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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the SourceForge podcast.
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I'm your host, Bo Hamilton, and today's episode will focus in on the laundromat industry with the company Wash Dryfold POS, a B2B SaaS company making point of sale and management software for laundromats.
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According to the Coin Laundry Association, there are about 29,500 coin laundries here in the United States.
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And based on recent industry surveys, about half of those offer wash dry fold services.
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And we estimate about 6,000 of those laundromats have an actual point of sale system.
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And the crazy thing about a lot of laundromats in the US is most of them are still being run on things like a clipboard, maybe a whiteboard in the back, a box full of receipts that a laundromat owner is using to keep track of the business processes.
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Those sort of like outdated practices you've you've heard a lot about here on the SourceForge podcast.
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And my guest today is trying to fix all that.
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He's got a pretty unusual credential for a software CEO.
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He owns laundromats himself, uh, real ones, down in uh Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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Um, Ian Gallahan is the co-founder and now CEO of Wash Drive Fold POS.
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And the company started back in 2016 out of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
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And today it serves more than 1,300 stores across all 50 states, which uh works out to somewhere around 20% of the entire U.S.
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laundromat POS market.
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Um, but here's the part that I find particularly fascinating.
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Ian's also co-owner of Liberty Laundry, three stores in Tulsa that did about$2.5 million in revenue last year.
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And those stores double as sort of the live testing ground for the software.
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So if a feature doesn't survive like a Saturday morning rush hour with real attendants and real customers, it just doesn't ship to the overall platform.
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And I think what's also neat and worth mentioning about Ian is that he's talked to something like 3,000 laundromat owners over the last decade, hosts his own show on the industry laundromat ownership podcast.
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And uh before any of this, he was selling billboards.
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So uh I'm really excited to have Ian here on the show.
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Ian, welcome to the SourceForge podcast.
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Thanks for having me, Bill.
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Of course.
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Um, so I want to get right into it.
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Um, you own three laundromats in Tulsa, uh Liberty Laundry, which did about$2.5 million last year, and you've you've built laundromat point of sale software.
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I'm guessing owning the laundromats informed a lot of your software design and functionality decisions.
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Like those stores are like literally your testing ground, right?
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That's right.
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We actually initially built the software just to run the three Liberty Laundry locations.
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And as we really perfected it and solved problems that we were having in the day-to-day operations in the laundromats and as we were scaling, uh, that's when we really started to build something that was probably useful not just at our laundromats, but at other laundromats.
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And in fact, our first system sale was a laundromat down the street saying, How do I get the laundromat uh point of sale system that you guys are using?
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And so uh everything from the bag label printer that prints the little labels that go on the bag so that the sticky notes don't fall off and having the uh permanent notes for the customer accounts, like hypoallergenic, that kind of thing.
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You just kind of learn over the years what do you actually need in a software that runs a laundromat?
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And that's really where we come from.
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And then we've kind of learned how to build it into a software company uh after we built it into a point of sale system for our laundromats.
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Yeah, I think every every software company uh owner uh, you know, they they say that they know their customer, right?
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But I think that's especially true with what you guys are doing.
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And you literally have your own laundromats.
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Um, you you know the inside and out of this industry, you have your own show uh on um interviewing laundromat owners around the US.
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Um so you really you really know your stuff here.
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And I'm looking forward to to getting into it some more.
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Um, what what first of all, like what is a laundromat POS system?
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Maybe you can help kind of define that that term for us and how is it different from you know the card or the the machine payment system on the actual machines?
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Yeah, that's probably the issue that has the most confusion around it in the industry.
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Because for a self-serve laundromat, if you're just walking into the laundromat, and most laundromats have this capacity, or practically all laundromats, you walk in and you want to do the laundry that you brought with you yourself.
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And so you need to go to a little kiosk and uh, you know, put money on a card, and then you go start the self-serve machines, the washers and dryers.
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That's not what we do.
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A laundromat point of sale system is for let's say you've got a washer and dryer at home, but you've just brought in your comforter to get washed at the laundromat, and you don't want to stay there and do it yourself.
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So you actually walk up to the counter and you do a service that's called wash, dry, fold, uh, just like our name.
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And so you give them your comforter and they will wash it, dry it, fold it, and return it to you, you know, ready to put back on the bed.
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Um, now you can do that with clothes and other uh laundered items as well.
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But when you say uh a laundromat point of sale system, what you mean is the actual computer, the weight scale, the printers that are on the counter so that the laundromat attendant can service the wash dry fold customer.
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And that is quite a different thing from somebody coming in.
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Maybe they don't even talk to anyone, they just go start a washer and dryer and go about doing their business.
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So it's it's kind of an add-on service that about half of laundromats offer called wash dry fold.
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And so we would be the point of sale system for that specific service.
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So they're really they're really two sort of different layers of the business.
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Um the machines, of course, are one thing, and and the the counter is sort of where things get a little bit more complicated.
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Um, does every laundromat owner actually need a POS system or is a fully self-service, like unattended store fine without one?
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Like I'm curious, like at what point does like dedicated software become really worth that investment?
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Yeah, I think that's a really good question.
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And it really addresses, you know, how many laundromat point of sale systems and companies are out there.
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So I would say about half the laundromats in the US have chosen to be unattended.
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A lot of times these are the laundromats that maybe don't have the best of the reputation, where there's no one there watching over the store, making sure that everything stays safe and um, you know, helping people as needed.
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Um, and so for those laundromats that are unattended, they really do not need a laundromat point of self system.
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What they need is what you would call a self-serve payment system.
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Um, laundry works, uh, CCI fast card, laundry card, spider wash, ESD.
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These are all names of self-serve payment systems.
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And they make sense in every laundromat.
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Pretty much every laundromat needs a self-serve payment system.
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However, only fully attended laundromats need the wash dry fold POS.
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And the reasoning behind that is if you're going to be fully attended, you're going to keep the store nice, clean, safe.
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You might as well offer the wash-dry fold services, and that will offset the cost of having the attendance at the laundromat.
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And the kind of the secret in the industry is that fully attended stores do much more in self-serve revenue than unattended stores.
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And so we also end up serving the highest revenue laundromats in the US as well, because those tend to also be the ones that offer wash dry fold successfully and are fully attended, are nice, clean, everything's working.
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And so it kind of becomes part of the the larger laundromat roadmap.
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Uh, but if you're just going to have a little unattended laundromat somewhere and you're just trying to, you know, keep costs down and collect quarters at the end of the, at the end of the month, then a laundromat point of sale system is not something that would be useful for you.
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That makes sense.
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I appreciate the honesty too, because I I'm I half expected you to, I don't know, tell, tell everyone uh, you know, that everyone needs one.
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Everyone needs a POS system, but there's there's uh, you know, some some customers um uh it makes more sense than others.
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Uh uh can a laundromat just run sort of wash dry fold on something like Square or another generic retail POS?
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Um, or does it start to you start to really run into a lot of limitations because the system doesn't really know the business inside and out?
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Well, that's what we tried to do initially at Liberty Laundry is we had these generic point of sale systems.
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Uh Square was one of the ones that we used, and it is great for keeping track of inventory and selling soaps over the counter, which our system does that as well.
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But after the sale is where a square is is pretty much checked out versus um with a laundromat point of sale system, wash drive fold POS, for example, you're actually it creates an order that needs it's in the to-do column.
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And then you drag and drop it to sort, you get it all sorted, spot treated.
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You can see the instructions there for that laundry.
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You move it over to wash, which the important thing there is you're actually gonna start the machines with one of those cards, those self-serve payment cards we were talking about earlier.
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And so it's actually gonna document what amount of start value you put on the machines, it's gonna keep track of whose laundry went into which machines.
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Because, you know, back when we were using Square, people got confused, right?
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They'd mix up the orders because they need to transfer the washers to the dryers.
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You got to make sure that you keep everyone's clothes in the same spot.
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And so you document which dryers are used, and then you make sure that it's all folded.
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And then when you mark it as done, it's gonna text the customers.
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It's also gonna check and make sure that there's no laundry that was left in the machines because sometimes the clothes will dry quicker than the comforters.
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And so you actually need a little reminder, hey, go get the comforter out of the dryer.
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And so you can imagine while a company like Square is gonna build really good functionality for retail, they aren't gonna go in to build all the extra functionality needed to work with all those self-serve card payment systems, to remind you if you still have a dryer that's active, um, and to text the customer when the wash dry fold order is ready for pickup.
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As far as they're concerned, the the transaction's already done.
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And so that's where a laundromat point of sale system really becomes the brain of your laundromat operations versus a generic point of sale system is really kind of the brains of selling retail, you know, over the counter.
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And that's not really the main thing that you're doing as a laundromat.
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Yeah, that makes sense.
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Uh, thanks for that.
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That really helps paint a picture of what it is your system does.
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There's just so much more functionality built in.
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Like you can you can tell, you know, a specific customer what when they like they pay on a Saturday, um, and they, you know, this customer left a comforter here.
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Um, uh the text reminders sound very useful.
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And there's a whole slew of other additional features that something like Square just wouldn't offer, right?
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Yeah.
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Even in our laundromats in the early days with Square, people would just leave their clothes there for weeks at a time.
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And so we figured that, you know, instead of just calling them every single time and saying, hey, come pick up your clothes, it'd be a lot easier to have a software that just automatically reminds them and and uh they can get those texts until they come pick it up.
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And so uh they seem to appreciate that that new functionality.
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Now, what's what surprised me too is there's you know, there's a handful of some other laundromat POS systems out there.
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Um, you know, you're not the only ones just you know working in this industry, um, solving some of the tackling some of the problems that um are out there.
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What should laundromat owners compare before choosing a laundromat POS system?
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Like which factors tend to matter far more over time than maybe they appear on paper or or during like a sales demo.
