling Challenges:
- Early limitations included reliance on her own washing machine and lack of a scalable system.
- The need for a booking system became apparent as customer demand grew.
Business Growth and Structure
- Contractor Model:
- Transitioned to a contractor model after realizing the limitations of her solo operation.
- Contractors earn about 80% of the service fees, allowing them to have flexible working hours and significant earning potential.
- Market Demand:
- The business caters mainly to residential customers (60%) and commercial clients (40%).
- Target markets include busy families and businesses with low to mid-volume laundry needs.
Key Insights on Operations
- Unit Economics:
- Average service costs around $100, with contractors earning substantial weekly income.
- Business operates on a repeat customer basis, leading to consistent earnings for contractors.
- Marketing and Expansion:
- Significant growth following exposure on *Shark Tank Australia*, leading to increased contractor applications.
- Expansion into New Zealand and Canada, with plans for the UK and eventually the US.
Challenges and Lessons
- Balancing Supply and Demand:
- Managing contractor sign-ups while ensuring a steady flow of customers is a continual challenge.
- Emphasizes the importance of localized marketing and community engagement.
- Technology and Innovation:
- Transitioned from an off-the-shelf booking system to a custom-built platform, integrating AI solutions for customer support.
Personal Reflections
- Daily Life as CEO:
- Susan's role today involves strategic growth, team management, and marketing rather than day-to-day operations.
- Balances professional responsibilities with being a mother, highlighting the importance of flexibility.
- Advice for Entrepreneurs:
- Encourages joining accelerator programs for networking and mentorship opportunities.
- Reflects on the importance of recognizing growth over time, even when daily progress feels slow.
Key Takeaways
- Identify Pain Points: Use personal challenges as a springboard for business ideas.
- Start Small, Scale Gradually: Begin with a manageable model and expand as demand grows.
- Leverage Technology: Invest in systems that facilitate growth and efficiency.
- Community Engagement: Network locally to create awareness and build customer relationships.
- Reflect on Progress: Regularly assess both personal and business growth to stay motivated.
Sponsors
- Indeed: Job recruitment service offering sponsored job credits.
- Quo: Business communication platform with discounts for first-time users.
- Shopify: E-commerce platform offering trials for new users.
- Gusto: Payroll and HR management software with introductory offers.
Conclusion Susan Toft’s journey reflects the power of recognizing and addressing personal pain points through entrepreneurial action. By sharing her insights and strategies, she offers valuable lessons for anyone looking to grow their side hustle into a successful business.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Birth of The Laundry Lady
0:46 to 1:47
Susan shares her journey from corporate life to starting her laundry service.
“Yeah, so I was a new mom and I was working in a corporate career and I always sort of had this vision that I would one day start my own business, but I didn't really know what that would be or when that would be.”
Finding First Customers
1:48 to 3:38
Discussion on Susan's initial challenges and strategies in attracting her first clients.
“Yeah, I want to highlight that personal pain point of almost the dread of like knowing that this work has to get done.”
Scaling the Business
3:39 to 5:13
Susan talks about her transition from sole trader to a scalable business model.
“It's, I call it the too busy chopping down trees to sharpen the saw kind of moment where it's like, well, if I take my foot off the gas, then everything's going to come to a stop.”
Investing in Technology
5:14 to 7:08
The importance of technology in scaling and how Susan developed her booking system.
“in your journey of business that it's not this straight line from, I'm going to go from here to here.”
Market Demand and Trends
7:09 to 11:13
Exploring the demand for laundry services and the profile of Susan's customers.
“I wanted to have an online booking system on the website.”
Understanding the Economics
11:14 to 14:01
A deep dive into the unit economics of Susan's laundry business and contractor earnings.
“Like, I don't want to deal with this anymore.”
Contractor Earnings and Flexibility
14:01 to 14:49
Learn about the earning potential and flexibility of laundry side hustles for contractors.
“And our average contractors are earning, you know, probably around $1 ,500 to$2 ,000 per week.”
Service Structure and Flexibility
17:13 to 19:11
Understand how the laundry service structure allows contractors to have flexible working hours.
“And they're in charge of the pickup and delivery of that as well.”
Balancing Supply and Demand
19:12 to 21:21
Explore how the business manages the balance between contractor availability and customer demand.
“A new contractor sign up in a new city that you haven't previously served before or like search demand from that city?”
Marketing Support for Contractors
21:22 to 23:07
Learn how the company supports contractors with marketing efforts to attract customers.
“And the contractors aren't having to go out and knock on doors and try and drum up business or run their own digital social campaigns.”
Show all 21 chapters
Revenue Streams for the Business
23:08 to 26:14
Dive into the various revenue streams that drive the laundry business's success.
“So before they know it, they've got a full-time schedule and turning themselves off for any new bookings because that grows.”
Shark Tank Experience and Insights
26:15 to 28:00
Hear about the experience of going on Shark Tank and the lessons learned from it.
“Obviously, the percentage, the 20 % cut on the laundry itself.”
Shark Tank Experience and Marketing Impact
28:00 to 29:50
Learn how the guest's appearance on Shark Tank boosted their business visibility.
“If you were nervous, you couldn't really tell.”
Recruitment Growth After Shark Tank
29:50 to 31:10
Discover how Shark Tank influenced contractor signups and customer growth.
“And that's something that we've really been able to use extensively since then.”
Tech Tools for Scaling the Business
33:38 to 35:58
Learn about the tech tools that support the business's growth and efficiency.
“Small business life means hustling and figuring it out as you go.”
