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(I dont mean to nitpick one paragraph, but: )
What an absurdly overwritten way of saying 'at their morning meeting'.
Eh, I think you're thinking about this sentence as an engineer and not a writer. The author wants to draw you into the philosophy of software development, with its mix of processes and productivity hacks; the elaboration in that sentence serves to paint a more vivid picture of the tech work environment. Of course, we already know all this, but many readers from outside our field may find these descriptions illuminating.
As I writer, I feel the author is painting a picture that has been painted a thousand times before. In that particular paragraph, the additional material dominates the paragraph at the expense of the main point (which itself is strangely spread over a block of paragraphs).
As a reader I felt my time was wasted. Some explanation was in order, but I did not need to know the origin of the technique. "Work-process manual" is snooze-inducing.
Rewritten:
This spring, after staff at Washio had gathered for their daily "stand-up" meeting–in which employees are kept on their toes by giving status updates literally on their feet–operations manager San Nadler broke some bad news.
This draws the reader a bit into the meeting and explains what is meant by a "stand-up meeting" without bogging the reader down in details or the "philosophy of software development." If that philosophy was important for the author to communicate, it really deserves its own paragraph.
Except that it implies that stand-up meetings actually work to keep employees on their toes figuratively. In the first version, it's more of an implication that this is what the manual says and this company is just trying to build a business like you would a table.
In that case, I still agree with the parent. Either it's not important so don't mention it, or dedicate a paragraph taking standups to task for being agile cargo cult bullshit.
There is a big difference between a simple meeting and the overly-gimmicky nonsense ritual that is known as the "standup". I've even seen standups where people are forced to hold a heavy book as they talk just to ensure they don't talk too long.
How about people drop all the BS and just learn how to properly run a meeting? The gimmickry of the standup is a covert way of saying "no one here trusts anyone else to exercise restraint and common courtesy, so instead we have to come up with these harebrained schemes to enforce it".
How about people drop all the BS and just learn how to properly run a meeting?
The tribal knowledge in startup management is to half-ass a blog post you once read about how to manage employees. Why would someone invest valuable mental cycles making a company run better when they could be planning their exit?
The point is that most businesses don't formalize the requirement to hold meetings standing up. Either people stand up as a matter of course (eg construction workers), or they hold their meetings in comfy chairs (generic office workers).
My feet start to hurt after the second or third hour of consecutive morning stand up meetings.
Not to mention that the Agile Manifesto doesn't actually say anything about meetings, standing or otherwise.
My favourite line was
Just like Canadian engineers complain about the term "software engineer", I hope there is some remote Japanese ninja clan grumbling that "these guys didn't even pass the ninja board exam!"
I am a ninja, or was for a number of years, and I chuckle then sigh everytime I hear that. These people wouldn't know a ninja if they met one.
These people wouldn't know a ninja if they met one.
Isn't that kind of the point of a ninja?
Presumably good ninja would be able to identify other ninja? :)
Maybe in mass media, or in the just-passed-one-on-the-street-and-didn't-know-it sense. Here's a pointer to learn about real ninjutsu, as it survives today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bujinkan
Canadian engineers?
In Canada, "engineer" is a very specific title that refers to someone who is licensed as a professional engineer, including all the degree requirements, testing, vetting, etc. that go along with that. It's quite similar to "doctor" or "lawyer" in that way.
To call yourself an engineer you need an Engineering degree from a qualified institution (4 or 5 years), at least 2 years of apprenticeship (effectively), and to pass a difficult examination.
They're not typically huge fans of people who haven't done those things calling themselves "sanitation engineers" or "software engineers" instead of "janitors" and "programmers". The argument I usually hear is that it undermines their profession; people can hold the work of an engineer to a particular standard. If suddenly I can say "oh, I'm a software engineer" without anything backing that up, it damages the reputation of "engineer" if I behave poorly.
To add to this, it's not just Canada either. Here in Portugal we have what we call Ordens, not just for engineers but for physicians, lawyers, and other professions. The title of Engineer is also reserved for members of the Ordem, but you only need a degree from an accredited institution.[0] While this does not have much of a legal implication for software engineering, civil engineering projects can only be signed off by members of the Ordem, given the nature of the field.
