A couple of years ago, North Kingstown resident John MacKrell came up with an idea for a tech-enabled next-day laundry pickup and delivery service at customers' fingertips.
Now HappyNest Inc., with its business headquarters on Post Road in East Greenwich, is operating with 76 laundromat partners across 29 states and serving an average of 7,000 customers a month.
“In today’s world, people want to buy back time,” said MacKrell, who co-founded HappyNest with fellow Rhode Islander Geoff Fudge. “And laundry has been identified as the second-most disliked chore in America.”
Laundry came in second only to washing dishes, according to a 2019 Yelp survey of 2,000 American households. The survey also found that disagreements about housework can put a major strain on relationships.
"We've eliminated a point of friction with a couple of clicks on a cellphone app," said MacKrell.
It works like this: a customer creates an account and schedules laundry pickup and delivery. On the other side, a trusted local laundromat partner sends out a HappyNest-branded van, picks up the clothing, cleans it and returns it. HappyNest handles all customer service issues.
“So we’re not just helping busy households. We’re helping laundromats that have excess capacity. Laundromats do most of their business on the weekends. It can be slow during the week. This is a way for them to generate more revenue."
McKrell speaks from experience. He was once a multi-store owner of various LightHouse Laundromats in Rhode Island. In that role, he started a pickup and delivery service before leaving and creating HappyNest.
“At the time, I had young children,” he said. “I would go home to my wife at the end of a weekday and say that not many people came in. She would respond by saying, ‘well, there’s plenty of laundry around here.’”
It was a natural match, said MacKrell, who talked about how his company solves household problems, helps the local economy, and makes good business sense.
“The majority of our customers actually have their own washers and dryers,” he said. “But there’s a growing trend. People are increasingly outsourcing their household chores.”
Laundromat owners are hampered by high fixed costs and zero geographic flexibility. When their machines sit idle, it's a wasted opportunity, according to MacKrell. “The machines are increasingly sophisticated, and they are expensive,” he said. “And the most expensive machine is the one that’s not turning.”
The startup in 2020 raised around $1.5 million across two fundraising rounds, according to reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “We do have outside investors,” MacKrell said, without naming names.
MacKrell said that in the third quarter of 2021, HappyNest signed up 5,000 new customers. The company has hired a dedicated customer service team and doubled the size of its East Greenwich headquarters to accommodate 14 employees. "We are growing," he remarked.
There’s once catch. The service is not currently available in Rhode Island. When asked why, MacKrell said it’s because he signed a non-compete with a former business partner.
HappyNest should be available in the Ocean State by mid-2022, MacKrell said.
