Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brian Hofer. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Brian, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One deeply underappreciated facet of being a service provider is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?
Aloha and thank you for taking the time to read my crazy story about how I doubled my revenue month after month. I’m a young entrepreneur on the beautiful island of Oahu and I have thriving laundry service startup named Tama Laundry. We offer a wash and fold services with pick up and delivery where you can choose your own detergents, softeners, etc all within a few taps on your smart phone or laptop. I launched this company about 9 months ago and month by month I have grown exponentially. This accelerated growth happened almost over night, the fist three months revenue increased but marginally. The fourth month it doubled. The fifth month it doubled again, with growth continuing and no signs of stopping. Are you ready to hear the crazy part how I did it? 1 Chronicles 4:10 the Prayer of Jabez “And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh, that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, and that I may not cause pain!’ So God Granted him what he requested.”
Yes, it sounds just as a crazy to me before I put a little faith and practice behind it. My startup was bootstrapped, literally scraping by to pay bills and invest anything leftover whatsoever in basic startups like, company shirts and laundry bags. Luckily I was able to create some amazing content with Canva and within a couple months I had my first logo work apparel and bags for customers. I was falling behind on bills, and it’s as becoming a balance act of who was going to get paid first – rent or gas for my car to make laundry pick up and deliveries. Times got very dark and challenging, to the point of almost loosing it all – I kid you not. About 4 months into my startup and falling behind on bills,I woke up one fateful morning only to find out my car had been repossessed. Determined to continue on and not be stopped I started to become fueled by faith and prayer.
I was introduced to 1 Chronicles 4:10 and it literally changed my life. I would pray that my territory would be expanded and I would cause no pain and that’s when things started getting crazy – like overnight crazy. I told some family members and friends to pray for me during these hard initial times and that’s when business began booming. The first call was a vacation rental service who was in desperate need for laundry service. I unassumingly arrive thinking it would be a couple of bags. It ended up being 6 car loads – over 1,000lbs of laundry. They continued to use us. These large orders started becoming more and more – to the point where there was no other way to explain it than answers to prayer. As crazy it sounds, the power of prayer is real.
God has continued to bless me beyond imagination. From expanding my territory to providing a brand new luxury SUV, God hasn’t stopped there. Whenever I need something for my business or need to expand digitally, I say that prayer and let God do the rest. I have been introduced to people all around the world who have helped facilitate creating digital products as well as custom laundry bags. I have an app that is months a way from being released and so many other exciting expansions for my laundry service. I continue to pray and I encourage all of you to put some faith and practice behind the Prayer of Jabez. The crazy part…..it works!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Brian Hofer and I and I am 37 years old. I have a BBA in Marketing form the University of Hawaii at Manoa. I was lucky enough to attend college for two years in Hilo, Hawaii, 1 year in Bangkok, Thailand at Thammasat Business University, and 2 years at the University of Hawaii at Mona. Yes, I was on a 5 year plan on two different Hawaiian islands and a foreign country – I was pretty much on vacation.
I had been an entrepreneur since grade school. I remember selling my poor neighbors some hideous drawings and arts and crafts creations I conjured up at home before making my daily door-to-door pitty sales. I really stepped up my game in Middle School when I would have my mom drive me around to different houses so I could sell them Avon products from me.
Modern day me, is still filled with passion and drive to create, help, and offer a service to others. I always knew I wanted to have my own business – just wasn’t always sure what that business would be. Currently I’ve been very successful in a laundry service startup in Honolulu, Hawaii called Tama Laundry. We offer a wash and fold service with pick up and delivery all which can be facilitated by a couple taps on your smartphone or computer,
My piece of advice for anyone wanting to start their own business is to just try it. I’ve tired so many other ventures before this one, each one teaching me a new skill whether it something related to digital design or meeting a new person. What ever the case may be, each instance brought me to where I am to day. If you want to start a business – DO IT! Just try it, make a website – WiX is a great place to start. Get a GSuite account and pay a prepaid cell phone if you need to for a local number. Get some cheap business cards and shirt printed and fake it till you make it! Don’t stop improvising your product. Getting it started is just half the fun. Be creative with your offerings and pricing. Try something new the market has never seen before. If it doesn’t work – fine. You tried.
Take a risk, Have some faith and say a prayer.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Online for sure. When you fist start your business you might be like me and have the whole thing bootstrapped and just scraping by until you can invest more into your venture. Your online prescience is crucial during the initial growth. Put money on your website. Get the Secured Site, pay the premium hosting, hire a designer. There are so many cheap options out there to create digital products – there is no excuse to not have an online presence. Keep growing on your online presence – ask for Google reviews, pay for Google Ads, hand out business cards. These are all things that you should plan on doing for the lifetime of your business.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Take care of your customers and emp[oyees first and profits and growth will follow. I live and breath by this – I don’t think about profits when a customer calls and needs us to solve a problem. I don’t crunch numbers when my workers go the extra mile so I buy the office lunch for a well deserved day. I take care of my people. Have empathy, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Try and see what it’s like to live a day in your employees shoes. Take care of your people and profits and growth will follow.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.tamalaundry.com
- Instagram: Tamalaundryservice
- Facebook: @tamalaundryservice
- Linkedin: Brian-Hofer-341716102
- Yelp: HTTPS://yelp.to/VdJxyLBoi4