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How I Built This with Guy Raz

How I Built Resilience: Ajay Prakash and James Joun of Rinse

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.831.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2020

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rinse is a laundry and dry-cleaning app started by college friends Ajay Prakash and James Joun in 2013. Since March, Rinse's dry cleaning service has seen a drop in orders, but their laundry arm has remained steady, allowing them to avoid layoffs during the COVID-19 crisis. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

0:07.0

Download the app today.

0:09.0

New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.

0:13.0

As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.

0:17.0

So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.

0:24.0

Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.

0:27.0

Hello everyone and welcome to how I built this resilience edition.

0:31.0

On these episodes, we're talking with entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how they're thinking creatively during such a disruptive time.

0:40.0

And today, we're going to hear from the co-founders of Rinse, Ajay Prakash and James June.

0:45.0

Rinse is a laundry and dry cleaning service that picks up, cleans, and delivers clothes right to their customers' doorsteps.

0:52.0

Rinse was founded in 2013 when Ajay wanted to start a business, so he approached his college friend James, who'd worked at his parents' dry cleaning shop as a kid.

1:03.0

This year, Rinse has seen a drop in dry cleaning orders, but their laundry service has stayed steady, and they've been able to avoid layoffs so far.

1:12.0

I spoke with Ajay and James from their office where they're practicing the social distancing in order to keep their essential business running.

1:21.0

Explain what is Rinse? How does it work?

1:24.0

Yeah, Rinse in its simplest form is pick up and delivery of dry cleaning and laundry.

1:29.0

We started in 2013 to give you a little bit of the background.

1:33.0

At the time, I was looking to start a company and I was excited about a couple of trends.

1:37.0

One was the idea of bringing technology to old school industries, and then James actually came to me with the idea of doing something in dry cleaning.

1:45.0

You guys are college friends, right?

1:47.0

I've been there with Ajay for 20 years, and my background was more in healthcare, but my first job in life was helping out my parents in the dry cleaner store.

1:54.0

They put me to work when I was young. My uncle is an onster also in the industry.

2:00.0

As long as I can remember during family gatherings, we would talk shop, we would talk dry cleaning all the time.

...

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