Attn. college students!

[Miss Mary]

Would you like to make $, on your own terms? Read what these Xavier University (Cincinnati, OH) students decided to do to make more money: provide a service to fellow students, a service that is a dreaded chore - laundry! I think this idea is very clever but you would have to not mind washing someone else's dirty clothes/sheets/towels!

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ ... 40355/1076

Student-run laundry in the bag

Five partners pick up classmates' clothes, clean it, fold it and return it for $10

An enterprising Xavier University student is cleaning up on other students' laundry.

Tom Awadalla knows most college students would rather pay someone to do their laundry than do it themselves, so he figured their dirty socks could be profit in his pocket.

Awadalla, 21, a junior marketing major, launched Xpress Laundry Service based on experiences with classmates and on the results of a survey of about 200 Xavier freshmen that found most would gladly pay someone to do the chore for them.

"A friend of mine was paying $30 for his laundry, and he even had to pick it up," said Awadalla of his early research into the idea. "I saw a market for a $10 laundry service, and we would pick it up and drop it off."

After a test semester during the spring of 2006, Awadalla said he launched the operation in full during the fall 2006 semester with the help of four classmates he recruited. They serve four dormitories on campus with pickup and drop-off service.

With prices at $10 a load for 24-hour service, and $8 a load for 48-hour service, which were purposely set well below the competition, Awadalla said his business increased from just a handful of customers to about 80 by the end of the spring 2007 semester.

After placing and paying for their order online, students place their laundry in a bag provided by Xpress and leave it at pick-up points in the dorms. Awadalla and his four student co-owners collect the laundry and take turns washing it each night at a local Laundromat.

The nightly washing has occasionally interfered with the students' schedules, but they have faithfully kept up the pace.

Rob Heglin, 20, a junior marketing and entrepreneurial studies major and one of the co-owners of the business, said he once had to stay up nearly all night to complete his washing job because he wanted to watch XU play in the NCAA basketball tournament earlier in the evening.

"I didn't get to the Laundromat until about 1 a.m. and I didn't leave until 4 a.m.," he said. "I fell asleep. It's a good thing no one took the clothes."

Usually the students are able to complete their washing schedules in about two hours, said Awadalla, and they can get some studying done and make money while they're at it.

The venture has proven to be quite profitable, Awadalla said.

"We make about a 25 percent profit on each load," he said. "That's more than a lot of businesses are making."

Jonathan Macaluso, 22, a senior marketing major, who was one of the first students to join Awadalla in the business, said they were confident the laundry service would make money.

"With this model you can't lose money," he said. "By the third week of school we had covered our costs and were profitable."

With minimal start-up costs of about $600 that Awadalla said he obtained from personal savings, the business was not expensive to get going. That helped the venture to become profitable quickly.

The Laundromat is only a fifth of a mile from campus, so gasoline and driving time are minimal.

MARKETING TO MEN

The predominantly male customer base for Xpress has been relatively easy to serve, said Awadalla, because they are not extremely picky about their laundry.

XU freshman Mike Piotrowski of Pittsburgh, who has been using the service for about six months, said he tried it because the price was just a little higher for the Xpress 24-hour service than it was if he did his own laundry in the dorm.

"It would cost me about $8 to do it myself, and it only costs me $10 to have them do it," Piotrowski said. "It's easier just to have someone do it for me. The clothes come back folded and I just have to put them away."

_________________

Xpress Laundry Service
Address: Entrepreneurial Center, Xavier University, 3800 Victory Parkway, Evanston 45207

Phone: 513-238-1222

Web site: http://www.xpresslaundryservice.com

Enterprising students

Interesting fact: Most of the student owners of Xpress have obtained competitive internships for the summer: Awadalla and Mirolo will be working at Merrill Lynch downtown, Heglin will work at The idea Group LLC, and Macaluso will be working at National City Bank. All credit their work with Xpress Laundry as a key factor in obtaining the jobs.A luncheon today will honor the students who founded Xpress Laundry Service as well as other student-run businesses and winners of the Williams College of Business' Business Plan Competition.

Xpress Laundry Service will continue to be owned by the university's Entrepreneurial Center after Awadalla and his classmates graduate, said Tom Clark, professor of management and entrepreneurship and director of the Entrepreneurial Center, which is ranked among the top 11 programs of its kind in the U.S.

Several other student-run companies at Xavier are also part of the Entrepreneurial Center: Victory Perk, a coffee shop, FLIX, a DVD rental business, Muskie Market, an on-line grocery shopping and delivery service, Norwood T's, a T-shirt retailer, and The Cookie Jar, a bakery business.

Clark said all the students who start businesses and become part of the Entrepreneurial Center gain valuable skills and life lessons that cannot be necessarily learned in a classroom. The center gives them guidance and financial assistance with marketing and start-up costs.

"They're dealing with real issues that face businesses, like payroll, accounting, and management," he said. "They may be small-scale enterprises but they have to deal with the same things that larger businesses do."

[alicia-w]

what ingenuity and great entrepreneurial spirit!