In Flint, Michigan, Leo and Mio Robinson are proving that a laundromat can be about far more than washing clothes. Good Laundry, the nonprofit they built alongside their church, Good Church, grew out of a simple question they started asking their neighbors while serving hot meals during the early days of the pandemic: what do you need besides food? The answer, a safe and affordable place to clean their clothes, led the Robinsons to a discovery they hadn't expected: families in their own community going without laundry access, kids skipping school over dirty clothes, and parents losing jobs over uniforms they couldn't keep clean. That discovery became a 17-machine, $500,000 facility, fully paid for, not-for-profit laundromat.

On this episode, Leo and Mio join Full Cycle Host, Matt DeWolf, to talk about discovering "hygiene poverty" in their own backyard, why they deliberately kept Good Laundry and Good Church as two separate nonprofits with two separate entrances, and how a space built for washing clothes has become a place where kids do homework, families build community, and strangers walk in and, without being asked, start telling their life stories. They also talk about Good Laundry's Monday closures, when the facility is set aside entirely to serve women affected by sex trafficking, and what's next for the organization: replicating the model in other underserved communities and launching a wash-and-fold pickup and delivery service for neighbors who can't get to the laundromat at all.

Before Ken Wimberly became chief visionary officer and co-founder of Laundry Luv, he watched an $800,000 business go to zero — and had to call every investor to tell them so. On this episode of Full Cycle, host Matt DeWolf talks with Wimberly about the anxiety and depression that followed, the morning routine and structure that pulled him out of it, and how a real estate deal in Abilene, Texas, turned into a laundromat company built around one idea: the store should feel less like a chore and more like a community hub. Wimberly also shares how his military school background led Laundry Luv to run on EOS (the Entrepreneurial Operating System), why every store manager gets a $50 budget to solve problems without asking permission, and the reading habit he credits with 10 to 15 extra books a year.

This episode is sponsored by Eastern Funding.

Before Ken Wimberly became chief visionary officer and co-founder of Laundry Luv, he watched an $800,000 business go to zero — and had to call every investor to tell them so. On this episode of Full Cycle, host Matt DeWolf talks with Wimberly about the anxiety and depression that followed, the morning routine and structure that pulled him out of it, and how a real estate deal in Abilene, Texas, turned into a laundromat company built around one idea: the store should feel less like a chore and more like a community hub. Wimberly also shares how his military school background led Laundry Luv to run on EOS (the Entrepreneurial Operating System), why every store manager gets a $50 budget to solve problems without asking permission, and the reading habit he credits with 10 to 15 extra books a year.

This episode is sponsored by Eastern Funding.

On this episode of Full Cycle, host Matt DeWolf talks with Brian Wallace, president and CEO of CLA, The Laundry Association, about a side of the organization's work that rarely gets discussed: legislative and regulatory advocacy on behalf of laundromat owners.

Wallace walks through CLA's new Advocacy Impact Report, which puts a dollar figure, $7.4 billion, on decades of legislative wins. That includes the effort to have laundromats formally classified as essential businesses at the federal level during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing work to preserve state sales tax exemptions in states such as Louisiana, Nebraska and Connecticut, and recent amendments to microfiber filtration legislation in California, Illinois and New York that excluded commercial washers installed in laundromats from the requirement. He credits board member Jamie Sewell with pushing him to quantify work that had largely lived in institutional memory.

Wallace also explains why the sales tax exemption, which currently applies in 41 of the 44 states that collect a sales tax, remains one of CLA's most persistent issues, and how bringing legislators into member stores, including visits with a California assembly member and a New York state senator, has helped clear up misconceptions about how laundromats operate and who they serve. The conversation closes with a look at other issues CLA tracks, from coin and currency composition to wastewater and PFAS concerns, and Wallace's advice for owners who want to get involved locally.

Listeners can find the CLA Advocacy Impact Report at laundryassociation.org.

This episode is brought to you by Eastern Funding, which has provided financing for laundromat purchases, construction and equipment since 1997. Learn more at easternfunding.com/laundry.

Thanks for giving us a turn.

On this episode of Full Cycle, host Matt DeWolf talks with Brian Wallace, president and CEO of CLA, The Laundry Association, about a side of the organization's work that rarely gets discussed: legislative and regulatory advocacy on behalf of laundromat owners.

Wallace walks through CLA's new Advocacy Impact Report, which puts a dollar figure, $7.4 billion, on decades of legislative wins. That includes the effort to have laundromats formally classified as essential businesses at the federal level during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing work to preserve state sales tax exemptions in states such as Louisiana, Nebraska and Connecticut, and recent amendments to microfiber filtration legislation in California, Illinois and New York that excluded commercial washers installed in laundromats from the requirement. He credits board member Jamie Sewell with pushing him to quantify work that had largely lived in institutional memory.

Wallace also explains why the sales tax exemption, which currently applies in 41 of the 44 states that collect a sales tax, remains one of CLA's most persistent issues, and how bringing legislators into member stores, including visits with a California assembly member and a New York state senator, has helped clear up misconceptions about how laundromats operate and who they serve. The conversation closes with a look at other issues CLA tracks, from coin and currency composition to wastewater and PFAS concerns, and Wallace's advice for owners who want to get involved locally.

