Hey Contrarians,
The stocks-to-socks career path isn’t all that common — but it does exist.
We recently met Tyler Purcell, a long-time wealth manager with a background in both spreadsheets and bed sheets, owning 4 laundromats (and counting) around Cincinnati.
We often refer to laundromats as “gateway drugs” to biz buying.
So today, we’re taking Tyler’s laundromat story for a spin, talking about growth, challenges, tactics, and sometimes — close your ears, kids — literal sh*t.
Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn about:
How a wealth manager winds up doing laundry…
When you hear Tyler talk laundry, it’s easy to assume the industry runs in his blood, going back generations.
Online, for instance, he nerds out about laundry, writing about things like how a tragic ship collision in 1956 led to Electrolux’s entrance into the US laundry machine market.
But Tyler is relatively new to the laundry game.
“I have a full-time job,” he told us. “Financial planner by day on a team that runs a small registered investment advisor.”
“We manage about $235 million in assets. That’s what I do. That’s what I love doing.”
But who’s to say you can’t love doing multiple things?
Tyler’s laundry story began 10 years ago…
… When he started dating his wife.
“I knew her father had a laundromat but I never knew anything about laundromats. I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s a laundromat. Might make a little bit of money.’”
Fast forward 3 years, Tyler and his wife get married, and his father-in-law has a proposition.
“Hey, you know, I think I got a good thing with this laundromat. Do you guys want to team up and open up some more?”
Tyler was 28 at the time.
“I’m like, I don’t know. It’s not the sexiest business. It’s a boring business — I want to do something cooler. But, I’m in finance. If it makes money…”
So Tyler’s father-in-law showed him the books. Turns out, he did have a pretty good thing going. Not always the case, but it was here.
“I’m like, man, not a bad gig. If we can open up 5, 10 of these, now we’ve got a nice-sized business.”
Easier said than done. But, importantly, they had the right team for the job:
- Tyler with the finance chops
- His brother-in-law with the tech and design skills
- His father-in-law with the laundromat ownership experience
So they launched the Laundry Spot brand, rebranded the first store, and opened up 3 others since, with plans for more.
“Like anything small business, the hard knocks at the beginning.”
When the trio first started, it was a firehose of learning.
“I was having to go work evening shifts because employees would call off,” Tyler says.
But through years of hard work, the team’s been able to build out a small, highly optimized corporate structure.
“We have attendants at the base level, a manager at each store, 2 assistant GMs, and a GM.”
One of those managers even snapped a pic of the recent eclipse over a Laundry Spot location:
Today, Tyler says, each member of the original trio is actively working a small number of hours each week on laundromat stuff.
“My father-in-law and my brother-in-law both have full-time jobs as well. I hate the word ‘passive.’ Nothing is passive, but this is as close as you can probably get.”
One key factor?
“I do think having the right partners, and the right experience — my financial planning practice, for instance — I’m a business owner there, so I kind of understand the ins and outs of how business works.”
“If you’re going into it without any background, sure, there’s going to be learning curves. There were for us. We’ve refined things over the last 5, 6, 7 years. But I love it.”
And you may have to love it to do it well.
Because, while laundromats can be good businesses, they aren’t “all rainbows and butterflies,” Tyler admits.
Aside from the usual business challenges, sometimes, they’re literal sh*t shows.
On X, Tyler recently shared a screenshot of a notification he received about one of his location’s dryers tagging out.
The cause? Human poop.
The truth: 2 things that make a HUGE difference
Some of you are probably thinking to yourself, well sure, it’s probably a lot easier to launch a laundromat if you have the safety net of a successful, full-time wealth management career.
And you’d be 100% right to think that.
“Having a safety net absolutely helped,” Tyler says. “Having a stockpile of money to be able to put into the investment absolutely helped.”
“Those 2 things made me feel more comfortable about jumping in, of course.”
“But,” he adds, “we didn’t do anything necessarily out of the ordinary to fund the laundromat.”
So how’d they fund it?
“We have a good partnership with a regional bank. We didn’t self-fund 100% of it or anything like that,” he says.
