Maroochydore business Laundry Lady set to double $1m revenue with national expansion

The founder and single mum behind a Sunshine Coast mobile laundry company is expected to double her $1m revenue following surging growth from recently expanding interstate.

A Maroochydore single mum’s mobile laundry business which began as a side hustle is set to more than double its $1m revenue through expanding her interstate client base.

Susan Toft originally created Laundry Lady on the Gold Coast in 2012 while working for a corporate marketing company with the long-term aim of creating better work-life balance for her family.

The first couple of years saw Ms Toft earn about $60,000 in annual revenue before she set up an online booking system and subcontractor business model in 2016 which saw her make $200,000.

After moving to the Sunshine Coast in 2017 for family reasons she left her marketing career when the pandemic swept the country to focus on growing Laundry Lady by expanding across Queensland and interstate.

Her business last year generated more than $1m in revenue which is projected to double by the next 10 months.

Ms Toft said going full time into Laundry Lady enabled her to expand her contractor base interstate and fine tune her operations to scale up her business.

“We’ve had 900 per cent growth in revenue since Covid first hit and again that’s because not only did I reset the business during that time frame, but it’s also because as a business we’re an essential service so we’ve been able to stay open right throughout lockdown,” Ms Toft said.

Laundry Lady founder Susan Toft.

“Now that we’re starting to come out of those periods we’re getting ready for an even bigger jump in our revenue.”

The business model for the company’s door-to-door laundry service consists of a remote workforce of independent contractors who earn an 85 per cent commission from each job.

Laundry Lady retains the remaining 15 per cent which is invested back into the business in areas such as marketing and service development.

The Maroochydore-based company currently has about 60 subcontractors and more than 3000 customers nationally from residents to her fastest growing client bases including property managers, beauty salons, and NDIS recipients.

Last week, Ms Toft launched the business in Adelaide and already has established contractors and customers in metro and regional Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.

Laundry Lady's business comprises a workforce of independent contractors who carry out the company's door-to-door mobile laundry services.

She soon plans to branch out into Canberra and have 200 subcontractors this year along with the long term goal of expanding internationally.

“I think I always had that vision from the start that it would be scalable,” Ms Toft said.

“I thought about franchising in the beginning but as the years went on and I learned more about it I realised it was very expensive to set up and it would be a very expensive purchase price for people to join the business, so I really didn’t want to use that type of model because I wanted mums who do want to earn $300 or $400 a week or couples who want to be able to make more.”