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Yeah, so the biggest temptation, I think, probably in buying most things, probably not just laundromat point of sale, but in most things, it's like, what's the price, right?
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We want to know the price.
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And the reality is, yeah, there's a monthly software subscription that you're gonna pay with any laundromat point of sale company.
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Um, however, that is not actually the main cost to the laundromat.
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Um, if you're a larger laundromat, which many of our customers are, then the credit card processing fees are actually a percentage of your revenue.
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So, you know, if you're paying$100 a month in software, but then you're paying$1,000 a month in credit card processing fees versus the other company, maybe it would have been$500 a month.
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Well, you can see that just the monthly cost of the software is not the main focus.
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It's not even the main cost to you as a laundromat owner.
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Um, the real costs are the credit card processing fees.
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And then also how much time are you spending with your employees teaching them how to use this system?
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So, you know, if it's not easy to use, the real cost is gonna be those calls morning, day, and night.
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And uh, you know, we went through this when our point of sale system was just in development or back when we were using the Square.
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It's gotta be simple and easy to use, keep all of your attendants on track.
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And it's gotta be something that your managers can use, can look at their phone and see how many people are in the store.
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It's gotta be a tool that allows your laundromat to manage itself or that allows you all the tools you need to manage the laundromat and not be on the phone constantly trying to help them troubleshoot their computer.
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And some of the other uh laundromat point of sale systems, they have gotten really good at selling on price.
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They've got a low monthly price, and maybe they've even got a really low hardware price.
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But when you look at the total costs of those systems, you're really paying in credit card processing fees and then replacing and fixing that hardware regularly.
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And so try and take a step back and look at the total cost.
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And at the end of the day, what you want to do is have something that takes this job off your plate, uh, not something that is going to need continual maintenance and cost you a larger percentage of your revenue.
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So, yeah, look at the total costs, uh, factor in those credit card processing fees, the the factor in the learning curve for for helping your employees get up and running.
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And then I imagine just study the the kind of feature uh set list, you know, the um see what see what everything that you your platform offers, um, and then realistically kind of factor in like how much time is being saved from incorporating some of these features, right?
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And if it's not easy to use, your ladies are not gonna use it.
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Most most laundromats have have ladies in them that are not uh doing software development on their weekends.
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And um, we built it specifically for laundromat attendants that do not know how to use computers, right?
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And so uh it can have all the features in the world, but if your ladies don't know how to use those features, they're not gonna get used.
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So the usability is is really key there.
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I agree.
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Yeah, no, the usability, it's like I used to review um uh mobile apps and uh you know just the UI and having a really intuitive interface is something that just goes uh a long, long ways.
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That's like the very first thing that obviously people interact with and notice.
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Um, and if you don't have uh an intuitive interface, um, you're just not gonna use it.
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And so you need to start there before you can even really start to incorporate a lot of the integrations and other features.
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Um, what are some of what are some of the integrations you have um off the top of your head, like that you can um think of that that have really been a particularly useful with um your POS system?
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Yeah, for the laundromat, the main thing that you usually want to integrate with is that self-serve payment system.
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Uh we talked earlier about pretty much every laundromat needs a self-serve payment system.
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Now there's a lot of different brands out there.
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Uh we integrate with laundryworks, we integrate with ESD, we integrate with Fastcard, we integrate with LaundryCard, we integrate with Spiderwash, we have a full integration with Laundry Boss.
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Um, we even integrate with Speed Queen Insights.
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We're actually the first uh company to have a full integration with their team and worked closely with Speed Queen on that.
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They also manufacture Hipch.
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So if you have Speed Queen or Hipch.
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Um, so all these companies that are Laundromat companies, we've worked with them and our software will actually talk to them on the back end so that if uh somebody has money on their LaundryWorks card and they want to use it at the point of sale system, wash dry fold POS will actually enable that functionality.
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But then the second layer is what we call the machine start integrations.
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And that is specific for the attendants.
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They need a way to start the washers and dryers.
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But if you're not tracking which washers and dryers they use and you're not tying those orders or those machine starts to the wash dry fold orders, they could just start machines for their friends, for their family, for self-serve customers in exchange for cash.
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And that happens a lot in the laundry industry.
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And so what you really need is not just the integration that allows people to swipe their card at the point of sale system and spend the laundry works or the laundry card money on the point of sale, but you also need the integration that is going to give you an overview of how much are your attendants using per order as a ratio.
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So in my stores, it's about 37%.
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So let's just pretend one of my attendants did$1,000 worth of processing that day.
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I would expect her to use about$370 on her little machine start.
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Or some of the integrations, they can actually just use it from their phone and from their app.
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And so you want to have those numbers and stay on top of those numbers.
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And that's where those integrations really become important.
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So I I think that answer was going to bleed into the answer for this next question.
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Um, and you you kind of you mentioned it a little bit with the theft and mistakes, but like data on a day-to-day basis, how how does purpose-built POS software just you know upend the traditional business operations, change how a store runs?
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Um, and then specifically, like I'm curious how does it sort of cut down on the theft and the mistakes that are, you know, uh it just happened uh on a day-to-day basis at at laundromats and every business, really.
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Um I'm curious to to hear how you've you've addressed some of those those issues.
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Yeah, we we recently had Steven Grimaglia on the podcast.
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He has five really high volume um laundromats, uh, three of which are in Manhattan, and one is just right outside uh in Yonkers, uh, New York.
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But one of the things we talked about that um we've had the same issues in our stores is if you're not keeping track of which washers and dryers are being used for which order, then if a little sock comes missing, it's like, wait, which laundry, you know, which washer did I use?
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And so the point of sale system will actually keep track of which washers and dryers are in use, were used.
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There's timestamps on when they moved them.
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And a lot of times you will have customers come and complain and say, Oh, you lost my shirt.
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Well, you could actually look at when they dropped it off, when it was put in the washer, when it was put in the dryer, and when it was folded and when it was bagged.
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I mean, you could see everything.
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And you can go back and say, actually, you never gave us that shirt.
00:19:31.519 --> 00:19:34.480
And you know, it turns out they they find it under their bed a week later.
00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:40.640
But if you're not timestamping everything, it's very hard to keep track of everything.
00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:59.440
And before we were using a laundromat point of sale system in our laundromats, they would even just mix up, oh, you know, I thought, you know, Candace's orders were in washer three and four, and Louie's orders were in washer five and six, and it was actually the other way around.
00:19:59.599 --> 00:20:03.599
And so then the person actually goes home with the wrong laundry.
00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:05.759
You don't want that to happen.
00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:17.920
Um, you know, there there is the more conventional employee theft that the point of sale system will offer as well, which is just tracking all the cash in the drawer, any transaction, all the retail.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:20.240
It's it's keeping stock of all that.
00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:24.880
And that's the kind of uh basic employee theft that you need.
00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:43.839
But then you also need that extra layer of making sure they're not starting washers and dryers for self-serve customers, or that they're not doing their own little side business where sure they're doing your wash-dry fold orders, but then they're doing the the orders for their whole apartment building at$2 per pound as well.
00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:47.359
And so uh you kind of see that happen a lot in the industry.
00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:56.960
Yeah, and that just makes me think that uh the you know, the the typical retail POS um uh like square is just not gonna cut it.
00:20:57.039 --> 00:21:19.759
Like having that audit trail specifically for to handle the the potential theft or just missing clothes is is very I can just imagine the value there of being able to be like, uh actually there's literally I have notes and a trail of when the clothes were in the wash, when they went in the bag, who moved them, when they moved were moved, all that is very, very valuable that you just wouldn't have on a traditional retail POS.
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:26.319
Um, how uh talk about the learning curve and the um kind of uh employee sort of training aspect.
00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:29.279
How does the software help an owner manage their employees?
00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:36.160
Um, things like the checklist, the time clock, all that stuff, uh, a first-time manager just like wouldn't know to build themselves.
00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:38.240
I mean, I think it is exactly that.
00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:42.079
It's going to give you all the tools that you wouldn't necessarily know to build yourself.
00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:49.359
And also, it's not that just, hey, you would figure this out in your first year or eventually need it in your first or second year.
00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:59.039
Because we do a lot of the highest volume laundromats in the country, and a lot of our customers have these huge megastores with a lot of employees and doing a lot of scale.
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:06.079
Um, we We learn over time, okay, you do need the time clock built into the point of sale system.
00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:10.319
So you can just check your phone and see if your employees are there on time, right?
00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:13.279
Um, you can see how many employees are there in that shift.
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:23.279
But also the laundromat attendants, as we talked about earlier, they really do wash dry fold so that you don't have to pay their salaries out of your uh profits.
00:22:23.519 --> 00:22:27.519
They do the wash-dry fold so that they can pay your own their own salaries.
00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:37.599
And so when you consider it that way, one of their primary functions, if not the primary function of those attendants, is to keep the rest of the laundromat clean, safe, nice.
00:22:37.839 --> 00:22:43.039
And so part of what the system does is it has a laundromat attendant to-do list.
00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:53.440
And so if they need to turn the open sign over, they need to make turn the open sign on, they need to make the coffee, uh, they need to check the bathrooms, make sure they're clean every hour.
00:22:53.680 --> 00:23:01.759
It will give you all these to-do lists and it'll even timestamp, they can even comment uh bathrooms locked, there's a customer in there for an hour.
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:04.640
They can kind of keep you appraised of what's going on.
00:23:04.799 --> 00:23:25.920
And to be able to see that from any of your stores from your phone, that's when if you're managing a team of 30, like we are at Liberty Laundry, or if you're managing a team of hundreds or um, you know, however big your biggest uh laundromat operation is, you do want a system that tells them all the things they need to do during their shift.
00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:30.160
And you need easy access to see if they're doing those things and the timestamps.
00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:39.599
And it also helps you uh reduce the drama because what will come up in a laundromat is I mopped the floors when I closed.
