Latest / Behind the Founders / He Quit Corporate for $14/ Hour...Then Built A Thriving Laundry Business
Transcript
- Ben: Hello, welcome to Behind the Founder. I'm Ben, the host for today, and today we have Ayad from Orange Bag. Ayad, great to have you on. would you mind introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about your business? Ayad Mirjan: Yeah, thank you for having me. ⁓ my name is ⁓ Ayad Mirjan. and I own I'm the owner of Orangebag Laundry. we've been in business since ⁓ ⁓ started in the laundry industry in 2017 and Orangebag sort of came to be in 2019. we've we've transitioned ⁓ and and of ⁓ grew over the years and and pivoted. several times. Of course that period coincided with with COVID. And you can imagine what what what that did to businesses across the world, not just not just here in California. And so we off as a residential laundry service and now are essentially a I'd say 90% commercial laundry service with a arm. So we work with you know hotels, spas, gyms, doing you know ⁓ towel linen service, ⁓ rental, and customer-owned goods, and with a with a you know a a residential arm there that we didn't want to drop you know completely. ⁓ Exactly, Yeah, and that's and that's who we are. ⁓ we are you know located in in Los Angeles. Ben: The remnant of your your initial business. Awesome. Ayad Mirjan: ⁓ but we have accounts across the US ⁓ working with ⁓ partners that you know we've we've owned and and worked with for several years ⁓ you know now we service accounts in several cities across the United States. Ben: Awesome. So you said you you got into the industry in twenty seventeen and you started the business. It came to you in twenty nineteen. What do you mean by it came to you? What was the origin story of the behind that? Ayad Mirjan: Yeah, so so it was it was, you know, slow i i it it was when I think of it, it was it was almost like a slow progression into pickup and delivery. It all it almost makes sense. So I come from the laundry industry. You know, historically I you know I I worked in corporate, I I did that for for many years, you know, got my MBA and I thought I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. ⁓ in twenty fifteen, I got a I got the itch. To get out of corporate and go do my own thing. And I pursued fitness, fitness and health, and that was that was the industry I wanted to be in. And then I quickly realized I actually got a job as a fitness trainer. So I left corporate, you know, getting paid, you know, very well. ⁓ behind a desk and I had a team, I had staff, and and ⁓ yeah, and and and and we had you know sort of ⁓ quarterly goals and annual goals and Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Ayad Mirjan: And I moved from there to working at a boxing gym here in LA, getting paid after tax maybe fourteen dollars an hour. And I'd literally finish class and go have breakfast and I'd spend everything I made on that breakfast. Ben: Yeah. Not the initial idea of going out on your own and being an entrepreneur, huh? Ayad Mirjan: Well, I thought I wanted to to feel what it's like to ⁓ in it as a trainer to see if I wanted to so I can see it if I were to own a gym at some point, what it takes to to manage a group of trainers. And the gym that I worked for, you know, one of the founders was an Olympian medalist. I mean he was a boxer, he's he was the face of the gym and and very well known individual. ⁓ gym was fantastic. But he was as involved in the gym and the day-to-day operations five years in as he was on day one. And I thought I wanted something that allows me some level of freedom to step away and have a sort of team do the work as opposed to myself. And I looked at many different, you know, businesses and models and and things like that, and and I landed on laundry. Not for, you know, passion for. Detergent or passion for a softener. It's just, you know, that's that was the impetus. And then from there, I basically bought a laundromat ⁓ to grow that laundromat. I could either now buy another laundromat, which takes a lot of capital to do, or grow business in a way where I can bring the laundromat to people's homes or to the business that requires And the way do that is to basically invest in pickup and delivery. Ben: Yeah. Uh-huh. That's awesome. Ayad Mirjan: So now we are a basically a logistics company and a laundry processing company, all wrapped in one. So that's that's basically that was the progression of of how Orangeback came to be. Ben: Makes sense. So Yeah. It was that big step out of corporate, kind of getting your feet, figuring out what you wanted to do, buy a laundromat, realize that capital intensive growth. So you pivot to kind of just, you know, more of a an i a model that you could grow without necessarily throwing all the capital