A Day in the Life of a CEO
35:58 to 37:50
Get insights into the daily routine and responsibilities of the business's CEO.
“I wish that those tools had been around when I first started, you know, 13 years ago, it would have been a very different growth model for the business.”
Reflections on Business Growth
37:50 to 40:08
Understand the importance of reflecting on progress in business growth.
“You're like, look, you're not our target customer.”
Future Expansion Plans
40:08 to 42:00
Hear about the plans for expansion into new markets and strategic growth.
“You mentioned expanding into Canada, expanding into the UK, bringing on this recent investment.”
Susan's Key Insight for New Entrepreneurs
42:00 to 43:01
Learn the importance of joining accelerator programs for business growth.
“But we certainly will be looking at specifically some states within the US that we'll focus on initially.”
Identifying Business Opportunities
43:02 to 44:26
Discover how to find business ideas by recognizing pain points.
“Yeah, some kind of accountability group, mastermind group, access to kind of your network's network.”
Creating Effective Business Systems
44:27 to 44:59
Understand the importance of creating systems for business efficiency.
“And so that's kind of the game that you got to play in really any agency or service business type of model.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Nick Loper:From a side hustle to an eight-figure business, today's guest took a common chore and with a little creativity and a lot of tenacity, turned it into Australia's number one mobile laundry service. She started as a part-time solo operator and is now expanding internationally. Along the way, she scored a record-setting million-dollar investment on Shark Tank Australia from LaundryLady.com. Susan Toft, welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:29Susan Toft:Thank you for having me.
0:31Nick Loper:I am excited for this one. Yours is one of the larger businesses that we've featured on the show, but like anything, it didn't necessarily start that way. Tell me where the idea for The Laundry Lady came from and how you got this thing started.
0:46Susan Toft:Yeah, so I was a new mom and I was working in a corporate career and I always sort of had this vision that I would one day start my own business, but I didn't really know what that would be or when that would be. And one day I was literally walking past my spare room and looking at the clothes piled high in my spare room and thinking about as a busy working mum how much I needed a service like this. And so I had this idea that maybe I could start doing laundry for other people, which is kind of hilarious in hindsight because I'm one of the least domestic people.
1:20Nick Loper:of people.
1:20Susan Toft:I'm not good at all of my domestic home services, but I just, you know, really wanted to be able to create something where I could, you know, have some flexibility to work from home and be there with my kids when they were really young, but also start building an income for myself and eventually maybe start to, you know, build it in a way that it could bring that offer to other people and other women in particular and mums who were trying to juggle and have that back to work career. And so I jumped right in and began The Laundry Lady.
1:51Nick Loper:Yeah, I want to highlight that personal pain point of almost the dread of like knowing that this work has to get done. But using that as this epiphany moment, like, look, if it's a pain point for me, it's probably a pain point for other parents too. And on the other side of pain, on the other side of irritation is often innovation was a line that I heard recently. And so it's like on the other side of this pain, maybe there's a business opportunity, even though you're like, look, I'm not the most domestic person. And this is quite a pivot from a high-flying corporate career, yet maybe there's something to it.
2:23Nick Loper:So what happens next in terms of going out and getting your first customers here?
2:27Susan Toft:Yeah, I mean, crazy pivot, but I got a website up and running, which I had a friend create for me and turned it on and got my first customer and went out and picked it up. And it was such a big change for me coming from this corporate career, But I absolutely loved it because I loved the freedom that it gave me being a business owner and being able to work to my own schedule and all of those kinds of things. So it started to build quite quickly. I started to get a lot of customers. And, you know, it was a very different business back then to what it is now because it was just me. It was just me going out and picking up the laundry and learning what would work, learning what customers wanted, learning what a schedule would look like.
3:10Nick Loper:And just running it on your own machine, your own washer and dryer at home?
3:14Susan Toft:I had my washer and dryer at home and my van and I'd put my baby in the car and we'd go out and do the pickups and go home and washer on it and then bring it back to the customers the next day. And I felt very frustrated in those first few years because I always kind of had this vision about how I might start to scale the business. But I was very much stuck in the business as well at that point in time because I needed to work. I needed income.
3:39Nick Loper:Yeah, I've been there. It's, I call it the too busy chopping down trees to sharpen the saw kind of moment where it's like, well, if I take my foot off the gas, then everything's going to come to a stop. And it's really kind of a challenging place to be. I was curious, was anybody else doing this? Were there other competitors when you started? Because now there's a handful of startups that try to do something like this, or even laundromats might offer like a pickup and delivery type of service, depending on where you're at. But was there anything like that at the time?
4:12Susan Toft:Yeah, look, I think there's lots of different ways you can get your laundry done. And there always has been because laundry has been around forever since the dawn of clothes. and so you know there's people who will do it in all different kinds of ways but a lot of them were very commercially focused in terms of having a premise where they would take the laundry and focusing more on on business types of customers so having something where people could just book online and come and pick up the laundry and do it from their own homes was something that was quite new and really when I started which was when I very first started was 13 years ago it was you know, Google AdWords would cost 20 cents a click if you turned that on.
4:55Susan Toft:So it was really, really simple to get customers. And even though I was just doing it on my own in my little local area, there were certainly other people who were doing laundry, but just not in that same way. But I didn't start to scale and have multiple laundry ladies and lads until about five years after I first started. So I think this is a really important thing to, you know, recognise in your journey of business that it's not this straight line from, I'm going to go from here to here. And unfortunately, I got divorced and I had to go back to work full time. And that was when the business really became, you know, this sole trader went into very much true side hustle format, but it was also the same time that I started to scale.