00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:45.599
So if they were dirty, it you know, it was the guy who opened, or the floors were filthy when I opened.
00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:48.319
So the person who closed didn't mop them.
00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:56.400
And so you actually need to be able to go back and see the timestamps and see who was working, did they say that they did it and at what time?
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:12.880
And then it's very easy to say, oh, you know what, they did actually mop the floors, but they missed this little section, and so that section was filthy, and so it kind of cuts through all the miscommunications and problems that will arise when managing a team of laundromat attendants.
00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:22.480
I picture like you've interviewed thousands of uh laundromats, and the the platform has been uh operating for the last decade.
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:27.039
Um, and so I imagine you just obviously you you you listen in, you're a laundromat owner yourself.
00:24:27.119 --> 00:24:34.400
So you listen, you you start to really realize what uh features you can can you can continue to incorporate into the platform.
00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:43.279
Um and I'm sure the platform is was unreck is unrecognizable from when you first launched back in 2016, uh, with everything that you've ruled out.
00:24:43.519 --> 00:24:49.039
Um what mistakes do owners make when buying software in the first place?
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:55.599
Like, you know, I is it just uh is it just kind of going with a software that's just not well rounded, like like yours?
00:24:55.680 --> 00:25:06.400
Or the biggest mistake I see, and I see it all the time, not from veteran laundromat owners, veteran laundromat owners know better than to make this mistake.
00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:21.920
But first-time laundromat owners that are excited about everything, they have seen the podcast on delivery, they went to the the conference on delivery and delivery, delivery, delivery, and they're obsessed with I'm gonna do this amazing delivery service out of my laundromat.
00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:49.920
And maybe that works and maybe that's the case, but I really liken that to uh you're about to start your first restaurant, and um, you know, you're you're gonna be doing fine dining Italian and you haven't opened up your kitchen, you haven't got your uh lunch menu going, you haven't hired your chefs, you're not even open, and you're obsessed with delivery.
00:25:50.079 --> 00:25:57.279
Delivery is the last part, that is the part where uh you go and you deliver the clothes to the person.
00:25:57.359 --> 00:26:02.240
Now, sure you pick them up too, but it's really just a method of distribution.
00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:07.839
The actual product is the laundromat and it is the wash-dry fold service.
00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:24.720
And so if you don't have all that going and you don't have the steady and sure business model underneath you, delivery is not the thing that you should be focused on if you're not already doing 5,000 plus in wash dry fold per month.
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:31.279
Now, if you're already doing 5,000 plus and you're trying to move to 10,000, you know, um, I'm talking$10,000 per month.
00:26:31.599 --> 00:26:35.440
And delivery is one of your focuses to get there, that makes more sense.
00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:40.079
That means you've got a restaurant that's busy and you're trying to expand it into delivery.
00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:43.440
So, you know, because you've run out of seats in the restaurant.
00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:52.880
Um, but if you are focused purely on delivery from day one, I have never seen that work and I've seen it fail a lot, a lot.
00:26:53.039 --> 00:26:59.920
And what's funny is we've lost several deals to companies that maybe are more focused on delivery.
00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:02.480
And then I'll talk again to that laundromat owner.
00:27:02.559 --> 00:27:08.880
I'll see them at an event or something like that three years, five years later, and ask them how delivery is going.
00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:14.160
And they still haven't gotten around to it because they're still just trying to figure out the rest of the kitchen, right?
00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:19.759
They're still trying to figure out their base product, how to get their laundromat busy, how to do their wash, dry, fold.
00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:25.279
And delivery was this dream that was so important to them when they bought their laundromat.
00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:31.759
Um, but it's it's just like I said, it's it's like starting a restaurant and all you talk about is DoorDash.
00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:36.400
If you're not focused on the food and the actual business, you're not gonna be successful.
00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:41.680
And the delivery is just a way that that you can get the the clothes to and from the person.
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:46.960
The actual service is the wash-dry fold and it's the actual washers and dryers.
00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:49.440
That's that's your money printing machine.
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:58.079
Yeah, three 3,000 conversations is definitely going to show you uh every way that that you know uh business owners get it wrong, laundromat owners get it wrong.
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:13.519
And so I hope prospective laundromat owners um are taking notes here because uh if you're thinking about going right to delivery and focusing on that out of the gates, uh maybe reevaluate, get you get your ducks in the line first um before you you go all in on delivery.
00:28:13.680 --> 00:28:13.920
Yeah.
00:28:14.400 --> 00:28:16.079
So we'll talk about the scale, the scale issue.
00:28:16.160 --> 00:28:18.559
How does WatchDrive Fold POS uh scale?
00:28:18.720 --> 00:28:28.640
Does the same system that works for uh like one store and uh in Tulsa work for someone running 30 locations in in New York or uh just a very high volume?
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:39.359
Yeah, that's one of the things we've really focused on from day one because we ourselves are multi-store owners, it couldn't just be, hey, this is built for one store.
00:28:39.599 --> 00:28:47.440
And what we see is Stephen Grammaglia, who I mentioned earlier, he was a one-store owner when he started with us.
00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:51.359
And it worked for his first store, is easy to use, easy to train.
00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:54.319
And then he opened a second store and the two network together.
00:28:54.480 --> 00:28:58.000
He's got one dashboard where he can see what's going on at either store.
00:28:58.240 --> 00:29:01.359
And then he opened a third store and a fourth store and so on.
00:29:01.519 --> 00:29:07.759
And so, so basically, the same functionality that's going to work well and be easy to use at one store.
00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:09.759
We've made it to where it's scalable.
00:29:09.920 --> 00:29:17.519
Like our largest customer runs 30 stores and has 30 of our point of sale systems, and they have one dashboard that they're able to manage all that.
00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:24.000
And that becomes especially important too if you have multiple LLCs and you need to run reports in a certain way.
00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:28.319
Um, there's ways to uh manage all that within the software.
00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:30.880
So it really is built for scale.
00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:56.240
And getting back to that pricing question we talked about earlier about the actual costs at scale, that's really kind of our sweet spot is it's because it's a very low percentage of your revenue, you can scale it really large without the costs ballooning versus uh some of the rest of the industry maybe will take more of your um credit card processing fees and so a larger percentage of your revenue.
00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:04.720
And so once you scale it to, you know, 10 or 30 stores, uh all of a sudden that you know that monthly software fee doesn't really matter that much.
00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:10.240
And what really matters is the costs that scaled um as you scaled your business.
00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:19.279
Well, I've got um one more question for you, and I want to circle back around to uh just you know, what makes uh the best POS out there?
00:30:19.440 --> 00:30:21.920
And uh what is that best POS?
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:29.920
Um, is there one, you know, POS system to rule them all for every laundromat, or just again, does it depend on the store's operating model?
00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:34.000
Because I think it's interesting that you recommend competitors for some setups, right?
00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:37.920
Like you're not just gonna go all in on recommending your own company, which would make sense.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:41.599
And I would uh, you know, I wouldn't uh grade you too harshly for doing that.
00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:43.440
But um, you know, you're honest.
00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:46.640
So what what's the best POS for every laundromat?
00:30:47.359 --> 00:31:08.000
Yeah, so conventional wisdom, I would I would definitely say it's ours, but the the reality is if you have a focus, like for example, I've talked to um dry cleaners that actually have on-premise dry cleaning or they have the racking system, which is that little spinny conveyor belt you've probably seen at dry cleaners.
00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:13.599
There are companies that are better suited for an extreme focus on dry cleaning.
00:31:13.680 --> 00:31:17.839
If that's half your revenue, we're not gonna be the right fit for you.
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:35.200
Um, and so, and I mentioned earlier, there are companies that maybe focus more on the pickup and delivery aspect of it, or maybe they focus more on um on some niche piece that this laundromat is really important to them because where they are at and what they're doing.
00:31:35.519 --> 00:31:39.839
So, my view is that there's no one best point of sale system.
00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:44.640
And if you look at the names, they usually will tell you in the name what they're best at.
00:31:44.799 --> 00:31:46.960
And for us, it's wash dry fold.
00:31:47.039 --> 00:31:53.519
We're we're the best for in-store, wash, dry fold, managing your attendance, preventing theft.
00:31:53.759 --> 00:31:57.359
We can absolutely do a delivery, you can do a dry cleaning drop site.
00:31:57.680 --> 00:32:09.440
So we're we're versatile and we're a good solution for a lot of laundromats, but the best solution is probably going to depend specifically on the laundromat.
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:14.559
And every point of sale system in this industry has really focused on a different thing.
00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:23.119
And so you probably want to get your priorities straight and really think about what do you need in the next, you know, one to three years.
00:32:23.359 --> 00:32:31.039
And then you probably want to base your purchase on what your priorities are and who is the strongest at your priorities.
00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:40.960
And again, if if that is you're going to do this huge dry cleaning operation, for example, I've told many laundromat owners, hey, we're just not the right fit for your vision and for what you're doing.
00:32:41.119 --> 00:32:47.519
And in fact, there's other softwares out there that have been focusing on what your vision is, and you should really go with them.
00:32:47.680 --> 00:33:00.720
And so we're not afraid to recommend other uh laundromat point of sale systems in the industry if they are stronger on the specific niche that is more important to that laundromat owner.
00:33:01.039 --> 00:33:01.599
I love that.
00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:08.319
I love the the transparency, the honesty, the the realness of that answer and explanation.
00:33:08.480 --> 00:33:22.400
Um one question I, you know, we I feel like I have to ask every every client here on the SourceForge podcast is artificial intelligence and whether or not it's made a uh an impact, or have you thought about incorporating it into your platform or not?
00:33:22.559 --> 00:33:26.000
Um the laundromat industry, you know, is a little bit of an outlier.
