SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to CCI Drive Time, the podcast for vended laundry distributors. I'm Steve with CCI, using your drive time to cover laundromat trends, payment systems, and practical topics you can use in the field. Today I have a special interview, an excellent interview with Ian Gullihan with Wash Dry Fold POS. They're one of the major players in the wash dry fold point of sale business. And I had an opportunity to speak with him today and discuss all things laundromat related, uh POS related, and we got the chance to talk about some of the integrations between CCI and their product. It's a good listen, and I hope you enjoy it. All right, Ian, thank you very much for joining me. Uh it's great to have you on the podcast. Um, you know, it's we were just talking before we got things started, you know, it's just a reiteration of the distributor relationships that we have and how complicated it can be for a distributor to know everything there is uh about everything laundry related. And so it's great to have somebody from an ancillary perspective that works with companies like CCI and talk about wash dry fold. And uh, you know, but before we get too deep in it, I know that you know, we want to tease everyone listening with this uh special offer that you have for us, and we're gonna we're gonna kind of make everyone wait to the end of it. So uh just so we don't forget those listening, we have a special offer for those listening as it relates to uh wash dry fold POS. But um, but we'll get to that. I think that'll happen short shortly enough. But um, you know, you know, why don't you start telling us a little bit about yourself? Um I know I know who you are, I know where you come from, but I think it's a great opportunity to talk about who you are and kind of talk about wash dry fold and kind of what role you play.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yeah, so I started kind of getting into the laundromat industry probably a little bit, um, similar to a lot of the listeners. I was in sales and it was B2B sales, and I was selling uh billboards. I don't know if you see the little billboard back there with my name, but that was from when I went to corporate training with Lamar, the Billboard Company. And uh I went to this little entrepreneurship meeting, and um, one of the guys there was Brian Henderson, and he was there for his family's chain of laundromats, and we just really hit it off and became friends. And I was kind of helping him think through how to sell this point of sale system that he was using for his own laundromats. Um, and uh he had a lot of other interests from other laundromat owners, and I was trying to help him kind of figure out how do you structure it, how do you sell it, and he was starting to get bogged down pretty quick with the support, as you guys know. When people they buy something, that's not the last you hear of them. Um so uh getting getting the equipment set up and making sure everyone knew how to use the system and training them and all that. And uh he got so busy with that so fast that right away he was like, Man, I really need someone to take the sales piece of this off my plate. And so pretty early, I I, you know, in that first year that was back in 2016, I joined the company. And Brian and I have just been figuring it all out since, you know, and there's no uh no user guide to how to uh build a multi-million dollar business, but we have figured it out as we've gone along. And um uh yeah, we've you know sold over 1,300 point of sale systems now, 10 years later, and certainly one of the the big four players in in the point of sale space, um, and have certainly been a leader, especially in the higher gross ring grossing, excuse me, uhundromats nationwide. So I I do technically I'm the co-founder right now, but I do the sales and marketing, and then uh we're actually transitioning um probably into an incorporated, and so then I'll be the CEO, I guess, technically at that point, but I don't really like that. I just go by I'm the co-founder and I'm just you know, I I kind of run the day-to-day and I do the the sales piece of it. And Brian really has moved into the technology stuff because that's I mean, we're a technology company, and so that's a full-time job for him just to do the the the software and the software team and the team of developers.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yeah, yeah. You know, um, you know, quick side story about Brian and I. Brian and I met years before um he started Wash Dry Fold POS because he was working with his family's laundries, as you mentioned, and he was involved in that. And he came and visited me at our office. Um, gosh, I don't even know what year it was, but it was a number of years before he started the business to evaluate our product. And uh we got a chance to spend some really nice one-on-one time um, you know, evaluating our Gen 1 fast card product. I mean, this is going back probably 2015 or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

That's a while ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

And you know the one and you know, and I've known him for a while, but it isn't it, but one of the things that he uh one of the great um uh impressions that he left with me was this ability to take somewhat complex ideas and make them simple. And if there's one thing that I know when I talk to customers who have your products, is uh how simple it is. And um and and I I I could it just sounds so natural is the idea that Brian was the perfect person to take something that maybe was a little complicated or could be could be complicated and just simplify it and make it there. And I know that you know, over the years functionality gets more complex or more advanced, and so you know it starts to become more of a challenge. But I I know that that was something that was uh something he left me with when he came to visit. Um he put together this amazing um review of our products that I I should have done, you know, yeah, and it just because it was how he simplified our conversations into almost like a uh a product review that he didn't even he hadn't hadn't even purchased, you know what I mean? It was just his way of kind of just like sharing this with here here. I spent some time with Steve and this is what I learned about this product. And I I can just, you know, when I learned that he had started, you know, the company or started developing this product, um, so you're you have aligned yourself uh really well uh by by whatever the chances were that got you connected to Brian, it was it was fate. And uh, you know, we've had a chance to get to know each other a little bit over the years as well, so it's a it's a great pairing. So um amazing. You know, I'm I'm curious um what did you know about the laundry industry prior to meeting Brian and starting to talk about that and and then kind of trailer that into what you thought you knew versus you know what was reality when you finally started to work in it?