Running Stores from a Thousand Miles Away with Steven Nunez

Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Laundromat Millionaire show, sponsored by HM HM company@draintroughs.com. this is episode one of season seven. So this is episode 121, I think, is my math is right. Uh, and we are just honored that you guys are here. We appreciate the support over all the years, Carla. It's been like five years, six years at this point that we've been doing the podcast. Kind of crazy. Thank you to all our sponsors. Our sponsors and advertisers are exploding and more and more people are reaching out for the media kit and things like that. Thank you so much to everyone that supports the episode and the podcast because we think it's making a difference in the industry and we hope to continue to do it for years to come. Uh, we think you're going to love episode number 121. We have Steven Nunez, uh, from New Jersey on the podcast today. And, uh, for everyone that says you should only own a laundromat 30 minutes from your home, which I always recommend starting that way. Steven built his first store from scratch with no experience in the industry. He lives in New Jersey, and his first store that he built is in Orlando, Florida. Uh, he now has three and almost. Is under. Is under construction, almost finished with number four. And he shares how he accomplished this. So those of you out there, out there that maybe don't have a market big enough for you to be successful in your local hometown or, you know, maybe your market's oversaturated, things like that. Steven brings just a wealth of knowledge and experience of how he did this, how. How he found his first general manager, his champion of his business. Um, and I think you're gonna get a lot out of this episode.

Speaker B: Yeah, you'll definitely wanna have a notebook ready because there are a lot of golden nuggets here. Not just about how to do it from so far away, but the tips and tricks, like the SOPs, the people you need to hire. There's a lot of helpful tips that Steven shares in this episode. Um, also, just a reminder, Dave and I will be speaking at curbside 2026, June 24th through 26th. So if you haven't bought your ticket yet, make sure to get online. Curbside 2026. Use code MILLIONAIRE before June 1st, and you can get $100 off the registration. So hopefully we can see you out in Long Beach. But let's go ahead and get started with today's episode with Stephen.

Speaker C: I don't care about the problems. I, uh, want to talk about the solutions. There's a solution for every type of problem. You only try to find something that is nearby within an hour. Like, that is always option A. In some cases, managing the store three hours away is harder than managing a store a thousand miles away, in my opinion.

Speaker B: Steven, welcome to the Laundromat Millionaire show.

Speaker C: Thanks for having me. Thanks for inviting me. I'm excited. I've, uh, watched your show quite a bit, so I'm looking forward to talking shop and, uh, seeing if I can give some nuggets to help people out.

Speaker A: Yeah, we appreciate it, man. Uh, it seems like, Carla, probably 20% of our podcast guests, uh, now come from LinkedIn. Um, and Steven, you and I met through LinkedIn. I started following your content, and you clearly know what you're doing in the industry, and that's always what I'm looking for. I'm, um, not trying to pick winners and losers. I'm just trying to see people that are already winning, and usually their content and the words that come out of their mouths kind of stand out. Um, and then we start having conversations, and I realized that not only are you rocking it, which there's a bunch of people in the industry doing that, you're rocking it from. Is this right? A thousand miles away?

Speaker C: Thousand miles away, yes. I live in New Jersey, and my stores are in, uh, Orlando, Florida.

Speaker A: And you have how many stores down there? Four. Is that right?

Speaker C: So I've got four stores. Yeah, I've got, uh, three in Orlando, one in Miami, and on top of that, I actually built three of those stores from the ground up. So they were ground up construction, and one I acquired.

Speaker A: So we glossed over that. Just now you said three in Orlando and one in Miami. I mean, Orlando and Miami are not.

Speaker B: They're not that close.

Speaker A: So you're really a glutton for punishment here.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's another three hours, actually. Orlando.

Speaker A: And that just registered. Wow. Well, guys, if we haven't captured your attention with that, I don't know what will, because we were talking about it offline. My buddy Charlie Measly came, uh, on the podcast several years ago, and he's one of the few people that, you know, people always say, can't move a laundromat. Well, he did. He moved it across the street, and it was viable and very profitable, and he's killing it. Steven is an example of something else that people say you can't do, or at least most people agree is very, very hard to do, which is run a Laundromat. I'm going to Call it remotely. Sometimes we even are guilty of telling people. Oh, if it's two or three hours away, that's a bad idea, right? Don't do that here. Stephen is 1,000 miles away now. Maybe he'll tell us he's got a private jet or something. And that's the secret. We'll get to the bottom of this. But we want to bring the value and figure out how he's doing this because once again, there are exceptions to everything. Steven is one of those exceptions. And I've seen some of the videos and pictures of your stores like that. Uh, you're definitely what I refer to as a top of the industry operator. And I know you've only been in the industry. Is it, what, five or six years? Is that about right?

Speaker C: Six years, yeah. So I built my first store in 2020. I actually built and opened my first store at like beginning of COVID So that was fun just to.

Speaker A: Just to challenge yourself a little more. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Awesome. Uh, well, I can't wait to get in the meat and potatoes of the episode. If you could. I know you have kind of a corporate background in technology and things like that. If you could just share a little bit of your background with us. Because I think that's always applic. And what spurred you to get into the industry. And then of course, we have to start with, you know, you're in New Jersey. A lot of laundromats in New Jersey.

Speaker B: Were you scared of competing with.

Speaker A: Were you scared of Charles? Charles. That one was.

Speaker C: I didn't want to be close to Charles. That was, uh. Well, that and Jersey's expensive.