00:33:26.160 --> 00:33:30.880
Imagine you're still working on getting you know companies up to speed with a with a capable POS system.
00:33:31.039 --> 00:33:38.480
But does your is your POS system, is your platform thought have you thought about incorporating AI or or or does it incorporate AI in some way, shape, or form?
00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:39.279
Yeah.
00:33:39.359 --> 00:33:46.079
So, you know, it's been kind of a crazy year with AI, and I think every SaaS company is is definitely thinking how do we use AI?
00:33:46.319 --> 00:33:52.799
And for us, you know, when you think about the point of sale system itself, it's literally you've got a human.
00:33:52.960 --> 00:34:00.559
They're usually, I mean, I'm not trying to be stereotypical here, but practically any laundromat you go to in the world, it's a lady.
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:03.359
She's typically semi-retired, right?
00:34:03.519 --> 00:34:06.319
And she's typically not a computer programmer.
00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:12.559
We have a few men on our staff, but almost primarily most laundromats, we always talk about our ladies.
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:16.719
And it really is a system built to be easy for them.
00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:24.000
So you can imagine if you tried to, you know, insert ChatGPT there and they type in, I want to sell this person soap, how do I do it?
00:34:24.159 --> 00:34:28.719
That's not going to be as user-friendly as just scanning the soap, which is how it how it works now.
00:34:29.039 --> 00:34:32.639
So, how did we bring AI into what we're doing?
00:34:32.800 --> 00:34:35.119
We actually brought it into the development side.
00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:39.280
So when we have a new feature request, someone asks for a new report.
00:34:39.519 --> 00:34:44.000
The pace we're at now is we can do about as much development as what took us a year.
00:34:44.159 --> 00:34:46.000
We're doing that now in a month.
00:34:46.239 --> 00:34:50.639
But then there is a side of this that doesn't involve AI.
00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:52.639
It's actually a new product we're launching.
00:34:52.719 --> 00:34:56.320
Uh uh, hadn't necessarily planned on discussing it, but we might as well.
00:34:56.480 --> 00:35:00.000
So everyone's always asking us, hey, do you do websites?
00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:01.360
Do you do marketing?
00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:06.400
And even just one year ago, that was too much work and it was too much of a drag.
00:35:06.480 --> 00:35:10.159
And we didn't want to have that whole product offering.
00:35:10.320 --> 00:35:12.159
Um, and so we would refer them out.
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:19.519
They'd pay, you know, three or four grand up front, and they'd kind of go through a marketing agency to get a website made and to buy services.
00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:26.320
AI has made it so easy to design better websites than what you could buy for five grand last year.
00:35:26.559 --> 00:35:28.960
We will just give it to you, included.
00:35:29.039 --> 00:35:34.480
Um, you pay the$50 a month for this extra kind of website, but you don't have to pay anything up front.
00:35:34.559 --> 00:35:36.159
It's an extra$50 per month.
00:35:36.320 --> 00:35:37.679
You get the website.
00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:41.519
Um, and then we also have marketing services that you can buy on top of that.
00:35:41.840 --> 00:35:50.000
So for us, it's not about how do we try and make people that are already comfortable with the system, how do we, you know, jam AI down their throat.
00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:58.880
It's really more about how do we use AI to develop new products, to make our products better and faster and easier to use.
00:35:59.119 --> 00:36:04.559
And then the whole thing with the website building, I mean, that's that's something people have asked us about for years.
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:08.960
Um, but without AI, we we were never able to offer it in the past.
00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:13.119
Now we can we can build you the best website that's available.
00:36:13.199 --> 00:36:15.599
It's AEO, SEO optimized.
00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:18.800
It's got its own dedicated page for the LLMs.
00:36:18.960 --> 00:36:21.280
Um, you can change everything on the back end.
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:24.800
You've got your own admin dashboard for there, and it's$50 a month.
00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:29.679
There's there's no one else doing that that that gives you that kind of product for that kind of price.
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:31.119
No, it's I love that.
00:36:31.199 --> 00:36:39.599
That's that's uh it's not every day that one of my off-the-cuff questions uh gets a speaker or a guest to uh tell us about their new upcoming product.
00:36:39.840 --> 00:36:40.400
But that's exciting.
00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:41.840
That is really, I can see the value there.
00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:48.559
I mean, uh AI absolutely has uh really helped um uh increase the ability to for anyone to launch a website.
00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:58.800
So having it um increase and using AI in some way it in um some form to help build uh websites for launch owners, I think is a very valuable asset.
00:36:58.960 --> 00:37:03.599
And so incorporating that into your platform, I think, is is huge and uh smart move.
00:37:03.679 --> 00:37:18.960
Um and I can also imagine, too, maybe in uh using some sort of FAQ, you know, um uh feature where laundromat owners can just, you know, use sort of a chatbot to learn more about how to use the platform and get the most out of it to kind of help with that learning curve.
00:37:19.119 --> 00:37:25.199
Again, there's a learning curve of getting them to use the chatbot in the first place, but once they get past that little roadblock, you know.
00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:27.920
Yeah, we introduced that piece of it.
00:37:28.079 --> 00:37:33.280
Um, I think about two years ago was when we launched our our support chatbot.
00:37:33.599 --> 00:37:40.400
And that takes 60, 70% of all of our tech support is done by that chatbot.
00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:42.639
And I I do see that going up to 90%.
00:37:43.360 --> 00:37:47.280
And so it is just easier if you're just saying, how do I create a coupon code?
00:37:47.440 --> 00:37:54.079
It will not only describe to you exactly how to create a coupon code, but it will even show you the video, it'll show you the article with the screenshots.
00:37:54.159 --> 00:38:00.800
And so for the tech support, we have had AI integrated into the tech support part of it for quite some time.
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:12.480
Um, but it's just more recently that we've actually been using AI to build additional products and to build the product out to just go down the roadmap that we already had faster.
00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:13.519
Gotcha.
00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:21.199
Well, and I again, I'm sure you have a whole list of features that you want to um, you know, cons that you're considering building into the platform.
00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:24.719
Um, this website builder is is the sounds like it's the latest.
00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:32.639
Um, and I'm excited to see what you you come up with here in the next uh you know handful of months and um the next decade of of operations.
00:38:32.800 --> 00:38:36.239
It's an exciting time to be in the in the SaaS space, that's for sure.
00:38:36.480 --> 00:38:42.079
Um for for those interested in learning more about Wash Dry Fold POS, where's the best place to go?
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:48.000
Well, they could go to SourceForge and they could see our profile there and they could click learn more.
00:38:48.320 --> 00:38:52.800
Um you'd see we currently at 122 five-star reviews.
00:38:52.880 --> 00:39:01.920
I'm sure it'll be more by the time that the podcast goes out, but you can click there and it'll show you, it'll bring you right to washdryfoldpos.com, which is our website.
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:06.159
And you can watch demos on the product, you can see what the software actually looks like.
00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:18.320
And then what we do, at least now, is we have you schedule an appointment with a specialist who really understands laundromats and really can just talk you through what the best point of sale system might be for your laundromat.
00:39:18.559 --> 00:39:21.119
And like I said, that's not always our point of sale system.
00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:27.760
So um, it is worth having the phone call just to see what we recommend, uh, if nothing else.
00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:29.039
All right, I love that.
00:39:29.199 --> 00:39:32.960
Um, we will uh include all the relevant links down below in the show notes.
00:39:33.039 --> 00:39:36.559
Um, I appreciate the uh the SourceForge uh call out there.
00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:39.840
Uh listeners, you can head to washdrivefoldpos.com.
00:39:40.079 --> 00:39:42.719
Ian, thank you so much for everything you've you've shared with us.
00:39:42.880 --> 00:39:44.639
Genuinely, this has been really insightful.
00:39:44.719 --> 00:39:57.119
Um, I've learned a lot about the industry and um honestly we'd love to have you have you back, talk updates, see what the how the website builder functionality is is working, you know, after um you know being in operation for uh a few months or so.
00:39:57.280 --> 00:39:59.760
Um and yeah, just excited to see what else you come up with.
00:40:00.400 --> 00:40:01.119
That sounds great.
00:40:01.199 --> 00:40:02.400
Uh I really appreciate it, though.
00:40:02.719 --> 00:40:03.440
Thanks for being here.
00:40:03.599 --> 00:40:06.960
And thank you all for uh listening and watching the SourceForge podcast.
00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:08.400
I'm your host, Bo Hamilton.
00:40:08.559 --> 00:40:13.039
Make sure to subscribe to stay up to date with all of our upcoming B2B software-related podcasts.
00:40:13.280 --> 00:40:15.360
I will talk to you in the next one.
00:00:04.959 --> 00:00:07.919
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the SourceForge podcast.
00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:19.920
I'm your host, Bo Hamilton, and today's episode will focus in on the laundromat industry with the company Wash Dryfold POS, a B2B SaaS company making point of sale and management software for laundromats.
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According to the Coin Laundry Association, there are about 29,500 coin laundries here in the United States.
00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:32.560
And based on recent industry surveys, about half of those offer wash dry fold services.
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And we estimate about 6,000 of those laundromats have an actual point of sale system.
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And the crazy thing about a lot of laundromats in the US is most of them are still being run on things like a clipboard, maybe a whiteboard in the back, a box full of receipts that a laundromat owner is using to keep track of the business processes.
00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:56.799
Those sort of like outdated practices you've you've heard a lot about here on the SourceForge podcast.
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And my guest today is trying to fix all that.
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He's got a pretty unusual credential for a software CEO.
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He owns laundromats himself, uh, real ones, down in uh Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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Um, Ian Gallahan is the co-founder and now CEO of Wash Drive Fold POS.
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And the company started back in 2016 out of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
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And today it serves more than 1,300 stores across all 50 states, which uh works out to somewhere around 20% of the entire U.S.
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laundromat POS market.
