Laundromat Owner’s Journey of Innovation, Excellence and Growth
Art Jaeger’s plan for his Simi Valley Laundry Center has always been crystal clear.
“Our philosophy is that we want to be the biggest and the best in whatever community we serve,” explained Jaeger, of the southern California laundromat he opened in January 2012. “We constantly upgrade our stores. It shows our customers that we are truly engaged in the neighborhood. And we base a lot of our improvement decisions upon how we can market and differentiate ourselves from the competition.”
Simi Valley Laundry Center was built from scratch on the site of a former indoor skateboarding facility. And Jaeger has been setting this 6,000-square-foot vended laundry apart from the competition for more than a decade now.
Before taking on such a huge, time-intensive and costly project as building a state-of-the-art laundromat essentially from the ground up, Jaeger (who also served as his own general contractor) made certain to do his due diligence – visiting all of the other stores in the marketplace at the time.
His research turned up a number of smaller, older laundromats – with equipment mixes leaning heavily toward toploading equipment.
“To me, it seemed to be an underserved neighborhood,” Jaeger recalled.
Clearly, just being brand new and larger would have been enough to differentiate the just-opened Simi Valley store from the rest. But it wasn’t enough for Jaeger.
“I built eight bulkheads in that store,” he explained. “But I had no washers on that eighth one. I also had an area sized for eight additional 20-pound washers and an extra 75-pounder.”
He built the store for growth – and that’s just what it did.
“As the market progressed, I saw what my customers liked, and I quickly installed another 75-pound washer within the first three months we were open,” said Jaeger, who employs four attendants to oversee the Simi Valley laundromat. “Within the first six months, I ended up installing washers into that eighth bulkhead. Additionally, I saw how successful the double-load machines were, so I bought 10 more of those. Our customers saw us constantly adding to and upgrading the store.”
The next big upgrade to the Simi Valley operation was providing customers the ability to enhance their wash cycles with the addition of ozone, which Jaeger credits as being a key game-changer for the store.
“I kept upgrading everywhere,” he continued. “The televisions went from 42-inch screens to now 55 inches. I’ve renovated the restroom to include a power-flush toilet and hand dryers, in lieu of paper towels. Plus, after six years in business, I upgraded all of the store’s evaporative coolers.”
And Jaeger’s most recent enhancement has been overseeing the integration of Continental Girbau’s new Genius Series soft-mount washers into the store’s operations. Having been the first to install the five-load Genius washers, at Continental’s fall show in Los Angeles he recently signed the purchase order to bring in the Genius two-load washers in time for the winter’s busy season.
Still the Best Business
Jaeger, a former music company executive, began shaking things up in the laundromat business long before building his Simi Valley facility. In fact, he started looking at the vended laundry business as a viable “second act” in 2002 – soon building three stores within two years.
Those first three operations were based strongly on the traditional laundromat model of the time, which focused heavily on low-income renters.
“Unfortunately, the price of natural gas back then started to go way up, and no laundry owners were raising their vend prices,” Jaeger said. “There were no drop-off laundry demographics at that point. I had three beautiful stores, but customers only had a certain amount of money to spend.”
Jaeger sold all three of his laundromats, reaping a healthy profit.
“I started looking for the next business venture I wanted to go into,” he said. “After looking at several other opportunities, I decided that laundromats were still the best businesses.”
By now, the Great Recession was beginning to hit, and Jaeger found himself in the right place at the right time.
“I had the profit from my previous laundries,” he explained. “That’s how I was able to build my next set of stores. With the recession, I was getting good prices from landlords, machine manufacturers, and even contractors.
“I got out of the business at the perfect moment, and I got back into it at the perfect moment. It’s not like I was a genius, but it made me look like I was.”
Today, in addition to the Simi Valley location, Jaeger owns three other vended laundries in California – Valencia Express Laundry Center in Valencia, Santa Clarita Express Laundry Center in Santa Clarita, and The Oaks Laundry Express Laundry Center in Sherman Oaks. Beyond these self-service facilities, he operates Laundry Butler For You – a stand-alone, pickup-and-delivery service for residential and commercial accounts. The staff now numbers 35 employees overall, with the majority of those workers dedicated to the pickup-and-delivery business.
Another relatively new change to Jaeger’s laundry business is the addition of the next generation joining the company.
Five years ago, Jaeger’s son, Alex, and daughter, Natalie, each approached him at different times, sharing their desire to join the effort.
These days, Jaeger works day-to-day alongside both Alex and Natalie. Alex serves as operations manager for the family’s four laundromats, while Natalie is the operations manager for Laundry Butler For You.
“Since they’ve joined the business, we’ve worked to increase our footprint, adding stores and growing pickup and delivery,” Jaeger said. “Alex was in upper management in the hospitality industry and brought operational skills with an emphasis on customer service. Natalie worked with one of the largest entertainment marketing companies in California, so she has the social media and marketing skills we really needed to grow pickup and delivery.”
Continuing to Evolve
Jaeger’s laundromats – and his overall business – have changed a lot since 2002… and even since 2012, when Simi Valley Laundry Center first opened its doors.
And there’s every reason to think that this industry leader will continue to enhance, evolve, and grow his laundry operations – because that’s just what Art Jaeger does.
“A lot of owners have stores they haven’t done a thing to in 15 years – yet, when they go to sell, they want to be paid as if the store is brand new,” Jaeger said. “What’s the best investment an owner can make? It’s investing in your own store. It’s keeping it modern-looking and making sure no customer will walk in and feel as if he or she just walked into an older, out-of-date laundromat. You don’t want that thought to ever enter their minds. That is a curse!”
As such, Jaeger reported that his immediate business goals are to continue modernizing his stores, including adding more new washers into the mix – while also expanding the territory of the company’s growing pickup-and-delivery business.
“The laundry business has changed a lot,” Jaeger pointed out. “It’s no longer just about keeping the store clean and bright, providing good customer service, and offering plenty of parking.
“Those factors haven’t disappeared. But now you’ve got a longer list. Your list also includes being well-financed. You need to be a more sophisticated businessperson. You have to be able to manage people. You’ve got to be technologically capable.
“We are now talking about being a complete manager and a full-time operator of the business. It’s not about showing up on Sunday night to pick up your quarters, which is how this business used to be sold. That doesn’t exist anymore.”