Speaker A: It is expensive. You're right about that.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. So a little bit about me. So I'm 38, father a husband. I've got a four and a half year old girl and I've got actually a little boy on the way in about two months. So thank you. That's going to be a whole other whirlwind coming into my life, uh, very soon all over again. I thought we were done with diapers, but no, I'm gonna do it again. So I did start in corporate. Um, I started in corporate. I was in corporate about 12 years. Worked in Manhattan, worked at, uh, startups and Fortune 500 companies. Most of my roles were in sales, Sales leadership, senior sales leadership. So that's where I got lots of my experience in terms of managing teams, you know, having SOPs, having processes in place, running scrums, team meetings, culture, training. All that came from my, my work in corporate and then in 2020 I built my first store in Orlando. Went well. I actually built and opened that store doing self service, drop off, pickup and delivery all at the same time. Didn't know what I was doing. I was like, hey let's just go with it. And I kept my corporate job. I was actually doing both corporate and building and opening that store at the same time like you mentioned, remotely. So I live in New Jersey, um, it's about a thousand miles away. And typically what I did and what I still do is I'll fly down every six weeks or so, uh, for a couple of days and spend time at each store and you know, working with my team and all that good stuff. So fast forward, have that first store, it's going well, good opening and then uh, eventually in 2023. So a few years later I built my second store, uh, also from the ground up construction. That one did well, had had some good success. Uh, about a year later, year and a half I acquired a store. So that was the first store I actually built. More of what you would consider the zombie mat type, uh, of location, you know, probably 25 year plus old machines, very run down. First time going through a, you know, a transaction of having actually to purchase a business because my first two stores were built. So learned a lot in that process, you know, due diligence, verifying income, all that good stuff, competitive analysis, but pull the trigger. That's done well, that's still kind of operating as is. Very soon that store will get a complete and total rehab from the ground up. The plan is to actually take over a space next door, expand the footprint of the store, completely update plumbing, electric, H vac, everything, all the machines and retool it. So that should happen probably the next three to six months. And then after that at the tail end of last year I started construction on another ground up construction build in Orlando as well. And that'll be opening hopefully in the next two or three weeks. So we're very close to finishing.

Speaker B: Across America, one in seven laundromats run on since since the all in one software, hardware and payments platform built specifically for the laundry industry. Giving laundry business owners and operators the same powerful tools big businesses have always had. AI driven management, integrated payments with laundryworks, marketing tools, pickup and delivery and real time business insights. Over 4,500 locations already trust sense to make their laundromat run smarter, grow faster and keep more cycles turning. From the wash floor to the back office Sense is the operating system the laundry industry has always needed. Built for laundry, built for the Owners who run it. Learn more at trisense. Com. I have so many questions. Okay, so first off, let's start with, you're in New Jersey. Why Orlando? I get New Jersey is expensive, but there are places that are, uh, not expensive, that are closer than Orlando.

Speaker A: I know that know the Florida, and I know Florida is a big state, but people that know the Florida market with laundromats, I mean, it's. It's pretty saturated. Like, it's a very powerhouse. Very, very competitive. A lot of big operators and big money down there. Because, of course, who doesn't want to live in, you know, Florida type of thing? I'm curious from that perspective as much as, you know, distance away from your home.

Speaker C: Yeah. So there's a little bit of a story there. So my wife and her family is, uh, they're entrepreneurs as well, and they're in the supermarket business. So her father has some supermarkets up here in Manhattan and Long island, which is why we decided to still stay up here and still primarily reside here. Plus, my wife just hates Florida. Uh, but that's a different, different story. So he had locations down there, and, you know, we had my. His. His granddaughter. And I honestly, I think it was a way for him to try to attract us and get us to move down to Florida. So early on, he kind of tapped me on the shoulder and said, hey, have you ever thought about doing a laundromat? He had a vacant space and next to one of his supermarkets, and he said, like, look into it. So I started doing research, you know, the whole rabbit hole. 6. Six months of YouTube and forums and talking to owners that all new owners eventually go through. And I fell in love with it. I learned a ton. And I always had the itch. I always knew I wanted to have my own business and, you know, not work in corporate. That was always going to be my plan, but for a little bit, I thought it'd be doing real estate or, you know, storage units or car washes. Laundromats were a little bit further down my list. But the more I learned about it and I more learn about the business, the more I realized, like, actually this has legs. I think this is the path that I want to take. So we partnered up, worked with him, and we did that first location next to one of his supermarkets that was vacant. So that's how it kind of started and where the idea came from. Uh, his. His plan backfired because we did not move to Florida.

Speaker A: So he's probably still hoping, right?

Speaker C: Yes, he's probably still hoping. And I think as we keep adding more stores to our portfolio, I think he thinks it will eventually happen. I'm trying to see how many stores I can get before I have, uh, to make the move. So we'll see. But that's how it kind of came to be. And we kind of found a recipe that worked.

Speaker B: And then. So from Orlando, then why to Miami? So I'm getting Orlando. You have family there. That makes sense. Your wife is originally from there, all that. Why Miami?

Speaker C: Yeah, so Miami, a little bit more of the same. Also had a supermarket down there. And the supermarkets that he has kind of tailored to a similar demographic as laundromats. So when they're. What we found is when they're in close proximity in the same plaza, they actually work really well together. So we saw that work with our, uh, two stores in Orlando and Miami. Had one, this current store, but run down kind of was up for. They were looking to sell. So he said, hey, look into this. You know, And I started doing my research. Ended up, uh, you know, I thought it could be a good spot. So then we moved forward with that acquisition. So again, it was opportunistic. It was, you know, we knew the recipe would work and we knew it was a rundown store. So we figured we can take it over and grow it out, make it, you know, our brand.

Speaker B: So you constructed your first two from the ground up, right in Orlando. How did you do that from New Jersey? Because in our experience, when you have a construction project, if you are not there, it doesn't happen definitely on a good timeline. Like, did you have family members that were overwatch watching over it, making sure it was happening correctly? Were you down there all the time during the construction and just like, live there for a month? Like, how did you do that?

Speaker C: It's funny, like, now that I've done it, I'm, um, in the process of doing it for the third time. It's crazy to think that I actually pull the trigger the first time I did it, because it is so hard to believe to, like, do it remotely but manage a con. You know, managing a construction project when you are there is hard to say the least. And then doing it remotely is. Yes, it's even harder. Uh, how did I do it? I found a really good GC that I have a really, really good relationship with. He's actually built all three of my stores. I've used the same GC for all three builds at this point. But on that first one, it was speed dial. Lots of FaceTime, lots of FaceTime lots of more frequent visits. I was probably, I mean, I don't know, maybe once a month. So it wasn't like I was there every week.

Speaker A: Um, full time job. I mean, you couldn't be.