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Um, but here's the part that I find particularly fascinating.
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Ian's also co-owner of Liberty Laundry, three stores in Tulsa that did about$2.5 million in revenue last year.
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And those stores double as sort of the live testing ground for the software.
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So if a feature doesn't survive like a Saturday morning rush hour with real attendants and real customers, it just doesn't ship to the overall platform.
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And I think what's also neat and worth mentioning about Ian is that he's talked to something like 3,000 laundromat owners over the last decade, hosts his own show on the industry laundromat ownership podcast.
00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:07.519
And uh before any of this, he was selling billboards.
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So uh I'm really excited to have Ian here on the show.
00:02:10.719 --> 00:02:13.280
Ian, welcome to the SourceForge podcast.
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Thanks for having me, Bill.
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Of course.
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Um, so I want to get right into it.
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Um, you own three laundromats in Tulsa, uh Liberty Laundry, which did about$2.5 million last year, and you've you've built laundromat point of sale software.
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I'm guessing owning the laundromats informed a lot of your software design and functionality decisions.
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Like those stores are like literally your testing ground, right?
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That's right.
00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:41.360
We actually initially built the software just to run the three Liberty Laundry locations.
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And as we really perfected it and solved problems that we were having in the day-to-day operations in the laundromats and as we were scaling, uh, that's when we really started to build something that was probably useful not just at our laundromats, but at other laundromats.
00:02:57.919 --> 00:03:06.400
And in fact, our first system sale was a laundromat down the street saying, How do I get the laundromat uh point of sale system that you guys are using?
00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:20.960
And so uh everything from the bag label printer that prints the little labels that go on the bag so that the sticky notes don't fall off and having the uh permanent notes for the customer accounts, like hypoallergenic, that kind of thing.
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You just kind of learn over the years what do you actually need in a software that runs a laundromat?
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And that's really where we come from.
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And then we've kind of learned how to build it into a software company uh after we built it into a point of sale system for our laundromats.
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Yeah, I think every every software company uh owner uh, you know, they they say that they know their customer, right?
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But I think that's especially true with what you guys are doing.
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And you literally have your own laundromats.
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Um, you you know the inside and out of this industry, you have your own show uh on um interviewing laundromat owners around the US.
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Um so you really you really know your stuff here.
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And I'm looking forward to to getting into it some more.
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Um, what what first of all, like what is a laundromat POS system?
00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:14.800
Maybe you can help kind of define that that term for us and how is it different from you know the card or the the machine payment system on the actual machines?
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Yeah, that's probably the issue that has the most confusion around it in the industry.
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Because for a self-serve laundromat, if you're just walking into the laundromat, and most laundromats have this capacity, or practically all laundromats, you walk in and you want to do the laundry that you brought with you yourself.
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And so you need to go to a little kiosk and uh, you know, put money on a card, and then you go start the self-serve machines, the washers and dryers.
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That's not what we do.
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A laundromat point of sale system is for let's say you've got a washer and dryer at home, but you've just brought in your comforter to get washed at the laundromat, and you don't want to stay there and do it yourself.
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So you actually walk up to the counter and you do a service that's called wash, dry, fold, uh, just like our name.
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And so you give them your comforter and they will wash it, dry it, fold it, and return it to you, you know, ready to put back on the bed.
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Um, now you can do that with clothes and other uh laundered items as well.
00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:31.040
But when you say uh a laundromat point of sale system, what you mean is the actual computer, the weight scale, the printers that are on the counter so that the laundromat attendant can service the wash dry fold customer.
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And that is quite a different thing from somebody coming in.
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Maybe they don't even talk to anyone, they just go start a washer and dryer and go about doing their business.
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So it's it's kind of an add-on service that about half of laundromats offer called wash dry fold.
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And so we would be the point of sale system for that specific service.
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So they're really they're really two sort of different layers of the business.
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Um the machines, of course, are one thing, and and the the counter is sort of where things get a little bit more complicated.
00:06:01.199 --> 00:06:09.120
Um, does every laundromat owner actually need a POS system or is a fully self-service, like unattended store fine without one?
00:06:09.279 --> 00:06:13.600
Like I'm curious, like at what point does like dedicated software become really worth that investment?
00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:16.240
Yeah, I think that's a really good question.
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And it really addresses, you know, how many laundromat point of sale systems and companies are out there.
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So I would say about half the laundromats in the US have chosen to be unattended.
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A lot of times these are the laundromats that maybe don't have the best of the reputation, where there's no one there watching over the store, making sure that everything stays safe and um, you know, helping people as needed.
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Um, and so for those laundromats that are unattended, they really do not need a laundromat point of self system.
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What they need is what you would call a self-serve payment system.
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Um, laundry works, uh, CCI fast card, laundry card, spider wash, ESD.
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These are all names of self-serve payment systems.
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And they make sense in every laundromat.
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Pretty much every laundromat needs a self-serve payment system.
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However, only fully attended laundromats need the wash dry fold POS.
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And the reasoning behind that is if you're going to be fully attended, you're going to keep the store nice, clean, safe.
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You might as well offer the wash-dry fold services, and that will offset the cost of having the attendance at the laundromat.
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And the kind of the secret in the industry is that fully attended stores do much more in self-serve revenue than unattended stores.
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And so we also end up serving the highest revenue laundromats in the US as well, because those tend to also be the ones that offer wash dry fold successfully and are fully attended, are nice, clean, everything's working.
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And so it kind of becomes part of the the larger laundromat roadmap.
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Uh, but if you're just going to have a little unattended laundromat somewhere and you're just trying to, you know, keep costs down and collect quarters at the end of the, at the end of the month, then a laundromat point of sale system is not something that would be useful for you.
00:08:10.079 --> 00:08:10.639
That makes sense.
00:08:10.720 --> 00:08:18.959
I appreciate the honesty too, because I I'm I half expected you to, I don't know, tell, tell everyone uh, you know, that everyone needs one.
00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:26.160
Everyone needs a POS system, but there's there's uh, you know, some some customers um uh it makes more sense than others.
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Uh uh can a laundromat just run sort of wash dry fold on something like Square or another generic retail POS?
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Um, or does it start to you start to really run into a lot of limitations because the system doesn't really know the business inside and out?
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Well, that's what we tried to do initially at Liberty Laundry is we had these generic point of sale systems.
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Uh Square was one of the ones that we used, and it is great for keeping track of inventory and selling soaps over the counter, which our system does that as well.
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But after the sale is where a square is is pretty much checked out versus um with a laundromat point of sale system, wash drive fold POS, for example, you're actually it creates an order that needs it's in the to-do column.
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And then you drag and drop it to sort, you get it all sorted, spot treated.
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You can see the instructions there for that laundry.
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You move it over to wash, which the important thing there is you're actually gonna start the machines with one of those cards, those self-serve payment cards we were talking about earlier.
00:09:25.840 --> 00:09:33.600
And so it's actually gonna document what amount of start value you put on the machines, it's gonna keep track of whose laundry went into which machines.
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Because, you know, back when we were using Square, people got confused, right?
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They'd mix up the orders because they need to transfer the washers to the dryers.
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You got to make sure that you keep everyone's clothes in the same spot.
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And so you document which dryers are used, and then you make sure that it's all folded.
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And then when you mark it as done, it's gonna text the customers.
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It's also gonna check and make sure that there's no laundry that was left in the machines because sometimes the clothes will dry quicker than the comforters.
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And so you actually need a little reminder, hey, go get the comforter out of the dryer.
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And so you can imagine while a company like Square is gonna build really good functionality for retail, they aren't gonna go in to build all the extra functionality needed to work with all those self-serve card payment systems, to remind you if you still have a dryer that's active, um, and to text the customer when the wash dry fold order is ready for pickup.
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As far as they're concerned, the the transaction's already done.
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And so that's where a laundromat point of sale system really becomes the brain of your laundromat operations versus a generic point of sale system is really kind of the brains of selling retail, you know, over the counter.
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And that's not really the main thing that you're doing as a laundromat.
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Yeah, that makes sense.
00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:49.200
Uh, thanks for that.
00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:52.159
That really helps paint a picture of what it is your system does.
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There's just so much more functionality built in.
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Like you can you can tell, you know, a specific customer what when they like they pay on a Saturday, um, and they, you know, this customer left a comforter here.
00:11:04.639 --> 00:11:08.240
Um, uh the text reminders sound very useful.
00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:12.559
And there's a whole slew of other additional features that something like Square just wouldn't offer, right?
00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:13.600
Yeah.
00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:19.519
Even in our laundromats in the early days with Square, people would just leave their clothes there for weeks at a time.
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And so we figured that, you know, instead of just calling them every single time and saying, hey, come pick up your clothes, it'd be a lot easier to have a software that just automatically reminds them and and uh they can get those texts until they come pick it up.
00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:37.759
And so uh they seem to appreciate that that new functionality.
00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:44.159
Now, what's what surprised me too is there's you know, there's a handful of some other laundromat POS systems out there.
00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:52.000
Um, you know, you're not the only ones just you know working in this industry, um, solving some of the tackling some of the problems that um are out there.
00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:56.559
What should laundromat owners compare before choosing a laundromat POS system?
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Like which factors tend to matter far more over time than maybe they appear on paper or or during like a sales demo.
00:12:03.679 --> 00:12:12.399
Yeah, so the biggest temptation, I think, probably in buying most things, probably not just laundromat point of sale, but in most things, it's like, what's the price, right?
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We want to know the price.
00:12:14.159 --> 00:12:21.440
And the reality is, yeah, there's a monthly software subscription that you're gonna pay with any laundromat point of sale company.
00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:26.399
Um, however, that is not actually the main cost to the laundromat.
00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:34.399
Um, if you're a larger laundromat, which many of our customers are, then the credit card processing fees are actually a percentage of your revenue.
