Mobile Laundry - Brilliant Business Model

Mobile Laundry, most of Indians are not familiar with this term, because they either wash at their home or give it to dhobis (washerman). When you consider developed countries, they have launders where more than 10 washing machine are available. Customers take their clothes and wash them there. Detergent, water etc etc are available in shop, charging per wash depends on the owner. Charges are either per wash or per kg based, which varies from location to location.

What is "Mobile Laundry"

Erecting 10 washing machines and providing this service is a proven business in many countries, but considering India, it is not very famous. Keeping in mind the small/medium scale budget, renting a shop is not advisable at initial  stages, until you are monetary wise strong enough to wait for 1 year to get your returns back. Mobile Laundry model is a movable container which can hold space for 2 washing machines, a water tank, a dryer, waster water collector, ironing table. This model can be customized to any format based on ones creativity. One sample model which we can think of will look like this.

How it works?

We need to take care of quite a big list of things listed below. 

Branded / Non-branded

Light color / Dark Color

Color fading - Yes / No

Detergent to be used - Expensive / Regular

Scented After Wash - Yes / No

Pressing - Yes / No

Once we have sorted this out, tag the clothes with billno and hand over the bill to customer with 24 Hour delivery promise. Added value would be to message them once clothes are ready.

Whom to target ?

You have to target the busy people having very less time for washing. Start promoting this concept by printing pamphlets, flyers, advertisement in local daily's or weekly's. Bachelors, Students, Working people, restaurants can be best target.

Initial Investment

Initially you can start with low capacity washing machine around 7 - 10 Kg capacity, and once you start getting more customers, purchase a commercial heavy duty washing machine. Per kg would be approximately 4 shirts, and assuming you charge Rs.50 per kg, one time full wash would be around Rs.500, out of which detergent + water + electricity + labor + rent would be Rs.300 maximum. ROI is clearly 65% which keeps increasing as you build good returning customers.

Start Fountain Soda Business

Earlier I discussed about options of starting Sugarcane business, its investment and running cost, its profit percentage. In this post, I have discussed in detail about starting a flavored soda business. This is also a standalone machine which requires very small space. Soda machine varies in different sizes and we can order based on the size of our shop.

Floor Size: Soda machine is kiosk form business, so this can be placed in walkway of malls or to a side of big super market or placed outside a crowded commercial spot. Based on space available we can order different size of soda machine. The more the size, the more number of flavors available in the machine, a normal small size machine will be 23"x33"x36", for 4 flavors to a maximum of 66"x32"x32" for 20 flavors.

Machine Price: This machine costs from Rs.1 Lakh to Rs.2 Lakh based on the number of flavors requested. When you purchase or make a deal, you should also get details of how many CO2 cylinders are provided along with this machine. Minimum 2 CO2 cylinders are required, one for use and one for refill, this is to avoid business shutdown because of CO2 shortage.

Power Consumption of the machine is around 900-1000watts, so 1unit of electricity is used for operating machine for an hour, which can produce around 500 cups of Soda, assuming 10 seconds for one cup.

500 Cups of Soda contains (250ml per cup): 250*500 = 125000 ml (125 Liters) of Soda

Material	Cost / 500 Cups
Mineral Water (Rs.25/20Liters can)	Rs:160.00
Paper Cup (Rs.0.40/cup)	Rs: 200.00
Flavours (Rs:100/Liter and 1gm/cup)	Rs:50.00
CO2 (1.2gm/cup @ Rs.100/kg)	Rs.600.00
Power Consumption (Rs: 10/unit)	Rs:10.00
Total	Rs:1020.00
Total (per cup)	Rs:2.00
Labor + Rent + Miscellaneous charges (per cup)	Rs:0.50

So for a cup of soda, real working cost is Rs.2.50 per cup, and based on the shop location, it can be sold for Rs.5 or Rs.7 or Rs.10 even, which is 100% - 300% profit. Let me know if you find this post useful.

Fruit Candy - Small Scale Business Idea

Fruit Candy in India are not very popular, when the big brand players rule the market with their expensive advertisements. Fruit Candies are also called crystallized candies, produced by merging fruits in sugar syrup or honey. When they are submerged fruit absorbs the sweetness and can stay eatable for months, when stored in cold place.

1. Prepare sugar syrup (Honey can be healthy alternative) in two concentration, thin and thick. 
2. Use dry fuits like dry jack or dry fig or dates or dry grapes or amla etc, cut them in to medium pieces
3. Soak them in thin sugar syrup for a week, so the fruit absorbs the sweetness
4. Cover the sweet soaked fruit with the thick concentration of sugar syrup.
5. Leave them to dry to give candy look.

This candy is healthy with honey and dry fruits. This is a new area not much explored in India, if properly marketed, this can be advertised with medicinal values, and can open new segment of candy business. Good Luck.