Speaker C: Yeah, I was still working a full time job. So, you know, I didn't have the leisure of being down there much more. I did have my partner down there, which helped a bunch, um, to kind of help get through it. But for the most part I was just doing tons of video calls and talking shop every day with them and learning a lot. I mean that first build was, it was hard. You know, you learned a lot around what you would and wouldn't do again the second time. And I learned that again the second time after the third one. You know, no matter what, you still learn and you hit the challenges, you hit the hurdles. No matter how well you try to plan, even for this third store I'm building now, it's like you still hit these speed bumps and you're like, it's just impossible to fully avoid everything during construction is what I've, I've realized it just can't happen.

Speaker B: You mentioned you have a partner down there. So Even though you're 1,000 miles away or you have a partner in, that's a partner for all four locations and he, he or she is in Orlando.

Speaker A: Is that correct? You're referring to your father in law or is this somebody else?

Speaker C: Yeah, good question. So me and my father in law are 45% owners each and I've got a minority partner who's 10% and he is the one that we use for a lot of the uh, day to day operation helping me out. And then my father, uh, in law just, he's near retirement so he just lets us do our thing alone.

Speaker B: Well, that has to having an ownership level person there in the area. So my next question though, through the construction, you need to hire people. How do you hire a team from a thousand miles away? Is that something your partner was in charge of? Did you have family members that were going to play those roles? How, how'd you do that?

Speaker C: So my first staff member, when I opened that first store, I had someone that I thought had potential to eventually be my gm. A lot in the beginning was overspending and overpaying, uh, to get the right people knowing that my vision was growth, expansion, pickup, delivery, more stores. So I really focused on that early on with the first couple of hires, which I think really helped a lot. They all are still with me today, those same key employees. So they helped A lot. I brought in that first kind of GM ish level employee. At that point they were just an attendant, but you know, I knew they had those skills. Trained her up pretty quickly and she actually helped out with interviewing and hiring all my future attendants from there on, my partner that was there not really, didn't really help too much with the interviewing, the hiring. They have their own full time job as well. So it was really my attendant, now GM that helped with the uh, the hiring. I would do some initial phone screens, you know, get people in, get them scheduled and then she would do the in persons and decide to move forward, not move forward. That was kind of our flow.

Speaker A: Very interesting.

Speaker B: So what kind of tricks do you have for managing things and staying on top of things so far away? How often do you talk to your gm? Do you have cameras everywhere monitoring everything? What kind of payment systems and stuff are you using to stay on top of the data? Like how do you do all of this managing remotely?

Speaker A: And I have a feeling one question that our audience has right now is how do you keep people from stealing from you? Right. Because everybody knows if you don't collect the money, everybody's going to steal from you, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Not necessarily true, but that's one of the, that's one of the risk, you know, misconceptions of the industry. It's definitely a risk for sure. I mean you need to mitigate it. But yeah, we'd love to hear a little bit more about how you manage those things.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, you know what's funny is like not too long ago everyone worked in, in corporate, in the office, right? And once Covid happened then remote kind of became more normal and people found ways to make it work whether it was, you know, an hour away or completely across the country. So I think people are very adaptable. I think there are ways to put systems and processes in place to accomplish pretty much anything. I always say with my team, like I don't care about the problems, I want to talk about the solutions. There's a solution for every type of problem. So I always came in with that same mindset in operating long distances. Okay, what are the solutions? Let's chip away one solution at a time. A lot of what, a lot of how I'm m able to accomplish what I am today is based on just using lots of cameras. Way too many cameras. You know, I have my phone, I have them on a TV screen in my office at home in New Jersey, all my stores all over the place. Lots of Google Docs, Google Docs is my best friend. You know, I share Google Docs with my GM and with my senior attendants. We have weekly, I have weekly team meetings with my GM and my senior attendants. I have a weekly meeting with my GM and my partner down there. Those are the only two reoccurring sessions that I have. But aside from that, I talk on the phone with my GM daily, if not multiple times a day and with my partner as well. Probably daily, if not every other day. Depends on the week, depends on the challenge, depends on the wrench that got thrown in on that day. Right. Like as you are probably well aware, every day there's a new hurdle, new surprise that you're trying to fire, you're trying to put out. So some weeks are quiet, other weeks feel like, you know, the Chinese fire drill nonstop. So it just depends. But between the cameras, the constant communication, the weekly check ins, the different types of working documents and Google Docs and SOPs and things like that that we have in place, all of those help keep us in a pretty good rhythm. Uh, and that's what I emphasize a lot with them is just having a rhythm where there's a problem, there's a way to communicate it, there's a way to manage it up. There's kind of a process to how to escalate or de escalate things. I tried to trust my team. I mean that, that has gotten much easier with time. In the beginning it's very, very hard. I'm a very much a type A ocd. I perfectionist. I need to have my hands and input on everything, which is why my GC hates working with me. Every single opinion that can be given, I'm going to give it. And like I posted not long ago, actually I'm kind of going off topic here but on uh, my current store that I'm building, it was, we had a whole discussion. Me, my GC and my distributor around. I'm doing tile for my floors for this store. And we had the conversation around tiling behind the dryers or not, which you don't need to. No one's going to see it. It's hidden. Why waste money on the tile and the labor, et cetera, et cetera. But it perfectly sums up my personality, which is I want it done the right way. No matter who's going to see it, I'm going to see it, I'm going to know it's there. So I tiled the whole thing behind the dryers and uh, you know, and everyone said, well you just wasted a bunch of Money like you're an idiot. I said, well, maybe. Maybe I am. But you know what? Every time I walk into that store and I walk behind the dryers, I feel good. And, uh, it feels complete and it feels finished. So it is what it is. But, uh, I take that same type of approach with managing my stores and managing my team and working with my manager, is that we do things the right way the first time, and we do it as if I was doing it right, like the best way. And they've continued to take that same mindset with other employees. So I think that helps a lot. Um, and I've had to let go on the trust. Like, you talked a little bit about the coin counts and stealing, um, and all that. Well, I've got processes in place to help minimize that and reduce that. Right now, my stores are hybrid, so I'm a, uh, coin, and I have Speed Queen equipment. So we use the app, which before was just the app. Now actually, Speed Queen rolled out. Rolled out the, um, Scan, touch, pay feature, which has been nice. You don't need to download the app to actually pay at the machines, which has been a really nice addition. But through that, it helps me manage the stores. Obviously, I know my accounts, I know my revenue per machine, and I use insights to understand how much I'm making and what the collection should be. I have had to do things that are probably extra work in order to minimize or help reduce the risk of stealing. For example, um, and it's not me, but my team. And we do daily counts. So we empty machines every day. We do counts every day. I have a weekly report that's broken down daily for every store, and I use this to then reconcile with my insights to make sure that my daily counts match up with the revenue that it says I made for the day. So things like that help me reduce theft and let them know that I'm on top of it, that I'm watching the numbers, I'm watching the revenue, and that, you know, there's a way, There is a way to track it. So can people be stealing? Yeah, maybe a little bit. Like, there's always that risk. But for the most part, the numbers check out. Things zero up. So far, so good. And, you know, that that type of trust, I think, has gone a long way with my team and has really helped them want to take on more and, you know, feel like they're accountable for running the businesses, which is what I want. You know, I. I don't want to be working in the stores every day. I, uh, I like taking vacations, so it's helped with that quite a bit.