[0] Lawyers, on the other hand, undergo very extensive examination, and they can only practice law if they are members of the Ordem.
Same goes for Switzerland.
Calling yourself an engineer without a license is like calling yourself a doctor or a lawyer without a license - it's a crime.
Again, software engineers are a little less troubled than say civil Engineers, but you should expect that a potential employer asks to see your dimploma/certification at job interviews (I have been asked that several times, and have asked it from candidates as well).
Don't you need the same amount of training to be called a software engineer?
Yes and no.
There are universities that offer degrees in Software Engineering here in Canada, and it is officially an engineering accredited degree, but in practice I've never met a P.Eng in software. This is relevant since one of the steps in getting a P.Eng is apprenticeship... and if you have nobody to apprentice under? Then you've got no P.Eng.
I'm sure they exist, but I've never met one.
/Systems control engineering grad, but no P.Eng and I just do code-monkey work.
At my last employer I worked with more than one P.Eng in software development. I've looked at the requirements, and they seem crazy for someone working in software.
Especially when you look at recommendations that on software engineers with a P.Eng should be able to do any sort of software architecture, and only easy-to-follow tasks should be doled out to the other developers. (I can't find supporting links to this now, but have read these proposals in the past)
In Canada, yes. It takes about 4 years of school and 4 years of work experience to become a software engineer. If you call yourself a software engineer without being licensed, you might face a lawsuit from your province's engineering association.
In much of the United States, however, the term is not protected. You may be able to call yourself a software engineer without having any training or experience whatsoever.
As a software "Developer" in Canada who does some work in the USA with the title Software Engineer this is a constant struggle which I seem to constantly have to explain.
Unfortunately some higher ups don't seem to understand what the title engineer means. I have a formal comp sci education and I have heard things like "We can't pay you $x, you aren't even an engineer!".
Walk into an interview with a ring on your pinky (I am serious) and you have an edge on the field.
Can you call yourself an Architect? As in, Software Architect? I've found the title to be preferable to Engineer.
actual architects might rightfully slay you, though.
What does a ring on your pinky do?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_Ring
The iron ring is a Canadian engineering tradition. The original ones were made from iron from a bridge that collapsed and killed a lot of people. It's worn as a reminder of what a few miscalculations or oversights can do.
I don't understand why software devs are in such a bad position in Canada. Or is it just me having a bad experience?
In my state in the US, a person calling themselves an "engineer" has to be licensed.
However, this is only for someone offering engineering services directly to the public. If you do engineering work for an employer, then you enjoy an "industrial exemption." At my workplace, we design stuff, then the design is checked by a third party (such as a regulatory approval outfit), which provides a technical report signed by a licensed engineer.
When people start their own side businesses, they call themselves "technology," "research," and so forth.
From what I've observed, remarkably few engineers do any engineering, such as determining appropriate strengths of structures, etc. Most product design work seems to be done by trial and error.
Well, I wouldn't call it difficult. If you paid attention at all in those years of school and apprenticeship, you'll waltz through the exam without even studying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ritual_of_the_Calling_of_an...
It's a great way to brand though. Ninja has really strong aesthetic qualities and while possibly a bit cheesy, it tells users EXACTLY what how laundry delivery will make them feel: like a warlord commanding an small, elite force to do his bidding.
The idea of ninjas was kinda cool when I was thirteen.
The idea that the guy who delivers my laundry is a "ninja" is just cringeworthy to me. Maybe it's a SF thing.
In France, everybody is an engineer.
I wonder if they realized how much of a hit piece this was going to be.
I have to assume they didn't know. I assumed it was all fiction until I started looking up these companies.
I still have trouble believing it isn't (very dedicated) satire.
They even have an .io domain...
The thing that leapt out at me the most strongly from this article is how none of the laundry startups appear to actually do any laundry. They all outsource that work to other companies, like the one mentioned in the article, Wash Then Fold -- companies that tilt heavily towards being run and staffed by immigrants, who do the actual work involved with cleaning clothes while the white-kid startups grab the headlines.