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So, you know, if you're paying$100 a month in software, but then you're paying$1,000 a month in credit card processing fees versus the other company, maybe it would have been$500 a month.
00:12:45.279 --> 00:12:50.480
Well, you can see that just the monthly cost of the software is not the main focus.
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It's not even the main cost to you as a laundromat owner.
00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:57.679
Um, the real costs are the credit card processing fees.
00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:03.519
And then also how much time are you spending with your employees teaching them how to use this system?
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So, you know, if it's not easy to use, the real cost is gonna be those calls morning, day, and night.
00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:16.639
And uh, you know, we went through this when our point of sale system was just in development or back when we were using the Square.
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It's gotta be simple and easy to use, keep all of your attendants on track.
00:13:21.600 --> 00:13:26.240
And it's gotta be something that your managers can use, can look at their phone and see how many people are in the store.
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It's gotta be a tool that allows your laundromat to manage itself or that allows you all the tools you need to manage the laundromat and not be on the phone constantly trying to help them troubleshoot their computer.
00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:45.519
And some of the other uh laundromat point of sale systems, they have gotten really good at selling on price.
00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:50.000
They've got a low monthly price, and maybe they've even got a really low hardware price.
00:13:50.320 --> 00:13:59.360
But when you look at the total costs of those systems, you're really paying in credit card processing fees and then replacing and fixing that hardware regularly.
00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:03.360
And so try and take a step back and look at the total cost.
00:14:03.679 --> 00:14:16.240
And at the end of the day, what you want to do is have something that takes this job off your plate, uh, not something that is going to need continual maintenance and cost you a larger percentage of your revenue.
00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:26.000
So, yeah, look at the total costs, uh, factor in those credit card processing fees, the the factor in the learning curve for for helping your employees get up and running.
00:14:26.159 --> 00:14:40.960
And then I imagine just study the the kind of feature uh set list, you know, the um see what see what everything that you your platform offers, um, and then realistically kind of factor in like how much time is being saved from incorporating some of these features, right?
00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:45.039
And if it's not easy to use, your ladies are not gonna use it.
00:14:45.120 --> 00:14:51.759
Most most laundromats have have ladies in them that are not uh doing software development on their weekends.
00:14:51.919 --> 00:14:58.480
And um, we built it specifically for laundromat attendants that do not know how to use computers, right?
00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:05.919
And so uh it can have all the features in the world, but if your ladies don't know how to use those features, they're not gonna get used.
00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.159
So the usability is is really key there.
00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:09.120
I agree.
00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:21.759
Yeah, no, the usability, it's like I used to review um uh mobile apps and uh you know just the UI and having a really intuitive interface is something that just goes uh a long, long ways.
00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:25.039
That's like the very first thing that obviously people interact with and notice.
00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:30.480
Um, and if you don't have uh an intuitive interface, um, you're just not gonna use it.
00:15:30.559 --> 00:15:36.080
And so you need to start there before you can even really start to incorporate a lot of the integrations and other features.
00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:48.080
Um, what are some of what are some of the integrations you have um off the top of your head, like that you can um think of that that have really been a particularly useful with um your POS system?
00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:55.840
Yeah, for the laundromat, the main thing that you usually want to integrate with is that self-serve payment system.
00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:00.720
Uh we talked earlier about pretty much every laundromat needs a self-serve payment system.
00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:02.879
Now there's a lot of different brands out there.
00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:13.600
Uh we integrate with laundryworks, we integrate with ESD, we integrate with Fastcard, we integrate with LaundryCard, we integrate with Spiderwash, we have a full integration with Laundry Boss.
00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:16.639
Um, we even integrate with Speed Queen Insights.
00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:23.200
We're actually the first uh company to have a full integration with their team and worked closely with Speed Queen on that.
00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:24.559
They also manufacture Hipch.
00:16:24.639 --> 00:16:26.639
So if you have Speed Queen or Hipch.
00:16:26.799 --> 00:16:46.879
Um, so all these companies that are Laundromat companies, we've worked with them and our software will actually talk to them on the back end so that if uh somebody has money on their LaundryWorks card and they want to use it at the point of sale system, wash dry fold POS will actually enable that functionality.
00:16:47.120 --> 00:16:50.639
But then the second layer is what we call the machine start integrations.
00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:53.759
And that is specific for the attendants.
00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:56.240
They need a way to start the washers and dryers.
00:16:56.480 --> 00:17:11.839
But if you're not tracking which washers and dryers they use and you're not tying those orders or those machine starts to the wash dry fold orders, they could just start machines for their friends, for their family, for self-serve customers in exchange for cash.
00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:14.160
And that happens a lot in the laundry industry.
00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:32.960
And so what you really need is not just the integration that allows people to swipe their card at the point of sale system and spend the laundry works or the laundry card money on the point of sale, but you also need the integration that is going to give you an overview of how much are your attendants using per order as a ratio.
00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:35.599
So in my stores, it's about 37%.
00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:42.079
So let's just pretend one of my attendants did$1,000 worth of processing that day.
00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:46.400
I would expect her to use about$370 on her little machine start.
00:17:46.559 --> 00:17:50.720
Or some of the integrations, they can actually just use it from their phone and from their app.
00:17:50.960 --> 00:17:54.160
And so you want to have those numbers and stay on top of those numbers.
00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:57.119
And that's where those integrations really become important.
00:17:57.759 --> 00:18:01.759
So I I think that answer was going to bleed into the answer for this next question.
00:18:01.839 --> 00:18:16.319
Um, and you you kind of you mentioned it a little bit with the theft and mistakes, but like data on a day-to-day basis, how how does purpose-built POS software just you know upend the traditional business operations, change how a store runs?
00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:28.559
Um, and then specifically, like I'm curious how does it sort of cut down on the theft and the mistakes that are, you know, uh it just happened uh on a day-to-day basis at at laundromats and every business, really.
00:18:28.799 --> 00:18:34.079
Um I'm curious to to hear how you've you've addressed some of those those issues.
00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:38.640
Yeah, we we recently had Steven Grimaglia on the podcast.
00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:48.640
He has five really high volume um laundromats, uh, three of which are in Manhattan, and one is just right outside uh in Yonkers, uh, New York.
00:18:49.119 --> 00:19:05.759
But one of the things we talked about that um we've had the same issues in our stores is if you're not keeping track of which washers and dryers are being used for which order, then if a little sock comes missing, it's like, wait, which laundry, you know, which washer did I use?
00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:12.559
And so the point of sale system will actually keep track of which washers and dryers are in use, were used.
00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:15.279
There's timestamps on when they moved them.
00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:19.039
And a lot of times you will have customers come and complain and say, Oh, you lost my shirt.
00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:26.960
Well, you could actually look at when they dropped it off, when it was put in the washer, when it was put in the dryer, and when it was folded and when it was bagged.
00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:28.319
I mean, you could see everything.
00:19:28.480 --> 00:19:31.359
And you can go back and say, actually, you never gave us that shirt.
00:19:31.519 --> 00:19:34.480
And you know, it turns out they they find it under their bed a week later.
00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:40.640
But if you're not timestamping everything, it's very hard to keep track of everything.
00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:59.440
And before we were using a laundromat point of sale system in our laundromats, they would even just mix up, oh, you know, I thought, you know, Candace's orders were in washer three and four, and Louie's orders were in washer five and six, and it was actually the other way around.
00:19:59.599 --> 00:20:03.599
And so then the person actually goes home with the wrong laundry.
00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:05.759
You don't want that to happen.
00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:17.920
Um, you know, there there is the more conventional employee theft that the point of sale system will offer as well, which is just tracking all the cash in the drawer, any transaction, all the retail.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:20.240
It's it's keeping stock of all that.
00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:24.880
And that's the kind of uh basic employee theft that you need.
00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:43.839
But then you also need that extra layer of making sure they're not starting washers and dryers for self-serve customers, or that they're not doing their own little side business where sure they're doing your wash-dry fold orders, but then they're doing the the orders for their whole apartment building at$2 per pound as well.
00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:47.359
And so uh you kind of see that happen a lot in the industry.
00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:56.960
Yeah, and that just makes me think that uh the you know, the the typical retail POS um uh like square is just not gonna cut it.
00:20:57.039 --> 00:21:19.759
Like having that audit trail specifically for to handle the the potential theft or just missing clothes is is very I can just imagine the value there of being able to be like, uh actually there's literally I have notes and a trail of when the clothes were in the wash, when they went in the bag, who moved them, when they moved were moved, all that is very, very valuable that you just wouldn't have on a traditional retail POS.
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:26.319
Um, how uh talk about the learning curve and the um kind of uh employee sort of training aspect.
00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:29.279
How does the software help an owner manage their employees?
00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:36.160
Um, things like the checklist, the time clock, all that stuff, uh, a first-time manager just like wouldn't know to build themselves.
00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:38.240
I mean, I think it is exactly that.
00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:42.079
It's going to give you all the tools that you wouldn't necessarily know to build yourself.
00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:49.359
And also, it's not that just, hey, you would figure this out in your first year or eventually need it in your first or second year.
00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:59.039
Because we do a lot of the highest volume laundromats in the country, and a lot of our customers have these huge megastores with a lot of employees and doing a lot of scale.
00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:06.079
Um, we We learn over time, okay, you do need the time clock built into the point of sale system.
00:22:06.160 --> 00:22:10.319
So you can just check your phone and see if your employees are there on time, right?
00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:13.279
Um, you can see how many employees are there in that shift.
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:23.279
But also the laundromat attendants, as we talked about earlier, they really do wash dry fold so that you don't have to pay their salaries out of your uh profits.
00:22:23.519 --> 00:22:27.519
They do the wash-dry fold so that they can pay your own their own salaries.
00:22:27.680 --> 00:22:37.599
And so when you consider it that way, one of their primary functions, if not the primary function of those attendants, is to keep the rest of the laundromat clean, safe, nice.
