Lavandera: Reorganizing the Way Filipinos Do Laundry

I can do my own laundry, really. I can wash, rinse, hang up, collect once it’s dried, and all that jazz, but it’s a very tedious process.

So it is with a sigh of relief that Lavandera.ph crossed my screen.

Lavandera – which is a Spanish word for laundress or washerwoman – aims to streamline the laundry service industry in the Philippines. Made by a startup called Third Row, this app is designed to be used by both owners and customers of laundry shops. Right now it’s just a mobile site, but native apps are in the works.

In a nutshell, Lavandera helps you track, record, and verify the pile of clothes that you submit to any laundromat or laundry service. It works at hotels to dormitories, hospitals to salons, and even at catering services.

Lavandera CEO Jose Capistrano, along with COO Cyd Magtalas and CMO Hans Felerino, have experienced anguish and frustration over various laundry-related mishaps. From missing clothes to colors mixed in with the whites, it is from these experiences that the idea for this app was born.

The search function is the backbone of the app for customers, providing a handy list of laundromats near your location, which includes addresses and contact numbers. Search results include both laundromats registered with Lavandera and those who are not. Everything is free for users with no fees involved.

For laundromat operators, the startup offers both basic and premium services. For the basic account, it allows operators to accept and manage laundry via the Lavandera site, receive notifications, and register a single shop on the in-app map. The premium account costs PHP 1500 (US$36.34) and includes all the features of the basic account, plus you can add multiple shops to the map, and add multiple users. Premium accounts also allow stores to remove ads and give access to tools for laundry progress notification.

All in all, this may seem like a trivial concern for people in more developed countries who don’t rely on laundromats. But, who knows, Lavandera may be just the thing to clean up the laundry business in the Philippines.