GTM Sauce

Cents · B2B · software for laundromats

Walk into laundromats and call them, pitching a no-labor delivery add-on first

Grew to about 80 stores and ~$700K revenue in 2021

Workedin-personoutbound-salesfeature-development

What they did

After seed investors said to prove he could sell another 5-10 customers himself, the founder physically walked into stores, filled in the contact forms on operators' websites, and phoned stores. The opener for stores without delivery: a first-of-its-kind gig-economy integration (Uber, DoorDash) giving two-way pickup/delivery logistics, so for a nominal fee they could add delivery revenue with no labor or CapEx. Once in, pitched the hardware and point of sale.

What happened

Built up to about 80 stores; revenue went from ~0 to ~$700K in 2021.
Stage
early

This shipped together with other changes, so the result can't be credited to this alone.

In their words

How Does Laundry Software Make $60M a Year?

Play from 4:34
4:29

Nathan LatkaTake us through uh when you got your first paying customer, and then the growth tactics to get your first 100 customers.

Alex Jekowsky… from a store operation standpoint. They're just the problems that a one-store operator has compounds meaningfully for the large-scale. But we learned a hell of a lot and were able to build a a a a product that maybe a little overbuilt in the beginning, but set the right foundation. I thought this big customer would be enough for us to raise capital. All the feedback I got from from seed investors early on was, "Prove to me you can pound the pavement, and you can sell another five or 10 customers yourself. If you can't do that, I don't understand how you think more capital will get you where you want to be." It was really pounding the pavement to try to figure out the product-market fit. The way I did it was physically walking into stores, or going into the contact form on all their websites, if operators had them, or picking up the phone and calling the the the store. And trying to figure out, if they didn't do delivery, we were building the first ever gig-economy integration for delivery. So, leveraging Uber, DoorDash, uh, etc., to build two-way logistics, which had never done been done in this space before. And we saw that as here, for a nominal fee, you can add ancillary revenue with no labor, CapEx, etc., to launch delivery and grow your the small business owners, you know, addressable market. And that was the wedge to say, "Oh, we also have this hardware product we're building and this point-of-sale, etc." And that is kind of what helped us build up, get about 80 total stores.

6:21

Nathan LatkaDo you remember what revenue finished for in 2021?

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Tags: founder-led-sales, wedge-product, cold-calls, walk-ins, delivery