How two start-ups started laundry enterprise with N3,000
Abimbola Sanni and Adaeze Amalu are co-founders of A&A Cleaning Services Limited. The business offers cleaning and laundry services to homes at what founders call ‘affordable rates’. Abimbola and Adaeze started their business in 2016 with N3000 and the business has grown since starting.
The initial capital was used for the purchase of mops, buckets brooms, detergents, disinfectants and towels for their business.
The young entrepreneurs who are in their early twenties started out by cleaning and doing laundry for working-class family and friends and had insufficient time to do house chores. The demand for their services kept increasing and they both decided to commercialise their venture and, in 2016, established the A&A Cleaning Business.
The partners stated that despite recession hitting the country, the demand for their services had been on the rise as home cleaning continues to be a necessity for workers that have little or no time to do it personally.
“We wouldn’t say our business was affected by the recession. Our customers spend 90 percent of their time working and so our service is a necessity to them. We have also structured our pricing such that is it friendly and still profitable,” they both said.
When asked what their challenges were since starting their dry cleaning business, Adaeze said that despite the professional services they offered to clients, a lot of them still wanted low rates. According to Adaeze, both of them were making efforts in addressing the issue of pricing. She stated that with the quality of their service, they often ended up getting referrals from previous customers.
To improve on their business strategy and offer better services, the two young entrepreneurs designed a customer perception survey to ascertain from their clients areas to improve on.
“For us at A&A Cleaning Services, customer satisfaction is the most paramount to us. We send out questionnaire after every job to get feedback and suggestions which we incorporate as much as possible to improve our services,” Adaeze said.
When asked what they would tell their younger selves, Adaeze said she would tell her younger self not to procrastinate. In her words, “If I had the chance, I would tell my younger self not to procrastinate. I know it is going to be hard and a lot of people are going to say no but keep up pushing and in no time you will realise your dreams.”
Abimbola, on her part, said she would tell her younger self to believe in whatever she set her mind on irrespective of how different it might be. She added that she will tell her younger self to keep working hard to achieve its set goals.
The partners urged the government to improve infrastructure in the country as it would aid the growth and survival of start-ups. According to them, the poor power supply was a major challenge threatening their business as they spent 50 percent of their costs on diesel to power their washing machines for the laundry arm of the business.
Josephine Okojie