in up front. So that's awesome. Ayad Mirjan: Correct. Yes. And so now we run, of course, not out of a laundromat. We have a it's a private facility. It's almost like a factory. We've invested heavily in automation as well. so you know, that's that's the only way to succeed in this business is to focus on quality ⁓ and also, you know, to keep payroll down and and costs down, you you have to make sure that automation is is a big part of your business. And so ⁓ that has allowed us that that Ben: Yeah. That's right. Ayad Mirjan: you know, continued growth and hopefully it continues. Ben: So awesome. And so you started with residential, realized during COVID ⁓ you needed to make a pivot. That's what led to more corporate ⁓ business-to-business contracts that you have now. What do you spend? So I assume, you know, for a large portion of ⁓ the beginning of the business, you were more involved. I'm sure you're very much involved now. What's changed in terms of your focus from the different stages from residential to now? Like what takes most of your time now? Ayad Mirjan: How much time do you have? it's a ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. So in everything that I did up until this point, I always like to do the job myself and then delegate it. So do the job first and then delegate it. That way I know what I'm delegating. If I delegate something I haven't done personally, ⁓ I don't feel like I I would know how to manage the person to do it. Ben: Much timer do you have to talk? First. Ayad Mirjan: And also, it's a it's also a mental thing. It's a level of control that I like to have that I wouldn't otherwise. If I don't know the job, I feel like what they're doing is rocket science and and I'm always afraid that I might lose this employee and I wouldn't know what to do next and and things like that. So while it's not maybe ideal for for speedy growth, it is ⁓ is something that allows me a certain level of control and ⁓ A certain level of mental health as well to be able to manage that growth through. So yeah, so so for example, I I drove, I did the pickup and delivery for a while. Then I hired my first driver, then my second driver, then my third driver, and so on. and then I move on to the next thing. So the next thing was customer service. I would do customer service myself, and then now we have a customer service team. I'd do billing myself, now we have a billing team. Ben: Yeah, I hear you. Mm-hmm. Ayad Mirjan: I do sales myself and I still do ⁓ certain parts that I get involved with, but I'm in the process of transitioning sales across as well. yeah, so that's that's been really the approach. ⁓ even you know, staff management, that was my day-to-day thing. But I continue to, you know, luckily find the right people. We have an incredible team. and I say this because they've been with us for for some for quite some time. ⁓ many of from ⁓ the days we even started until now. And so they know the job better than I do. And I lean on them, on their expertise, to be able to navigate certain situations. Ben: Awesome. Yeah. How how big's your team if you don't mind me asking? Ayad Mirjan: We are now thirteen people going on fourteen. Ben: And it's in every all employees that work in you know, in person ⁓ for you. Ayad Mirjan: No, so we have a virtual team as well. So billing, sales, customer service, relationship management, that is virtual. the drivers, ⁓ processors, of course, and and on-site managers, those are all ⁓ in person. Ben: Okay. Obviously, yeah. Awesome. Awesome. What's the hardest role that you've had to hire for? Ayad Mirjan: The hardest role would probably be two roles really. ⁓ facilities manager, so a general manager, someone you can rely on, you can trust, and who can maintain a company culture that is both productive and Ben: Yeah. Fun a fun environment or like a a nice environment to own and work at. Yeah. Ayad Mirjan: Yeah, yeah. I had a you know what I thought was a rock star employee, ⁓ assistant manager, ⁓ who was fan fantastic. ⁓ they did all the right things in in my eyes. As soon as that person left, my staff were relieved. And I thought, what do you mean? Like we we had this employee and and and we lost. We just we just really lost them. It's really unfortunate. Ben: Yeah. Ayad Mirjan: Yeah, and and they were fast at processing orders and you know, I thought they were on top of the staff, making sure that the staff were productive. But that that doesn't tell you the whole story. There's a a human element that ⁓ not every person who is a top performer in terms of maybe speed or or quality of product ⁓ person that is ⁓ effective on a team. And so I pretty much I realized That I was close to losing maybe three or four people of my staff because of that employee. And I hadn't realized that