NYC-born laundry startup Cleanly launches in DC

The NYC-born and Y Combinator-backed service delivery startup Cleanly is expanding to D.C. The company was launched in Manhattan before expanded to Brooklyn, and now has its sights set on conquering the nation’s capital.
When cofounder Tom Harari moved to NYC about six years ago he found himself wondering, How the hell does anyone get laundry done in New York? And in a city where not many apartments are large enough to feature in-unit laundry machines, this is a great question.
So Harari and his cofounder, Itay Forer, started a company to alleviate this pain point. Beginning with one neighborhood on the Upper West Side and expanding from there, Cleanly offered to pick up customers laundry and dry cleaning, bring it to a wholesale cleaner where the washing and cleaning would take place, and then deliver it back the next day, folded and ready to wear.
In New York, Harari told Technical.ly, the wash-and-fold service was initially the most popular component of the company — there are plenty of dry cleaners on every block. But slowly, little by little, customers started to hand over their dry cleaning as well.
In D.C., though, Harari expects it’ll be the opposite. This is part of what attracted him to pick the District as Cleanly’s second city. That and how easy it is to access, of course. D.C. apartments are far more likely to have laundry machines, but where do all the professional, government types get their dry cleaning done? And once they start using Cleanly for suits, might they also just turn over wash-and-fold laundry for the sake of convenience? That’s the hope.

Big City Perks: 8 Life-Changing Laundry Delivery Apps https://t.co/k0EZ0RtNxn pic.twitter.com/UEsZQDkdes

— Apartment Therapy (@AptTherapy) August 30, 2016

Interestingly, D.C. had another app-based laundry delivery service until it abruptly shut down at the end of August. Washio was founded in 2013, but ultimately didn’t make it. So what does Cleanly have that Washio didn’t? Harari said he can’t speculate too far on what caused Washio’s demise, but suggested that, perhaps, the startup was too early or grew too fast.
Indeed, after initially offering a service where customers could pre-scheduled laundry pick up and delivery, Washio attempted to move more toward on-demand and a 24-hour turn-around time with Washio Now in 2015. “On-demand is great for some things,” Harari said. “But it doesn’t make sense for everything.”
Cleanly, for its part, maintains that the scheduling, and being able to predict demand, is key to maintaining the business financially. In fact, the company moved toward greater predictability by launching a laundry subscription service, Cleanly Reserve, this summer.