Xue Manzi Strikes Again! Laundry O2O "I Want Laundry" Secures 4 Million Yuan Angel Investment

EO Network reported on March 25 that the laundry O2O platform "I Want Laundry" announced it has completed a 4 million angel round of financing, with investors being well-known angel investors Xue Manzi and Mai Tao. The founder of "I Want Laundry," Bao Junjie, said that "I Want Laundry" aims to be the "Taobao" of the laundry industry. Currently, the business only covers Shanghai, and after the next round of financing, it plans to expand laundry services nationwide.

"I Want Laundry" was launched in early 2015. It is an O2O platform for online laundry and dry cleaning services. Users can place orders through the WeChat public account, and the system dispatches orders nearby based on LBS positioning. Partner merchants deliver to the door or users pick up clothes themselves at the store.

In fact, at this stage, "I Want Laundry" has not yet launched an app or PC website and has only been online for three months. Why did it receive investment from Xue Manzi and Mai Tao? Let's hear from the investors.

Xue Manzi's view on "I Want Laundry"

Recently, Manzi Digest compiled four O2O companies invested by Manzi, including community O2O platform Community 001, hotpot delivery platform "Picky Hotpot Delivery," medical O2O platform "Who to See for Medical Treatment," and laundry O2O platform "I Want Laundry."

Among them, Xue Manzi described "I Want Laundry" as follows:

1) "I Want Laundry" uses a reverse O2O approach, providing merchants with free marketing plans and free backend management systems. In the O2O dry cleaning industry, it follows a Taobao development model;

2) Across the entire Shanghai area, "I Want Laundry" has signed cooperation agreements with nearly a thousand franchise stores. Many franchise headquarters have exclusive agreements and will simultaneously expand business to multiple cities nationwide.

Mai Tao, founder of Baolong Capital, views "I Want Laundry"

Mai Tao once published an article stating that he values eight keywords in O2O projects: linking people's livelihood, profitability, frequency, knocking on doors, high value, customer orientation, innovation, and team. He believes O2O projects need to meet fundamental livelihood needs, achieve early profitability through high frequency and high price to form a healthy business ecosystem, enter users' homes for in-depth communication, maintain customer relationships with a user experience orientation, and adjust models timely based on disruptive innovation and business/user needs. On this basis, the founding team should have online and offline experience, especially offline experience. Meeting these points qualifies as a good O2O project.

Project founder Bao Junjie views "I Want Laundry"

The founder of "I Want Laundry," Bao Junjie, told EO Network that currently, "I Want Laundry" has signed a thousand cooperative merchants in Shanghai, with thousands of orders daily. The team has nearly 40 people, including three co-founders with over ten years of market operation experience at Citibank, technical experience at Tudou.com, and logistics supply chain management experience at international companies.

The light-mode laundry O2O platform's two ends are dry cleaning shops and consumers. How does "I Want Laundry" control dry cleaning shops and attract users?

Bao Junjie said that currently, orders for "I Want Laundry" come from three sources: mobile system, PC system, and paper records, with a ratio of 1:1:1. Regarding cooperation with dry cleaning shops, Bao Junjie is confident. He said that competitors find it difficult to negotiate with many large dry cleaning chain merchants because existing laundry O2O brands mostly take commissions from dry cleaning shops. However, "I Want Laundry" provides free management software and systems to dry cleaning shops, and the shops direct traffic to the platform. When orders reach a certain volume, "I Want Laundry" subsidizes clothes racks and packaging bags, which serve as advertising carriers. Nearby product merchants can cooperate with "I Want Laundry" and provide products for free as subsidies to dry cleaning shops, openly advertising in the shops. For "I Want Laundry," this naturally completes the model of "the wool comes from the pig."

"I Want Laundry" views many competitors

Currently, there are many laundry O2O platforms nationwide, such as Shanghai Dry Cleaning Customer with a central kitchen, Shanghai Taidi Laundry with 24-hour online service, and Beijing e-Bag Laundry with door-to-door pickup. There are also many companies like 96 Da Xi La, Lazy Home, Wash Bar, Mr. Shoes Elephant Shoe Cleaning, Huancheng Wash, Ai Xi Wang, e Wash Network, Ai Yi Micro Laundry, Lazy Cat Laundry, Bubble Laundry, etc. Most well-known laundry O2O companies are heavy-mode platforms with self-built factories or logistics.

Heavy-mode platforms have clear advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is controllability in service and management; the disadvantage is development speed limited by personnel, funds, and geography. "I Want Laundry" is a pure online light-mode platform. Reverse O2O, which directs dry cleaning shop users to the platform, has obvious advantages and disadvantages: rapid development speed and uncontrollable service quality.

Light-mode platform looks to the future

Bao Junjie told EO Network that what he values most is the platform's future development, focusing on cooperation channels with dry cleaning shops as B-end merchants, even franchisees of dry cleaning shops. There is great potential for the future, including e-commerce, advertising, express delivery, big data, and physical stores like Heike.

Because dry cleaning shop customers are generally high-quality sources, in the future, users staying in dry cleaning shops will easily notice internal advertising boards, posters, QR codes on counters, and even website entrances, making consumption easy to achieve.

Currently, "I Want Laundry" provides merchants with free backend, marketing plans, customer management systems, and subsidizes clothes racks and packaging bags. Merchants are willing to cooperate and sign with the light-mode platform to break time and geographic limitations, increase orders, and manage customer data. Merchants without equipment are also willing to cooperate, initially recording orders on paper, later entered into the system by the platform. After a certain cooperation period, "I Want Laundry" plans to provide iPads or computers, all supplied by vendors.

Currently, merchants who can receive electronic orders can get orders assigned by the platform based on their order-taking ability and time factors. Afterwards, there will be user evaluations, and merchants can upgrade their certification.

Laundry O2O market status

Currently, the laundry O2O industry is already booming, with financing stages distributed across angel, Series A, and Series B rounds. In July and August 2014, Taidi Laundry completed two rounds of financing, with the Series B round involving a multi-million dollar investment from Sequoia Capital; in November of the same year, eDaixi announced it had received angel investment from Tencent, followed by a $20 million Series A investment from Matrix Partners and SIG. Internet giants and well-known investment institutions have all paid attention to this market and have made early deployments.

Bao Junjie stated that in Shanghai, "I Want Laundry" already leads significantly in daily order volume, and as the business expands nationwide in the future, its order volume will show explosive growth. Currently, eDaixi's business covers six cities. Bao Junjie told Yiou that at this stage, "I Want Laundry" mainly focuses on rapid business expansion and increasing order volume. As for service quality, it is not neglected, but due to the model and speed, it may be slightly overlooked. Not only "I Want Laundry," but other laundry O2O platforms also more or less sacrifice service quality in pursuit of development.

Additionally, the author believes that the future potential for "I Want Laundry" to cooperate within dry cleaning stores should not be overly optimistic. The reason is that the internal space of typical dry cleaning stores is not abundant, and users do not stay long, as it is neither a leisure coffee shop nor an empty Heyke, and Heyke itself is already making adjustments. Existing well-known laundry O2O platforms generally launched in 2013, and in terms of time and experience, "I Want Laundry" has much to learn from them. In terms of development speed, "I Want Laundry" will definitely catch up later, but it must not pursue speed at the expense of service, otherwise it would be like lifting a rock only to drop it on its own foot.