Speaker D: Picture your store on a Saturday. The parking lot is full, your washers and dryers are turning. Customers stroll in, and before you know it, your store has come alive. Now cut to you. You've done your homework and upgraded to Speed Queen machines so you're not stuck behind the counter. Instead, you're doing what you love. Speed Queen Insights technology allows you to manage your store remotely, anytime, anywhere. Check in between errands instead of spending a full Saturday at your store when it's time to retool. Speed Queen makes it easy to build the right equipment and techniques with customer friendly controls that keep you in control. Visit speedqueencommercial.com turns to get started.

Speaker B: Do you see yourself eventually going to no coins so that if you're cashless, then it's a lot harder to steal money? Do you feel like that wouldn't work with your customer base?

Speaker C: You know the famous debate of coin versus card or hybrid? Uh, I'll never say never because I don't think that's, that's the truth. I think I will continue to evaluate it. I have evaluated. I almost went laundry works for my current build right now. Ended up not pulling the trigger on it. Uh, I think when I retool and redo my Miami store, I will go down the rabbit hole again of laundry works first coin. So maybe one day I think, you know, there's still this. The demographic for me in Orlando is, is definitely more coin focused. I don't have a ton of competitors that are only card only. So I'm waiting it out still. I still want to see how it plays out a bit longer. M. It's working for me today, but eventually I may transition. Time will tell.

Speaker A: I think a lot of people look at our industry through that lens of like I can see where we're going. I think we, most of us agree that someday down the road, who knows how long we're going to end up with Foampay. Right? Foampay is going to be the future. But I always say how quickly we're going to get there and how much adoption we're going to get, especially in markets specifically Pacific. You know, in these little 5 mile sub markets, things can change drastically from one to the other.

Speaker C: So yeah, you know, there's been so much change in the industry. I feel like the last two years, yeah, two, two, two. Two to three. But I want to say two. There's been so many, so much more money, so much PE money. So Many more companies, so much more exposure in the industry, and there's so many more players coming into it that. But we're still kind of early to see what the best product, best innovation is going to be. And I don't want to pull the trigger too early when in a year from now or a year and a half from now, there could be an entirely different, better way of doing things that could literally be three times, uh, more efficient and better for the end user than there is today. And it's evolving so quickly that I just don't want to be premature in pulling that trigger because, you know, they're not cheap investments, they're expensive investments. It's expensive to put it in. It's expensive to train up my employees, to train up to customers, and once I switch, I don't want to switch again. Change management is not fun. So I like to really know with a lot of confidence that whatever we put in place is going to be there for the next 10 to 15 years. And I'm not confident in that today with what is currently out there.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. That's kind of what we've been doing for 10 to 12 years. On the payment system side. Started with dollar coins. Knew that wasn't going to be the be all, end all, but it was a way to get away from quarters is all it was because quarters were eating us alive. We got the dollar coins and then we started with some hybrid systems with cci, fast card and things like that. Didn't like the pre authorization and some of the other, uh, pains that come with those things. And eventually ended up with Launderworks, which a big part of that is. Laundryworks by itself is an amazing product, but we use Sense. We use Sense for our POS and our pickup and delivery. And so when Sense acquired Laundewerks, it was like, okay, this makes like all the sense of the world for us personally. But I totally agree. I, I don't know if it's, I don't know, is it the opposite of fomo? I don't know what it is, but I'm like, there's something coming next year that might be better than what we have right now. Uh, but you know, we could, we could play that song and dance every year for 20 years.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: So eventually you got to pull the trigger on something or you just sit there with quarters for 30 years.

Speaker B: Well, I know part of it is, I think too, talking to the companies, which I know you did. Dave is talking to the companies and looking at their philosophy and their vision. And are they going to stay on the cusp of whatever? Like if something new comes out and everybody's switching to that, are they going to make this product be able to do that too? You know what I mean?

Speaker C: M. Yeah. Like, the way I think about it, I want to pull the trigger. When you're at the stage where it's the first, uh, iPhone that came out, you know, where it's like, okay, it's so far ahead of its time that it's going to be a while before it's fully replaced versus, you know, the ipod or the scan disks or the cd, you know, all these other things that kind of pivoted very quickly. So I know you can't time it perfectly, but it just still feels a little, A little early for me. And again, like, it's working. We're making it work and I'm not doing the collections. Thank God I have great employees and a great manager, uh, to do that because I know it's not easy.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Who does your collections? Is it all on your gm? Is it the senior attendance?

Speaker C: Yeah, so it's split between my GM and my store managers for my locations.

Speaker B: Does your overall kind of organizational hierarchy look like. Like how many employees do you have with. With about to be four stores now,

Speaker C: so we've got around 30, 32, I think. Employees hierarchy is a GM that oversees all the locations, focuses mostly on, um, day to day operations, schedules, customer first path of escalation, conversations, and a store manager for each location. And then I've got tiers for attendance between senior attendant and then kind of attendant.

Speaker B: And do you do pickup and delivery? Do you have drivers too?