that was the case. So, so really a general manager ⁓ that I can rely on. I we have Elena, she's fantastic, she's been with us for from day pretty much day one. And then funny enough, the driver position. The position is not an easy position to fill. because those individuals are on their own, they're on the road, and ⁓ know, you're tracking their performance through, you know, metrics. Excuse me. but but they're pretty much self-starters. they're ⁓ you know self-initiating. ⁓ you're as fast as ⁓ how they ⁓ do pickups and deliveries and and and you hope that they don't dilly-dally. and and someone who can be reliable. You I have this interview question that I ask. that has given me a lot of insight as to who I want to hire and who I want to avoid. And the question goes something like this. Everyone's entitled to now I'm gonna, you know, let you in on the secret and I hope this doesn't get I hope this gonna this podcast doesn't get too big. everyone's entitled to to sick days and personal days. How many days do you think Ben: This is ⁓ Ayad Mirjan: It would be reasonable for you to call in and say, I won't be able to come in tomorrow to X. How many days per month do you think it would be reasonable for you to call in and say I won't be able to come in tomorrow? ⁓ the driver position is such an important position. Ben: Yeah, it's the bottleneck of everything. Ayad Mirjan: Yeah, if you don't deliver, then you pretty much failed. And the amount of people who respond to that question with once or twice per month is staggering. Ben: Yes. Yeah. Ayad Mirjan: And my follow-up question is per month. They're like, yes. I'm like, okay, so we're on the same page. ⁓ thank you for your time. ⁓ we can't have that. You know, it could happen maybe twice, three times per year, but not once or twice, twice per month. Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That's that's I I we might have to steal that question. I mean we ⁓ my business is hiring and I think we kinda you know, ⁓ you know, sometimes it's very funny, like you said, you know, it you get kind of the whole grab bag of of, you know, people that say they're super on top of it and never calling and they might be the people that call in the most. But yeah, it's it's It's it's it's a constant ⁓ concern, especially when you have positions that aren't traditionally like high paid or a lot of experience behind it. So your pool is not you know defined by the experience that they've had before that. So you're kind of you know, you're the one that are finding those things out as the first employer or you know, someone that's hiring someone you're not checking references. So I totally understand that. well that's great. So you have a a a great team underneath you. I know you spoke, you know, in your original ⁓ about your business about heavily automating things. I'm sure you were automating things before the big AI kind of takeover in the last few years. Can you talk to me a little bit about kind of what you automated in the beginning and now of with AI, how that's changed? Are you using AI? ⁓ you know, ⁓ is it of your business? Ayad Mirjan: So automation is i i in our business is more maybe it comes to processing, it's it's more along the lines of ⁓ robotics than it would be along the lines of AI. Now, of course, robotics use AI. ⁓ I realize that. there are ⁓ robots ⁓ that ⁓ fold or produce widgets in our industry. it's not perfect. The technology is not fully there yet, but we Ben: Okay. Ayad Mirjan: We played along with that. So we had a company send us a robot, and that robot pretty much worked five hours a day, five days a week. Basically feeding ⁓ towels through our folding machine. The folding machine is our main sort of automation ⁓ tool at this point. So, ⁓ for previously we would be able to produce maybe 150. Maybe 200 towels per hour. With this folding machine, we can produce 500 to 700 towels per hour. Ben: ⁓ my gosh. Ayad Mirjan: So that sped our throughput drastically. Now there's a person, of course, standing in front of that machine feeding the machine with towels. we can the machine can only work as fast as that individual feeding the machine with towels. So that's when we thought we can maybe invest in more robotics to ⁓ the machine, and then we can feed the robot with more widgets. So something we're still working on talking to another company at this point. to see if they have a product that can work for us. ⁓ but in terms of AI, really it's mostly software than it is actual hardware. you know typical office stuff that you see in terms of AI, you know, ⁓ simple stuff. nothing too crazy ⁓ from our side in terms of investment in AI. I realized that Ben: Awesome. Yeah. Ayad Mirjan: We could possibly do more. You know, one thing they're working on right now is is