PHOTO
02 March 2017
By Shane McGinley
When Rami Shaar gets into his stride talking about the Washmen app it can be very difficult to get a word in edgeways. But his passion for the startup is certainly not all talk: the number of customers using the app is growing rapidly and he recently closed a deal with an international investor to fund expansion plans.
Launched in October 2015, Washmen is a laundry and dry cleaning app which allows customers to request pickups and drop offs within 30-minute time windows, with payment by credit card. Operating across most major urban areas of Dubai emirate, the company processes an average of around 3,000 items a day, with most customers using the app an average of twice a month.
“This is much bigger than we expected,” according to Shaar, who previously worked at ride-hailing firm Uber. “Right now we are growing about 35 percent month-on-month,” he said, adding that the app was currently generating around $150,000 in sales per month.
While Shaar spent $2,000 on an initial public relations (PR) campaign and he spends around the same per month on Facebook advertising, one of the big unexpected challenges the app faced in its first few months after launch was keeping up with demand as word quickly spread about the service.
The team had to move quickly and come up with creative solutions. One was giving users the option to leave their laundry outside their door for pickup if they were not home at the scheduled time and to allow drivers to leave the items at the door as well when they delivered them.
While this solution would have been impossible in some major global cities due to security concerns, Dubai’s high levels of surveillance and security meant this soon became a popular option.
“45 percent of our customers use the pickup and drop off at door, which is really high… It is a shocking number as it gives you an indicator of how comfortable people are in Dubai,” Shaar said.
“I think what is interesting is we haven’t had a single issue when it comes to theft, maybe one issue, but in that specific scenario it was the security guard thinking it was garbage and actually throwing it out, which is unfortunate.”
The company’s base has only seven full-time employees since the system is all automated and each order is sent to whichever driver is closest to the pickup point when it is due. The items are then processed to a network of laundry firms, who operate a revenue sharing partnership with Washmen, and the app’s drivers then complete the circle and deliver the items back to the customer at the designated time.
Happy hour
Shaar declined to reveal how many drivers are employed by the app, saying it would “be shocking if customers knew how many drivers are operating it”, but did reveal some of the tactics used to stay on top of demand.
While Uber charges more if there is a spike in demand in a certain area, Washmen uses a ‘happy hour’ system to boost drivers’ productivity.
“When Washmen is busy in an area, it offers discounts to get more pick-up customers at the same time in the same area – therefore increasing efficiency and the number of customers per driver.”
While errors were made when demand was rising fast, Shaar was adamant that customer service would be top notch. He and his business partner Jad Haloui went out with the delivery team to meet customers and get face-to-face feedback. They also invested in customer service, hiring staff with experience in the hospitality sector and dealing with the demands of high net worth individuals. As a result, Shaar reported that the retention rate among users is around 80 percent.
Risk appetite
Born and educated in Canada, Shaar worked as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley before he moved to Dubai in 2012. After a stint as a private equity analyst he worked in operations and logistics at Uber until he had the idea to launch Washmen in 2015. One day while he was at home, Shaar ordered a laundry pickup and when the driver arrived he quizzed him on their operations and a germ of an idea developed.
A month later he managed to get accepted onto a program at Flat6Labs, an Abu Dhabi-based accelerator scheme for startups. Magnus Olsson, a co-founder of local ride-hailing app Careem, was appointed to be his mentor and in June 2015 Shaar pitched his idea to investors at a demo day, securing $400,000 in initial seed funding from a range of investors from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
In November last year, just 13 months after it launched operations, Washmen secured its first round of official financing from an international venture capital firm. While Shaar declined to reveal the name of the firm, he said it has invested in similar apps in the United States and Europe and is keen to expand Washmen beyond the United Arab Emirates.
“We are very excited. I never expected to get such investors… They want to expand internationally,” he said, adding that he was forced to look overseas as many venture capitalist (VC) firms in the region are too conservative.
“The VCs here don’t have the risk appetite of those outside the region. The one thing I would say to VCs is that it is very good to be aggressive and take risks as that pushes founders to do more and ultimately allow startups in the region to go international and to go past the Dubai bubble,” he said.
With heavyweight funding now behind the company and a successful expansion into Abu Dhabi emirate in December, Shaar has bigger plans to widen the services offered by the app, but is hesitant to give away too many details.
“What’s next will be a big surprise. A new service that is very, very unique that hasn’t been seen in the region… We want it to be more automated. From the laundry basket in your bedroom to in your closet. We have a very interesting plan we are working on we are going to roll out, that we are very excited about.”
Many customers will be waiting eagerly see what the company’s next step will be.
