Uber for Laundry Launches in Boston
Uber for haircuts. Uber for manicures. Uber for favors. Uber for booze.
And now, as if on cue, there’s Uber for laundry.
There are a couple of ways to look at the service industry becoming Uber-fied from every angle, and it’s very possible for them both to be true. The first is that Uber, the popular but controversial tech-transit startup valued at about $18 billion (a number that is apparently growing), tapped into exactly what the world is looking for in mobile tech: a remote control for real life, as one venture capitalist puts it. The second is that the tech world is one built on copycatting.
Another California on-demand startup has made its way into Boston. BetaBoston reports on laundry service app Washio’s entry to parts of Greater Boston this week. Boston joins Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Chicago as Washio cities. Judging by its website, the app also appears likely to launch in Seattle and San Diego at some point.
Washio allows users to signal for their dirty laundry to be picked up, washed or drycleaned, and brought back home within 24 hours, all nice and folded. Users pay automatically through the app, the rate depending on just what is getting cleaned. It is, truly, a sort of Uber for your dirty clothes.
The company wouldn’t disagree with that characterization. It would probably take pride in it. In an interview in September with StreetFight, a website that covers location-based technology and media, Washio founder Jordan Metzner was pretty outright about the inspiration. “I saw the rise of companies like Uber and the whole on-demand economy and I dreamt to myself, ‘I wish I had someone come by and pick up my laundry at the click of a button,’ and that’s kind of where it all started,’’ he said.
Never mind that laundry pick-up and delivery services already exist. For this service and for all the others, the thinking seems to be that cabs do, too, and that didn’t stop Uber. And Washio follows the Uber playbook to a T. Its drivers/laundry haulers aren’t employees of the company. Instead, they’re contractors, plucked from the Internet and put on the road to handle strangers’ laundry. In a New York magazine article, Metzner said the company is picky about who gets the gigs, though getting a foot in the door doesn’t look too difficult—interested drivers are able to interview on-demand on the company’s website. (Taking off on another tech trope, the drivers are called “ninjas’’ for reasons uncertain, beyond that maybe it sounds cool. To somebody.)
Disruption is a term that becomes riper for mockery by the day, and that’s in part because efforts to disrupt have become so predictable. But if it’s a familiar script—put it on a smartphone, throw it out to contractors, and you can change an industry—it’s one that performs well at the box office. Washio has raised $14 million so far from a slew of high-profile investors.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com