I came across the story of Jono on the podcast Side Hustle Nation — and it fits perfectly my podcast theme investing differently and I want to share his extraordinary story with you. Jono is the owner of Nina’s Laundrette, a Melbourne-based laundry business with multiple revenue streams.
His story shows us one of the most underrated wealth building strategies available to any of us.
Not cryptocurrency. Not NFTs. Not the next big thing that everyone is talking about and nobody fully understands.
A laundromat.
I know. I know. Stay with me. Because this is not really a story about laundromats. It is about something much bigger — the willingness to see opportunity where everyone else sees ordinary. To invest in the un-sexy thing that nobody is fighting over. To walk into a space that most people walk past without a second glance — and ask the question that this entire season has been circling around.
How do I make this work differently?
Jono was investing in stocks. He had some properties. And he found himself wanting something more — not more in the sense of bigger or flashier or more impressive at a parties. More in the sense of freedom. Specifically — the freedom to choose how much of his time he gave to people for money by the time he turned forty.
That goal. That specific, personal, deeply intentional goal. Is where everything begins.
HIS INVESTMENT CHECKLIST
Before Jono bought anything, he did something that I believe is one of the most powerful and most overlooked steps in any investment journey.
He made a list.
Not a Wishlist. Not a dream board. A checklist. A set of specific, non-negotiable criteria that any investment would have to meet before he committed a single dollar to it.
It had to be relatively hands-off — he was working a full time job and did not want an investment that consumed the hours he was trying to buy back.
It had to be non-consolidated — Jono wanted an industry that was not dominated by large corporations — somewhere a small independent investor could walk in, apply their skills, and actually compete. Somewhere the big players had not yet swallowed everything whole. A laundromat fits that perfectly. Because nobody is building a laundromat empire. The industry is made up of individual owners — which means the person with the best systems, the best customer experience, and the best online presence wins. Not the person with the biggest budget.”
And it had to allow him to add value through his specific skills and knowledge — particularly technology and digital marketing. He was not just looking for an asset. He was looking for an asset that his particular expertise could make significantly more valuable.
I want you to hear that. Because I think most of us approach investing the other way around — we find an opportunity and only then ask whether we can make it work. Jono flipped that entirely. He defined exactly what he needed first. And then he went looking for what fit.
A laundromat fits every single criterion on his list.
Hands off — machines do the work. Non-consolidated — nobody is fighting over laundromats the way they fight over real estate in hot markets. And improvable through technology and digital skills — which we will get to. Because this is where Jono’s story becomes extraordinary.
He found a laundromat in Northcote, Australia. Not too far from where he lived. In the right price range. And he did something before he bought it that I think every investor should do but almost nobody does.
He verified the numbers himself.
He counted customers. At different times of day. Over two weeks. He tracked how much each customer spent on the machines. He took that data and extrapolated it across twelve months. And the number he arrived at matched the asking price almost exactly.
He paid AUD 83,000 — roughly $56,000 USD. Twenty percent from his own pocket. The rest was financed through a bank loan anchored by equity in an existing property.
And just like that — Jono owned a laundromat.
INVESTING IN EVERY LAYER
Now here is where the story shifts from interesting to extraordinary. Because buying the laundromat was not the investment. The investment was everything Jono did next.
Let me walk you through it — layer by layer — because each decision he made is a masterclass in what it means to invest differently in something most people would have left exactly as they found it.
The first layer: cashless payments.
The laundromat was cash only when Jono took over. In Australia — in a country where almost nobody carries cash — this was not just inconvenient. It was actively turning customers away. Jono implemented cashless payments immediately. Within a short time, 70 to 80 percent of all transactions were made by card. Customers who knew how to use the new system did not hesitate to teach those who did not.
One small investment in technology. Immediate impact on revenue.
The second layer: a website and online presence.
The previous owner had zero web presence. No website. There was a Google My Business page with the wrong business name on it — created by a resident, not the owner. The laundromat was essentially invisible to anyone who did not already know it existed.
Jono built a website. He ran Google Ads targeting keywords like laundromat near me and laundromat Northcote. He collected reviews — understanding that every review was an opportunity to fill the page with the keywords that would bring new customers to his door. He built backlinks. He optimized every landing page. And he made sure that every page on his website was set up to turn a curious visitor into a loyal customer.
He started his SEO strategy in February and by September of the same year — his laundromat ranked number one on Google for laundromat Northcote. From invisible to first page in seven months and beating six competitors.
The third layer: customer experience.
Jono noticed something that most laundromat owners either do not see or do not care about. When a machine breaks down in a self-service laundromat — there is nobody there to help. Customers get anxious and stressed. They feel abandoned. They leave and do not come back.