5:34Susan Toft:So that was the time when I, when I put on my first contractors and started the online booking system. And, you know, that was another sort of three or four years of just, how am I going to go back to this business full-time? How am I going to grow and scale this while working, while managing all of these things and being a mom? And it was, you know, I was really unsure about how that was ever going to play out.
5:58Nick Loper:Isn't that so interesting that it was almost like the bringing on outside help was almost forced upon you. Like I had this body of existing customers and had to go back to work full-time. I couldn't, like I physically couldn't do it. There weren't enough hours in the day. So I had to bring on help to do it. I think that's so interesting. You kind of get comfortable in the routines and say, this is just what I do. It's what I've always done. And it's like, there's almost a forcing function to say, well, now something is going to break and I've got to make a change here. But going back, you mentioned the Google ads early on.
6:30Nick Loper:And this was something that people were seeking out, maybe in not huge numbers, but like, look, is there any laundry service near me? That's something that people were typing in. And you could step in front of that traffic with the Google Ads early on?
6:43Susan Toft:There was no shortage of customers. It was really easy to get customers because it was just me doing the services at that point. I could only do a certain amount before I got to reach my limit of how much my washing machine could handle and all of those things. And so that was really the limit of where I could grow. And so I really wanted to bring in contractors and have a contractor model, which is what we've built into now. But to do that, I needed a booking system and, you know, I couldn't just take all of those bookings on my mobile phone. I wanted to have an online booking system on the website.
7:16Susan Toft:And, you know, I remember going along and getting a grant through Australian government to help me get that booking system. And I went off to my designer and developer and said, this is what I want. I want this Uber style booking platform. And my budget is$5 ,000. and he laughed at me and said, for$5 ,000, you are not going to get what you want. You need to go and find an off-the-shelf system.
7:41Nick Loper:Yeah. Do you recognize how much money Uber has raised to build out their tech platform? Exactly. Okay. I was wondering if there was an off-the-shelf solution for something like that or if you'd have to build it.
7:51Susan Toft:Yeah. Well, so I went and found, I researched and researched and this is going back, you know, 10 years ago. So there wasn't a lot of off-the-shelf systems that could have done what we needed to do then, but I found a system that had online booking, had payments, did somewhat of what I needed to do. And my developer friend integrated that into the website, built some extra features around that, particularly around having multiple locations and got it off the ground. And it wasn't perfect. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it did a fair chunk of what we needed it to do. And it was certainly enough to be able to start taking bookings and start having multiple contractors set up.
8:29Susan Toft:That was kind of the starting point of the 2.0 of the business, where it moved from being a sole trader business to moving into a scalable contractor model. It's all got to be hyper
8:42Nick Loper:localized if you're offering pickup and delivery. And it's like, well, I only want to drive maybe 20 minutes away to pick up this kind of like, you know, really narrow until you add a team member over there who could service that other neighborhood. And like trying to grow each of those in tandem is pretty challenging. So it sounds like you get the kind of the back end, maybe minimum viable product booking system in place. And then you got to go find out, you said, well, there's no problem finding customers, which I think is interesting and telling because a lot of people are like, if I could only find more leads, if I could only get more customers, this would be great.
9:20Nick Loper:But it's like, that's not the bottleneck here. The bottleneck sounds like one was tech and then two, now I got to find other people who want to get paid to do laundry.
9:28Susan Toft:Yes, absolutely. And so that was the point in time when I began to do that. And at the time it was, you know, putting out ads on what we call Gumtree here, which would be similar to Craigslist for you back then and going out and chatting to people's friends. And I think my first laundry lady was a friend of a friend's sister and then her sister signed up. And it It was very much in the beginning just, you know, people that we knew and, you know, word of mouth through our network that found other people who wanted to join. And I think it was really looking for people who were like me in terms of, you know, I'd been in this busy career and I'd been struggling with that work-life balance around being a new mum.
10:10Susan Toft:And so looking for other people who were in that same kind of situation is what helped us to find those first few contractors and first few laundry ladies who wanted to join. and be part of the team. And so I went out and got, I think, the first eight to 10 laundry ladies. And that was all just in the kind of region where I live in Southeast Queensland and got them up and running, started getting them bookings through their website, getting the locations set up and increasing the AdWords to try and get them customers in each of those areas. And that was really how it grew in those first couple of years.
10:49Nick Loper:It seems like a compelling side hustle from the contractor's standpoint. I'm in charge of the laundry in our house. It's kind of like a satisfying task despite it never truly being done. But it's just something that you pop in a podcast, fold some laundry. This is totally fine. But there's also this rising trend of families, especially affluent households, kind of outsourcing this chore to services like the laundry lady. Like, I don't want to deal with this anymore. Somebody else can handle it. And kind of playing at that intersection of relatively simple service, not a ton of specialized skills required.
11:27Nick Loper:And I believe the market pie has grown, especially over the last 5, 10, 15 years, as more and more people kind of just take stock of their available hours in the week and say, is this really what I want to be spending my time on? And say, no, maybe somebody else could take this off my plate.
11:42Susan Toft:Yeah, absolutely. Because people get busier, they need more help at home. If they're valuing their time, then outsourcing it to something like getting your laundry done can be add a lot more time into your week and all of those things.
11:56Nick Loper:And is it primarily residential customers or have you gone after commercial business at this point to uniforms and stuff like that?
