#21: Let's Get Folding with Guest Candice Bryant of Flamingo Wash N Fold

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We're Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a San Antonio area realtor and lender, but most importantly, we're working moms.

The goal of this podcast is to provide support and a sense of community to San Antonio area working moms like us.. So join us in trying to find a balance between career, family, and everything in between.

Welcome to this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We're here with our guest Candice. She's the owner of Flamingo Wash and Fold, and I'm going to turn it over to her and let her introduce herself and talk about all our services.

Awesome. So hello everybody, I'm Candice. I am a wife, married to my high school sweetheart. I have two young girls, 4 years old and 18 months old. So I'm really in the thick of motherhood. And then I also run this pickup and delivery laundry service called Flamingo Wash and Fold. And so what we really aim to do is to help families. But we all know that moms do the vast majority of the laundry. We're here to help moms just keep up with this ever-flowing river of laundry. So, um, we pick up and deliver from your home. We return the clothes, fold it to perfection. Follow us on Instagram if you want to see how beautifully they're folded. Um, and they are sorted by family member. When we pack them back in the bags, you get a cute free, uh, tropical laundry bag, and they're returned the next day in most of the city. And so we really just allow you to confidently outsource laundry day, know that we're going to do it at a really high level and it's just going to take you 20, 30 minutes in a week to do laundry. You just got to bag it up for us. And then because it's sorted, when it comes back to you, it just takes moments to put it back where it goes.

Put it away. It actually gets put away then, hopefully. Yes. Because my living room tends to be the laundry room because we fold it. Or we wash it and it never gets put back into the bedrooms until the next week of laundry.

Yeah, I really like to tell people that we like eliminate those clothes that are all around your house because like if you're not doing laundry all the way through, then there's inevitably clothes in this room, clothes in that room, piles of clothes, maybe folded clothes, maybe now it's dirty clothes mixed with clean clothes. Now you're washing everything again. We try to eliminate all of that.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I rerun and rerun and rerun clothes. I'm sure we waste so much water, you know, and all of that because you forgot them in the laundry. Yeah, because I leave them in the washer and then they sit overnight and then they get gross, then you got to wash them again, and it's like, oh my gosh.

If you know that you do that all the time, you can add like some lavender essential oil and it will help them not sour as quickly.

Oh, that's a mom tip right there. Yeah, there's a tip right there.

So do you want to talk a little bit about how you got into this industry and how you started your business? I know we talked a little bit about that when we met, and I thought it was kind of a cool story.

I'm super curious.

Yeah, okay, so it's, uh, kind of a long story, so I will try to shorten it a little bit. So I taught high school for, um, almost For 9 years I taught, um, US history, um, at the high school level. And when I had my first daughter, I just like immediately knew I can— I cannot do this 9-to-5 life, especially as a teacher. It's like super draining when you're really—

9-to-5 is teachers. Teachers work all the time, right? They're not 9-to-5, but yes, very true.

So like, as a teacher, if you're doing it well, which you should only be teaching if you're doing it well. It takes a lot of— it takes a lot out of you to do it. And so I would be pouring into these high school students all day long, and then I'd have to come home and grade and plan and all this stuff. And then I had this little baby. I said, no, this is just not what I want to do. Because as y'all know, as entrepreneurs, you are working all the time still, but at least you feel like you're building something for your future and for your kids' future. And, you know, whereas teaching high school just doesn't give you that vibe. So, um, I knew that I needed to do something else, so I, I started Flamingo as like my exit strategy from teaching. And it was kind of like, it wasn't like a linear move from teaching to Flamingo. Um, I first realized that I just wanted to do something different, so I, I went into, um, proofreading for a little bit, and I spent some money trying to figure out if that's what I wanted to do, and I had to get real with myself that I don't like to read enough to do it for a living. So, um, but I did come out of that knowing that I really liked deadline-based work. Okay, so like, this needs to be done by Wednesday, right? And so it's not set hours, but it's, um, a deadline. So then realized I didn't like to do that, and I didn't like that I had to be like staring at a computer screen. So then I thought, as we're all sitting home, uh, during COVID— yeah, I thought, what else can I do? What can I do that keeps me at the house, um, that I can do while my kids are running around? And so I thought I'd like to do laundry, which is an uncommon thing I'm finding out. Um, and so will people pay me to do this for them? And so I actually looked at some other companies and they wouldn't hire me. So I was like, hmm, should I do it by myself or should I just give up this, this idea? And I just decided to do it for myself. Um, and so that was back in June of 2020, and I did it alongside my teaching job for a long time, and then I stopped teaching, um, June of 2022. And then— sorry, I told you it's a long story.