That seems like a really precarious position for those startups to be in. First there's quality-control: the #1 thing that's going to wreck your relationship with a laundry customer is if you mess up their clothes, and if all the clothes-handling is outsourced, how much can you do to prevent that from happening?
And second, if all the value you bring to the table is a thin layer of code over someone else's service, at some point that someone else will just write their own app and cut out the middleman. "Climbing the value chain," the MBAs call it -- start off as a provider of outsourced services to companies whose executives' noses are too high in the air to do their dirty work themselves anymore, and then slowly shoulder those companies out of the way by establishing direct relationships with their customers at a lower cost. It's a strategy Asian hardware OEMs have been pursuing with success for decades -- there's no shortage of people who used to be IBM and Dell customers who are Lenovo and Asus customers now.
The problem with your suggestion that these laundry companies will write their own app is that they probably won't. They're probably eking out a small profit, and adding the cost of hiring a programmer as well as technical customer service and delivery drivers massively out of their reach. What makes me say this? Well, are there any nationwide dry cleaning chains? What is the markup on dry cleaning? How successful are the best dry cleaning shops? And, as mentioned, they lean towards being run and staffed by immigrants. They can make a living, but I would doubt it affords them enough of an income to run a silicon-valley startup.
"Well, are there any nationwide dry cleaning chains?"
Yes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinizing_Dry_Cleaning
If there's enough profit in there to support a company dedicated solely to an app, there's enough profit for it to be worth the laundry service provider (hey, there's a new acronym: LSP) pushing them out of the way, no?
These all seem like bigger knocks on the viability of Wash.io et al than anything else.
Putting aside the "Those People don't know how to make money like we do" argument, this strikes me as short-sighted. Because clearly the startups think there's enough money in laundry to support Silicon Valley lifestyles, right?
Of course, they could be wrong about that... but again, in that scenario I'd be worried more about the future of the startups than of the people actually doing laundry at scale.
There's a middle ground. The average small-time laundry operation definitely doesn't have the kind of cash flow to produce a serious challenger app.
And restaurants don't have the means to produce their own restaurant management software, or the software stack necessary to enable deliveries. But these two features are commonplace in restaurants because of white-label middleware providers.
Here in NYC I've been seeing more and more restaurants advertise their own website as a way to order delivery, as a way to get around Seamless/GrubHub's per-transaction take, and offering discounts to switching to their platform.
Both directions are viable. Wash.io and their kind can, with significant capital, eventually do laundry themselves and eliminate the individual laundry shops entirely. Likewise, individual laundry shops stand a realistic chance of purchasing middleware and cutting out the aggregator frontends.
The difference between the established small business and these startup "businesses" is that the startups are well-connected, usually young white males, that get access to Sillicon Valley's Wall Street money spigot. They don't have to worry about such mundane things as profit so they can try to take over a market and destroy hundreds of small businesses that were bootstrapped slowly over years of toil. If the small businesses somehow were able to get access to free investment money I'm sure they could also come up with creative ways to expand since they know their market well.
How could they destroy hundreds of small businesses, if they themselves were not profitable?
It seems like you want to have your cake and eat it. You want to criticize these guys for out-competing small businesses, but you also want to claim they aren't really doing good business, that they are just wasting their investor's money.
Not OP, but small businesses have to use operating margins to make payroll and pay for capital goods. 'Startups', through what essentially boils down to predatory pricing, can burn through investor cash to acquire customers leaving the entire market at a loss.
NYMag actually does a decent job explaining it a bit:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/04/problem-with-pr...
This is based on the unjustifiable assumption that the author knows better than the VC's and other investors. In particular, the author somehow knows that these company's won't be able to turn a profit, even though the VC's and investors surely believe the company will.
The VCs don't always believe it'll turn a profit, a lot of times they are hoping for a big buyout payday.
A big buyout is equivalent to turning a profit, since the buyer will expect to profit from their purchase.
It's not based on the presumption that the author knows better than the VCs. It's based on the very real fact that profitless VC-funded startups are competing based on unsustainable prices with the goal of raising prices in the future once their competition has been starved out.
It's market manipulation (but not the type that rises to the level of impermissible market manipulation).
