Co-founders, The Laundress
www.thelaundress.com
Wait until you hear how Lindsey Wieber and Gwen Whiting raised money for their business. A unique approach helped them to launch The Laundress, which offers specially formulated fabric care products with fragrances developed by a perfumery.
Wieber and Whiting want to change the way America does its laundry – no more one-size-fits-all supermarket soaps. They say different clothes often deserve different treatments and that dry cleaning can wreak havoc on some handle-with-care items. Their luxury products are not only sold online, but also available in more than 150 boutiques and stores nationwide.
Their Inspiration: Thrashed Chanel Suits
Gwen: “The long and short of it is that Lindsey and I had nice luxury clothes from working at Chanel and Ralph Lauren, and everything was being ruined from going to the dry cleaners.”
Lindsey: “I was spending more in dry cleaning than what I actually paid for sample clothes at Chanel.”
Working Full-Time While Starting a Company
Lindsey: “From 2002 until 2004, we were running The Laundress in tandem with our previous jobs. I worked at Chanel as the manager of U.S. sales for ready-to-wear and Gwen was a senior designer of the Ralph Lauren Home Collection.”
Gwen: “Lindsey and I went to college and studied textiles at Cornell together, and always wanted to be in business together. We knew it was going to happen. We always talked about ideas. We were talking about this concept, and it was the right time for us. The first thing we did was the business plan and then a cash flow analysis. We wanted to do as much research as possible before developing the products.”
Moonlighting: Making the Most of Weekends and Holidays
Lindsey: “We spent Memorial Day weekend doing our business plan. We spent the Fourth of July weekend doing our cash flow. After we had our ideas on paper, we went back to Cornell, met with a professor there and had a crash course in chemistry. She worked with us on the formulation of the products.”
Gwen: “I found a manufacturer on Columbus Day. Every piece of free time we had, we dedicated to the business. We weren’t at the beach with our friends anymore.”
Common Problem: Lack of Cash
Lindsey: “Gwen and I couldn’t do The Laundress full-time without financing to pay for our bills.”
Gwen: “We didn’t have trust funds or savings accounts.”
Lindsey: “Living in New Your City, you live paycheck to paycheck, at this stage in our lives at least.”
Uncommon Solution: A For-Profit Fundraiser
Lindsey: “We threw a party called ‘Soapsplash – a for-profit fundraiser’ to raise money for the business.”
Gwen: “We invited all of our friends and family, charged them a fee at the door and accepted donations. One friend donated the alcohol. Another gave us the restaurant. We covered the food and accepted donations. It cost us about $30 per person for food for people who were writing us $300 checks. We stood up and explained the business concept during dinner.
“We had people who didn’t even come who sent us checks. We walked away with over $5,000, and that was our initial seed money. We incorporated and got a bank account so that the money would be going to a business account. We thought people might feel weird writing checks to Lindsey and me.”
Big Help from Small Biz Center
Gwen: “A big thing that was helpful for our business was the Small Business Development Center (http://www.sba.gov/sbdc/). I went to the one at Baruch College where I had a business advisor, Allison, who was young and all about women entrepreneurs.
“She got us all set up to get an SBA loan. We started the application in May and got approved for $100,000 in October of 2004 based on Lindsey’s and my jobs and our 401Ks. Our collateral was Chanel bags and Ralph Lauren Home furniture, collectible antique furniture.”
Lindsey: “We went from five to 75 stores in six months. We started out with connections I had from Chanel, then Gwen would tear out sheets from Lucky magazine that named stores that we liked. We handpicked all the stores to go after in the beginning, and now people are contacting us.”
Spin Cycle: Getting Great PR
Gwen: “Things have really taken off since November of 2004, when we appeared on the front page of The New York Times Style section.”
Lindsey: “We have a PR agency called Tractenberg and Co. We met with them in October and we were in there (The New York Times) in November. They have tight connections in the beauty, home and fashion editorial worlds. Connections are key when picking an agency. We don’t have a lot of money… that’s the only investment that we outsource. They really believed in our brand. It’s a growing relationship.”
Challenge #1: Making the Case for Handling Clothes With Care
Gwen: “Our big hurdle is educating people on how to use our products, why to use our products. To get people to hear about it all over the country is huge. The international consumers get it more than American consumers.”
Lindsey: “All fabrics are different – everything needs to be treated differently. All of our products were developed for a specific reason. Our whites detergent is formulated to keep whites as bright as new. Our darks detergent removes the microfibers – otherwise known as lint or fuzz, to keep the color true.”
Challenge #2: Operations Vs. Sales
Gwen: “It’s hard because it’s just Lindsey and I and doing every aspect of the business – from packing and shipping all orders, to handling the business insurance and legal documents and paying bills. It’s a lot of stuff for two people to do.”
Lindsey: “Sales actually end up hurting because of the ins and outs of operations. You get so inundated with paperwork that sales go by the wayside. We’re very conscious of flipping that.”
Greatest Success
Lindsey: “The New York Times article was pretty incredible. My Christmas card that year… I sent a photo of me holding up The New York Times. I sent it to everyone who I used to work with to say, ‘See, I can do it! It’s possible!’ That was a big moment for me personally.”
Words of Advice: Say ‘No’ To Negativity
Lindsey: “I’m positive even when there’s nothing positive to talk about. When someone asks me, ‘How’s your business?’ even when we’re having a bad month, I’ll always highlight the positive things. That keeps me from getting down.
“If you’re positive, positive things will happen. If you’re negative… then why should people buy your product? You’re constantly selling yourself.”
Gwen: “Lindsey and I are serious networkers. It’s all about using your resources. It’s not like I’m always having to think of it, it kind of just happens. You never know when someone standing in line next to you while you’re getting coffee might be helpful to you. We often force ourselves to go to meetings when we don’t want to, and we always walk away with something. Something always comes of it.”
Business Lifeline: Their Blackberries
Gwen: “We have our Blackberries, and we work all the time. All weekend long we’re seeing e-mails come in – every Internet order that comes in we see on our Blackberries. Everybody needs a Blackberry, if you care about your business. If it’s your business, it’s your life. It doesn’t matter if it’s a holiday or all weekend long, we’re bouncing things off of one another, back and forth, all the time. It’s what we’re passionate about.”
Clothing Care Secrets
- “Never dry clean a cashmere sweater. The reason why we developed our wool and cashmere product is because it’s better on yarns and helps to preserve the natural oils of the yarns. Dry cleaning adds chemicals.”
- “If you like your lacy underwear and bras, don’t put them in the dryer. Really soak them in a tub, or the wire in your bras will pop out and holes will appear in the lace.”
- “In between washing or dry cleaning your clothes, spritz on a little bit of fabric spray to freshen them. Most people over dry-clean their clothes.”
