Cintas started in 1929 as a laundry service for circus performers' rags, making $180,000 in 1960. The founder's son rebranded it and added uniforms, then expanded into fire extinguishers and cleaning supplies. Today it pulls in $8 to $9 billion a year on subscriptions.
In 1929, there's this guy and he starts this company cleaning the rags and uniforms for circus performers, turns that into a business, and he calls it ACME Industrial Laundry. And he kind of scales that up, but not a lot. It's a very small business. By 1960, his son comes into the business and he's like, let's grow this sucker. It's doing $180,000 in revenue, which is something like $2 million today. After 8 years, the business grows to $1.6 million a year, which is the equivalent of $15 million a year. He's now expanded into laundry company uniform. Now they've renamed the company to Cintas. Have you heard of Cintas? Yeah, see their trucks. $75 billion company. They launder uniforms, but they also supply the uniforms. Then they've expanded. So like if there's a fire extinguisher in the bathroom of a restaurant, it probably has come from them. If there's cleaning supplies, it probably comes from them. They do something like $8 or $9 billion a year in revenue, and it's subscription revenue.