12:02Susan Toft:We have a big mix of the type of customers we have. So about 40 % are business customers and about 60 % are residential. And the business customers will be places like beauty salons or medical clinics or Airbnbs and, you know, particularly locations that have that like low to mid volume of laundry because the big commercial operators don't want to touch that. It's too small for them. You know, it's not worth their time. And that really works well for our contractors in that low to mid-volume space. And then the residential side can be anyone from busy families through to people who just physically can't do their own laundry.
12:41Susan Toft:It might be people living with a disability, elderly, busy professionals, all of those kinds of things. Everyone has laundry in some way or shape or form.
12:50Nick Loper:Are you comfortable talking through the like unit economics of a load of laundry or like a customer job? I don't have a concept of how much it would cost to have somebody come pick up a load of laundry and how much of that goes to the contractor, how much of that goes to the bottom line, how much of that goes to utilities on the washing machine, or how do you think about slicing it up?
13:13Susan Toft:Our average customer will spend$100 per service, and most of them will have a weekly or a fortnightly recurring service. So it's a very repeat customer model.
13:24Nick Loper:Yeah, clothes are going to keep getting dirty.
13:27Susan Toft:yes they just are never-ending um and then our contractors earn 80 percent of of their total services that they do and so our average uh contractors are earning they can be earning anywhere between three hundred and three thousand dollars per week very consistently so it's a very good business model for them to be part of they can earn a lot more than driving for uber or those types of things so it's it's a very recurring repeat model for them they have a very routine schedule. They know that customer is going to have a pickup every Monday. So they sort of start to know what their week looks like.
14:01Susan Toft:And our average contractors are earning, you know, probably around $1 ,500 to$2 ,000 per week. So it's a really great business model for them. For a week? Dang. For a week, yeah.
14:12Nick Loper:Now I'm like, shoot, I've got to start a laundry business.
14:15Susan Toft:Well, look, I mean, there's a lot of our contractors who are doing this as their side hustle because they might be building something else or maybe they're going back to study. And we have a lot who go back and study nursing or they're building their own business. They're also doing other side hustles like Uber driving. And then they do this as something extra to earn some extra money. And once they start doing it and realize the flexibility of it and the earning potential of it, some of them go, I'm just going to do this full time and let go of all my other side hustles and focus on this.
14:48Nick Loper:More with Susan in just a moment, including her non-franchise model for scaling to new locations, plus her experience on Shark Tank. Coming up right after this. In the next 60 seconds, 23 entrepreneurs are going to find their next team member on Indeed. I'm excited to partner with Indeed for this episode because when you need to find amazing candidates fast, you need the powerful matching technology and unmatched reach of our sponsor, Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites and get the help you need fast. Plus, Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire even faster.
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15:25Nick Loper:It'll make your post jump to the top of the page for your relevant candidates, and the proof is in the results. Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed get 45 % more applications. That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. Side Hustle Show listeners will get a$75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show. Just go to Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Side Hustle Show.
16:02Nick Loper:Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. When I started the Side Hustle Show, I had no idea what I was doing, but I did have a lot of what ifs. What if nobody listens? What if I embarrass myself? What if no one cares? But what started as a little experiment in the corner of the living room has completely changed my life. When you're ready to face down those fears and hesitations and what ifs and launch your thing, whatever it is, it helps to have a partner like Shopify in your corner to help. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, from household names to dozens of side hustle show guests.
16:39Nick Loper:With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, Shopify helps you build that eye-catching, high-converting online store. Plus, Shopify helps you find customers with easy to run email and social media campaigns. And if you get stuck, their award-winning 24-7 customer support is standing by. It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash side hustle. Go to shopify.com slash side hustle. That's shopify.com slash side hustle. Yeah. And they're in charge of the pickup and delivery of that as well. It sounds like probably a pretty sticky service.
17:18Nick Loper:Like you said, the clothes are going to keep getting dirty and I kind of have this mapped out. Okay. Monday, I'm picking up from here and I'm dropping off over here. And then kind of build a consistent routine around it. Is that accurate?
17:29Susan Toft:Yeah, that's right. And, and, you know, particularly because a lot of them are women or moms or parents who, you know, are juggling looking after their kids or looking after elderly parents, like to be able to work from home and have that flexibility so that they can get to school pickup or school drop off or don't have to have extra daycare for their kids. They can have young kids with them if they want to while they're doing the laundry. So it gives them a huge amount of flexibility. They can be just doing a few hundred dollars, you know, a couple of pickups a week if they want to, or they can expand their service offering to be full-time and be doing that, you know,$3 ,000 mark if that's what they want to do, if they want to work in it full-time.
18:12Nick Loper:One thing that stands out is that 80 % split is quite generous among the service-based or agency-based entrepreneurs that I've talked to, where other people might say, well, I want to have a 2x or even 3x kind of gross margin on the fulfillment labor. And so it's kind of surprising to hear like, no, it's pretty thin. The bulk of it is going to the contractor in this point. Has it always been that way?
18:39Susan Toft:Yeah, it has always been that way. And we really drive a lot of the marketing as well from that 20 % that we keep. It all goes back into marketing and growth of the business. So we drive all of the customers to the contractors through our digital marketing. We invest heavily in our online booking system. So we've moved well away from that off-the-shelf system now. We do have that custom system behind the business that operates and is helping us to scale. And within that, we've got an app, you know, for both the customers and an app for the contractors and an extensive amount of, you know, work within that.
19:19Susan Toft:So they are getting part of a really great system and model to be part of, but also excellent marketing and brand recognition, which is something we've really focused very heavily on for our contractors and helping drive their business to get them to their targets and whatever those targets might be and look like for them.