Speaker C: Yep, yep. Do pickup and delivery. We run three vehicles daily, seven days a week. Got um, five drivers.

Speaker B: Is that just in Orlando or do you do that in Miami as well?

Speaker C: No, just in Orlando. Yeah, no, I have not. Have not and will probably not expand down to Miami. You know, most of our operations and kind of of what I've put in place is in Orlando. So that's kind of what where I continue to focus my effort and time. As you know, pickup and delivery is very difficult. Lots of logistics, lots of things to keep in place. I cannot imagine doing that in two completely different markets while also being completely remote from it. Doing it in one is hard enough, but yeah, we do pick up and delivery and um, now a third shift that we process our wash and fold for pickup and delivery. And now we've actually expanded that to two locations. Um, yeah, just because it's Space, you know, space is hard to come by. Um, and machines, you know, it's, especially with residential, like you need a lot of machines to process the order. So it's not just the space, it's you need the capacity of a volume of machines to do it too. Which is funny. Like I always think about, it's like, like at some point I always say, like I want to open up a closed facility to do a lot of my pickup and delivery, but I would still need a hundred plus machines, uh, to manage it. It's like, all right, well I might as well just use my locations. It's like that, you know, I don't know how much more I'm going to save by doing it at one place. Given the size I would need to bring all of my operations to be able to do all of it at one location versus what I'm doing now is I'm splitting it out between two locations, between commercial and residential. And so far that has worked. Uh, but you know, every other week the conversation pops in my head around trying to get a closed facility.

Speaker B: I think it depends on how big your pickup and delivery grows. Because right now you say you're, you're processing all your pickup and delivery third shift, which we do the same thing. And what you say about outgrowing, that's why we had to get the 9,000 square foot facility, because we'd outgrown our previous one with our pickup and delivery. But I think if you have enough where those hundred machines in that standalone facility can run all day doing pickup and delivery, obviously not just third shift, then it would make sense. I think a lot of people pull the trigger too soon and they go to that standalone facility and all of its overhead and all of its costs, pickup and delivery hasn't grown enough to need it yet. So I think you're smart to wait, you know, grow the pickup and delivery. Once you outgrow your two locations, it might be time.

Speaker A: Uh, that'll be a pretty robust pickup and delivery if you outgrow uh, those. Because I know when we look at our like unit economics of just overnight production, you know, we can, we can do you know, roughly a turn an hour, right, with washers and tires. And we're closed from 10pm to 7am Right. Which gives us roughly nine hours of production time. And they start, they cheat a little and start at 9:30 as the last customer's leaving from self serve. And sometimes not recently, but sometimes in the past at our other facility they would still be processing orders at 7am when the store's opening to the public again type of thing. And it's a good problem to have from an opposite optimization perspective, right? Because we know that equipment's expensive and it's not getting any cheaper, right? And that fixed cost of that equipment payment and the fixed cost of your mortgage or your. Your rent payment and things like that, those stay the same relative to generating a million and a half dollars in business or $300,000 in business. And so we're optimizing two of the most expensive parts of our business. And then we all know utilities is more of a variable expense, right? More and more revenue in the revenue. You know, the utilities are going to be a percentage of that. Um, and so I think it makes a lot of sense to do it that way. That being said, the people that are going to close facilities, I think we all dream of building a pickup delivery business big enough that it outgrows our stores. Plural.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, and if that ever happens, then, as Carla's mentioning, you've spent 5, 10, 15, 20 years fully optimizing the facilities you have, and now you have a robust enough pickup and delivery business to justify that closed facility. I can see why people are enamored by that, But I agree with her. I see an awful lot of people getting there a little too soon. A lot of times. Avoid third shift. And, you know, the great thing about being a small business owner is who am I to tell you how to run your business? You know, well, on third shift is

Speaker B: harder to find employees. It is not as many people want to work third shift.

Speaker A: You probably know this. I don't know how long you've been doing third shift, but we've been doing it for nine or 10 years now. And the first few years, there's a lot of, like, hiccups and bumps and bruises and things like that. And then you kind of figure out, like most things in business, there's kind of an art to this, right? Compensation and even management and oversight and accountability and. And once you hone those things in, yeah, it's new, but once you hone it in, I mean, it's not difficult to repeat it at other locations. That's just been our experience by how we've approached things. But I can't say that we'll never own a closed facility. I'd say it's possible.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: We have four locations we want to grow, outgrow all four of them.

Speaker C: So you're kind of taking the same path as, like, let me try to outgrow all four with pickup and delivery before. Yeah. And I think that's a path I will likely it is what I'm taking now. Like, why, why not let me keep running it to outgrow, you know, the second and then outgrow the third? And again there's Right. Like, yes, it'd be great to not have to manage the logistics across multiple stores to process pickup and delivery. Like there are just, there's challenges within that, within itself. Like, it'd be much cleaner, easier to have, uh, everything in, in one shop. And there's probably efficiency gains by doing that. But like you said, as you think through the cost of the overhead and the extra space and the extra equipment and all that, like, again, it's weighing those, those pros and cons. So that will likely be the approach I take as well, is trying to outgrow all, all three stores before I pull the trigger.

Speaker B: Whether you already have a laundromat or are looking to get into the laundry industry, everyone needs proper drainage. We use HM Company drain troughs. Their drain troughs were first created in 1991, and they have been the leading drain trough manufacturer ever since. They're made in the USA and their drain troughs are fully customizable to meet your needs. That's why we've used them ever since entering the industry. They're easy to clean for our staff and plenty sturdy when we need to walk on them. When servicing our washers with the ability to span up to 25ft, our troughs rarely need to be connected together, creating an easy installation. Want to slope your trough like we do? No problem. Just let the experts at HM AH company know. For more information, go to their website at, uh, draintroths.com that is draintroths.com. hM Company Drain Troughs. They've been leading the industry since 1991. Check them out today.

Speaker A: How, uh, big are your stores?

Speaker C: They range between 36, so 3,600 square feet. My first one. 3,000 was my second one. And 4,000 is the one I'm building now. And the one in Miami is about 2,500.