Listeners can find the CLA Advocacy Impact Report at laundryassociation.org.

This episode is brought to you by Eastern Funding, which has provided financing for laundromat purchases, construction and equipment since 1997. Learn more at easternfunding.com/laundry.

Thanks for giving us a turn.

Joe Ebanks did not set out to become a laundromat owner. A real estate investor for more than 25 years, Ebanks was negotiating a home purchase from a woman named Linda when the deal fell through. Weeks later, Linda called with an unexpected offer: would he be interested in buying her laundromat instead. Ebanks and his wife, Lisa, knew nothing about the business beyond the old assumption that laundromats were reliable cash generators, but they agreed to take a look. What they found was a rundown, un-air-conditioned laundromat in Florida, sweltering under the heat of running dryers. Ebanks negotiated a seller-financed deal, put $50,000 down and agreed to pay off the rest over time, closing on his first laundromat with no real plan for how to run it. With no formal training, the couple learned the business hands-on, repairing machines themselves and eventually writing the standard operating procedures their employees still follow today. A second, larger acquisition followed within months, again financed through owner terms.

As the business grew, so did the couple's focus on data and technology. Where many laundromat owners still think in quarters and manual price changes, Joe and Lisa manage pricing remotely and test dynamic pricing that shifts by the day. Their pickup and delivery service has become their most profitable addition, bringing in more than $28,000 in a single month. Ebanks credits much of that growth to a mindset shift away from viewing other laundromat owners as competitors and toward treating them as collaborators, a philosophy that eventually helped his business absorb an entire regional territory. That same instinct led the couple to launch Wealth Off Washers, a venture built to help others break into the laundromat business the way they wish someone had helped them.

Looking ahead, Ebanks sees the physical laundromat becoming less central to the business model, describing it instead as the infrastructure behind a broader, technology-driven laundry service, one where unattended locations, delivery routes and commercial accounts can all be managed from a single app. Asked what advice he would offer listeners, Ebanks pointed not to laundry but to personal fundamentals: get closer to faith, take health seriously and eat better, habits he believes make everything else, including business, work better.

Thanks for giving us a turn.

Joe Ebanks did not set out to become a laundromat owner. A real estate investor for more than 25 years, Ebanks was negotiating a home purchase from a woman named Linda when the deal fell through. Weeks later, Linda called with an unexpected offer: would he be interested in buying her laundromat instead. Ebanks and his wife, Lisa, knew nothing about the business beyond the old assumption that laundromats were reliable cash generators, but they agreed to take a look. What they found was a rundown, un-air-conditioned laundromat in Florida, sweltering under the heat of running dryers. Ebanks negotiated a seller-financed deal, put $50,000 down and agreed to pay off the rest over time, closing on his first laundromat with no real plan for how to run it. With no formal training, the couple learned the business hands-on, repairing machines themselves and eventually writing the standard operating procedures their employees still follow today. A second, larger acquisition followed within months, again financed through owner terms.

As the business grew, so did the couple's focus on data and technology. Where many laundromat owners still think in quarters and manual price changes, Joe and Lisa manage pricing remotely and test dynamic pricing that shifts by the day. Their pickup and delivery service has become their most profitable addition, bringing in more than $28,000 in a single month. Ebanks credits much of that growth to a mindset shift away from viewing other laundromat owners as competitors and toward treating them as collaborators, a philosophy that eventually helped his business absorb an entire regional territory. That same instinct led the couple to launch Wealth Off Washers, a venture built to help others break into the laundromat business the way they wish someone had helped them.

Looking ahead, Ebanks sees the physical laundromat becoming less central to the business model, describing it instead as the infrastructure behind a broader, technology-driven laundry service, one where unattended locations, delivery routes and commercial accounts can all be managed from a single app. Asked what advice he would offer listeners, Ebanks pointed not to laundry but to personal fundamentals: get closer to faith, take health seriously and eat better, habits he believes make everything else, including business, work better.

Thanks for giving us a turn.

Catherine Fisher never planned to enter the laundry industry. A longtime real estate agent in Corvallis, Oregon, she built a side business managing about a dozen Airbnb properties, a portfolio that produced an overwhelming amount of laundry. Towels, sheets, blankets and pillows piled up faster than she expected, and for years she paid someone else to handle it at a local laundromat.

The math that changed everything

At some point, Fisher did the math. She was spending tens of thousands of dollars a year paying someone to wash laundry at another person's business. Her first idea, buying commercial machines for her own house, fell apart the moment she saw the price tag. That's when the obvious question surfaced: if she was going to own the equipment anyway, why not let other people pay to use it too. In other words, why not open a laundromat.

Finding a space in a town that didn't make it easy

Corvallis, home to Oregon State University, has a population of roughly 55,000, and zoning rules there made finding a location difficult. Laundry use wasn't permitted in most commercial areas. Fisher eventually found a former gym in a strip mall where the original permit language happened to include the word "laundry," which grandfathered the space in for her use. She converted it into a 4,000-square-foot facility with 26 washers and 32 dryers, a build-out that started from the ground up.

