Dirty laundry’s generally not something you want to share – literal or figurative. In any case, it definitely isn’t something that inspires you to whip together a successful startup. That is – unless you’re Bennett Siegel ’13 or Alexandra Dorda ‘13.
Bennett and Alexandra became fast friends when they both spent last summer interning in New York. It all began at the Metropolitan Opera one breezy summer evening, when Bennett observed to Alexandra the lack of a laundry service at Stanford.
While Bennett thought he was just making interesting small talk to pass the time during intermission, Alexandra went home that same night and researched background on the laundry industry and what it would take to run an on-campus service. Within several days, Bennett and Alexandra had teamed up together and written a comprehensive 7-page business plan, including a cash flow analysis, for a Stanford laundry service.
And so, over the weeks leading up to the school year, Bennett and Alexandra worked diligently to turn their rough 7-page business plan into a more comprehensive business model specific to the Stanford community. They split the start-up cost with equal personal investments since, as Dorda noted, “They wanted the business to be their own.” And finally, by mid-fall quarter, Cardinal Clean arrived at the Farm, list of future customers and professional website already in tow.
Within two weeks, Cardinal Clean broke even. Looking back on that night at the Met, Siegel and Dorda humorously critique their original plan.
“What we were thinking at first would never have worked,” Dorda said.
“We have come a long way,” Siegel added.
Cardinal Clean providesStanford students with an affordable, door-to-door laundry and dry cleaning service. The service is flexible to students’ schedules – they can sign up online for laundry service or dry cleaning for the quarter or the entire academic year. They provide a customized laundry bag for each customer, decked with Cardinal Clean’s bubbly logo and the customer’s name. The bags are picked up from a collection bin outside of dorms, on either Tuesday or Friday and are returned to them after 5 p.m. the next service day.
When asked what the secret to successfully running an on-campus service, Siegel and Dorda both agreed what is most important is that the idea must be solid. They knew early on even before they had even finalized their business plan that their service catered to an unmet need. They saw how busy Stanford students were and foresaw the potential success of a service that would take doing laundry and dry cleaning off the crowded plates of overwhelmed students.
The duo emphasizes perseverance and faith in your management team as the key to turning a solid idea into a solid business.
“You never get a day off,” Siegel said. They put in about 5-10 hrs a week to ensure that the business runs smoothly and work on expanding and improving their service. Their hard work surely has paid off as Bennett and Alexandra project revenue of $12,000 by the end of the year.
They have overcome many challenges, some concerning Stanford’s strict regulations and others typical of teamwork, and have come out great friends. Alexandra jokingly said that some of their friends even call them “the old married couple.”
For details on costs and other logistics of Cardinal Clean, please check out their website at www.cardinal-clean.com.