Speaker A: Okay, that's. Yeah. Uh, I've coached a few people in Miami over the years, many years ago. And I remember rent being like $43 a square foot down there. And I'm like, man, you guys are paying more for rent for a 1500 square foot space than I am for a 5400 square foot space.

Speaker C: Very, very expensive. I mean, Orlando's not much better. Orlando is very, very expensive rent as well. And you know, when you build they really, really get you on those. On those tap fees and impact fees, for sure. I said I would never build a second store, and, you know, here we are.

Speaker A: So I'm curious. One of the things I want to address and hear your perspective on. You talked about hiring a manager, and I think you even said you overpaid was the word you used to get the right person. To get the right person. And they were more of an attendant in the beginning. One of the things that I, you know, I've coached 400 people over the last seven years. When I coach people, and even in my business, I tell people, you know, I love living in Cincinnati, but the truth is, our team is so robust and so well. I mean, we spend two hours a week in our business, and that's in a meeting that could easily be done over zoom. We could live anywhere in the world if we wanted to. Right. We just love Cincinnati. We like to travel other places and come back to the Midwest. That's who we are. Right. But, uh, one of the things I tell people is if I speak of my experience, how could I have built it? It would have been very difficult to do the way you did. From ground ones. Kudos to you times a thousand. But once you're in the business for a few years and you get. I always say that one champion is the word I use. It doesn't matter what their title is, that one champion, or even that one business partner. So you having that person from day one that you took a chance on and overpaid, I'm not surprised at any of that. But I'm curious, what were their skill sets when you brought them in? Because you mentioned overpaying and you mentioned them being an attendant. I mean, was this somebody that had experience as, like, a general manager in other businesses, and you just said, hey, come in. But I mean, when you say overpay, you don't have to give numbers. I'm curious how much you overpaid, because if they're still with you today and running this. This rather large and growing operation, I mean, they must have had some serious capacity as far as growing into your vision for what they would be. And in my opinion, I'm rambling a little bit, but in my opinion, my point is that that's the key to success remotely. If I were going to do it remotely. It's all about my GM and my assistant gm. The reason we can live anywhere in the world is because those two people.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, they're definitely key. She was actually a cashier at a supermarket didn't, didn't, didn't manage teams before. Haven't managed tons of people or big team prior. And again, we didn't expect that of her when she started either. So it helped that we were able to. She was able to grow with the business and get upskilled with the business and we were able to train and support her, uh, to obviously get those skills. You know, I always say, like, I've hired so many and trained so many people over my career, especially in corporate. It was a big part of what I had to do in, in sales management and sales leadership is hiring and training, hiring salespeople. Training salespeople is difficult. Keeping salespeople motivated is difficult. Lots of the things I learned throughout that is the things I've done and implemented with my team now, you know, she didn't have all those hard skills or soft skills when she first came on board, but she did have the right personality, she did have the right attitude. She was hungry, she had the grit, she had the desire to want more, to want to take on more, to want to grow, take on more responsibility and wasn't afraid of any of it. So lots of that I saw from her very early on. And those things are things you can't, you can't train that stuff. You can't teach people that stuff. You either have it or you don't. You know, there's a big debate around salespeople and if our salespeople are born or salespeople are trained. And my philosophy is always, it's a little bit of both, but there is definitely a piece of doing sales that you need to be be. You need to be born in a certain way to be able to take that on and deal with the stress and the constant turndown and let down and challenges. And when you find people that can grind through that, they're special people. I always say, like highly skilled, successful salespeople are some of the most resilient, talented people that there are. It's a hard, hard, hard job. So it was a lot of that and she showed a lot of that early on. And then from there it was continuing to groom the soft skills. You know, how to take on more, you know how to use tools, how to tools like checklists and Google Docs and workflows to make her job easier to delegate, to take on more and not go crazy, you know, completely stress yourself out. So over time we worked on those things, but, you know, she had the bones and had a good foundation to build on from the start.

Speaker A: Did you know that when you hired her, I mean, you probably couldn't have known that you were maybe hoping, right? I mean, you couldn't have possibly known that.

Speaker C: No, I did not. No, I had. No, I did not know that for sure. But I knew that she was, well, more than what I needed for just an attendant. So I knew, you know, at that point, you know, hindsight's 20 20, I knew she would be the person for the next 12 to 18 months, undoubtedly. How much more? I wasn't sure. How much higher was the ceiling? Not sure. But I knew I had at least a year and a half, half of, uh, where I thought she could get to, to get the business to where I thought it needed to be. And then I was like, all right, well, at that point, I'll find someone that can do more or has a higher ceiling and has more experience and so on. And, you know, her ceiling has continued to grow, so we'll see where that, you know, and I'll be honest, like, over the last six months, our business has really gone through, like in any businesses, I feel like there's levels to growth and tiers to where you're flat in growth mode, kind of process mode, decline mode, whatever it is. And for about a year, we were kind of in the all is good, all is steady. I don't want to say flat, but, you know, little, little growth, but nothing crazy. And over the last six months, we've seen a bit more of that growth phase again. Uh, you know, I've kind of tried to get back to the place where I want to grow more, you know, more marketing, more fire, more trying to get things out there. And, and that has really, you know, put stresses and challenges back on the team. And, you know, you flex muscles again that you weren't sure of. Managers and team leads were flexing muscles again. Uh, I forgot what this was like when we went through this a year ago or a year and a half ago. Kind of that growth mindset again. So we're going through that process again. And there's, you know, again, so many. So many. It was funny. You were talking about, you know, you cheat, you start early at 9:30, and sometimes you go in past 7. The amount of conversations I've had over the last week around, okay, drivers need to be out by this time so that we can finish our routes by this time, so we can unload by this time, so my third shift can start by this time, so that we can finish processing by this time. Because, you know, it's that constant flywheel, like, once One part is thrown off or delayed. That flywheel then gets thrown off for the next 12, 15 hours. Um, and then you're putting out fires for the next day. So it's just funny to hear that counter that a few times.