Building more than a laundromat

Fisher named the business Adam's Washateria after a childhood friend who died from complications of ALS, a disease he was diagnosed with during his military service. He lived 15 and a half years after his diagnosis and encouraged Fisher to pursue the business before he died. She wanted the space to reflect his humor and dignity, which shows up in details like a disco ball and neon lighting.

Rather than maximizing the number of machines she could fit into the space, Fisher prioritized room for a kids' area, couches and wide folding tables. She also pays her staff well, even though it slows the business's path to profitability, because she wants employees who genuinely want to be there and who build relationships with regular customers.

Laundry as a form of connection

Fisher describes moments that stand out to her more than the business side of things: helping a customer who was a few dollars short, watching a young couple bring in 260 pounds of laundry they had been putting off because money was tight, and spending two free weeks of laundry service around the store's opening, during which she met a woman washing her hospitalized sister's clothes and bedding.

For Fisher, the laundromat became less about the machines and more about offering people a space where they feel seen. In a town that hadn't seen a new laundromat in 20 years despite adding 20,000 residents, she also saw a clear opportunity, one built as much on community as on convenience.

Thanks for giving us a turn.

Catherine Fisher never planned to enter the laundry industry. A longtime real estate agent in Corvallis, Oregon, she built a side business managing about a dozen Airbnb properties, a portfolio that produced an overwhelming amount of laundry. Towels, sheets, blankets and pillows piled up faster than she expected, and for years she paid someone else to handle it at a local laundromat.

The math that changed everything

At some point, Fisher did the math. She was spending tens of thousands of dollars a year paying someone to wash laundry at another person's business. Her first idea, buying commercial machines for her own house, fell apart the moment she saw the price tag. That's when the obvious question surfaced: if she was going to own the equipment anyway, why not let other people pay to use it too. In other words, why not open a laundromat.

Finding a space in a town that didn't make it easy

Corvallis, home to Oregon State University, has a population of roughly 55,000, and zoning rules there made finding a location difficult. Laundry use wasn't permitted in most commercial areas. Fisher eventually found a former gym in a strip mall where the original permit language happened to include the word "laundry," which grandfathered the space in for her use. She converted it into a 4,000-square-foot facility with 26 washers and 32 dryers, a build-out that started from the ground up.

Building more than a laundromat

Fisher named the business Adam's Washateria after a childhood friend who died from complications of ALS, a disease he was diagnosed with during his military service. He lived 15 and a half years after his diagnosis and encouraged Fisher to pursue the business before he died. She wanted the space to reflect his humor and dignity, which shows up in details like a disco ball and neon lighting.

Rather than maximizing the number of machines she could fit into the space, Fisher prioritized room for a kids' area, couches and wide folding tables. She also pays her staff well, even though it slows the business's path to profitability, because she wants employees who genuinely want to be there and who build relationships with regular customers.

Laundry as a form of connection

Fisher describes moments that stand out to her more than the business side of things: helping a customer who was a few dollars short, watching a young couple bring in 260 pounds of laundry they had been putting off because money was tight, and spending two free weeks of laundry service around the store's opening, during which she met a woman washing her hospitalized sister's clothes and bedding.

For Fisher, the laundromat became less about the machines and more about offering people a space where they feel seen. In a town that hadn't seen a new laundromat in 20 years despite adding 20,000 residents, she also saw a clear opportunity, one built as much on community as on convenience.

Thanks for giving us a turn.

In this episode of Full Cycle, host Matt DeWolf checks back in with Tim Johnson for the third installment of his series following the launch of Operation Laundry, a destination laundromat in Holland, Michigan. The earlier episodes covered Johnson's decision to leverage his 401(k) to fund the project, the construction process and his approach to building community and staffing systems. This conversation picks up after opening day.

Johnson shares that Operation Laundry officially opened on June 1, roughly a month behind his original May target. Construction took about 90 days after a 50-day demolition process he handled himself. He describes the response from the community as overwhelmingly positive, noting the business has collected more than 360 five-star reviews in five or six weeks, which he attributes to building relationships with customers and asking for feedback directly.

The conversation also covers the more difficult realities of the first weeks in business. Johnson talks about running the laundromat at a loss while working to reduce labor costs, since staffing is the one expense he can control. He recounts unexpected challenges, including customers who ignore posted signage, an aversion to technology among older customers and two flooding incidents caused by improperly sized bulkheads. He explains the fixes put in place since, including remote water shutoff controls and floor sensors that alert him to leaks.

Johnson and DeWolf discuss the ongoing effort to build commercial accounts and wash-and-fold service, which Johnson sees as necessary to move the business toward profitability, since self-serve washing alone is expected to break even. He closes with a piece of advice he attributes to a college football coach: the value of consistently taking action, which he ties back to his own habit of showing up and doing the work even when progress feels slow.

Thanks for giving us a turn.