So, he installed audio cameras and added QR codes to every machine. When a customer had a problem, they scanned the code, filled out a form, and Jono could respond — turning on the audio camera to walk them through the issue in real time, or calling them directly, or offering a refund when needed.
That just leaves a much better customer experience that 99% of laundromats are going to offer, he said.
One investment in technology. A customer experience that almost no competitor could match.
The fourth layer: increasing revenue per customer.
Jono did not just want more customers. He wanted each customer to spend more per visit. So, he installed a vending machine — not just for laundry detergent, which customers frequently forgot, but for snacks and drinks. Suddenly a customer who came in for a wash was also buying detergent and a can of Coke.
He had his washers programmed to offer a standard wash and a premium super wash. He gave customers a choice — and enough of them chose the premium option to make a meaningful difference to his monthly numbers.
And then he added a commercial laundry service — targeting businesses like hotels, health clinics, and gyms. That single additional revenue stream generates up to $25,000 per year.
The fifth layer: systems and automation.
The previous owner used to go to the laundromat every single morning to unlock the door. Jono installed an electronic lock connected to the store’s Wi-Fi — engaged by electricity, disengaged automatically. Security cameras. An alarm system. A store that opened and closed without requiring his physical presence.
Five hours of physical labor a week. That is all the laundromat requires of Jono. Five hours — and it generates $3,000 a week. Up to $15,000 a month in revenue.
THE DEEPER LESSON: THE UNGLAMOROUS OPPORTUNITY
I want to zoom out now. Because Jono’s laundromat is not really about laundry. It is about a way of seeing the world that I think is one of the most powerful investment mindsets available to us.
Most people walk past laundromats. Most people walk past old businesses with no websites, cash only payment systems, zero online presence, and customer experiences that have not been updated in decades. Most people look at those businesses and see tired, outdated, unglamorous — not worth their attention or their capital.
Jono looked at exactly those things and saw opportunity.
Because here is what the unglamorous investment offers that the glamorous one almost never does — space. Room to improve. A gap between what exists and what is possible that is so wide, so obvious, so available to anyone willing to do the work, that the returns can be extraordinary.
Nobody is competing for laundromats the way they compete for luxury real estate or tech startups or the investments that make headlines. And that absence of competition — that quiet, overlooked, unglamorous space — is exactly where some of the most consistent and life-changing returns are hiding.
This is what Jono understood. The best investment is not always the most impressive one. It is often the one that nobody else wanted — that you had the vision and the patience and the specific expertise to make extraordinary.
THE FREEDOM FORMULA: INVESTING WITH AN END IN MIND
I want to come back to where Jono started. Because I think it is the most important part of his entire story.
Before the laundromat. Before the checklist. Before any of the technology or the SEO or the vending machine or the commercial laundry service.
There was a goal.
I want to choose how much of my time I give to people for money by the time I am forty.
That sentence. That specific, personal, deeply intentional sentence — is the foundation of everything Jono built. He did not invest because investing is what successful people do. He did not buy a laundromat because laundromats are exciting or impressive or the kind of thing you tell people about at a dinner party.
He invested because he knew exactly what he was investing toward. Freedom. Specifically — the freedom to decide how he spends his time. And he built every decision — the checklist, the purchase, the improvements, the systems — in service of that specific goal.
This is investing differently at its most complete. Not just choosing an unconventional asset. Not just applying technology and skill to something overlooked. But knowing — with clarity and intention — exactly what you are building toward. And then making every investment decision in alignment with that vision.
What is your forty? What is the specific, personal, deeply intentional goal that your investments are in service of? Because without that — without the north star that Jono had before he ever looked at a single laundromat listing — even the best investment is just a transaction.
With it — every decision becomes a step toward something that matters.
I want to leave you with a question that Jono’s story keeps bringing me back to.
What is the laundromat in your life?
What is the opportunity that everyone else is walking past — that looks un-sexy, boring, not worth a second glance — that your specific skills, your specific knowledge, your specific vision could transform into something extraordinary?
What I know for sure is that the most powerful investments are rarely the most obvious ones. They are the ones that require a different kind of seeing. The ones that ask you to look at what everyone else has dismissed and ask — what could this become in my hands?
Jono bought a laundromat. He invested in cashless payments and a website and QR codes and a vending machine and commercial laundry and an electronic lock. He put in five hours of physical labor a week. And he built himself $15,000 a month in revenue — and a path to the freedom he defined before he ever made the investment.
He did not wait for a glamorous opportunity. He created a glamorous outcome from an unglamorous one.
Salima
Just me thinking out loud over here