Idea Napkin No. 2

1) You. Having reviewed the feedback left on my previous post, it seems like my qualities previously mentioned are in line with what would be expected to grow this pursuit. I am looking at living life on my terms, outside of the constraint of the corporate machine, where my successes and my failures are my own. 

2) What are you offering to customers? As mentioned in my feedback for my previous post, I feel like what I am offering (saving time and frustration) to my customers is in line with what I expected. I am even more confident now, having received the feedback, that I will be able to provide quality work at an affordable price by removing my customer's time spent on laundry and replacing it with always fresh clothes.

3) Who are you offering it to? In my previous post, someone mentioned working professionals, even if single, may be a good target market as well as they would rather spend time outside of the house than stuck to a washing machine all day. I sort of say "all day" tongue in cheek, but have you ever left your clothes in the washer for more than a few hours? I also have this irrational fear of a house fire starting from the dryer and I insist that we never run our dryer when we aren't at home. Single-parent households could also be another target, as suggested in my feedback, and it would make sense as the parent would want to spend more time with their children than washing their clothes. I understand there is likely something meditative about doing laundry for some people, but I believe there are many opportunities in this demographic to obtain customers who would rather spend time doing other things.

4) Why do they care? Quick and quality are the two things that would make my clients care. Anyone can wash clothes, but to have a quick turn around time on clean clothes, will set me apart from a dry cleaner or the customers doing it themselves. I think giving back this value of reducing their time-value perception and providing quick turn around on the clothes will result in my customers caring a great deal. 

5) What are your core competencies? I didn't receive much feedback about my core competencies, so I will repeat them here. I feel like I am well equipped with logistical and operations knowledge in order to build and constantly improve a process, as well as an unmatched passion for hating laundry.

Overall, I believe these elements fit together to provide a practical service for a reasonable price that has huge returns on investment (time) for the customer. If I have clients valuing their laundry time every week at $300+, if I can do it for $20, then they save not only $280, but also the 5-6 hours spent each week.

The feedback I received opened my eyes to a new target market (single professionals), as I had previously just thought maybe they have no problems doing laundry since there isn't laundry in the house to do. The comment received made me think more about how these single professionals would rather be out creating experiences in their lives than sitting at home doing laundry. Another great point that was brought up, and something I previously thought about and am still meditating on, is an inventory system for tracking the client's clothes. I had considered maybe an inconspicuous button/tag that could be permanently affixed to the garment that contains an RFID so their clothes could be tracked through the process and ownership of each garment. Damaged clothes is another concern, so there will likely need to be a sort of claims process if my company damages something, as well as photographic evidence at pick-up to protect the company against false claims.\