It's easy to make this allegation, but very hard to substantiate it, since there are many factors that influence profit, and just because a company isn't profitable now, doesn't mean that the only way they can become profitable is by starving out their competition and then raising prices. Can you give a single instance of a venture backed startup actually causing price increases after driving out their competition?
VCs also anticipate they'll be wrong a majority of the time about a company. That means, a substantial amount of the time (maybe a majority of the time?), they'll be throwing a lot of money at "disrupting" existing businesses with no successful alternative.
But since profitability is better thought of in terms of averages or expectations, it makes no difference if the companies in question are all moderately profitable, or a few extremely profitable companies, and some non-profitable ones.
If the business fails, then it has disrupted existing businesses for no gain. But if it becomes extremely profitable, then presumably it has made some cost savings in order to be able to do so, and so deserves these profits.
If the average business is profitable, then the investment is justified, both for the investors, and from the point of view of society as a whole.
The same way venture funded startups destroy bootstrapped, profitable startups: by massively outspending them.
Venture backed companies can get away with it for as long as investors will support them, regardless of how profitable their business may or may not be.
Even if they're not ultimately viable and fail, the pressure can be enough to crush the viable but not venture-funded businesses in the interim.
So why would VC's fund these company's?
Already covered, but again: even if the strategy is only successful 10% of the time, if that successful 10% more than makes up for the 90% failure rate, the strategy will be attractive.
I will repeat my answer here: Your point is irrelevant because to be profitable really means to be profitable on average (or in the language of statistics, to be profitable in expectation). So a business that may be very profitable 10% of the time, and unprofitable 90% of the time, is equivalent to a business known to be moderately profitable.
Because they need to look busy? Because the "2 & 20" fee structure incentivises them to pursue strategies that lose money on average but are high-variance?
And, as mentioned, they lean towards being run and staffed by immigrants. They can make a living, but I would doubt it affords them enough of an income to run a silicon-valley startup.
Many successful companies [citation needed] have been built by immigrants.
Aggregating and marketing (as in bringing to market) is not as thin a layer as it may seem. Ebay, airbnb, etsy - these are "thin layers of code" too.
Ebay and Etsy don't have to pay for teams of "delivery ninjas" in every city who pick up goods from sellers and deliver them to the buyers. They leave all that to UPS/FedEx/USPS/etc.
Ebay and Etsy also aggregate lots of sellers along with lots of buyers, which makes it harder for any one seller or buyer to corner their end of the newly created marketplace. But from the article, it sounds like several of the laundry startups are all really just frontends for Wash Then Fold. That gives WTF (hey, I just realized how clever their name is) a pretty fair amount of clout over them all.
If that's the case, it actually suggests a pretty clever business strategy for WTF: let the startups burn other people's money proving the market and finding out what sort of features people want in a laundry app, and then once that's established swoop in and do the same thing yourself. Free R&D!
Aggregating and marketing is most valuable when the service providers are small entities, ideally individuals, that cannot effectively market themselves, or where you're in a situation where there are numerous sellers that need to be connected to numerous buyers. That's a lot less true when talking about laundry service than market places like EBay.
Airbnb was not just the website. The original network of hosts WERE airbnb people and friends. That is a huge asset for bootstrapping. And now they have real customer service- which I think is going to be the one thing (within their control) that is going to make them a success or not.
I agree a laundry startup should definitely be on top of quality control. Also, doing the laundry makes for a much better story. :> Imagine local news footage of thin dudes with sarcastic mustaches and tight jeans moving stuff from washer to dryer. That's gold.
Ok, I'll bite. What's a "sarcastic mustache"?
More like 'ironic mustache.'
Etsy also has a thin layer of revenues.
$1B in revenues if you count them the way GRPN does, and approx $35M if you count net revenues.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-12/etsy-tops-1-billion...
Actually, the reverse happens far more often. If a company manages to insert themselves between you and your users, they can then work their way down the value chain and replace you as a supplier. It works both ways and typically the company with the direct consumer relationship has the advantage.
Could you, or anyone, give some examples please?
One example off the top of my head is Drum Workshop, they used to use Keller shells, but when it became feasible switched to making their own.
Amazon is having more success getting authors to publish directly with them than publishers are having with selling books to customers.