19:40Nick Loper:What comes first for you? A new contractor sign up in a new city that you haven't previously served before or like search demand from that city? You're like, well, now I know I need to plug somebody in there, so I got to go join the Facebook moms group for whatever this town or neighborhood is, and now trying to recruit somebody. How are we balancing both the supply and demand side?
20:03Susan Toft:Yeah, it's a constant challenge for us. We like to call it a chicken and egg. You get the contractor and then you get them customers and you keep repeating that. And that sounds very simple when you talk about it like that, but it's actually very complex because we want to make sure that the contractors are getting customers at the right speed. We don't want to put 500 on in one particular area and then they can't get any customers or it takes them a long time to get customers. So we're constantly working through that as a team and how we do that. And in Australia, we have around 450 laundry ladies and lads now right throughout Australia, and we have about 30 in New Zealand.
20:42Susan Toft:And we just launched into Canada at the start of the year. So we've got our first 10 contractors there up and running. Okay, nice. Yes, we've had a huge number of applications in Canada, but we don't want to put them all on at once and then not be able to get them customers. So we're constantly looking at all of the different aspects of the population and demographics in those locations as to whether how quickly we think those customers can grow in those areas. We don't want to start marketing in those areas until the contractor is up and running because customers want to be at a book as soon as they see that.
21:14Susan Toft:So, you know, we're constantly, you know, working through that and adjusting our marketing efforts around all of those different locations.
21:22Nick Loper:And the contractors aren't having to go out and knock on doors and try and drum up business or run their own digital social campaigns. It's all, that's all coming from corporate, like we can kind of play puppet master and play search advertising or social advertising to generate demand? Yeah.
21:39Susan Toft:So all of our digital marketing is very much delivered through our head office, but the local on the ground marketing, absolutely the laundry ladies and lads can go out and support that. So when they start with us, they get marketing materials like brochures and things like that, and they can go out and they can mail drop in their area. They can go and talk to businesses in their area. And certainly if they go out and do that and support that on the ground, local face-to-face kind of marketing, then it will really help drive the business and help them, you know, get customers faster. So we certainly have some areas where it grows really fast and then some areas where it might grow a little bit slower, particularly areas that are a bit more regional or outside of the big city metropolitan areas or a brand new area where, you know, we haven't been before.
22:27Susan Toft:And so, you know, it certainly helps if they can go out and do those things as well. Okay.
22:32Nick Loper:And then the way it's structured is they're not on payroll. I guess you're not committed to paying them anything until you have laundry for them to wash, until you've got income revenue coming in from customers.
22:45Susan Toft:Yeah, that's right. So they're just getting their commission paid from the services that they've actually delivered for those customers. and, you know, sometimes it can be a bit of a wait for them to get those first customers and feel like that's taking forever. But because the customers are so sticky and become very repeat customers, even if you're just getting one new customer each week, it really starts to build very quickly with that repeat recurring service. So before they know it, they've got a full-time schedule and turning themselves off for any new bookings because that grows. So it usually, can take them three to six months to kind of build that up.
23:21Susan Toft:But in some areas, that might be a lot faster. In some areas, it might be a little bit slower. So, it can vary a lot.
23:28Nick Loper:Is it operating kind of like a franchise where if I'm in Canada and I want to sign up, like assign me this territory or I want exclusive rights to this territory or how is that structured?
23:40Susan Toft:So, we've stayed away from a franchise model because we really wanted to be able to, you know, give this opportunity to lots of different people who want to be able to work under our model. So, you know, and that might be mums who don't have a lot of money and just want to start earning some money and doing a few jobs. And so having, you know, territories wouldn't make sense for us because they just wouldn't be able to, you know, do that kind of volume in those areas. So we followed a lot more similar to an Uber style model where they are independent contractors. They decide where and when they want to work and how big that area is that they want to open up, what days they want to do those pickups.
24:20Susan Toft:And all of that is then automated within the booking system. So there might be multiple people in an area doing those services. And that really helps to drive business to both of those laundry ladies or lads that are in that area. And that's how it will grow from there. So like in Australia and some of the areas where we've been for quite a long time. You know, we're seeing maybe 10 to 20 contractors in a suburb that might be servicing that area. And that just grows from there.
24:49Nick Loper:Okay, and so most of that is recurring and unless there's a reason to switch contractors, like that's gonna be your customer for the duration. And then when somebody new comes on, okay, we'll sprinkle those out as there's availability in people's schedules. But I think I saw, so not quite a franchise fee, but you are charging kind of a nominal startup or onboarding fee for new laundry ladies and lads, yes?
25:10Susan Toft:Yeah, so our startup cost is basically designed just to get those contractors on board and trained up and ready to take those bookings when they are ready to. And it also gives them some of the product that they need. So things like branded bags, branded laundry bags that they'll give to the customers to use for their pickups and deliveries and things like hangers and magnets for their cars and brochures that they can go and hand out locally. So just some of those supplies that they need to get started in their local area. And we really work with them to work out exactly what that location, you know, what their onboarding will look like in terms of do they want to open a really big area and service a lot of different customers?
25:54Susan Toft:Or do they just want to focus on an area that's around where they are doing their school drop-offs or all of those kinds of things? And do they want to be able to do multiple pickups a day or do they want to be able to just do it all within certain time slots? And so they're all the things that we work through with them in the onboarding and training to help get them set up.
