When Christian Sanya lost her job, she had no idea what she was going to do.
Sanya, who is a mom and wife, shared with ESSENCE that she’d continued being pulled in different directions when she found out her daughter was diagnosed with autism. In need of a quick source of income, she turned to on-demand service work.
“I started to do Instacart and one of the customers told me I should do something called Sudshare (Poplin), this laundry app, because of my meticulousness. And I kept thinking like, I’m not doing nobody’s laundry.” Ironically enough though, despite Sanya’s initial trepidation, she took the suggestion as a sign.
“I’ve always wanted a laundromat since I was a teen,” sharing she’d equated the business with wealth because it was considered a necessity in most communities. After some thought, she signed up for the app and soon after began receiving repeat customers due to her efficiency.
“I kept getting these rave reviews.”
Over time, she’d gone back to work full-time as a medical lab technologist earning 76k/year, but still held on to the side hustle and quickly realized her growing clientele was too much to handle on her own.
“I needed help, so I hired a few people to take on some of the orders,” she said. Before she knew it, she was pulling in almost $4k/month alone in just laundry orders. Last year, she made $46,000 on the platform.
The earnings helped her and her husband realize her dream of opening a laundromat of their own in Lanham, Maryland named the Laundry Room. Her team of four employees who started out washing laundry with her via Sudshare, brings in about $24,000 in revenue per month.
Now she’s opening a second location and is planning to open a third, and she acknowledges that all of it was due to her humility.
“I was really embarrassed to admit to people that I was doing laundry for a living in the beginning,” she revealed. “It’s definitely been humbling but everyone has to start somewhere. No one should ever be made to feel ashamed of making a living for yourself and your family. I’m so grateful.”