On X, Tyler has outlined options he sees for financing laundromat startup costs. Among them:
- Partnering with people who do have the funds
- Reaching out to equipment manufacturers for financing options
- Working with the SBA, banks, or other lenders focused on laundromats
“We threw in enough money to put that 20% down on a business loan and, you know, got to work.”
Feeling Main Street curious?
Business buying is often a long, hard process. Especially if you don’t take the time to learn what you’re doing. That’s why we created the Contrarian Community.
Inside, we equip action-takers of all backgrounds with:
- Practical education and tactical resources.
- Facilitated expert guidance and events
- Consistent peer accountability
… So they can learn how to accelerate toward their first (or next) Main Street acquisition.
Interested in learning more? Click here.
Fresh ideas for making $ with dirty clothes
Tyler thinks it was a blessing he entered the business without a laundromat background.
“What do you think about when you think about laundromats?” he asked us. “Nasty, dirty, dark, right?”
Aka, the opposite of this:
“When we were first thinking about this,” he explained, “I was doing research on competitors in our area. And I’m like, excuse my French, ‘Holy sh*t.’”
Running through his mind:
- “How are these still running?”
- “How are customers still going?”
- “This equipment is 30 years old and half of it is broken”
- “… And these places are still in business?!”
With that intel, the plan was simple: “Let’s create a modern laundromat. Let’s get the best equipment, the newest technology, let’s do marketing.”
That last one may sound obvious — but it’s not. “None of these laundromats were marketing at all,” he says. “A lot of them don’t even have Google Business pages.”
Other ideas for cleaning up the competition
Tyler and team have employed many, including…
Vending
Vending machines with snacks, drinks, detergent, softener, stain remover, hangers, and bags.
“Feel like we’re running a mini vending biz. We sling everything out of these,” he’s said.
VIP grand openings like you’ve never seen
Have you ever, in your entire life, heard of a catered, red-carpet, grand opening VIP party… at a laundromat?
Probably not.
But Tyler and his partners have done it.
“It was a hit… We had over 50 city officials, business owners, and media attend.”
The outcome:
- “Widespread media coverage before our public grand opening”
- “Contracts with the city to do the Fire and Police Dept clothing”
- “Commercial contracts with local businesses”
Free laundry
When they open a new store, The Laundry Spot also offers 2 weekends of… free laundry.
Wait — is that true?
Yup, it is. Free laundry.
“I work every single hour of these days. It’s brutal, but also the most rewarding and humbling experience. It is also great marketing. When you give, you get back,” he’s said.
“Any sort of crazy type of idea we’ve heard or seen, we’re trying to figure out how to bring it to the laundry industry,” he told us. “How do we draw in customers? How do we make the experience way better than what these customers are used to?”
“If we get a customer in our doors, they’re not going back to the other laundromat. That’s our goal. Get them to walk in, and do 1 load of laundry.”
Sometimes, drawing in customers means working some magic with the city to get approval for a 15ft balloon on the roof.
Incentives, merchandise, and loyalty cards
Other times, drawing customers in means things like:
- Incentivizing top-notch customer service by giving employees tips when they’re mentioned in 5-star reviews
- Putting branded laundry bags around the store as props and then starting to sell them once customers started asking
- Designing a store so that you can offer a commercial laundry service
- Offering loyalty cards that work similarly to credit card points, except customers can only redeem them on dryers
- Accepting dry cleaning but outsourcing the actual work to partner dry cleaners
Another nice touch you won’t see elsewhere?
Bathrooms — clean ones
“Surprisingly, I get a lot of questions about what our bathrooms look like at the laundromats,” Tyler says.
“I give the people what they want.”
What they want:
It’s not easy, but it ain’t rocket science…
Bottom line:
- Tyler helped form a team with the right expertise for this business
- They’ve focused on being customer-centric since day one
- They’ve spent years optimizing to remove themselves from the day-to-day
- They were fortunate to have full-time careers they could rely on as safety nets
- They used conventional small business practices to finance the business
- They continue to find creative ways to market and grow the business, including through technology and Taylor Swift memes:
None of that is easy, and it’s not for everyone.
But it certainly isn’t rocket science.
SO not boring…
🎧 Listen close: Codie’s latest podcast episode is out (and it’s spicyyy)…
🧠 This looks cool: In Austin? Check out this free American Dynamism Symposium happening soon.