developing a you know a a processes and procedures essentially, putting them on Slack so that any question that comes through Slack is answered with AI based on you know previous data that ⁓ we have fed it or that it would learn from from our exchanges. ⁓ Right now it's all done manually, but that's something a project that I'd like to take on ⁓ because pretty much the entire team is on Slack virtual and in person. And so as you can imagine, a lot of channels, a lot of questions, a lot of ⁓ you know back and forth. Some of that could be eliminated. Ben: Definitely, definitely. I think the at least in our business, the AI it it it definitely helps, like you said. I mean, and and I think you hit the hammer on the head, like it's you know, unless your business is software and you're selling an AI, like the AI right now is really in in from my perspective, had been most useful in in kind of streamlining the back office, right? Not even the product itself, but just like how we run as a business. And it's really just greasing the wheels, kind of maybe adding context here. and and doing exactly what you said, kind of informing the team on what's happening. So that's awesome. So, you know, you started as residential, now you're in mostly B2B. What what when you think about growth as a business, are you right now like trying to grow, grow, grow? You know, what are you are you, you know, is is that an active kind of I know I know every business wants to grow, right? But but in terms of kind of how much you put in growth, are you a good size? Do you want to be twice as big? What what is your you know mindset when it comes to growth right now and what drives that? Ayad Mirjan: Yeah, we're we're we're going after it, that's for sure. We're investing heavily in sales and marketing and ⁓ we're looking to grow nationwide. And so that's the approach. I I get excited thinking about it. It's ⁓ that's the direction we want to go. It's not, you know, we we've been we've invested heavily in LA and and Southern California and now we wanna, you know, branch out and continue that growth pretty much across the nation in in other cities. Ben: Okay. Ayad Mirjan: So that's something we're working on actively. How b Ben: Does that look like does that look like buying like a a facility somewhere ⁓ kind of, you know, doing the whole thing again? You know, I would say I would I would think that the business kind of revolves around one facility and then a team of drivers and obviously the people that make those work. Ayad Mirjan: Yeah, so so I'd say it's it's more along the lines of buying So for example, we we did a strategic low roll-up earlier this year where we bought ⁓ an the accounts of another company here in LA. And ⁓ and we want to continue to do that here ⁓ and in cities. ⁓ So that's we're we're investing in and and continue to try to find more opportunities to do so. Ben: Okay. Awesome. Ayad Mirjan: That's in addition, of course, to the sales and marketing arms that that that we're investing in do just that. So there's in the I see it, at least from my experience, it's almost like ⁓ a black hole once the business hits the one to three million sort of revenue stage where ⁓ you you the growth, you can no longer do things yourself because you're You're too big, but you can't really hire staff that necessarily experts in their own fields because you can't afford them. So you end up hiring ⁓ generalists you train them to become experts in those fields, and that takes some work to find the right people to fit in those roles. Ben: Yeah. Ayad Mirjan: And so that's that's our struggle right now is is finding experts that can pretty much do the job better than myself in the different areas of of our work. Once we can cross that maybe hole and go to the next stage, it's something that I certainly would look forward to because at that point we can afford that talent. Ben: Yeah. Okay. So how yeah. Ayad Mirjan: we can we can afford, you know, we we have enough left behind, enough enough cash to be able to do to do just that. ⁓ so that's that's where we are right now. Where we wanna be is maybe what we're shooting for is is a three X or a four X in the next two to three years. Ben: Awesome. Are you looking to sell the business in that time in three to four years? Ayad Mirjan: No. No, this is yeah, this is something that i is not only something that I'm emotionally attached to, but yeah, I I see the growth. I see the growth and I see that ⁓ yeah, it can continue to do what it does. Ben: You want to Yeah. Which may just be back another five years, five years you see it growing. That's awesome. So would you say you're you're most constrained right now about finding good talent that you know that that's not of putting you back economically too much to kind of, you