Conor Wilson and Pat McKenna aim to transform the laundry business. Sproose connects dry cleaning and laundry businesses to new customers and takes a cut of each transaction. It’s laundry on-demand.
There is an assumption that when starting a new business or coming up with a fresh idea, it must be unique to the market, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.
Sometimes, taking on a traditional sector and adding a modern twist can be a solution. It’s what Conor Wilson (above) and Pat McKenna did when they came up with the idea for Sproose.
Launched in May 2015, Sproose is an on-demand laundry and dry cleaning service. “We were solving the pain of laundry-day, a nightmare experienced by almost every human on Earth,” says Wilson.
“Sproose is funded by Enterprise Ireland and is currently in the High Potential Startup Program.”
Conor and Pat originally pitched the idea for their laundry app on RTÉ’s Dragons Den. When the show aired, Sproose received enormous attention from both the public and businesses within the dry cleaning and laundry industry.
“We had so many hits on the site that it crashed and we spent the next two days getting it back up and running. Interestingly, in that time we were contacted by some traditional laundry and dry cleaners. These local businesses faced a problem – they were unable to adapt to the changing consumer demands,” says Wilson. “This changed our thinking about what we could offer.”
Sproose connects dry cleaning and laundry businesses to new customers and takes a cut of each transaction. It’s laundry on-demand.
Sproose is funded by Enterprise Ireland and is currently in the High Potential Startup Program (HPSU). “This makes us eligible for match funding on our planned investment round later this year and [with this funding] we plan to expand our reach across Ireland, the UK and Chicago in the US,” says Wilson.