00:22:37.839 --> 00:22:43.039
And so part of what the system does is it has a laundromat attendant to-do list.
00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:53.440
And so if they need to turn the open sign over, they need to make turn the open sign on, they need to make the coffee, uh, they need to check the bathrooms, make sure they're clean every hour.
00:22:53.680 --> 00:23:01.759
It will give you all these to-do lists and it'll even timestamp, they can even comment uh bathrooms locked, there's a customer in there for an hour.
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:04.640
They can kind of keep you appraised of what's going on.
00:23:04.799 --> 00:23:25.920
And to be able to see that from any of your stores from your phone, that's when if you're managing a team of 30, like we are at Liberty Laundry, or if you're managing a team of hundreds or um, you know, however big your biggest uh laundromat operation is, you do want a system that tells them all the things they need to do during their shift.
00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:30.160
And you need easy access to see if they're doing those things and the timestamps.
00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:39.599
And it also helps you uh reduce the drama because what will come up in a laundromat is I mopped the floors when I closed.
00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:45.599
So if they were dirty, it you know, it was the guy who opened, or the floors were filthy when I opened.
00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:48.319
So the person who closed didn't mop them.
00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:56.400
And so you actually need to be able to go back and see the timestamps and see who was working, did they say that they did it and at what time?
00:23:56.559 --> 00:24:12.880
And then it's very easy to say, oh, you know what, they did actually mop the floors, but they missed this little section, and so that section was filthy, and so it kind of cuts through all the miscommunications and problems that will arise when managing a team of laundromat attendants.
00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:22.480
I picture like you've interviewed thousands of uh laundromats, and the the platform has been uh operating for the last decade.
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:27.039
Um, and so I imagine you just obviously you you you listen in, you're a laundromat owner yourself.
00:24:27.119 --> 00:24:34.400
So you listen, you you start to really realize what uh features you can can you can continue to incorporate into the platform.
00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:43.279
Um and I'm sure the platform is was unreck is unrecognizable from when you first launched back in 2016, uh, with everything that you've ruled out.
00:24:43.519 --> 00:24:49.039
Um what mistakes do owners make when buying software in the first place?
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:55.599
Like, you know, I is it just uh is it just kind of going with a software that's just not well rounded, like like yours?
00:24:55.680 --> 00:25:06.400
Or the biggest mistake I see, and I see it all the time, not from veteran laundromat owners, veteran laundromat owners know better than to make this mistake.
00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:21.920
But first-time laundromat owners that are excited about everything, they have seen the podcast on delivery, they went to the the conference on delivery and delivery, delivery, delivery, and they're obsessed with I'm gonna do this amazing delivery service out of my laundromat.
00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:49.920
And maybe that works and maybe that's the case, but I really liken that to uh you're about to start your first restaurant, and um, you know, you're you're gonna be doing fine dining Italian and you haven't opened up your kitchen, you haven't got your uh lunch menu going, you haven't hired your chefs, you're not even open, and you're obsessed with delivery.
00:25:50.079 --> 00:25:57.279
Delivery is the last part, that is the part where uh you go and you deliver the clothes to the person.
00:25:57.359 --> 00:26:02.240
Now, sure you pick them up too, but it's really just a method of distribution.
00:26:02.559 --> 00:26:07.839
The actual product is the laundromat and it is the wash-dry fold service.
00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:24.720
And so if you don't have all that going and you don't have the steady and sure business model underneath you, delivery is not the thing that you should be focused on if you're not already doing 5,000 plus in wash dry fold per month.
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:31.279
Now, if you're already doing 5,000 plus and you're trying to move to 10,000, you know, um, I'm talking$10,000 per month.
00:26:31.599 --> 00:26:35.440
And delivery is one of your focuses to get there, that makes more sense.
00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:40.079
That means you've got a restaurant that's busy and you're trying to expand it into delivery.
00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:43.440
So, you know, because you've run out of seats in the restaurant.
00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:52.880
Um, but if you are focused purely on delivery from day one, I have never seen that work and I've seen it fail a lot, a lot.
00:26:53.039 --> 00:26:59.920
And what's funny is we've lost several deals to companies that maybe are more focused on delivery.
00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:02.480
And then I'll talk again to that laundromat owner.
00:27:02.559 --> 00:27:08.880
I'll see them at an event or something like that three years, five years later, and ask them how delivery is going.
00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:14.160
And they still haven't gotten around to it because they're still just trying to figure out the rest of the kitchen, right?
00:27:14.319 --> 00:27:19.759
They're still trying to figure out their base product, how to get their laundromat busy, how to do their wash, dry, fold.
00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:25.279
And delivery was this dream that was so important to them when they bought their laundromat.
00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:31.759
Um, but it's it's just like I said, it's it's like starting a restaurant and all you talk about is DoorDash.
00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:36.400
If you're not focused on the food and the actual business, you're not gonna be successful.
00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:41.680
And the delivery is just a way that that you can get the the clothes to and from the person.
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:46.960
The actual service is the wash-dry fold and it's the actual washers and dryers.
00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:49.440
That's that's your money printing machine.
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:58.079
Yeah, three 3,000 conversations is definitely going to show you uh every way that that you know uh business owners get it wrong, laundromat owners get it wrong.
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:13.519
And so I hope prospective laundromat owners um are taking notes here because uh if you're thinking about going right to delivery and focusing on that out of the gates, uh maybe reevaluate, get you get your ducks in the line first um before you you go all in on delivery.
00:28:13.680 --> 00:28:13.920
Yeah.
00:28:14.400 --> 00:28:16.079
So we'll talk about the scale, the scale issue.
00:28:16.160 --> 00:28:18.559
How does WatchDrive Fold POS uh scale?
00:28:18.720 --> 00:28:28.640
Does the same system that works for uh like one store and uh in Tulsa work for someone running 30 locations in in New York or uh just a very high volume?
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:39.359
Yeah, that's one of the things we've really focused on from day one because we ourselves are multi-store owners, it couldn't just be, hey, this is built for one store.
00:28:39.599 --> 00:28:47.440
And what we see is Stephen Grammaglia, who I mentioned earlier, he was a one-store owner when he started with us.
00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:51.359
And it worked for his first store, is easy to use, easy to train.
00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:54.319
And then he opened a second store and the two network together.
00:28:54.480 --> 00:28:58.000
He's got one dashboard where he can see what's going on at either store.
00:28:58.240 --> 00:29:01.359
And then he opened a third store and a fourth store and so on.
00:29:01.519 --> 00:29:07.759
And so, so basically, the same functionality that's going to work well and be easy to use at one store.
00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:09.759
We've made it to where it's scalable.
00:29:09.920 --> 00:29:17.519
Like our largest customer runs 30 stores and has 30 of our point of sale systems, and they have one dashboard that they're able to manage all that.
00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:24.000
And that becomes especially important too if you have multiple LLCs and you need to run reports in a certain way.
00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:28.319
Um, there's ways to uh manage all that within the software.
00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:30.880
So it really is built for scale.
00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:56.240
And getting back to that pricing question we talked about earlier about the actual costs at scale, that's really kind of our sweet spot is it's because it's a very low percentage of your revenue, you can scale it really large without the costs ballooning versus uh some of the rest of the industry maybe will take more of your um credit card processing fees and so a larger percentage of your revenue.
00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:04.720
And so once you scale it to, you know, 10 or 30 stores, uh all of a sudden that you know that monthly software fee doesn't really matter that much.
00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:10.240
And what really matters is the costs that scaled um as you scaled your business.
00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:19.279
Well, I've got um one more question for you, and I want to circle back around to uh just you know, what makes uh the best POS out there?
00:30:19.440 --> 00:30:21.920
And uh what is that best POS?
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:29.920
Um, is there one, you know, POS system to rule them all for every laundromat, or just again, does it depend on the store's operating model?
00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:34.000
Because I think it's interesting that you recommend competitors for some setups, right?
00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:37.920
Like you're not just gonna go all in on recommending your own company, which would make sense.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:41.599
And I would uh, you know, I wouldn't uh grade you too harshly for doing that.
00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:43.440
But um, you know, you're honest.
00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:46.640
So what what's the best POS for every laundromat?
00:30:47.359 --> 00:31:08.000
Yeah, so conventional wisdom, I would I would definitely say it's ours, but the the reality is if you have a focus, like for example, I've talked to um dry cleaners that actually have on-premise dry cleaning or they have the racking system, which is that little spinny conveyor belt you've probably seen at dry cleaners.
00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:13.599
There are companies that are better suited for an extreme focus on dry cleaning.
00:31:13.680 --> 00:31:17.839
If that's half your revenue, we're not gonna be the right fit for you.
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:35.200
Um, and so, and I mentioned earlier, there are companies that maybe focus more on the pickup and delivery aspect of it, or maybe they focus more on um on some niche piece that this laundromat is really important to them because where they are at and what they're doing.
00:31:35.519 --> 00:31:39.839
So, my view is that there's no one best point of sale system.
00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:44.640
And if you look at the names, they usually will tell you in the name what they're best at.
00:31:44.799 --> 00:31:46.960
And for us, it's wash dry fold.
00:31:47.039 --> 00:31:53.519
We're we're the best for in-store, wash, dry fold, managing your attendance, preventing theft.
00:31:53.759 --> 00:31:57.359
We can absolutely do a delivery, you can do a dry cleaning drop site.
00:31:57.680 --> 00:32:09.440
So we're we're versatile and we're a good solution for a lot of laundromats, but the best solution is probably going to depend specifically on the laundromat.
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:14.559
And every point of sale system in this industry has really focused on a different thing.
00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:23.119
And so you probably want to get your priorities straight and really think about what do you need in the next, you know, one to three years.