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Yeah, I think however much the average person knows about laundromats, I knew less for sure. Like this whatever, wherever that is on the graph, I was I was I just knew nothing. I had been inside of a laundromat a few times when I was in Chicago. I used to live in Chicago and and uh the you know, we had the multi multi-housing, I think is what they call it now. But we had, you know, we had units in the basement, sometimes those went out, and so we had to go to a laundromat. And that was my experience with laundromats. And the laundromat we went to was just the typical laundromat experience where it was like kind of a hole in the wall, and there was this little lady running it who would do the wash dry fold if you wanted her to, and right, um, you know, and so but just all on pen and paper, of course. No, no actual like and I do remember being like, Does this lady even work here? She doesn't look like she didn't have a uniform or anything, and so I was like, is she just hanging out at the laundromat? And I'll pay like I didn't I wasn't convinced she worked there.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

She she's just started a business in the laundromat, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:12

And I to this day, I don't know. That's probably what it was because she didn't have any kind of there was no counter, you know. She was just like, Yeah, give me, I'll I'll write it down. I've got to I'll do it, yeah. And so um, yeah, so that was my experience with laundromats. And um, you know, Brian, we started playing tennis afterwards, and he was, I was asking him how he's doing it. Like, oh, you know, my my family's laundromat was on the cover of Planet Laundry this month. And I was like, man, that's hilarious! Can you imagine if there's a magazine called Planet Laundry? And he was like, No, there is. There is a trade magazine, and we're on the cover. And I was like, dude, you you're messing with me. He was like, No, there really isn't. I was like, what? What are you talking about? And so he had to show it to me for me to believe it. And um so yeah, that that's about where I came into the industry. So I really knew nothing. Um, but I did know sales and I knew value and marketing, and and um that was really what I brought to the table is how do you convey value to the business owner? And even something like that you brought up about the simplicity, you know, there was a lot of directions we could have taken our marketing in those early days. But what our customers were telling us again and again and again was these ladies can't use anything. These ladies don't, yeah, these are not computer programmers. They don't know, don't give me anything complicated. It's gotta be easy for them to use. Now, as the years have gone by, our I think our our competitors try and say that as a negative thing, but the reality is it still does delivery. We can go onto your website, you can place a delivery order. Um, we're doing the laundry lockers integrations. It integrates with all the major card systems. We even have deep, deep integration with CCI, obviously. Um, but it has all the features. It's not that it doesn't have the features. Um, it's that it's got to be easy to use. And for it to be easy to use, it has to be simple. There can't be 300 buttons about dry cleaning if you're not doing dry cleaning in your in your laundromat. And so that it really has been key to how do we market this, and then um also key to how do we actually develop it and make the software. And luckily for for Brian and for me, he had the little old ladies at all three of his laundromats that couldn't use software. So they were the perfect ones. If he built something that was too confusing on how to use, they would let him know, like, I don't, Brian, I don't know how to do this, you know. And so, well, what if I put it right here? Or what if I made it more simple? What if instead of a drop-down, you just tapped the washer and you just tap the dryer instead of having to find it from a list? And those were some of the really early insights we had that um, you know, now all the pointy cell systems are built like that, but there was actually someone had to figure that out. So that was us. So uh, but yeah, yeah. So I came in at the very beginning to answer your question. Uh I knew nothing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Well, that's that's uh that's um that's interesting and uh and very honest as well. I appreciate that. You know, uh when I say simple too, and I hope I didn't make the wrong impression, it was not a matter of lack of functionality as much as making something that could be complicated simple. And um, I am aligned with that so closely in our early days as well. It was, you know, make the buttons as big as possible because um because Estelle, that is gonna be my attendant who's been here for 25 years, um, she needs a big button to push. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

They don't have good vision, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, you know, and so to some level you have to you have to remember who your uh who your user is, you know, and so certain things have to be built a certain way in order to um to make it. So functionality um is um obviously we as as software companies, we want to develop new functionality that starts to express more complications, but uh it's a true talent to keep it simple. So uh I love what you guys have been doing. So I I want you to tell me a little bit more about wash dry fold POS and you know, like I I think you're known for being just this a it's a really down-to-earth company that has made things simple. But tell me more, tell, tell, tell my, my, my, my listeners what is wash drive fold POS and what are you known for?