Similarly I keep hearing about Netflix and the like commissioning shows.
Many ecommerce (specially in fashion) end up selling their own products: Topshop, AsSeenOn, Fab, etc...
You can also see this at your local grocery store, they have their own version of every major product at a discounted rate.
In terms of supermarket chains I understood it to be whitelabelled - i.e. that primarily they have their own-brand goods manufactured at a factory that already produces the goods sold under other brands. So, for example Tesco have a "wheat biscuit" product physically identical to Weetabix and indeed it's made in the same factory. Do Supermarkets really run their own factories for many/most/all goods sold under their brand?
I worked in the past at a supplier that labelled goods on the same packing line for different grocery retailers (QC and the label being the only differentiators).
Sure, they're extremely plentiful.
Costco distributes food under the "Kirkland Signature" brand, competing with its own suppliers.
Uber was started by using a towncar service and getting cars dispatched. They now hire their own drivers directly.
Old fashioned steel companies were famous for owning the entire supply chain, all the way from the coal and iron mines and the rail roads through the steel factories.
Google is (attempting) this move by creating a review service to eat Yelp's lunch and displace them as a supplier of reviews to people searching Google.
Netflix creates House of Cards to compete with its own suppliers of movies.
In Costco's case do they actually own factories that produce that brand or is it white-labelled?
For whatever it's worth, many (if not most) brick & mortar laundry and dry cleaners outsource their work, as well. Very few of them will actually clean your clothes themselves, on the premises. They are middlemen. They take your clothes, ship them off to be cleaned, then return them to you for a modest margin.
I like wash.io. I can't afford to use it every time (I think I've used it only three times so far?), but each instance left me satisfied. I find it especially useful for wash+press and dry cleaning where the alternative is to bring your clothes to a dry cleaner -- not convenient without a car.
A good strategy is to wash towels and pants yourself (these are heavier and therefore costlier to wash, and relatively easy to fold and put away yourself), and give the shirts and jackets to wash.io to wash, press, and fold.
This author is almost showing off, they can be funny on demand.
First they front load with some great jabs at startups and the hedonic nature of man to get you interested, then call back to them just before they expect you to get bored.
The pacing is a little slow near the end, but otherwise the writing here is quite good.
Why does it seem like Washio paid for this article. ? I imagine they did not but it just seems odd.
Obligatory pg link: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Really? The whole article had such a thick layer of sarcasm and derision about the whole start-up world it's hard to imagine any start-up paying for this.
I guess, I admit I didn't read the whole thing. It seemed like a typical startup worskup TechCrunch type so I have up half way in.
Admittedly, it's unfair to print the quotes without editing out "like". Most people fill empty space in their speech with "like", "um", or some variant. And most reporters edit them out from quotes, to keep their sources from sounding like total morons.
That said, if you're running a business described as "uber for laundry", hiring "ninjas", and paling around with Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, you've already forfeited the right to be taken seriously by anyone.
"to keep their sources from sounding like total morons"
That's, like, the point.
I thought Kunis and Kutcher are actually decent people? Why is hanging out with them a problem?
It doesn't matter how nice they are. It's still pretty surreal to be talking to them about your laundry delivery app. At that point, you realize how absurd your life has become, and give up any hope of being taken seriously.
Up next, the Airbnb of the Uber of laundry! Connecting people who do laundry to those who need it done. It all comes back around to mom doing your laundry. It just doesn't have to be your mom anymore.
"Making the wold a better place."
This 'hedonic treadmill' reminds me of the constant battle i'm in to reduce the bullshit I don't need in my life. It started with canceling my cable service and terminating my Xbox Live subscription. Later it led to giving away all my furniture and moving, only taking as much crap as I could fit in my car (and a bike on the car).
Now i'm feeling the creep of excess crap again. Entertainment systems I don't use. Drawers of clothes and shoes, racks of jackets and suits I don't wear. A small mountain of various bags, boxes, knick-knacks, toys and other junk I haven't looked at in 6 months. I tried to live without a smartphone for a few months but it was just too fucking convenient, and CHEAP at $70 cash! I'm back on the Android again.