© Zawya 2017
By Shane McGinley
When Rami Shaar gets into his stride talking about the Washmen app it can be very difficult to get a word in edgeways. But his passion for the startup is certainly not all talk: the number of customers using the app is growing rapidly and he recently closed a deal with an international investor to fund expansion plans.
Launched in October 2015, Washmen is a laundry and dry cleaning app which allows customers to request pickups and drop offs within 30-minute time windows, with payment by credit card. Operating across most major urban areas of Dubai emirate, the company processes an average of around 3,000 items a day, with most customers using the app an average of twice a month.
“This is much bigger than we expected,” according to Shaar, who previously worked at ride-hailing firm Uber. “Right now we are growing about 35 percent month-on-month,” he said, adding that the app was currently generating around $150,000 in sales per month.
While Shaar spent $2,000 on an initial public relations (PR) campaign and he spends around the same per month on Facebook advertising, one of the big unexpected challenges the app faced in its first few months after launch was keeping up with demand as word quickly spread about the service.
The team had to move quickly and come up with creative solutions. One was giving users the option to leave their laundry outside their door for pickup if they were not home at the scheduled time and to allow drivers to leave the items at the door as well when they delivered them.
While this solution would have been impossible in some major global cities due to security concerns, Dubai’s high levels of surveillance and security meant this soon became a popular option.
“45 percent of our customers use the pickup and drop off at door, which is really high… It is a shocking number as it gives you an indicator of how comfortable people are in Dubai,” Shaar said.
“I think what is interesting is we haven’t had a single issue when it comes to theft, maybe one issue, but in that specific scenario it was the security guard thinking it was garbage and actually throwing it out, which is unfortunate.”
The company’s base has only seven full-time employees since the system is all automated and each order is sent to whichever driver is closest to the pickup point when it is due. The items are then processed to a network of laundry firms, who operate a revenue sharing partnership with Washmen, and the app’s drivers then complete the circle and deliver the items back to the customer at the designated time.
Happy hour
Shaar declined to reveal how many drivers are employed by the app, saying it would “be shocking if customers knew how many drivers are operating it”, but did reveal some of the tactics used to stay on top of demand.
While Uber charges more if there is a spike in demand in a certain area, Washmen uses a ‘happy hour’ system to boost drivers’ productivity.
“When Washmen is busy in an area, it offers discounts to get more pick-up customers at the same time in the same area – therefore increasing efficiency and the number of customers per driver.”
While errors were made when demand was rising fast, Shaar was adamant that customer service would be top notch. He and his business partner Jad Haloui went out with the delivery team to meet customers and get face-to-face feedback. They also invested in customer service, hiring staff with experience in the hospitality sector and dealing with the demands of high net worth individuals. As a result, Shaar reported that the retention rate among users is around 80 percent.
Risk appetite
Born and educated in Canada, Shaar worked as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley before he moved to Dubai in 2012. After a stint as a private equity analyst he worked in operations and logistics at Uber until he had the idea to launch Washmen in 2015. One day while he was at home, Shaar ordered a laundry pickup and when the driver arrived he quizzed him on their operations and a germ of an idea developed.
A month later he managed to get accepted onto a program at Flat6Labs, an Abu Dhabi-based accelerator scheme for startups. Magnus Olsson, a co-founder of local ride-hailing app Careem, was appointed to be his mentor and in June 2015 Shaar pitched his idea to investors at a demo day, securing $400,000 in initial seed funding from a range of investors from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
In November last year, just 13 months after it launched operations, Washmen secured its first round of official financing from an international venture capital firm. While Shaar declined to reveal the name of the firm, he said it has invested in similar apps in the United States and Europe and is keen to expand Washmen beyond the United Arab Emirates.
“We are very excited. I never expected to get such investors… They want to expand internationally,” he said, adding that he was forced to look overseas as many venture capitalist (VC) firms in the region are too conservative.
“The VCs here don’t have the risk appetite of those outside the region. The one thing I would say to VCs is that it is very good to be aggressive and take risks as that pushes founders to do more and ultimately allow startups in the region to go international and to go past the Dubai bubble,” he said.
With heavyweight funding now behind the company and a successful expansion into Abu Dhabi emirate in December, Shaar has bigger plans to widen the services offered by the app, but is hesitant to give away too many details.
“What’s next will be a big surprise. A new service that is very, very unique that hasn’t been seen in the region… We want it to be more automated. From the laundry basket in your bedroom to in your closet. We have a very interesting plan we are working on we are going to roll out, that we are very excited about.”
Many customers will be waiting eagerly see what the company’s next step will be.
© Zawya 2017