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, so we're the original point of sale system for laundromats. And when we came into the industry in 2016, you could use a dry cleaning software to run a laundromat, or you could use uh some other software to run a laundromat. But uh, we really became the first laundromat point of sale company that that I I don't know of an older one than us. So um, so that's really what we are still known for over the years. Even though it's gotten more advanced, we have really stayed true to that simplicity. So I think you did hit the nail on the head. It's got to be easy for people to use. Ironically, we were the most expensive back in 2016. And even 2019, we were priced at the top of the market. If you just lay out the four major options today, which four options have 80% of the market share, right? And so we have about 20%. Um, so that makes us, you know, about even with the other big three that are in our space. Sure. If you just lay out all of our prices, we're about half the price of anyone else. Now, um, certainly half the price of two of the three. And um the reason for that, one of them is credit card processing. We wanted to just make that cheap and it's like 2.65%. Um, and then we do uh 10 cents per authorization. We can get lower than that and do interchange pricing. Uh, but I don't want to get too deep into the pricing, but just to say that, you know, we're the affordable option now, which it feels weird because we were the premium option, but we just we just have stayed true to who we wanted to be. We and if you're first starting wash dry fold and you don't have a big operation, it's really hard to justify spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars per month on some software that's gonna help you service $100 a month in revenue. And so we've wanted to stay really approachable, and I think that has helped us. Um, and then I think we're also really well known for our customer service. So if you go on to our reviews, we're all US-based. Um, we either live in Oklahoma or Kentucky, so we may have an accent, but um, we definitely, you're not gonna get someone that that can't speak your language or anything like that. So um that's really important to us to be American-owned and operated and to have full-time salaried employees. And then um every one of our employees, except for one, our newest hire, all of them have worked on a laundromat at some point. And in fact, most of them, like the lady who trains each person who buys a point of sale system, she used to operate eight laundromats for six years. So she had like a hundred employees underneath her. She's trained like three or four hundred employees before she started working for us on how to use the system because there's a lot of turnover in laundromats. And so she was already an expert at training people on how to use it before we hired her. And then she's hired, she's trained like a thousand stores since. And so you're gonna get someone who there's not gonna be a question you've you could ask her that she's not already had. Yeah, I mean, she's heard it all, she's done it all. And so um, I think if you're scaling really quickly and you're maybe a different business type, you can't afford to do that, right? If you've got 30 employees, there's no way they've all worked at laundromats. But a wash trife full POS are a pretty small US-based team. We all live and breathe laundromats 24-7. And so um, so yeah, it's it's definitely um, and then Brian and I also, I know I I came into it with no laundromat ownership experience, but now Brian and I own three laundromats called Liberty Laundry in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So I've I've gotten the call when the laundromat's on fire. I've gotten the call to stop by the store and fix the bill breakers jammed again. And so I've been living the laundromat owner lifestyle for a while now, too. And our three stores do um about 2.5 million in revenue combined. So they're they're definitely in that top five percent of grossing, you know, stores in the nation. So um I've got that laundromat owner side of me now as well. Uh Brian dragged me kicking and screaming into it, but uh, but he he did a good job.