Speaker A: Yeah, I tell my team all the time. Just so we're clear, you're never going to be comfortable. That's not going to happen. Right. We're always going to continue to push each other. And if you're not up for that, then you're in the wrong place. If you are, there will always be something different to challenge you. And not everybody is up for that. But I call them butt kickers. The butt kickers are. They're always up for a challenge. They're always up for something new and different and to flex those muscles that maybe they haven't done in a couple years. So that's awesome to hear. I just wanted to bring that up and highlight that because that's one of the things I touch on with people. As I say, that's the key. That's the key to get around, you know, it's not easy to do. It's. So our story is very similar. We hired a local waitress who was a family friend of mine when we met, when we were 18 years old. We both went, got married, went our separate ways for 10 years or so, met back up in our 30s, and I basically hired her away from the restaurant she worked at, and she made good money as a waitress, but she was still a waitress ten years later, uh, and she was managing a shift there. And I said I knew who she was. Character, work ethic, grit, loyalty, all the things we talk about. Right? And I was like, I can teach you the business. You have all the key characteristics that I'm looking for. But full disclosure, I was learning the business myself.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: We didn't have the resources that a lot of people have when they get in the industry. So we were. We were bootstrapping for a long time before we had the resources to really do significant things. People bring this up a lot because I think it goes without saying, if you limit yourself to only New Jersey or only Cincinnati, then you limit yourself to what that market has or doesn't have. Supply, demand, competition, all these different things. If you open it up to the whole world, or at least the whole United States, you can find a lot better opportunities that way, especially when you have family members who own real estate and things like that in other markets. And that. That can be. That can be a big leg up. I would imagine that was A big part of your success was having kind of all these built in components here that you could leverage.

Speaker C: Is your laundromat ready to become the neighborhood's number one choice? Laundry Boost has proven strategies to help your business flourish.

Speaker A: I think we saw changes pretty quick before that four month range. I'm in that four month range now and we're seeing changes left and right. I mean pickup and delivery clients, drop off clients, self service clients, you know, businesses up as a whole, literally. It was shocking to watch the numbers jump. I wish I would have kept, I could go back and I could begin to track these things which I did to see what percentage growth we had. But it wasn't unusual to go up 30% per month.

Speaker C: At LaundryBoost, we specialize in fueling Laundromat growth through targeted Google Ads and powerful social media campaigns. We make your location stand out and attract loyal customers. Ready to level up your laundromat? Visit laundryboostmarketing.com and book a call with us for a free consultation.

Speaker B: Do you offer any type of um, bonus or anything like that? So as your business grows where their job is getting more difficult, obviously there's raises you can give. Do you have any kind of built in compensation that's like based on, on the revenue or based on the pounds or based on profit sharing? Profit sharing, anything like that.

Speaker C: So we played around a little bit with the uh, PPOH and trying to put incentive plans and bonus structures in place for it. We had challenges with this, you know, uh, that's the best way to put it like residential, commercial and the processes for I guess the equality of being able to fairly and evenly measure when we also wanted people to wear so many hats and be flexible with the role that we might need them for for that day. Between either a residential account or a commercial account or pressing for example, you know we, I have a, a ironer as well, like 120 inch um, flat work ironer. So we started to do pressing. So when we were doing pressing how did that, you know, how did that work with our uh, pounds per hour for commercial versus residential? Certain accounts required kind of different specificity of what they wanted that was different and that might affect itself. So we're still working through it. We still, we want to get back to it. We still track it. You know, we track pounds per hour again we use a worksheet, we review it. We've tailored things with pressing and pieces per hour to incorporate pressing things and pressing items and things like that. So we had bonuses in place. We did it for a little bit. We paused on it and said let's take a break on this. Now we do more of one off bonuses based on revenue for our wash and fold verse employee wages and percentage and trying to be at certain percentages and we'll do monthly bonuses for that. And then I have bonus structures from IgM around the same thing and number of or lack of number of complaints or messed up orders or whatever you want to call it per month. So we've gotten kind of creative on trying to find easier, more fairly ways to do it. But the plan is to still try to come back to a bonus structure around the pounds per hour or pieces per hour. It's just been difficult as we've kind of been growing and incorporating different types of accounts and processes for accounts.

Speaker B: I get it. So for doing your pickup and delivery, do you do more of an assembly line or do you do like uh, we call it ownership of the order where the person who starts the order is the same person that finishes it. Or do you have like one person as a washer and dryer, another person is a folder and packager?

Speaker C: Yeah, we run it similar to you. So we have uh, one person per order mostly all for accountability savings. We know if one person is managing that load from start to finish, they have full accountability and responsibility for that order. So if something happens, we know who to go talk to, who to review cameras for to identify where and how it happened. And the way we do it now is we actually have lists, you know, every night for each, for each employee and they own X orders. And we have kind of the volume per employee that we know that they should be able to do on a shift and then. And they work through that list and work through those orders from start to finish.

Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds very similar to ours. We call that delegating the order. We delegate it to a certain processor. What software do you use for wash, dry, fold and for pickup and delivery?

Speaker C: We're on curbside right now. So I've been on curbside. Started with Curbside, uh, from our first store in 2020 and still uh, using them today. Uh, Matt have been awesome to work with and get to know over time. Uh, so we use that for both in store and pickup and delivery.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're actually speaking at their conference, the uh, industry. It should be there 4th through 26.

Speaker A: Yeah, we'd love to meet you in person.

Speaker B: Yeah. Curbside 2026.

Speaker A: Yeah, Matt and Aaron, we've known since pretty well since they got in the industry. We were in it a Little bit before them. And they're good guys doing good things, really trying to benefit the betterment of the whole industry. Of course they have, you know, software to sell and things like that. But they're, we love the vision behind the conference, which is to bring education and networking first and then yeah, of course, we hope you use our software. Right. They're uh, unapologetic about that, or they should be.

Speaker B: So I'm curious, you, you've traveled this journey of having laundromats over a thousand miles away. Now granted, you had a father in law there and you had a minority business partner. What would you say to a newbie, a new operator coming into our industry? They're in a town and they're like, I just can't find any laundromats here. Should I go and look in other markets? Would you tell them that it's difficult? What advice would you give them if they were thinking about doing what you did and maybe didn't have the father in law and the friend there?