No, keep going, please.

No, this is interesting.

So, um, somewhere in there I got the idea that I want to travel full-time with my family. Now, I— that is a radical idea, I feel, but I really wanted to do it. So we purchased a bus We own a 40-foot-long ex-military bus, flat nose bus, and we've gutted it and we're turning it in slowly, slowly but surely. We're turning it into like a mobile luxury tiny home.

How cool!

Thanks.

That is cool. So then my thought was, I can't do people's laundry and travel full-time. So that's when I started up thinking, what else can I do that I can do remote from anywhere? And I got into bookkeeping, and I took some courses, and I now have a, a good set of bookkeeping clients. But as I'm doing their work, it just doesn't, uh, scratch that itch of like helping people, you know? Like, as a— yeah, as a teacher and as like a public servant for 9 years, I, I like to be of service to people. And bookkeeping is just a lot of clicking of buttons and alone by myself. And so I do it, but I think of it now as like my day job. And, um, I'm putting all of my efforts into growing Flamingo because I do get that, um, that feeling that I'm helping families because, you know, laundry is a task that everybody needs to do and why not outsource it to somebody who can do it at a high level and just take that task off your hands, off your mind too?

It's a great service for working moms. I'm just saying it's probably one of the tedious tasks that, I mean, we get it done, but not well, right? Like, I mean, I have kids now in sports and we do laundry daily just because we have to wash their workout uniforms and their baseball uniforms. And well, that's a pain. So I think it's fascinating that you— I mean, I actually have to say I enjoy laundry when I have nothing else to do, but I never—

not when you have nothing else to do, right?

When does that happen? Like, I always— I think my favorite TikTok or Instagram stuff is when I see people folding laundry. I think that's the most satisfying.

Why is that so mesmerizing?

I don't know. I don't know.

It really is.

We need to have a research on that. I don't know why that's so fascinating, but I've actually like looked up— I'll sit there. I— it's probably— it's very embarrassing to admit this on camera. It's like an hour. I'm like, oh, look at that, how did she fold that? And I go back and rewatch it and, oh, I want to do that. I mean, it's just when you look at it, it is a service, Candice. It's a service that, that I think a lot of families would benefit from. So it's, it's— I think you're a very smart lady to think of that. Yeah. Tell us a little about— so obviously you started it during COVID right? So you— so how did you think of like, hey, we'll pick up, we'll drop? Obviously it's a contact-free— that was something that was easy for you to do. Um, so tell us a little bit how you, how you kind of gathered your clientele that way.

Okay, okay. So, um, COVID was actually really good for the pickup and delivery laundry industry. We saw like huge growth in the industry overall. Um, I just started by creating a Facebook page for it. Um, I eventually got a website, I got on Yelp, and, um, I'm not very pro Yelp in general, but it really helped me get my first, uh, really big client. So there were a lot of travel nurses in town when COVID hit And these travel nurses were either working directly with COVID patients or they were just filling in for nurses who had moved to work with COVID patients. And there were a lot of them in town and they were staying in hotels. And a lot of hotels didn't have the capacity to do their laundry.

Right.

Oh, that's— yes.

Yeah.

Because a lot of times, you know, guests are just there for a couple of days. They're just going to take their dirty clothes with them. Or maybe they're there for business trips and the hotel can do dry cleaning. They do that well, but they don't have the small washers to do 20 to 50 different people's laundry every night. So this random nurse found me on Yelp and I was just a little tiny baby company. I think I had had like 3 clients before she called me and she said, hey, can you come down to this hotel? Can you meet with the coordinator? 'Can you do your— can you do the laundry for us?' And I said yes, even though I had no idea how I was gonna do it. Um, I didn't even have employees, I didn't have a team. I was just like, 'Yes, I will be there.' Um, and so I went down there and it all worked out. My mom and my sister and a friend of mine, we just went and did massive amounts of laundry multiple nights a week for them while all of us still had like day jobs. So we would be like Folding laundry until like 2 o'clock in the morning, and then I'd have to go teach the next day. It was really crazy, but it gave me like a huge jump start in my business. It helped me figure stuff out super quick on how to like be organized, how not to mix up 50 different people's clothes all at once. Um, it helped me pay off a bunch of credit card debt. It was great.

Yes, yes, that's an amazing It's always that one chance of that one client. You get that one big one and then it kind of dominoes in.

Yes. And so that gave me like the confidence to keep going even after, you know, COVID subsided a little bit and these travel nurses went home. I already knew how, like the system that I needed to do a bunch of different people's clothes all at once in a short time frame and to make it work for me.