00:32:23.359 --> 00:32:31.039
And then you probably want to base your purchase on what your priorities are and who is the strongest at your priorities.
00:32:31.200 --> 00:32:40.960
And again, if if that is you're going to do this huge dry cleaning operation, for example, I've told many laundromat owners, hey, we're just not the right fit for your vision and for what you're doing.
00:32:41.119 --> 00:32:47.519
And in fact, there's other softwares out there that have been focusing on what your vision is, and you should really go with them.
00:32:47.680 --> 00:33:00.720
And so we're not afraid to recommend other uh laundromat point of sale systems in the industry if they are stronger on the specific niche that is more important to that laundromat owner.
00:33:01.039 --> 00:33:01.599
I love that.
00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:08.319
I love the the transparency, the honesty, the the realness of that answer and explanation.
00:33:08.480 --> 00:33:22.400
Um one question I, you know, we I feel like I have to ask every every client here on the SourceForge podcast is artificial intelligence and whether or not it's made a uh an impact, or have you thought about incorporating it into your platform or not?
00:33:22.559 --> 00:33:26.000
Um the laundromat industry, you know, is a little bit of an outlier.
00:33:26.160 --> 00:33:30.880
Imagine you're still working on getting you know companies up to speed with a with a capable POS system.
00:33:31.039 --> 00:33:38.480
But does your is your POS system, is your platform thought have you thought about incorporating AI or or or does it incorporate AI in some way, shape, or form?
00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:39.279
Yeah.
00:33:39.359 --> 00:33:46.079
So, you know, it's been kind of a crazy year with AI, and I think every SaaS company is is definitely thinking how do we use AI?
00:33:46.319 --> 00:33:52.799
And for us, you know, when you think about the point of sale system itself, it's literally you've got a human.
00:33:52.960 --> 00:34:00.559
They're usually, I mean, I'm not trying to be stereotypical here, but practically any laundromat you go to in the world, it's a lady.
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:03.359
She's typically semi-retired, right?
00:34:03.519 --> 00:34:06.319
And she's typically not a computer programmer.
00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:12.559
We have a few men on our staff, but almost primarily most laundromats, we always talk about our ladies.
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:16.719
And it really is a system built to be easy for them.
00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:24.000
So you can imagine if you tried to, you know, insert ChatGPT there and they type in, I want to sell this person soap, how do I do it?
00:34:24.159 --> 00:34:28.719
That's not going to be as user-friendly as just scanning the soap, which is how it how it works now.
00:34:29.039 --> 00:34:32.639
So, how did we bring AI into what we're doing?
00:34:32.800 --> 00:34:35.119
We actually brought it into the development side.
00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:39.280
So when we have a new feature request, someone asks for a new report.
00:34:39.519 --> 00:34:44.000
The pace we're at now is we can do about as much development as what took us a year.
00:34:44.159 --> 00:34:46.000
We're doing that now in a month.
00:34:46.239 --> 00:34:50.639
But then there is a side of this that doesn't involve AI.
00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:52.639
It's actually a new product we're launching.
00:34:52.719 --> 00:34:56.320
Uh uh, hadn't necessarily planned on discussing it, but we might as well.
00:34:56.480 --> 00:35:00.000
So everyone's always asking us, hey, do you do websites?
00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:01.360
Do you do marketing?
00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:06.400
And even just one year ago, that was too much work and it was too much of a drag.
00:35:06.480 --> 00:35:10.159
And we didn't want to have that whole product offering.
00:35:10.320 --> 00:35:12.159
Um, and so we would refer them out.
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:19.519
They'd pay, you know, three or four grand up front, and they'd kind of go through a marketing agency to get a website made and to buy services.
00:35:19.760 --> 00:35:26.320
AI has made it so easy to design better websites than what you could buy for five grand last year.
00:35:26.559 --> 00:35:28.960
We will just give it to you, included.
00:35:29.039 --> 00:35:34.480
Um, you pay the$50 a month for this extra kind of website, but you don't have to pay anything up front.
00:35:34.559 --> 00:35:36.159
It's an extra$50 per month.
00:35:36.320 --> 00:35:37.679
You get the website.
00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:41.519
Um, and then we also have marketing services that you can buy on top of that.
00:35:41.840 --> 00:35:50.000
So for us, it's not about how do we try and make people that are already comfortable with the system, how do we, you know, jam AI down their throat.
00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:58.880
It's really more about how do we use AI to develop new products, to make our products better and faster and easier to use.
00:35:59.119 --> 00:36:04.559
And then the whole thing with the website building, I mean, that's that's something people have asked us about for years.
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:08.960
Um, but without AI, we we were never able to offer it in the past.
00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:13.119
Now we can we can build you the best website that's available.
00:36:13.199 --> 00:36:15.599
It's AEO, SEO optimized.
00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:18.800
It's got its own dedicated page for the LLMs.
00:36:18.960 --> 00:36:21.280
Um, you can change everything on the back end.
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:24.800
You've got your own admin dashboard for there, and it's$50 a month.
00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:29.679
There's there's no one else doing that that that gives you that kind of product for that kind of price.
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:31.119
No, it's I love that.
00:36:31.199 --> 00:36:39.599
That's that's uh it's not every day that one of my off-the-cuff questions uh gets a speaker or a guest to uh tell us about their new upcoming product.
00:36:39.840 --> 00:36:40.400
But that's exciting.
00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:41.840
That is really, I can see the value there.
00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:48.559
I mean, uh AI absolutely has uh really helped um uh increase the ability to for anyone to launch a website.
00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:58.800
So having it um increase and using AI in some way it in um some form to help build uh websites for launch owners, I think is a very valuable asset.
00:36:58.960 --> 00:37:03.599
And so incorporating that into your platform, I think, is is huge and uh smart move.
00:37:03.679 --> 00:37:18.960
Um and I can also imagine, too, maybe in uh using some sort of FAQ, you know, um uh feature where laundromat owners can just, you know, use sort of a chatbot to learn more about how to use the platform and get the most out of it to kind of help with that learning curve.
00:37:19.119 --> 00:37:25.199
Again, there's a learning curve of getting them to use the chatbot in the first place, but once they get past that little roadblock, you know.
00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:27.920
Yeah, we introduced that piece of it.
00:37:28.079 --> 00:37:33.280
Um, I think about two years ago was when we launched our our support chatbot.
00:37:33.599 --> 00:37:40.400
And that takes 60, 70% of all of our tech support is done by that chatbot.
00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:42.639
And I I do see that going up to 90%.
00:37:43.360 --> 00:37:47.280
And so it is just easier if you're just saying, how do I create a coupon code?
00:37:47.440 --> 00:37:54.079
It will not only describe to you exactly how to create a coupon code, but it will even show you the video, it'll show you the article with the screenshots.
00:37:54.159 --> 00:38:00.800
And so for the tech support, we have had AI integrated into the tech support part of it for quite some time.
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:12.480
Um, but it's just more recently that we've actually been using AI to build additional products and to build the product out to just go down the roadmap that we already had faster.
00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:13.519
Gotcha.
00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:21.199
Well, and I again, I'm sure you have a whole list of features that you want to um, you know, cons that you're considering building into the platform.
00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:24.719
Um, this website builder is is the sounds like it's the latest.
00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:32.639
Um, and I'm excited to see what you you come up with here in the next uh you know handful of months and um the next decade of of operations.
00:38:32.800 --> 00:38:36.239
It's an exciting time to be in the in the SaaS space, that's for sure.
00:38:36.480 --> 00:38:42.079
Um for for those interested in learning more about Wash Dry Fold POS, where's the best place to go?
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:48.000
Well, they could go to SourceForge and they could see our profile there and they could click learn more.
00:38:48.320 --> 00:38:52.800
Um you'd see we currently at 122 five-star reviews.
00:38:52.880 --> 00:39:01.920
I'm sure it'll be more by the time that the podcast goes out, but you can click there and it'll show you, it'll bring you right to washdryfoldpos.com, which is our website.
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:06.159
And you can watch demos on the product, you can see what the software actually looks like.
00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:18.320
And then what we do, at least now, is we have you schedule an appointment with a specialist who really understands laundromats and really can just talk you through what the best point of sale system might be for your laundromat.
00:39:18.559 --> 00:39:21.119
And like I said, that's not always our point of sale system.
00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:27.760
So um, it is worth having the phone call just to see what we recommend, uh, if nothing else.
00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:29.039
All right, I love that.
00:39:29.199 --> 00:39:32.960
Um, we will uh include all the relevant links down below in the show notes.
00:39:33.039 --> 00:39:36.559
Um, I appreciate the uh the SourceForge uh call out there.
00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:39.840
Uh listeners, you can head to washdrivefoldpos.com.
00:39:40.079 --> 00:39:42.719
Ian, thank you so much for everything you've you've shared with us.
00:39:42.880 --> 00:39:44.639
Genuinely, this has been really insightful.
00:39:44.719 --> 00:39:57.119
Um, I've learned a lot about the industry and um honestly we'd love to have you have you back, talk updates, see what the how the website builder functionality is is working, you know, after um you know being in operation for uh a few months or so.
00:39:57.280 --> 00:39:59.760
Um and yeah, just excited to see what else you come up with.
00:40:00.400 --> 00:40:01.119
That sounds great.
00:40:01.199 --> 00:40:02.400
Uh I really appreciate it, though.
00:40:02.719 --> 00:40:03.440
Thanks for being here.
00:40:03.599 --> 00:40:06.960
And thank you all for uh listening and watching the SourceForge podcast.
00:40:07.039 --> 00:40:08.400
I'm your host, Bo Hamilton.
00:40:08.559 --> 00:40:13.039
Make sure to subscribe to stay up to date with all of our upcoming B2B software-related podcasts.
00:40:13.280 --> 00:40:15.360
I will talk to you in the next one.