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yeah, that's um, you know, there's there's a lot to be said for you know, w your you as I mean listening to you tell that your story and and talk about where your experience comes from and now in ownership, you know, of stores as well, is it's not far off from our own. And my family's been in the laundry business for a long time, and I was on your podcast. We talked about that a bit um you know a few weeks back. But um, you know, uh there is something really to being able to develop a product in the industry that you are completely committed to and have and and are not just watching it and observing it from the outside and acting as kind of an outside influence, but you're actually in the industry and doing it. And again, we own laundries as well. Um, and so we use our locations, as I'm imagining you do as well, as test sites for when you're developing a function or a feature that you want to get real-world experience without you know making a customer feel too much like a guinea pig, as they like to be talking, as they like to say. And I would I would imagine that's that's not uncommon with you folks as well. Um, you know, and your pricing um story is really interesting too, because you know, particularly now where we have all this I would call it new money that has kind of entered our industry and there's a lot of conversation behind that, and uh you know, both of us kind of kind of somewhat in in competition with that now and and and certainly navigating, you know, it feels different than it certainly did 10 years ago. Um is this idea of that why raise prices if you don't have to? And and the idea that you are independently owned as we are, and you basically you're bootstrapped, you guys, you guys are your own, uh you have your own destiny in your hands, is that you know you aren't you're you aren't being forced to do things like increase revenue for no other reason than to increase revenue. And I think there is a lot to be said then you're also probably willing, and I'm I'm extending my my views on you a little bit here as this idea is you're willing to do more for a customer that I think that others may not be willing to do because of this um this connection that you have with the industry. And and I think that there's a lot to be said for those that are evaluating any product, whether it's a point of sale or a payment system, is this idea of um who are you buying from? Who are you partnering with? And and um um I love the story. It's uh it's very reminiscent of ours as well. So thanks for sharing that. Um I I want to talk a little bit. We we have a special interface together. We have we have a connection and our products, you know, our wash dryfold pro link was uh launched um uh end of last year, uh or begin to say the middle of last year, and you guys were early adopters, you know, this idea of us opening up um our system so that um so that companies like Wash DryFold POS could do more inside the payment system and leverage the information that we're gathering anyway about machine starts and all of that, so that you have a way to create kind of a seamless um experience for staff as they process wash dry and fold. And I don't want to uh go too far in it because you guys have, I think, done one of the uh done a great job interfacing with that. But can you can you share a little bit about how you guys are now interfacing with with CCI and using our ProLink feature?

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yeah, I think I think the most the way I look at it is most of our stores before this ProLink, uh if you want your your attendants have to be able to start machines for wash trifle, they just have to, you right? You can't and you don't want to use coins, that's even worse, you're right. But you know, the idea of just putting money on the little employee cards, okay, yeah, they've got that. But then what if they use it for their friends? What if they use it for their family? What if they use it for the self-served customer and then take a 20 on the side? And so um, how do you make sure that they are only using it for wash dry fold orders? And so the way the software works is let's say you've got Steve Marcinetti's order here. He he's got $100 worth of wash, dry, fold, or let's do $1,000. Let's Steve's a high roller here. So we're gonna do $1,000 worth of wash-dry fold. As you start uh dragging and dropping that through the process, so it goes from to do, to sort, to wash, to dry, to fold, to done, and then to picked up by customer. So we we want to keep track of the custody of the of the order the whole time and have those timestamps, very lots of important reasons why. But used to, you would just tell it, okay, I'm starting machine three and four, and then that documents, okay, we know how much machine three and four costs to start. And so that number then on that report should match the number on the CCI report that that matches they use those cards to start. Well, it's better now because instead of them having a card, you can just hit three and four, and then it actually starts machines three and four. And so they can't just start machines that aren't tied to orders. Well, why don't they just start 20 orders for Steve Marcinetti's thousand dollar order or whatever? And don't they just start 100 machines? Well, because we're also providing reports, they could be run daily, weekly, monthly, however, however little or much you trust your employees would be how much you want to run these reports. But it'll show you a ratio. And so we see at our at our stores is 37%. I don't know why so many stores see 37%, but that is a common. Ratio. And so that would mean for a thousand dollar order, you want to see $370 worth of machines started. It's not going to be exactly 370. It for big order, it'll be less. For a small order, it'll be more. But the thing is, if you're looking at 100 orders or 200 orders and you're looking at all your employees and you see 37, 36, 35, 38, and then 50.