26:13Nick Loper:Okay, so that's one of the revenue streams. Obviously, the percentage, the 20 % cut on the laundry itself. What else is bringing the cash register for you?
26:25Susan Toft:The main driver of business is the services that we offer to customers. And then obviously we do have some product that we sell to the contractors around the laundry bags and things like that. But the main driver of our revenue comes from those services to customers. And that 20 % just all goes straight back into growth and marketing of the business.
26:46Nick Loper:Tell me about Shark Tank and preparing to go on the show and the deal that you eventually cut.
26:52Susan Toft:Yeah, so it was almost two years ago now, a bit over two years ago that we went on Shark Tank. So I am sure in the US this is the same, but I think when you own a business and you're an entrepreneur and in this space, you know, know about Shark Tank and you get excited about it. And it's always a bit of a dream that you might go on it one day. And one of those sharks is Robert Hajavik, who's also in Shark Tank US and Dragon's Den in Canada. before I thought about it too much. I'd put an application in to apply and go on the show, which was kind of a good thing that I hadn't thought about it too much because I think the more I'd thought about it, the more I would have thought, oh my gosh, this is crazy.
27:30Susan Toft:What am I doing? But our application got accepted. And before I knew it, I was rushing off to Sydney and filming for the show. And it was the most nerve wracking experience of my life. I'd never pitched the business before to investors. I'd never been on TV before. You know, the business had grown a lot at that stage. We were a$3.8 million revenue business and we had about 200 contractors, but it was absolutely terrifying.
27:57Nick Loper:Well, I watched your clip and you presented yourself very well. If you were nervous, you couldn't really tell. And didn't one of the sharks say like, oh, I know your brand or I'm a friend of mine is a customer of yours. It was like
28:09Susan Toft:people kind of knew knew about it yeah that was so cool so david from oddy he sells oddies which i don't know if you have those in the u.s but they're you know big blanket hoodies that you wear at home um and it's very very popular brand very well-known brand and he's a young entrepreneur and was on there and he said yes i've got friends who use your service and they absolutely rave
28:30Nick Loper:about it and we will i was like oh my gosh yeah that's like phew like oh yeah i was worried he was going to say something like, oh no, they had a crappy experience.
28:38Susan Toft:I mean, and this was the thing in hindsight, it's like if they had said negative things about the brand, that could be quite damaging because we were probably a little bit further along than a lot of the businesses that go on Shark Tank Australia, which are very, very early on. All I would have been thinking about in the lead up to it was just getting that three minute pitch remembered and delivering it correctly. And I couldn't remember it all morning, but then when I had to deliver it in front of the cameras, it went perfectly and then you suddenly have all these sharks just screaming questions at you, which is completely terrifying.
29:11Susan Toft:But actually, that was the point when I relaxed because I know my business, I know my business really well and it was exciting to get those questions and be able to answer them in that format. And since then, I've done a lot of pitching and a lot of Q &As with investors and I've learned a lot about that process. But I think considering that was my very first time I did okay.
29:34Nick Loper:Totally. And eventually Robert says, I'm in, I want in, and makes this million dollar investment. What'd you use those funds for?
29:41Susan Toft:I think the main benefit of going on Shark Tank was really that it just gave us so much marketing exposure. It was just like marketing gold for us. And that's something that we've really been able to use extensively since then.
29:57Nick Loper:Do you see a big rush of customer signups after that? They were like, oh, shoot, I could use that kind of service.
30:02Susan Toft:Where we saw the biggest impact was on the contractor signups. So, you know, we started to go from maybe a hundred new applications to like over 500 in a week. It was kind of insane. Our website definitely crashed, which was kind of pretty crazy. But we still now, even a few years later, whenever we're doing one-on-one interviews with potential new contractors, which we're constantly doing, a good percentage of them are mentioning, I saw you on Shark Tank or I've watched you on Shark Tank since. And so that's really been a great exposure for us in terms of our recruitment. And now going into a new market like Canada and starting from scratch and starting from a brand new business again, it's really been able to give us kind of that first credibility and first exposure going into that market, especially because the Canadians recognise Robert.
30:53Susan Toft:And so we're able to use that through all of our marketing, which has been really, really helpful in our brand and as we start to expand globally. Okay.
31:04Nick Loper:So it sounds like some of the funds went, well, some of the recruiting kind of happened naturally, organically, just by virtue of being on TV and people have been like, that sounds like a cool side hustle. I would sign up to be a contractor, but then investing some more of the funds in kind of recruiting and attracting new contractors, new laundry ladies and lands to sign up and then new customers as well?
31:25Susan Toft:Yes, we are always focused on growing our customers and contractors and have been doing that with our own funds for a very, very long time. We took on our first investment raise just last year in the last six months, actually, from a group of investors in Queensland, in Australia. And that's really been helping us to start to drive internationally and build our brand internationally and get Canada up and running. and be soon going to the UK as well and coming to the US as well eventually.
31:57Nick Loper:Yeah, come on in. I think people would definitely be interested in getting paid to do other people's laundry. It sounds like pretty easy and maybe enjoyable side gig for me if I like doing that kind of thing.
32:09Susan Toft:We could sign you up for that for sure.
32:11Nick Loper:Well, you're telling me$1 ,500 a week folding laundry like, okay, that sounds pretty good gig. More with Susan in just a moment, including where her time goes today. what's surprised her the most in running this now international operation and her plans for the future coming up right after this when it comes to leveling up your life and your business it's wild how much the basic stuff matters like how you talk to your customers how you keep your team on the same page a cleaner more modern setup can make everything feel smoother that's why i'm excited to partner with quo for today's episode spelled q u o quo is the modern alternative to run your business communications.