know, do the things that you can't do because you can't be everyone in the business, like you said. Ayad Mirjan: Yeah. Yeah, certainly. Certainly. That's definitely a challenge. ⁓ so you know, finding the right people in sales and in marketing and and all of that. So we we we have people now on our team who are excellent. And I and I can't see us working with with ⁓ other individuals or or fill thro those roles with somebody else. But down the line, I would love to be able to hire, for example, a a a data analyst who can give us you know specific details and and here's based on that we can build our strategies and and our approach. Maybe a CFO, maybe a CEO at some point. But all that is, you know, i ⁓ it's pie in the sky at this point and it's not something I can afford or or be able to to pursue. So it's it's okay. So we'll keep we'll keep running, we'll keep chugging along until we can make that happen, which will be and hopefully Two to three years from now. Ben: what is the work-life balance like running a business as an entrepreneur? and how has it changed over the course of growing your business? Ayad Mirjan: I I used to think running a business, running your own business is probably the most difficult thing can do. It is difficult. It's not easy. But then you add the element ⁓ having a family, having a wife, people that rely on you at home, just adds another dynamic to it. Balancing the or marrying the two is probably the most challenging thing I have ever done. I used to think running a business, running your own business is probably the most difficult thing one do. But then you add the element ⁓ of having a family, having a wife, that rely on you at home, Balancing the two or marrying the two is probably the most challenging thing I have done. being there for my little ones and and you can see the the little art that that my you know four year old did. But being there for my four year old, my two year old at home, and while being bombarded by you know with messages from my staff or clients about orders or whatnot, and and trying to be present in both spheres, easily the most difficult thing I've ever done. Easily. Easily. and so that plays on your mind a lot. It ⁓ it's challenging for sure, frustrating at times. But I've become better at it because I've realized that ⁓ running business ⁓ through ⁓ is ⁓ the mentality to start with. So what's the fear? The fear is that you know I'm I'm not there at work ⁓ or being able to respond quickly enough to fix a problem or address a a client concern. Okay. Ben: I hear you. Yeah. Ayad Mirjan: So what? So what? I mean it's it is what it is. you lose that client, it happens. You lose out on addressing ⁓ an issue quickly enough, it can happen. It it probably your lack of ability to respond within the next five minutes is probably not the thing that broke that relationship to begin with. Ben: Yeah, that's right. Ayad Mirjan: So being present in the moment while I'm with my kids is probably something that ⁓ I should probably invest more in. But I've already, you know, made some big headway locally in that direction and yeah, and I hope to continue to do so. Ben: Mm-hmm. I think with a w in a world where you're accessible with you know within five seconds on a phone, it's hard to disconnect. I had the same thing for I had a client on the East Coast and we didn't have, you know, they wanted to grow really fast, and we we brought on I think 20 contractors on their team over the course of a month, and it was the biggest client by far and and also happened really quickly. Ayad Mirjan: So difficult. Ben: And they wanted someone to check in every morning and they started at 8 a.m. So for the fur for probably three months, you know, and it's not, I mean, I complaining about waking up early, but it's more so it's just complaining about knowing that there's gonna be a problem and having to wake up at five AM to deal with that problem because someone's not, you know, gonna do their job. And I think very quickly I came to the realization that you had just mentioned that you know, some things, you know some things aren't even your fault and you're just kind of as the owner you take everything under kind of your own, you know guilt. I think there's some like owner's guilt and being like, you know, even if your it's not your responsibility, your company's responsibility to do this and they want someone to yell at, you're gonna be that someone and you're just gonna take it, right? So ⁓ I totally hear you. I think, I mean, I got to the point where, you know, I'll turn my phone off and do you know, I never used do not disturb before, but then I ⁓ the past like year I've I've learned to use do not disturb and from you know when my day ends at 7 p.m to when I when I'm on at eight AM the next it's