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Well, what on earth is going on with that 50? Did she only do two really small orders? Is she just not working? Or is she got a business on the side that she's opened up? Or we've even seen it, you know, where they just are using the biggest machines possible, even for 20-pound orders. And it's like, it's like we need those 80 pounders open. We only have two. Like, you know, like there's we need that open. What if like a bus full of people comes in and you've got 20 pounds in there? And not only is that not efficient, but it cannibalizes, you know, sales from the rest of the store. And so this functionality adds a layer of security, it adds a layer of efficiency, and it just makes the two systems work better together. And then, of course, if they've got money on their fast card or laundry card, they can still use it at the point of sale system and buy soap or whatever they need to buy. So it accomplishes that too. And the biggest way we utilize that at our store, sorry to over-answer your question here, but the last bit of it is um if people want money back off those cards, I got $2, I want my $2 back. It's like, no, you got a $2 bonus, remember when you did when you did the 20 or whatever. And so um, if they want money out of there, whether it's bonus or not, we don't want our attendants handing customers money all day. And so we just say, well, we can't give you money back. It says on the kiosk non-refundable, but we can sell you soap, we can sell you snacks, we can do wash dry folds. So it allows another way to get the money back off the card besides just cash back. So I would say that's kind of the broad overview of why we would even connect, why even connect the point of sale system to the fast card or to the laundry card?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yeah, no, thank you. That's uh that's a great description. And and uh, you know, further for those who are um you know leveraging our products, the the other piece to that that's um is if depending on which generation of our card readers you have, you can also um present the order numbers on the card reader. So as your attendants start machines using your software, you guys have an order number like all systems do, those order numbers will present themselves on the card reader. So you can almost have a nice visual as you look down a row of machines, and we color code them on an order basis too. So all the red ones might be order one, two, three, four, the blue ones are gonna be order five, six, seven, eight. And so there's this great visualization of that these machines are running wash and fold orders because you might have a store full of customers at the same time, and you can easily tell which machines are running wash, dry, and fold orders and which orders are in those machines. So um yeah, you know, I think this all comes from um some early conversations that we've had before we even started developing this, and how can we best bring two completely independent companies together to provide just a seamless um interface between point of sale and uh payment system? So I think I think it's great, great, great description. Um, this is a this is a podcast for distributors, as I mentioned earlier, and I know that you guys um you know you don't really sell through distributors, and really none of the none of the POS systems really sell through distributors. It's just kind of a little bit of a different product, but that doesn't mean that it's not an important part of a package that a distributor is going to put together. And so, you know, it's very common that they align themselves and they work and they at least refer somebody to you know to what they like. And certainly um, you know, you guys offer an excellent solution, certainly paired well with CCI. You know, I but I I I'd be curious when we talk about technology is because you know, one of the things I learned from distributors sometimes they can be a little bit um, they don't like technology because it adds complication sometimes to their life. So, you know, do you have any advice or any thoughts about what common mistakes you see? Um, you know, whether it's store owners or even distributors that make when they're when they're considering technology, what are they over-emphasizing something? I mean, what do you see happening?

