NoScrubs is one of the fastest and most affordable laundry delivery service that exists. And for less than $2 per day, you never have to do laundry again! Pulse 2.0 interviewed NoScrubs co-founder and CEO Matt O’Connor to learn more about the company.
Matt O’Connor’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? O’Connor said:
“I’ve been in tech startups for about 12 years now. I joined Instacart when it was 20 people, helped them scale, expand, and get profitable. I did a quick stint at Amazon Flex and then started AdQuick. I studied the models of other laundry delivery companies and realized there was a much more efficient, scalable approach that results in the fastest, lowest cost customer experience.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? O’Connor shared:
“I tried an existing well known laundry delivery service and was shocked at the 4 day turnaround time and extremely high price. With my experience at Instacart, I learned that the last mile is by far the most expensive part of any delivery. For Laundry, there’s a pickup and delivery leg, so this is doubly crucial to minimize. Once I validated the model, we decided to launch and the customer uptake has been incredible.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? O’Connor reflected:
“Probably doing orders in the early days ourselves when customer demand outstripped our capacity. When my cofounder and I did our first order together, we got a $20 cash tip!”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? O’Connor explained:
“Our customer experience is delightfully simple. A few clicks to select your pickup time and add any preferences is all it takes. From there, the laundry is picked up during a precise window, then returned to customers perfectly washed and folded in as fast as 2 hours!”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has O’Connor and the team faced in building the company? O’Connor acknowledged:
“We’re constantly balancing supply and demand. With the fast growth, this definitely creates times when we have had to do a lot of orders, but that comes with the territory. We’ve since built better systems for onboarding people more efficiently.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? O’Connor noted:
“Most of the innovation that’s exciting is on the quality control side. We capture more than a dozen quality control steps on every order and use AI to do things like catalog clothing to ensure no missing items and review folding quality so every order is perfect.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? O’Connor cited:
“Most recently, after a wildly successful launch in Austin in ‘24, we expanded to Houston. Our model is very scalable, so this proof point is exciting to show how quickly we can expand to be able to service hundreds of millions of customers.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking O’Connor about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“One of our favorite examples comes from expecting and new mothers. Having a child is life changing and overwhelming, and to be able to take the chore of laundry off new parents’ plates give us (and them!) lots of joy.”
Funding
When asking O’Connor about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“We’ve raised a pre-seed of $2 million led by Initialized capital (investors in companies like Reddit, Coinbase, Instacart, among others).”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? O’Connor assessed:
“The TAM is the 50 billion hours Americans spend doing laundry every year. This equates to 75,000 human lifetimes and if we can make a dent in that figure, it will be a massive company. Laundry is the ancient, Sisyphian chore that NoScrubs is solving.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? O’Connor affirmed:
“Previous options in the space are an unattractive combination of slow (multiple day turnarounds) and expensive (sometimes 3x the cost of NoScrubs). Our model is designed to be the fastest, lowest cost laundry service physically possible. We’re going to expand the portion of people who use laundry services from niche, wealthy consumers to anyone who can afford $1/day – which is a dramatically large population.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the future company goals? O’Connor emphasized:
“Our genuine aim is to make doing laundry yourself a bygone chore. Once we do that, the need for personal ownership of laundry machines and laundry rooms goes away. We hope to make laundry machines like VCRs: technology relics displaced by a superior service.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? O’Connor concluded:
“We’re excited to push the envelope on speed and cost in this underpenetrated space. Just like Doordash and Instacart expanded food and grocery delivery with an affordable, scalable model, NoScrubs is going to do the same with laundry delivery to finally make laundry a bygone chore.”