Wow. That's a great story.

That's cool. That's really, really, really cool. Yeah, I love that.

Well, I'm curious, like, what is your— what is someone who does laundry for a living— what does your day look like? Okay, is it laundry morning to night?

I mean, no, no, no, no. And it can be like— I have— I've found a lot of— I've been connecting with a lot of other laundry service owners who are small like me, um, and they do a lot of the laundry at their house. It's really common for even big companies to be contracting people to do laundry at their homes in their own machines, you know, at their house.

Oh, wow.

Super common. And so there are other laundry service owners who are spending sunup to sundown doing laundry, but I do not do that. So I have, like I said, a 4-year-old and an 18-month-old. My 4-year-old goes to preschool during the day, but my 18-month-old is with me all the time. So, um, I try to be like available for her. So my typical day, you asked, let me get back on track. My, my typical day is I wake up and I, uh, help get my husband and my oldest out of the door, and then my youngest, her name is Holiday. Holiday and I will— yeah, she's super cute. Um, Holiday and I will, uh, hang out if she'll allow me, I'll do some work on my laptop for a little bit. But most of the time we're just hanging out until— when I say hanging out, I'm like cleaning the house.

Yeah, I'm doing all the mom stuff.

Yeah, I'm doing the mom stuff, um, and until she goes to sleep. And then from— she sleeps from like noonish to 2-ish. That's when I'll do my bookkeeping and I'll do any back house, um, laundry stuff, like create stuff on Canva or create promos or, yeah, just plan the next advertising thing I'm gonna do. I just launched with new software, so I've been doing a lot of that during, uh, nap time because people can now book online and, uh, it's super cool. Um, it is.

That sounds super cool.

Yeah, it is super cool. Um, and then at 2, 2-ish, she'll wake up and then we'll go pick up her sister from preschool. And then depending on the day, we will ride around town and pick up laundry. I don't do all of the pickups, but I do have some certain days that I do the pickups. And so we'll just jam out to music and eat a bunch of snacks and ride around. And then I come back, we do dinner, we put the kids to sleep. And then after the kids are asleep for the night, a team of women meets me at the laundromat. And we process a bunch of clothes.

Oh wow. So it's all in the evening, really?

Yes, it's all— I do all of my work when my kids are asleep. So I do backend stuff when they're napping, and then I do process the laundry after they go to sleep. And when I first started and it was really just me, I used to pick up the clothes too after they went to sleep. I would just tell people, hey, put your clothes out at 8. I'll be by to pick them up.

Wow.

And people were really, you know, they worked with me on that and it was really awesome because my kids hate the car. I don't know about y'all, but the first year and a half of both of their lives, hated the car. So I had to do things. I had to do car things after they went to sleep. But now they're both good.

Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, that's just amazing. And I've recently, recently had to use a laundromat. I haven't used one since college., we, we lost the plumbing services in our home for almost 2 weeks. And, um, so my husband and I'm like, oh my God. And I actually, I saw some people, it was a very nice one, a very nice laundry. It was brand new. They built by my home. And I'm like, this could be, I mean, this is not, I mean, I got all my laundry done for the week, which never happened in one evening in a 3-hour period. Like we got it all folded. It was the best way of doing it. I'm like, this is really cool.

The best way of doing it is to hire Flamingo and just have them do it for you. There you go.

That's right. I was going to say, that sounds like the best way.

But the second best way to make sure you actually do all of your laundry is to just go to the laundromat. And there are a lot of nice laundromats that are popping up around the city. My goal, my 5-year plan, is to open my own laundromat. So hopefully that will happen. Let's manifest it.

Yes, put it out there.

I really want to have like a laundromat where I can have— okay, let me backtrack. I want to provide employment for other moms of young children because I feel like it's just so hard to do, to do both. Like people expect you to either be a good mom or be a good employee, and it's really hard to do both of them at the same time. And not every, not every mom is like entrepreneurial, you know, and can just think of these things and it's very hard to follow through and all this stuff it takes to be, to be a good entrepreneur. But I want to be able to provide, um, like, I want to have folding team members and have like shifts where they can come and they work with school schedules. Or if your kid's really young, you can like bring them and they'll be like a separate area for the employees to just be back there folding clothes. I just want to have, um, I just really want to employ young moms and and have, you know, options where they can, you know, kind of have their cake and eat it too.

