We recently connected with James Chandler and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, James thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about making remote work effective.

At Laundry On Demand, we strive to create a personalized level of care for our customers by allowing for open communication between customer and Laundry Pro. We thoroughly vet our Pros in an effort to provide continuity of service no matter where you are or who’s processing your laundry.

One of the great things about working with us is that our Pros enjoy a lot of flexibility. They choose which orders to accept, how far they want to travel to pick up orders, and which days/times they’re available to work. The entire laundering process can be, and usually is, done from their home. The customers love that their clothes aren’t shrunk from too-hot driers at a laundromat and our Pros love the convenience of working remotely.

James, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is James Chandler. I am a husband, a father, a service-disabled veteran, and the founder and CEO of Laundry On Demand. Integrity and determination are the building blocks of everything I do, whether it’s picking up and doing a customer’s laundry myself to make sure they’re completely satisfied or walking the streets carrying a Laundry On Demand sign to build brand awareness. Our service is 100% guaranteed and I stand behind that promise. (sometimes literally!)

I owned a laundromat for several years and learned a lot from that experience. I wasn’t afraid to get my hands dirty and it wasn’t unusual for you to find me behind a machine fixing a leak or installing a new washing machine. I was determined to make the laundromat a place to be proud of. I turned it from a self-service location that customers were scared to visit into a successful, monitored, safe place for customers to stay and do their laundry. I also added a pickup and delivery wash-and-fold component to increase revenue and cover the cost of the employees.

Covid tossed us all a curveball that made me reevaluate the business. The world was moving to remote-work and I moved right along with it by selling the laundromat and creating Laundry On Demand. With Laundry On Demand, I have been able to provide customers value by giving them back their time that they would have otherwise spent doing laundry and provide working people a way to make money on their schedule, from their own home.

Our Laundry Pros are some of the best in the biz. We background check, train, and I personally interview all of our Laundry Pros before we let them on our platform. We have actually had some people complain that our process was so much more involved than our competitors, but I think that’s part of what makes us so great – the fact that we devote the time to try to make sure someone is a great fit with a can-do attitude. Did I mention that our Pros are some of the best paid in the laundry service industry? They keep 100% of their tips and make over 80% of each order. Customers love our Pros too and the ability to communicate directly through text while their order is still open. We even give customers the ability to exclusively use their Preferred Laundry Pro.

We are different from our competitors in so many ways – the most important being that Laundry On Demand is run by an owner who really cares. Customers can choose their pickup day and pickup time – including same-day – and we guarantee next-day delivery for regular-sized orders. Customers have the ability to choose their favorite Laundry Pro to exclusively process their orders. All orders have real-time status updates as well as text communication. When a customer reaches out on the site with questions, a real person will get back to them – usually that day. We also offer a freeloader program that puts money back in our customers’ pockets just by referring others to Laundry On Demand.

I am proud that Laundry On Demand was named Best of Big D 2021 and Best of Big D Home by D Magazine. It was such an honor and a testament to the caliber of people working with us. I was also fortunate enough to be interviewed on Good Morning Texas last year to share some laundry hacks. I don’t know if the big screen is ready for me yet, but I really enjoyed the whole experience.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

I purchased a laundromat in 2017 in order to generate passive income and build equity. The coin-laundromat concept was intriguing because it required very few employees, created cash-flow, and had sufficient equipment to borrow capital.

The acquisition process was arduous and required a lot of due diligence. With the mostly cash nature of the coin-laundromat, verifying income was incredibly difficult. I made several offers, contingent upon income verification that ultimately fell through. I ended up buying a distressed asset-only laundromat and built the business from there.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

A year after the purchase of the laundromat, while struggling to turn it around, I discovered a tax lien on all of the equipment we had purchased. The county sent a notice of asset forfeiture and gave us 30 days to pay $20,000 in back-taxes accrued by the previous owner or lose the laundromat. I worked tirelessly for weeks to negotiate a payment plan to keep the assets from going into default. We eventually paid off the tax lien with some of the proceeds from the sale of the laundromat.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.laundryod.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laundry_on_demand/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thereallaundryondemand
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/laundry-on-demand
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DemandLaundry