Speaker C: I always start those conversations the same way, which is having them start to think about their deal box and you know, what's important to them as they look for a store. How much time are they going to be willing to commit to this per week? Is this a side hustle or is this going to be a full time thing? Do they have other business experience that they're coming from to get into this? Do they have other people that they can lean on if they don't have that experience? Mentors or someone local? Do they have other resources in those local areas? So there's so many variables that I think the individual needs to really think through before making a decision or uh, even thinking if that's going to be feasible. In some cases, managing the store three hours away is harder than managing a store a thousand miles away, in my opinion. Because, uh, you know, sometimes you then feel like you're, you're the guy, you're the one that has to kind of have the wholeness of, of all of it three hours away, which is, that's, that's hard, hard. Whereas once you're in that another state like, okay, now you need to find people, tools, vendors, handymans and processes to deal with those things. Because you're not going to do it. Uh, yeah, it's not an option. Exactly. So I will tell them to first think through their deal box. First think through what's important to them. What type of store do they want? What type of store do they want it to be. All of those answers Will then, I think, lead them in a way which will help make that decision for them. Them as opposed to the other way around.

Speaker A: I think that's powerful stuff. And I'll just point this out. You know, you're in New Jersey, and I don't know where in New Jersey, but to me, it's all the same place. Right.

Speaker C: Northern New Jersey. Don't tell Jerseyans that I'm in northern New Jersey.

Speaker A: I tell that to Californians and Texans. They all at it. I'm like, I'm joking. I know it's not true.

Speaker B: Ohio is all the same.

Speaker A: That's right. Midwest is all the same state to them. Uh, but anyway, one of the things I think we should maybe, for those that are listening at home and even myself as a coach, I think one of the things that maybe we should. Should process for a minute here is I get a lot of people that reach out to me, and the thing they struggle with the most is that where they live and where they want to live and they don't want to move is a town of 15,000 people.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker A: And of course, we all know there's just not enough laundry there, right. To make a big, big impact. You're not going to have four stores, right, in a town of 15,000 people. Well, I think episodes like this, and even our story, which it took us longer to get here, you started from there. We could do those things in the last four or five years, but it would have taken us 10 years to build an operation that would allow us to, uh, operate remotely from anywhere in the world. But I think it's, uh, hopefully inspiring to people that maybe live in towns where just the population density isn't there to do the things they want to do. For them to see that this is

Speaker B: possible or just an oversaturated market and they can be in a big city but not be any opportunities there.

Speaker A: Uh, I mean, I always say there's two kinds of people in this world. One of them who believe they can do anything, despite the weaknesses. I fall into that category. I think you fall into that category, Steven. But I think a lot of people, probably a much higher percentage of people, they want to see one or two other people do it. They don't need to see a hundred, but they want to see one or two other people that did something that supposedly couldn't be done. And then now they're inspired and they believe that maybe they could actually do this too. And I think there's. I, uh, know I talk to them all the time. There's Some really brilliant people that are capable of doing some amazing things in this industry and they're limited by where they live, but they don't want to move.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And I think this episode and even our story now shows people that, you know, Charles Measly, you can move a laundromat, right? Steven Nunez, you can operate and even build from scratch from day one, which we didn't do and couldn't have done, uh, from a thousand miles away. I think these are powerful stories to share with each other. So I appreciate you coming on the episode and sharing your story. Guys, if you're not on LinkedIn, go follow Stephen on LinkedIn too. But, um, I just wanted to throw that out there because I have a lot of those conversations and a lot of times what I tell them is, unless you want to move, there's not much I can like, I can't help you.

Speaker D: You.

Speaker C: Right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Saying that and start saying go watch the Steven Nunez episode of our podcast. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, you know, the, the numbers need, the numbers need to support it, right? The market's got to support it. And there's more risk. You know, that's just the truth. There's more risk in doing it. And if you're first one, like I. Every conversation I have on my coaching calls and when I talk to potential prospects I want to get into, it's always ideally, try to find something that is, is nearby within an hour. Like, that is always option that is absolutely not possible. And you know, we talk through all the things to make sure that you've fully ruled that out. Then we can go down the list of exploring, uh, other options. But it's challenging. It's hard, I would not say to do it for your first one, but yes, it is possible. Many things are possible. But, um, doesn't mean that it should be your go to.

Speaker A: Right. Possible, not preferable.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: So before we go, I would like to give you an opportunity to share how people can get in touch with you. Understand your. You're considering starting a podcast where they can find that. Um, can you share a little bit of that? And you do some coaching too, so anything you'd like to share with our audience?

Speaker C: LinkedIn is the best place to connect with me. Um, Steven Nunez on LinkedIn. Please connect, follow, feel free to message me there. I do some, some writing on there and I, you know, I share things about my experience in my day to day. I also do coaching as well. So again, you can connect me on LinkedIn. Reach out. Happy to have those conversations and Talk through that. And yes, have started a. I would call it a side podcast. Um, as well. A couple of weeks in, couple episodes are out. But feel free to connect me on LinkedIn and look me up on the podcast. It should be out streaming, I guess, in the next couple of weeks. Uh, it's called the back room. Yeah. Feel free to follow and join along.

Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. Well, man, we appreciate you taking time out of your day. I know you're a busy guy. We're busy guys and our schedules are crazy, so it took a little while to connect. Uh, but once again, I'm a big, big believer in what you're doing. I find myself nodding my head up and down at your posts much more often than I do side to side. So we have a lot. Covid. Look forward to meeting you at the Curbside event, by the way, next month, I guess, since we're shouting it out here.

Speaker B: Carly, uh, use code millionaire. You get $100 off the registration fee.

Speaker A: Hey, Stephen, did you train her as a salesperson?

Speaker C: Yes. Looking forward to seeing you guys out there for sure. This was great. Thanks for the invite. Thanks for having me. Hopefully, uh, you know, I shared some stuff that might or help some others. And hopefully people connect with me and we can chat more, more offline. And both of you would love to continue talking shop as well, about operations and business too.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Appreciate you reaching out for everyone back home. We'll see you at the Curbside event or we'll see you on the next episode of the Laundromat Millionaire show, sponsored by HM HM Co. @Draintrofts.com. thanks for being here today. Take care. If you ever need anything, reach out to us. See you guys.