Yeah, I love that. No, I mean, I think you're right. I think not everyone has to be an entrepreneurial mindset, but having the ability to want to be a good— I think in our society we've lost that. The— you've heard this term very often, the nuclear family, where moms are the CEO of that household. I don't care what anybody says, it's a job that it's thankless a lot of times. Obviously Mother's Day is coming up. People, get your mom a gift. Um, but what I'm saying is, is like, you have that ability. But we also have been out of the household for so long in our society that I enjoy working. I do enjoy creating something that's not my children. But I— and be able to combine the two, absolutely fascinating. Candace, I love it. I think that's a great, great thing to do, just because you're able to keep the family— the, the mom, obviously mom's involved and stuff, but you also give them the opportunity to, to create an income. Maybe if it's, you know, maybe it's vacation income, extra stuff. Yeah, maybe even help provide, you know, for their family. So I love that idea. I'm definitely putting it out in the universe. Put it out there.

Thank you.

I want it to happen. Yeah, that's incredible.

So obviously You know, in every— and anytime that people start up a business, there's struggles. And so I'm curious, sometimes we ask our guests if they are business owners, what were some of your bigger struggles, do you think, when you were getting started?

So, you know, there's this whole— okay, I had a couple of things. Well, you have like imposter syndrome, of course.

Yes, that is so real.

We need to do a whole episode just about that.

Yes.

Wait, hold on, what does that mean?

Okay, imposter syndrome is this idea where like you're new at something and you're starting, you're trying, you're trying it out and you're putting yourself out there, but you're kind of too afraid to put yourself out there because you're like, oh, I'm not good enough. Ooh, I don't know if I should do this.

Right.

Am I just an imposter that doesn't know anything?

You know?

Yeah.

And for a lot of people, yeah, for a lot of people it's like crippling and then they don't get their idea out there and get things going because they're just too stuck on thinking that they can't do it.

Right. So it's like, it's like that idea where it's like, what business do I have doing this? Right? Like, I've never done this before. I've never, you know, why should anyone trust me to, you know, do their laundry or to do this or do this, you know? And so I think that's super real. And we, like I said, should do a whole episode about it because everybody, I mean, a lot of people go through that kind of mindset. I think I know I do personally. As well.

And another thing that I kind of struggled with, which I don't know if this is a legitimate struggle, but I like am an educated individual, right? I went to the great University of Texas up in Austin. Yes, Hook 'em Horns. And for a while it was a struggle for me to just, to just be a launderer. Like, why did I go to school and do all of that I'm just going to wash people's clothes now.

Girl, you're a business owner. Yeah.

For a while it was like a legit struggle for me. I used to have talks with my husband about it. But, but yeah, you're right. I do run and operate a whole business. And these days I feel like an extreme honor to wash and fold other people's clothing just because I know that it's doing them a great service and it's really helping them out in life. And so it brings me great joy. But at the beginning, I was like, girl, what you doing? Why are you wasting your education?

Now you're just making clothes? Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, I felt that way in my career too.

I'm sorry, Erika, go ahead.

Oh, no, I was just going to say, I mean, I have an art degree right now. Now I use it a little bit in terms of advertising and that kind of stuff. But I mean, it costs a good amount of money, and for a long time, I wasn't using it at all. I just, I went, you know, I got into real estate and I've been doing that for almost a decade now. Um, but that was a whole different license and like a very small amount of schooling, you know, at first compared to a 4-year university. Um, and so I know what you mean because it's just, you know, where's that degree at? You know?

Well, I think it's, I mean, when I, when I, when I talk to my children about school and how important it is, important, but it's not, exactly the certificate that you get or the degree you get or what it is. It's the way it teaches you to think, right? It opens your mind to think. Like, I do, I do math all day and my son does not understand why math is important. And I said, it's not that, uh, because you might not have a job that you do math all day, but it also helps you do complex problems. It helps you solve things and helps you think differently. So I've always been an advocate. I think I went to I was supposed to be a doctor. That did not happen. And I didn't, I honestly, I did not finish my degree. I was actually studying biology, did not finish it. I stepped back from school because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I happened to, I fell into what I do now. And I'm very blessed. I'm very blessed that I can make an income that I do. And it's allowed me to be the wife and the mother and business owner than I am today. But I do think education is important. But I remember growing to high school and friends who went to get their bachelor's or master's, now they're working on their doctorate and I'm like, oh, but I don't feel bad. I don't, just because at the end of the day I know where I stand. But again, I think education is important, but it's the way it teaches your mind to think versus what you actually have to do with it. So I hear you though. I hear you like, I didn't use— wasted all this money on what? It wasn't a waste. It got you to the point where you're at today.