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah, I several several things come to mind right away when you say that. So um I do see from a store owner side of things. In fact, I just got off the phone before this phone call. I was like, I gotta go, I've got a podcast, I gotta be on. He was like, Okay, one more question though. And so, but uh no, really nice guy, Carmen. If you're listening, hello. But um uh he was telling me he he's opening his first store and he's gonna buy you know our system and it's gotta work with card machines and all that. Great, okay, we got that. And he wants to do delivery first thing. Okay, all right. You're gonna find that that's just a money pit that like takes two to three years to pay off. Like the you spend $2,000 advertising for delivery, you're gonna get like $200 worth of orders. Now, hopefully they'll keep on ordering. And after two years, you get your money back. But it is a heavy CAC, CAC heavy, customer acquisition cost heavy, and LTV, like it it's at least a six-month payback period on these uh delivery orders. So it's already doing too much to do self-serve, wash dry fold, and delivery at the same time if you're a first-time owner. I just think that's way too much. Like you don't even have employees yet. What are you talking about getting a delivery vehicle? Like, figure out self-serve, then add wash dry fold because that's gonna help you grow your self-serve and you need people there to help with the machines and all that. So you want to be attended, also for liability purposes. But those two things are gonna be the majority of your revenue. And you know, we do 2.5 million, I mentioned, with three stores. Well, 70% of that is self-serve. I have a laundromat that does 700,000 in that laundromat alone is self-serve. You will never get to 700,000 of self-serve if you're not doing wash drifold there. Those two grow each other. So those have to be there. It lowers your liability, it gives you a better customer experience for the self-serve. But delivery is a whole separate business, and you have to buy ads, you have to build a website. It's like, do you want to start another business while you're starting this business? And it's capital intensive, it's very capital intensive, intensive, excuse me. So I would say, and we do delivery again. I I'm not saying don't do delivery. We have customers that do delivery and do a lot of money with it. I'm just saying that you know, there's something to be said about crawl, walk, run.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And if you're trying to do too much too fast, you're not going to succeed at anything. And that's especially dangerous if you want to, if you're not cash flow positive yet. Because if you're dealing with, and I I hope everyone who's listening to this and has a laundromat gets there. I've definitely been there for years with our laundromat. Eventually that thing will just pour out so much cash. You just you're buying new machines, you're we just bought new vending machines, you're buying new washer and drive. We don't know what to do with the cash. So we're gonna reinvest it in delivery. Now we're doing delivery, we're buying some trucks, we're gonna, and you try and get your revenue. That's when to do it. Don't do it when you just spent all your cash and now you you're not even cash flow positive. You haven't even proven your business model yet. So I think that's the biggest mistake I see owners make is just getting ahead of their skis. Perfect the product first. Like if you don't even know how to make the pizza yet, you don't even know wash dry fold, don't start the delivery route yet. Like, like figure it out, get the team in place. And then if you want to do delivery in your first year, even six months into it, okay, great. Like if you have got our product, it's included. So that's easy. But um it's not like there's just gonna be a floodgate, you're gonna put up the link to do the delivery and you get a hundred deliveries. No, deliveries cost you like $100, $200 each to get one. So it's not, you know, you're talking to someone who who spends a lot on Google Ads, right? And so um, and Facebook ads and all that. So um, and then for distributors, uh to make it specific to them, I come from that sales background where you really just want to get the deal closed. And any complications to the deal jeopardize the whole deal. You don't want to jeopardize the whole deal with a $4,000 addition to it. You want you just want to get it closed and done. And so our product, I think, works pretty well there because it works with all the major card systems, but it especially works well with CCI. So if they're doing a CCI store, it's gonna be the best solution for that. Of course, in my view, of course, I'm biased, but um we have that deep integration with CCI. We will ship it, we will guide them on how to just take it out of the box and plug it in. It's not hard. This isn't adding a complication. And then we will give them a two-hour setup and training session so that they know more about that point of sale system than you do, um, you know, day one. And so we've built it in a way that we want to take off all the work from the plate of the distributor. And when we tried to work with distributors, they really wanted to get more involved and like train the customer or set it up themselves. And it's like, honestly, you don't need to. Like if you want to unplug it and put the scale up and all that, sure, that's fine. But at the end of the day, we've designed it to be very easy to sell, very problem-free. There's no reason to complicate it and say, like, well, if you go with this card system, get this point of sale. But if you go with this one, get this point. It's like, no, we're just, we're the easiest, we're the cheapest, we're the best, we're the easiest to use, and the simplest and best setup and training experience as well. And so we just want to take all that fulfillment piece of it off your plate and instead make it a very easy to use experience that they're gonna have a good, good experience with. We're not gonna send them to, you know, they're not gonna say, hey, I can't get a hold of someone, or the one guy I talked to was in India. That's just not what they're gonna have with us, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

