Pressbox and Tide Cleaners: Vijen Patel. The $1.99 Gamble That Built a National Brand
This lesson is an episode of How I Built This.
Listen to the episodeWhat you'll get
Vijen Patel left private equity in 2013 to start a dry cleaning service built on text messages and lockers in high-rise buildings, and he tells Guy Raz how he and co-founder Drew McKenna chose it for its economics rather than passion, faced better-funded rivals and sold it to Procter & Gamble, which turned it into Tide Cleaners. It is the pick for anyone who wants to see a plain service business designed around its numbers, with keeping customers treated as seriously as winning them.
Do this week
Count how many customers or jobs you finish in an hour of work, then try one change, such as grouping stops by area or setting fixed drop-off times, and count again.