At Innovative Capital Corporation, our goal is to source you the right loan for your business needs. However, what does partnering with us actually look like? Jason Rattray of LNDRY speaks about his experience working with our team, and specifically Brent Arteaga-Biggs.
Our partnership with LNDRY has helped them grow their business, and maintain the same staff during the COVID-19 pandemic through diligent financial planning. Read on to learn more about LNDRY and how our partnership helped their business.
Who is LNDRY and What do you do?
LNDRY is a dry cleaning and laundry service based in San Diego, California. “We operate a deployed service model, so pickup and delivery through four divisions:
- Hospitality
- Insurance
- Commercial
- Retail
“We actually used to be called Relaxed Dry Cleaning for years, which the beginnings of that story are fun, sometimes, and frustrating, other times. We rebranded to LNDRY in September 2019 because we identified, through different growth measurements and feedback, that Relaxed confused customers thought our business was a massage company.
Dry cleaning is probably one of the most negatively-termed business tags you could ever have. Connotations from “polluters,” to “getting taken to the cleaners.” No one wants to go to the dry cleaner. It’s like what our grandparents did.
We embarked upon a rebrand to also introduce new verticals. Now, we’re heavy automation, which Innovative Capital has helped with. We’re also heavy on bi-annual investment. Brent has always guided me there, and it really has helped structure building purchases, capital expenditures, different reorganizations, and more. Brent has been my fractional in-house financial vision guy for quite a while.”
How did you Start Working with Innovative Capital Corporation?
“I’ve known Innovative Capital and Brent for a long time. Brent first handled a few commercial real estate purchases for me, and a few reorganizations of debts on buildings.
Our experience is a great example of the difference between my former banking relationship and my new banking relationship facilitated by Innovative Capital. My former banking relationship was never able to handle any of our capital expenditure finance projects, like adding equipment, which happened every year for us in every period.
Before working with Innovative Capital, I would finance our capital expenditure projects with my own cash. Brent helped us organize our largest capital expenditure in 2018, which was full automation of an additional 6,000 square feet we were adding to our building. He was always in the conversation and helped us stay organized. He was the one who connected us with our new banking relationship and handled the entire transaction.
Honestly, that introduction of partnering with their team to manage the financial side of our capital expenditure projects is probably the best banking relationship we have. This great relationship is really due to Brent’s introduction and management through that process.”
What was it like working with Innovative Capital Corporation?
“Working with Innovative Capital was very simple for me, as the President of the company. I really enjoyed the creativity of the team. We worked together to figure out the problem, and then essentially reverse-engineer that problem to make sure we found the best opportunity, and then we financed it.
It didn’t feel like we were passively filling out generic attachments in hopes of finding approval. I’m passionate about working with Brent, and we’ve become really good friends. He is a good sounding board, with his financial mind, for a lot of things we do at LNDRY.”
How has working with Innovative Capital Corporation helped LNDRY?
“Brent and his team who has worked with us at LNDRY throughout the years have helped me keep 100% control of my business by ensuring we have our finances in line and a good set of books.
Brent will tell you when the thing’s a mess very early on. I think it’s what saves companies a lot of time. Small businesses that I work with or acquire never really have a great understanding of their finances. Brent has, in a way, motivated me to make sure I do have a great understanding. We’ve always had a good financial background, but working with someone like Brent, who is different from a bank, makes you think a lot more vertically, instead of laterally when you’re creating your financial model.
And I think it’s helped us greatly through COVID. We’ve done well through different divisions and have also faced challenges through divisions- like the hospitality division. We’ve acquired a ton of business through the period of working with Innovative Capital. We’re just waiting for things to come back online a little bit.
The financial component of the business is so important because as a founder, or president, you’re always trying to decode it instead of focusing on the people or culture of your business.
Throughout the pandemic, we’ve maintained every single one of our managers and supervisors with full salary and full pay. We didn’t know back then that the labor pool was going to be so challenging. It’s really been the best part of what we did because everyone’s still here. The talent is here.
We’ve been able to maintain our entire talent pool and not have to worry about our finances the entire time because we were properly
- Structured
- Funded
- Loaned
- Built out
Working with Innovative Capital has allowed us to really make sure we were okay in those areas by having a clear picture of our finances to help us make decisions confidently, instead of firing from the hip.”
How can Innovative Capital Help you?
At Innovative Capital Corporation, we work with a variety of lenders and borrowers to help each find their right financial partner. We create positive relationships that last years and help businesses stay in business. As Jason mentioned, we prioritize creativity when working with our clients. Learn more here about how Innovative Capital started, and what drives Partner, Brent Arteaga-Biggs to find innovative solutions for each client
As you look for funding for your business, it’s important to know about the different types of financing avenues available to you. Read about the difference between private equity, venture capital, and debt funding in this article.