Why is this seemingly the fate of all modern industrialized middle-class Americans? Like George Carlin said, a house is basically just a place to keep all our stuff. But why we need all that stuff, while the majority of the world doesn't seem to be so materially obsessed, I used to think was anyone's guess. Now i'm starting to think the hedonic treadmill might be a kind of social disease that needs to be treated more seriously.
I have tons of stuff - it's spare parts and materials to make other stuff. I never want to throw anything out until it's a tangled pile of shredded debris if I can avoid it.
The alternative is just blunt consumerism - assuming I can buy things when I need them, and constantly being at the mercy of price-gouging suppliers.
I don't even know why you'd reach the conclusion that you shouldn't have useful things - i.e. a smartphone.
A lot of things are useful. I'm sure there's a gadget out there that will wipe my ass for me and tell me what I had for dinner. Doesn't mean I need it, though. I think a simpler life is probably a happier one, and the things we find useful are often just used against us in some way or another. Instead of focusing on the things we could have that would make our lives better, perhaps we should focus on what truly matters and try not to use anything we don't need? Just an idea anyway.
You could spend every waking hour hunting and growing food, doing no more than you need, but that's not my idea of a fun life. If I can buy or make a tool that means I spend less time doing something boring/unpleasant and can instead spend that time doing things I enjoy, why wouldn't I? I don't know where you're getting this "simpler life is probably a happier one" idea from, the evidence from international happiness surveys is quite strongly against that.
I don't think anyone should spend all their life working to survive. Also, most people who live a simple life probably aren't doing it by choice; they're probably too poor to afford modern industrial society's conveniences. A simple life by choice is probably happier than a simple life by unintentional consequence.
My idea of a fun life has evolved over time. I used to think drinking beer, eating pizza and playing video games was the pinnacle of human achievement. Now I try to practice zen laundry.
It's hard to get myself to do the things that I don't feel like doing. But when I actually start doing them, an amazing thing happens. Doing laundry becomes a tiny meditative practice. I stop and consider every action of what i'm doing, and focus just on the one task at hand. The rest of the world melts away.
What would I be doing if I had someone pick it up and drop it off? Probably watching hulu, or going to a bar, or I don't know, wandering around looking for entertainment. When i'm doing laundry, I am actually living, doing something transformative and applying myself to a life skill that can only improve with time. It's finding meaning in the things that I need to do in life, and afterwards, when I finally do that relaxation activity, I appreciate both more.
I'm not sure I see the difference. Plenty of hobbies involve learning and improving at that hobby.
It's not a huge difference really. You can find meaning in a hobby, sure. But it's harder and more interesting to find meaning in little things. Like breathing. Have you ever stopped and considered how fucking crazy it is that we breathe? Or eating. If all you had left in the world were ten grains of rice, imagine how much more incredible that rice would seem, or how much more you would taste and feel it. Hobbies are fine, but they aren't the core value of the video game of your life; they're just expansion packs.
If you only have 10 grains of rice you are going to die of starvation.
Quit your job and volunteer until you run out of money, then get a job doing something worthwhile for lower pay. With less disposable income, i think you'd find yourself buying less stuff, because you can no longer afford it. Groceries, rent, utilities, transportation, healthcare, occasionally clothes and toiletries are quite expensive and all-consuming income-wise for most people, those without cushy jobs at least.
wow, super expensive, I still prefer to do the laundry myself...
My advice: As long as the VC's want to subsidize bad business models that cater to narrow markets, I say, take advantage of it while you can cuz it ain't gonna last forever.
I used Prim a few times, then they called it quits. At some point during the article I figured I'd see what they'd done with the Prim domain and found...a fully functional Prim.
At first I thought I had just imagined it had gone under, but apparently not: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/06/prim-laundry-shuts-down/. Seems strange to not, you know, email your customers again if you decide to resurrect a product.
It doesn't seem like they really did resurrect it. Typing in any zip code results in "Sorry - Prim is not accepting any new customers. Thanks for visiting"
If you try to sign up it says they aren't accepting new customers.
Hi All, Jordan, CEO of Washio, here. Happy to answers any questions.