That makes perfect sense. I know it was a lot of um uh to unpack there, and I I related so much with what you just um you told us. And and and and just to kind of rewind a little bit, this idea of um of run, walk, you know, of crawl, run, you know, whatever, crawl, run, call, rock, run, run, run, yes, you know, and and I and I I had I gotta unpack it, is is so true because in in reality, we're we're a big self-service. I mean, that's what is we focus on self-service, we let the people who are experts at the full service, which I I I'll I'll I'll defer to you on there. And I often make that same analogy that there's different layers to businesses. You've got your self-service, then another business you can start is a full service wash, dry, and fold. And then another business you can start is a pickup and delivery, and another business is a commercial uh you know, that all can be a common thing. Lockers. Yeah, lockers, I mean, seven businesses going on. All these businesses can happen, but what you know I spend time as we all do on social media, and we see so many people wanting to get into this business. That's right. And I'm gonna do commercials, and go, they don't even haven't even started a store yet. You know what I mean? It's like and and I almost would recommend, honestly, if someone's pure goal is to do pickup and delivery and commercial work, don't open a laundromat. Go to a commercial space where the rent is half what a retail space would cause and open a commercial laundry. Now, nobody's gonna do that that comes to Facebook. They want to own a laundromat and all that, but it is such good advice to really take this in steps and and take it there. And I I I preach that all the time, and it's good to it's refreshing to hear it from you. Um yeah, this is really good stuff. I think the simplicity that you talk about eliminating the complication from the distributor is uh should be really well heard here. Um this idea that they need something on their counter, they need a way to process things on the counter, and it needs to be something simple, and you're not gonna make the distributor do a lot of backflips in order to make that happen. You're gonna work with the store owner and you're gonna and you're gonna make sure that they are set up and you've talked about your customer service, and I've heard nothing but positive things about it ever since you guys have have been on the on the scene. So um yeah, that's that's excellent, excellent stuff. Um, you know, I you kind of already answered my last question about some of the advice that you've given, so it's good, but I do want to circle back to this special offer that you have for CC for our drive time listeners. And so I'm gonna let you take it from here and kind of explain what you have for us.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Sure. Well, we we really love working with CCI stores. We see them be successful. Um, it's a great technology stack. And uh if you're listening to this podcast, you know how hard Steve works and his team on you know, constantly updating it. So we did want to do a special offer for anyone who's listening to the podcast. If you decide you want this for your store, or if you're a distributor and you own a store, you want it in your distributor store so you can see it and test it. Whatever the reason, the coupon code is CCI, it's not advanced, right? You know, so if you mention CCI, it's not a long coupon code, but it's $300 off. And so if this is something that it sounds like you want to do, uh and uh it sounds like you know something that you want to integrate with your with your fast card or laundry card, or even if you're just listening to this podcast and it sounds like something that would work well in your laundromat, then we want to give your listeners that that special discount. So if you mention uh CCI and the coupon code, there'll be a little spot for it, CCI. Uh, you get $300 off. And um, we do, you know, if you got any questions, you'll go to washstrifoldpos.com, book a call with our team. Rebecca's like the nicest person ever. Everyone loves her. Um, you'll have a lot of fun talking to her and just making sure you understand the system, and then she'll walk you through the checkout process and you'll have that coupon code at the end as well. So uh yeah, so happy to happy to do that for any distributors listening here and and uh happy to do that for the CCI team. I know how much value they they bring and add to everything.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Well, that's terrific, you know, um, and and really appreciated too. I think that um, you know, just because not everything is a distributor sale doesn't mean that you can't add value to the distributor sale in some way. And this idea that we've, you know, at this point, we I think we've done a good job of explaining. Um, Ian, this has been just a a great conversation. I really appreciate you uh participating. I know it's Friday and it's we're ready to hit the weekend here, um, but um, but thank you so much. I love I've been appreciated. I'm sure we'll get a chance to to talk more uh over over time about other topics I think that might be good and aligned. But thank you so much. It's been great speaking with you so long.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Thank you, Steve. It was a pleasure. Thanks.