In 2019, Sanya, who also works as a Medical Laboratory Technologist, started looking for a side job after her then-6-year-old daughter was diagnosed with autism and she lost her full-time job, and eventually stumbled upon the on-demand laundry platform, SudShare.
Sanya found that the side hustle is indeed lucrative. She usually fulfilled about 12 hours of laundry requests per day and just last year, she made $46,000. Even though she returned to work as a medical professional in March 2020, she continued her side hustle.
Sanya and her husband decided to buy the laundromat she was eyeing for 8 years prior. It has always been Sanya’s dream since they got married but it was held off due to lack of funds. When the laundromat went back on the market in March 2022, they bought it outright for $200,000, using a using a large portion of her earnings from SudShare.
After nearly 6 months of renovating, they opened the doors to The Laundry Room. Sanya spends 2 to 3 hours in the laundromat daily, while her husband runs the business with four employees.
“You have to sacrifice a lot to know that where you’re going, the endpoint, is going to pay off,” Sanya told CNBC.
“I’ve given up family time, I’ve given up my date nights. I’ve given up a lot for SudShare at this point.”
Sanya dreams of turning The Laundry Room into a known laundry brand by opening more locations. She and her husband are currently working on their second location.
“I refuse to accept that you can’t have good service in our community,” she says. “I’m ready to change that and that’s what I’m doing, one laundromat at a time.”