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34:06Nick Loper:I'm talking about automatic payroll tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, workers' comp, 401k, you name it, Gusto makes it simple and has options for nearly every budget. You can process unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No hidden fees, no surprises. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash side hustle and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash side hustle g-u-s-t-o gusto.com slash side hustle so you mentioned kind of building your booking platform most curious what other tools in tech that you swear by to to run this thing at a pretty serious scale at this point yeah i mean we got it such a long way
34:52Susan Toft:with using that off-the-shelf system but we did eventually really outgrow that and and it became very challenging as we, you know, probably after we got to about 200 different locations, that's when it started to really not be able to meet our needs anymore. And so we had to go back and start completely from scratch and build our own platform. But even then, you know, building tech is just never ending and very expensive and resource heavy. And at the moment, we're focusing a lot more on our customer side and our app. Whereas, you know, early on, we were focused much more on building the contractor side and the things that they needed to be able to do their job and expand with.
35:32Susan Toft:In our head office kind of space and what we do, you know, we're starting to definitely use a lot of AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude and Gemini to be able to just really help with our customer support and the way that we deliver that, our contractor support and training, all of those kinds of things. I definitely use it just for my daily kind of organizational educational types of things and in marketing, it's amazing the things that you can do in that. I wish that those tools had been around when I first started, you know, 13 years ago, it would have been a very different growth model for the business.
36:08Nick Loper:Sure. Curious what a day in the life looks like for you at this point as the CEO operator overseeing hundreds and hundreds of contractors and lots of loads of laundry every week?
36:20Susan Toft:My days vary greatly and can be pretty crazy. From doing podcasts like this and doing our own podcast, we have a podcast called The Spin Out, which is very much for entrepreneurs, women particularly, also for our contractors to hear more of what's going on and to connect with us. Today, I've got a day full of meetings that will be back-to-back meetings non-stop, mostly with my team and going through those processes. I am not so involved in the day-to-day operations of customer support anymore because that was really only until about two years ago that I was still very much at the center of that.
36:57Susan Toft:But you get to a point where you have to be very conscious of your time and how much that takes up. I certainly travel a lot as well and go to a lot of events, a lot of speaking. I'm very involved on the marketing growth side of the business because that's my background. That's where the things that I enjoy the most and then recording messages for contractors and new training materials and all of those kinds of things as well. So there's a lot of different things. It varies greatly. And then, you know, I'm also a mum, a mum of two boys. And so that kind of grounds me in reality of, you know, I've got to drive my son to his education provider at the moment, which is a really long way away.
37:38Susan Toft:And so I spend a lot of time in the car at the moment. And so that's a lot of phone calls in the car.
37:43Nick Loper:Are they getting involved in the business in any way, your sons?
37:46Susan Toft:No, not really. They think that mum is very cringe. So they like to comment on any marketing that we do and how cringe that is.
37:56Nick Loper:You're like, look, you're not our target customer. Don't worry about it.
37:59Susan Toft:No, exactly. My oldest son is 16. And so he does come and help us in the warehouse sometimes now when we have supplies come and packing orders and things like that. And my youngest will sometimes star in the social media. But at the moment, he just likes to send his laundry to get done. He thinks that that's pretty cool to have it put in the bag and it comes back the next day all folded.
38:23Nick Loper:Yeah, that's a nice perk.
38:25Susan Toft:Sure. Yes. So he's enjoying that part of it at the moment.
38:29Nick Loper:Yeah, there's some benefits of having an entrepreneur mom. I was going to ask, so now you're 12 years into the business. It's seen quite a bit of evolution. What's surprised you the most along the way?
38:41Susan Toft:You know, I think a lot of things take a long time. And I think you get frustrated when you're stuck in that and thinking, oh, I'm not making any progress. I'm not getting anywhere. And, you know, it's really good and important, I think, to every year stop and reflect in some way on how much you really have grown in the past year and how much you really have achieved and looking at that. Because I think when you don't do that, it's like watching paint dry. You think you're making no progress, even though you really, really are.
39:12Nick Loper:And yeah, day to day, hour to hour, it's hard to feel it. But then totally zoom out six or 12 months and say, oh, a friend of mine put it this way. Like, look, if I'm still dealing with the same problems 12 months from now, I'm not growing. And I thought that was really kind of forward thinking. Another friend put it like my job as the CEO is to live a year in the future and kind of project out where the business is going to be. But I'm with you. Things are always slower than you'd like.
39:38Susan Toft:Absolutely. We're suddenly at 12 million in revenue. And when, you know, we talk about Shark Tank, we were at three million. So, you know, we've grown so much.
39:47Nick Loper:Yeah, just a couple of years ago.
39:48Susan Toft:Yeah, you still feel, you know, in the day-to-day grind, like, you know, that's very slow and happening very slowly. But, you know, that's only kind of two or three years and we have four times the business. And that's why it is really important, I think, to stop and really reflect on that and appreciate that and show your team that as well because they're even more in the grind than you are. And so making sure that they're really seeing that and seeing the impact of how that's progressing.
40:12Nick Loper:Totally. I'm with you there. What's next for you? You mentioned expanding into Canada, expanding into the UK, bringing on this recent investment. What's got you excited going into the rest of this year?