I mean, I used my degree for a while. I mean, my degree was in history. I taught history, you know, but I just, yeah, I just couldn't. I don't know, maybe it's like a superficial thing that was going on in my head, but I couldn't get past that. I was a clothes washer for a little bit, but I feel good about it now.

Yeah.

Well, what did your spouse say when you decided to do that? Since you said, hey, you know, I don't feel like teaching anymore.

Um, my husband's super supportive. Um, I was really surprised when he said yes to this idea of let's build out a bus. Um, and by saying yes to that, he essentially said, you know, yes to forgetting this traditional life that we had built together. Um, but he's, he's just super supportive. He, he supports me on board.

Well, and that helps a lot. It helps when you have a supportive family. To be behind you on your dreams.

So that's, you know what he doesn't like to do? He doesn't like to fold laundry. So at the very beginning, at the very beginning when I'm like, you know, taking on probably more than I can handle, and I'm like, hey babe, will you just match those socks for me? He's like, very reluctant. Yeah, very reluctant.

A little bit of grumbling.

That's funny.

Um, well, so what do you think, um, is your favorite thing about what you're doing?

So my favorite thing is being of service to the community. So I put in like my little social media post that I'm often dancing when I drop off your clothes. So check your little doorbell camera because you can often see me just like doing a little jig because I just, I really feel like I'm living my best life these days. I get to spend a lot of time with my children, and when they're asleep, I get to provide this income for them and help these other moms just live a slightly less chaotic life. It really brings me joy.

That's so nice.

Yeah, I love that. I need to hire Flamingo, uh, laundry services so I can see the little dance.

Yeah, that's what people keep saying.

I'm also curious, where did the name come from?

Oh, okay. So I really like flamingos and I was just—

I got one behind her.

Yeah, I do that.

Behind there. I got one on my cup. So I really like flamingos and I was just spouting stuff out kind of the same way that we named our girls. I just provided my husband with like a shortlist like these are the ones that I approve of, and then I let him choose. And I really just like the way Flamingo Wash and Fold, uh, sounds. I didn't— I really wanted to do something that wasn't, that wasn't like, uh, my name or anything, right? Not like Washing by Candace or anything like that. I really wanted it to have the potential to be like, um, a household name for laundry in San Antonio, which you know, God willing, that will occur one day. Yeah, I just really like the way it sounded.

Yeah, I think it's super memorable. So I think that you got that going for you as well.

Thank you.

And then I guess just lastly, can you let the listeners know how they can contact you for your laundry services?

Okay, so I just want to make it clear, I feel like I didn't do that already. That we do pickup and delivery, regular household laundry. We also do comforters. A lot of people, you know, they can maintain their own laundry, but they don't want to go to the laundromat for this king-size comforter or whatnot. We can pick that up, um, and bring that back to you. We, uh, tuck fold all of our comforters. Check us out on Instagram to get a visual, but like you could throw the comforter up in the air and it'll still be folded. We tuck fold a lot of things actually— sweatshirts, socks, lots of things. Um, And then we can also do like small business laundry. So if you own like a spa or a— you're a dermatologist or a salon or a barber shop or acupuncturist, we can handle that laundry for you as well. Okay, so how do you get a hold of me? So flamingowashandfold.com, or we're on Facebook, Flamingo Wash and Fold. We're on Instagram, Flamingo Wash and Fold. Or you can just call or text the number that's on the website, which is 210-251-1588, and that goes straight to me. I don't have like a customer service rep or anything, so it goes straight to me. If you hear my baby crying in the background, know that she's okay. Um, yes, but the best way to do it, the best way to schedule your own pickup is to just go online, and if you use the code ONLINE25 it'll get you 25% off, but you have to go like directly to the website and book it that way. Um, also people wonder like where do we cover. So we cover from Alamo Heights up to Stone Oak, out to Alamo Ranch and downtown and everywhere in between.

Okay.

Oh, I'm in that area. Yes ma'am.

Yes ma'am. So we do go north outside of 1604 and we go a little bit west outside of 1604, but that's it. We don't go too far south.

Hmm. No, we don't.

Yet.

Yet.

Nice. Okay, cool. Well, thank you so much for being on. I loved this interview. I like the story of your business and I just think it's really inspiring. So I appreciate you being on here with us. Um, and I'm gonna also say thank you to our listeners, um, for tuning in to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. And we'll just catch you guys next week.

Bye-bye, guys.

Have a good one.

Thanks so much for tuning in to the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. Be sure to follow us on social media at our respective Instagram accounts or join our Working Moms of San Antonio Facebook group. Those links can be found in our episode description. If you have an episode topic suggestion or question, please email us at office@radisagent.com, and be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. See you next week.