Did you realize that the article was going to be such a hit piece? And do you agree with his implication that the "laundry space" is bubblier than an overflowing washing machine?
This. It feels like we are just trying to solve the smallest problems that will make us millionaires. With the resources available, why not tackle something a bit more fundamental than laundry?
Option 1: Split a few hundred developers into groups of 5-10 each, and throw money at them until you generate a few hits (we'll assume hardware costs are negligible because for this group they are). Offer low salaries and 'equity' in return, putting as much risk on the shoulders of your employees as you can - after all, for the successful ones you can always screw them out of their shares later. For now, if you do this at scale, you can be reasonably certain of profitability.
Option 2: Form a single company where you have to manage that entire group toward a single goal, take all the risk, probably pay some non-negligible hardware costs if the problem is interesting enough, etc. Then you either solve the problem or you fail utterly, and even then you still get to find out if anyone really wanted the problem solved in the first place, so you can still fail utterly. Then once you get past that, you can deal with patent trolls and copycats, and for each case you have about 50% probability at best of getting any kind of justice at all.
Option 3: Do the first to fund the second. Sadly there is only one Elon Musk, though.
Or, instead of making it so those with disposable income no longer have to do laundry, innovate laundry itself so that no one is burdened by laundry.
Making it easier for someone else to do your laundry so you don't have to is not moon-shot innovation. It's not worth doing.
Food, clothing, shelter are as fundamental as it gets
Washing clothes for those with money to spare is not the same as providing clothes for those without. It's tangential rather than fundamental.
By "washing" I think you mean driving dirty clothes a small distance so that immigrants can wash them for you while you take a cut. Much cushier gig than actual washing.
You could do a lot worse than laundry. It's something everyone does that takes up a non-trivial amount of time to do. Free up 20-30 minutes a day for millions of people and you are talking about real value.
It may come as a surprise to people who read lots of startup news, because you tend to only hear about the successes, but generally it is not very easy to disrupt any business, or even become a millionaire. Achieving those for e.g. laundry might not make the world a much better place, but it is still quite an achievement.
The other side of this "wholly unnecessary"-business, is that with rising standards of living, necessities are already fairly well provided for, so it is quite obvious that any future desired consumer good will be mostly in the unnecessary category. A funny read about these types of things is "The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation" by Christopher J. Berry, where he describes 18th century philosophers discussing what is luxury (i.e unnecessary) and what is necessity. They end up with a paradoxical example regardning the scant clothing of "savages" (that is non-europeans in warmer climates), and cannot resolve the fact that despite this clothing being really primitive by their standards, it is not strictly necessary for survival, or even most other activities, so they must conclude that even that is just luxury.
But this stuff applies only in the narrow echo chamber of SF, LA, NYC, etc. Fresh water is a necessity, and more people don't have that than will ever be a customer of Washio. I am all for people innovating anything and everything, but let's put things into perps practice: this particular service provides a luxury version of an already luxury service for the richest parts of the world.
If you try to guess what's "fundamental" you run into all the problems of a planned economy. If you stick to what will make you a millionaire then you know you're producing something people actually want, and the invisible hand keeps everything efficient.
We have a fairly new bunch of technologies with the internet. We're still at the point where people are exploring the problem space, what our technology can solve, what it can't solve and suggesting future directions. We're looking at the "adjacent possible" to quote Stuart Kauffman.
To put it another way, we have a new tool, all of this is just testing this new tool against the world to see where it works and where it doesn't.
We've had this in Boston for literally 10 years: Garment Valet (started by Northeastern undergrads as Husky Express). Great service. "Uber for laundry" before Uber. Surprised they weren't mentioned. Nothing new here.
There's another earlier-stage one in NYC that I've used a couple times called LaundryPuppy -- guess they missed out on the article. What I think's interesting about those guys as opposed to Wash.io etc is they partner more closely with specific mom and pop cleaners (more like delivery.com), so the prices feel a bit more reasonable. Also, seems like they ditched the app in favor of SMS, which is sort of unconventional today but actually not terrible for laundry.
Reminds me of a real-life version of something from Pynchon's Bleeding Edge -- inching toward parody, but still believable. (In this case, unlike in the novel, because it's actually true...)