do not disturb and I'll just look when I want to and whatnot. But that has been a huge change, I think. I mean, and you mention you mention it just being kind of a relationship and, you know, the the quality of time that you're spending with your kids. It's also just a mental health thing as a business owner, right? Just to be able to turn off and like and not feel like, you know, it's and that's a you know goes into hiring a good team that you can trust to deal with things, I think. But Ayad Mirjan: Definitely. And and then working with the right clients, I think you're spot on what you're saying there. but the right clients who are working with you because of of who you are as a company, who you are maybe as a person, because you're the face of of the business as well, they would understand. You know, if if it's the right client, they would understand. Of course they have a business to run and and and you want to be accessible to them and and you are. once you have that personal relationship, you're working with the right people. Ben: Yeah. Ayad Mirjan: By that I mean the right clients fit your business model. Yeah, they they they would understand. They have families themselves and and they know how it works. And so once you have that rapport, it's okay. It's okay. Give yourself some time ⁓ ⁓ or give myself some time and and and you know and relax. It's it's it's gonna be fine. I'll I'll address it once I am out the zone that I am currently in. ⁓ Ben: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's the it's the saying when you're when you're your own boss you never have a day off. Right. So you have to you have to you have to give yourself a day off or some time off at least to to function at full power. Ayad Mirjan: Yeah, yeah, it's ⁓ it's that guilt as well. Guilt is is ⁓ is my slave driver. And so that's yeah, you wanna you wanna be there, you wanna work. If if I'm not going to get another account, who's gonna do it for me? So I you know, ⁓ any time spent doing something else, not getting another account is time wasted. Ben: Yeah. I should always be Yeah, that's right. That's right. Do you the note of ⁓ the right customers in our own business I think we saw as we raised prices, we were really afraid that we would lose customers, but we actually attracted this probably similar amount or more customers. And when price isn't as much as an option, or when price isn't as much as a driving force of the conversation, they want lower, lower, lower, you have a different class of customers. And I assume that's similar to when you moved from residential to commercial, where you weren't having as many headaches because, you know, a hundred dollars to s a residential clean ⁓ feels like ⁓ you know. Like th that that that's not something that someone complains about when they have a big contract with you and you're doing a lot of work. Is that something that kind of changed when you moved and pivoted to commer or to B2B? Ayad Mirjan: Yeah, yeah, certainly. so customers ⁓ become residential customers, say consumers, have become more price sensitive over the years. and so in the early days of the pandemic or shortly thereafter, ⁓ there's a lot of ⁓ capital. And so people spent money left and right. And so you saw an influx ⁓ of of residential orders and just massive growth that Industri ⁓ in our industry was about roughly on average fourteen percent month over month. That's in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two and trailed off maybe towards the end of twenty twenty-three. now in in on the commercial ⁓ yeah, you have of course businesses reaching out to you saying, Hey, I have this price, can you beat it? And that's never gonna be the customer that we work with. ⁓ I simply cannot. I I we're a boutique service, we're a custom laundry service. ⁓ we provide value for money. We do not provide most cost effective n ⁓ cost effective, I would say the the cheapest laundry service. Ben: Mm-hmm. Something's gotta give. Ayad Mirjan: That's not who we are. And so anytime I've had to compete with another provider on price, only do I avoid that competition, but I will almost intentionally lose because that's it's not where we want to be. ⁓ we want to work with clients who appreciate value and wanna provide ⁓ the quality service to their clients. And and that's that's been our MO. Ben: That's great. That's great. I definitely have felt that ⁓ in my in our own business as well. So well ⁓ that being said, it great talking to you. Thank you, Yad. And I I hope to meet you again sometime in the soon, you know, in the future, ⁓ somewhere. But I'll see you Yeah. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Bye. Ayad Mirjan: I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. Yeah, certainly. Thank you for your time.