This Mother's Laundry Side Venture Became a $12M Enterprise - Side Hustle Nation

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      What if the heap of laundry in your spare room was actually an undiscovered business opportunity?

      This is essentially how Susan Toft describes her experience. As a new mother with a full-time corporate job, she found herself staring at a daunting pile of unfolded laundry and thinking: someone should provide this as a service.

      So, she took the initiative to be that solution.

      Susan is the founder of LaundryLady.com, the leading mobile laundry service in Australia. She began alone in 2012, doing pickups in her van with her toddler in the backseat.

      Fast forward thirteen years, she now operates a $12 million business with over 450 contractors throughout Australia, a presence in New Zealand, a new launch in Canada, and plans for expansion into the UK.

      During her journey, she received a $1 million investment offer on Shark Tank Australia.

      Tune into Episode 725 of the Side Hustle Show to discover:

      how Susan validated her concept by addressing a personal inconvenience and transformed it into a scalable service

      what the contractor model entails and how much laundry service workers typically earn

      how Shark Tank altered her business path and how she leveraged the exposure

      The Personal Pain Point That Sparked the Idea

      Susan was immersed in a demanding corporate role when she became a mother.

      Not particularly home-oriented—her own words—she found the laundry in her spare room to be a daily source of anxiety. Each morning, she would sift through piles of clean, unfolded clothes just to find something to wear.

      The transition from frustration to business idea came from a simple inquiry: if this is a challenge for me, isn’t it a challenge for other busy families as well?

      This realization led to the creation of Laundry Lady, a pickup and delivery laundry service tailored for individuals who value their time and simply want the laundry mess eliminated.

      How Susan Secured Her Initial Laundry Clients

      Susan had a friend create a website, activated it, and landed her first customer. In the early stages, she managed everything herself using her own washer and dryer, including:

      pickup

      wash

      dry

      fold

      delivery

      On the customer acquisition front, Google Ads made things surprisingly straightforward initially.

      When she started 13 years ago, clicks for laundry-related searches were approximately 20 cents. With minimal competition, gaining visibility in searches was affordable and efficient.

      Acquiring customers was never an issue; her limitations lay with her personal washing machine.

      For the first five years, she ran the business solo until life necessitated a change: she went through a divorce and needed to return to full-time work.

      To sustain the business, she had to recruit her first contractors.

      Building a Scalable Laundry Business with Contractors and an Online Booking System

      Transitioning from a solo operator to a contractor model called for a reliable online booking system. Susan applied for a government grant in Australia to finance it and then approached a developer with her concept: an “Uber-style booking platform.”

      Her budget? $5,000.

      The developer laughed and suggested she look for an off-the-shelf solution. She did, and her developer customized it sufficiently to accommodate multiple locations and contractors.

      While not flawless, it functioned, and this became version 2.0 of the business.

      To find contractors, she tapped into her personal network—a friend's sister, followed by her sister—and posted on Gumtree, which she describes as the Australian equivalent of Craigslist.

      She was specifically seeking individuals who resonated with her situation: moms or parents needing flexible work that fit around school pickups and family commitments. Her initial group of eight to ten contractors was all based in Southeast Queensland.

      Rising Demand for Outsourced Laundry Services

      Susan capitalized on a genuine shift in how households prioritize their time. As people grow busier and place greater value on their hours, chores like laundry are increasingly being outsourced.

      The customer demographic reflects this. About 60% are residential:

      busy families

      working professionals

      individuals with disabilities

      elderly clients

      The other 40% are business customers:

      beauty salons

      medical clinics

      Airbnb operators with low to mid-volume laundry requirements that larger commercial providers often overlook.

      As Susan stated, this issue isn’t going away. Clothes will continuously get dirty. The total addressable market is vast, and Laundry Lady operates in a space that is user-friendly (book online, request a pickup) and genuinely beneficial for a diverse array of customers.

      Laundry Lady Contractor Earnings and Business Unit Economics

      Customers typically spend an average of $100 per service and schedule appointments weekly or biweekly, creating a highly recurring revenue model.

      Contractors retain 80% of the revenue from each job they complete. The company takes 20%, which