Not involved in the startup scene at all, but isn't "uber for laundry" a punchline at this point? What are cleanly doing (or what aren't they doing) that dozens of failed startups didn't do? This isn't snark, YC are saavy investors and I'm interested to know what they see.
Unrelated, I found it interesting that clean.ly doesn't resolve to Cleanly's website--for that you have to go to getcleanly.com. Do -ly's confer status these days to the point that the URL is unnecessary?
Apparently you didn't read that article or you would see what they are doing...every load of laundry gets a cookie or healthy treat delivered with it. Clearly a game-changer.
The cookie is the secret, they fatten up their customers with the free cookies and in a year pivot into an apparel ecommerce play now that their user base has outgrown their clothes.
The clothes are undersized compared to average so the customer base feels extra obese and they pivot into a social fitness tracker network and an on-demand healthy meal provider with an IOT ordering widget.
This article, for example, is a year old: http://nymag.com/news/features/laundry-apps-2014-5/
Unrelated, I found it interesting that clean.ly doesn't resolve to Cleanly's website--for that you have to go to getcleanly.com. Do -ly's confer status these days to the point that the URL is unnecessary?