40:24Susan Toft:Yeah. So it's been a really big year. We're really investing a lot in our tech, which is exciting to get that to the next stage. And just growth. We're really so focused on growth all of the time. And Australia is a very different market for us now to new countries. New countries, it's like a startup and starting all over again and going back to the beginning and what worked and, you know, looking at those kinds of things, which is really exciting, I think, gives me a fresh perspective every time of looking at a new country and thinking how are we going to tackle this, how are we going to get faster and grow this faster.
40:58Susan Toft:And then in Australia, it's, you know, really moving into a very different space of we've had a lot of growth. We still have a lot of growth to go, but it's much more of an established market. And how do we maintain that? How do we grow that at speed? How do we get better at that as well? So, you know, we're constantly trying to balance those different perspectives. Coming into Canada has been very, very exciting. We've been really welcomed there so far. We've had so many applications from contractors wanting to join the team already. and now we're really pushing customers hard to get up to the levels where they want to be with that.
41:36Susan Toft:And then we've only just focused on two provinces so far as our starting point, and then we'll be expanding into more provinces throughout Canada. And then, yeah, looking at new markets. So UK will be our next one that will likely be later this year. Why not the States? Likely the States will be after that. So we just wanted to get a little bit more backing behind us because the States is a much bigger beast for us to kind of tackle. But we certainly will be looking at specifically some states within the US that we'll focus on initially. And so that will be the next one after the UK that we'll be looking at.
42:11Susan Toft:So we're really excited to get there.
42:13Nick Loper:All right. Well, keep us posted on that, please.
42:15Susan Toft:Yes, absolutely.
42:16Nick Loper:Very good. Laundrylady.com. You can find Susan and her team over there and check out their services. Susan, I really appreciate you joining me. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
42:30Susan Toft:I would say if you are just starting out in business, go and be part of some kind of accelerator type program because I wish I'd had the opportunity to do those kinds of things in the beginning. And if I had, I think it would have really pushed me a lot faster and a lot harder in the business instead of sort of going through all these different phases that I went through. And it's also just a great way to build network and cheerleaders along with you. So, you know, I would definitely say go and be part of one of those types of programs, you know, if you can.
43:02Nick Loper:Yeah, some kind of accountability group, mastermind group, access to kind of your network's network. Well, who do you know? I think that could be really powerful. And it's something I kind of witnessed because I was kind of the same person, like heads down doing my own thing for a lot of years and not really taking the time to look up and be like, well, what's working for other people? Or what, you know, what else might be worth exploring here? And it's like, and as soon as I found an outside mastermind group, all of a sudden, all my deadlines are self-imposed. But now I told this group of peers, like, oh, I'm gonna have this done by Sunday.
43:32Nick Loper:All of a sudden, I got to get this done by Sunday. It's still self-imposed. Like, there's nothing's gonna happen if I don't. But it's like, oh, I don't want to let everybody else down. I don't really care. But it was interesting. Like, just that little mental flip that you can switch. So a couple takeaways from me. Number one, we talked at the very top of the show about pain points, right? What is annoying to you? What are friends, peers, co-workers, family complaining to you about? Those might be the little seedlings of a business idea, right? What is irritating and how can that lead to innovation?
44:03Nick Loper:And what has you saying, I wish there was a better way or I wish somebody else could handle this for me. Maybe you could be the person to handle it for other people. And if you want recurring revenue, solve a recurring problem. This laundry problem is never going away. Yet the TAM, the total addressable market is huge. Everybody's wearing clothes and they all keep getting dirty. So I think it's a great market to be in. And what Susan has done really well is kind of pairing the demand for that type of service with the supply for contractors. And so that's kind of the game that you got to play in really any agency or service business type of model.
44:39Nick Loper:And I like to recall to create the systems as you go, almost this like, you know, perfection is the enemy of good enough at the early onset. It's like, yeah, it's not exactly what we want, but it's going to get the job done. Let's keep moving forward. We'll figure it out as we go. I think that's kind of indicative of a lot of successful entrepreneurs. Now, if you're new to the show, welcome in as a free bonus for you. Something that thousands of listeners have already taken advantage of, have already downloaded, have already claimed for themselves is your own free personalized playlist. We've got hundreds of episodes to choose from.
45:12Nick Loper:But there's a little quiz. If you go to hustle.show to help you narrow down which of those episodes might be most relevant to you. So hit up hustle.show. You answer a few short multiple choice questions, and then you can add the resulting playlist to your device. Call it an eight to 10 episode sampler platter of some of our greatest hits based on your answers. So again, hustle.show for that. Big thanks to Susan for sharing her insight. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. SideHustleNation.com slash deals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
45:47Nick Loper:That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen. And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.
From the publisher
What if the pile of laundry sitting in your spare room was actually a business idea in disguise?
That’s more or less how Susan Toft tells it. She was a new mom with a full-time corporate job, staring at a mountain of unfolded clothes and thinking: someone should offer this as a service.
So she decided to be that someone.
Susan is the founder of LaundryLady.com, Australia’s number one mobile laundry service. She started solo in 2012, doing pickups in her van with her toddler in the backseat.
Thirteen years later, she’s running a $12 million business with 450+ contractors across Australia, a presence in New Zealand, a new launch in Canada, and expansion into the UK on the way.
Along the way, she landed a $1 million investment on Shark Tank Australia.
Tune in to Episode 725 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:
how Susan validated her idea using a personal pain point and turned it into a scalable service
what the contractor model looks like and how much laundry ladies and lads actually earn
how Shark Tank changed her business trajectory and what she did with the exposure
Full Show Notes: How One Mom’s Laundry Side Hustle Turned into an $12M Business
New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here!
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