Happy Friday, NimNim fam! We’re always excited for the weekend, but this one is especially special because today is the sixth anniversary of NimNim! We are so thankful to have made it this far and it is all thanks to YOU. THANK YOU for being just as dedicated as we are to the NimNim mission. To celebrate, we’re starting a new “Founder Feature” series in which we interview NimNim staff and talk about NimNim, ideas for the future, and how the company is battling the current world crisis. What better way to kick it off than with our CEO, Akshay Sahani?
Q: What Motivated You To Start Nim Nim?
A: I was tired of my daily grind at AppNeta doing hardcore inside sales and wanted to make a bigger dent into the organization I worked in. Starting NimNim with my brother has allowed me to channel a lot of my energy towards my goal by putting me on a path of building a family-owned business of pure sweat equity.
Q: How Did You Come Up With The Idea Of Creating A Laundry And Dry Cleaning Concierge Service?
A. NimNim was born out of the idea of creating a valuable service-driven business. By leveraging the resources around us, and being equipped with the industry knowledge from our family laundromat business, we realized we had an unserviced demographic of international students and working professionals who struggled with doing laundry, dry cleaning, and getting the best service. By breaking into the “Uber for X” thought process, we began by servicing our friends and family while the company was named Dhobi (which means “washerman” in Hindi) until we had to get rid of the name due to a trademark issue. The name NimNim came as a blessing as we decided to draw inspiration from within the family. My brother, and co-founder of the company, Nimish, has extraordinary people skills that helped him tremendously in bringing the best options to everyone around. He always makes sure people get the help they need. Then and now, Nim is the go-to guy for solving your daily problems of living in the city as an international student or just an average consumer looking for true wins rather than somebody just selling them on something. With this in mind, we were inspired to name the company NimNim. And surely after our tagline came to us: “With NimNim, it’s always a WinWin!”
Q: Tell Us A Bit About Yourself: Where Are You From And What Prior Experience Led You To Establish Your Own Business.
A: I moved to the suburbs of Westborough, MA from New Delhi, India in 2004. My father wanted to give us all the resources to excel in life, therefore we moved to the United States to get out of our comfort zone in India and challenge our boundaries. After doing two years of high school, I got admitted to Northeastern University in Boston, where I received my undergraduate degree in finance and entrepreneurship. I’ve held multiple internships in finance and market research, and believe that this experience has helped me carve my path towards what I want to do in the future. Apart from NimNim, I am working on improving my skills, my health, and after recently moving to Miami, I have been biking a lot. I think it is helping me grow and bring more structure into my life apart from just working.
Q: Where Do You Envision Nim Nim In 5 Years? Can You Share Some Long-Term Goals That You Have For The Company?
A: In 5 years, Nim Nim should be well on its way to entering 5 other cities in the United States (we currently operate in two: Boston and Miami) at the B2C level. We envision our model converted into a subscription-based service with additional concierge services, such as package, food, or miscellaneous items picked up and delivered through the company’s fleet of vehicles. Additionally, we plan to introduce NimNim B2B services and work with commercial partners. Although this component has not yet been marketed to the outside world, some businesses have already reached out and started using our services for towels, uniform, or linen laundry and dry-cleaning. With time, we want to open up the NimNim technology and turn it into a SaaS, where we can inject our learning from this service-driven industry into software that can be downloaded from the cloud and integrated with other businesses’ systems. By doing so, we would enable service providers to use our improvised technology to not only monitor and feed the orders into the PoS but to stand out from their competition too.
Q: What Challenges Has/Does Nim Nim Currently Face And What Do You Do To Overcome Them?
A: We operate in a market with a lot of noise. Getting our message out to the audience is the hard part due to limited ad space, so coming up with mechanisms to counter that with creativity is the fun part. Some of the other challenges revolve around constantly working to build a culture of transparency with our customers. In the past, we have learned that the customer is only looking to solve a problem when they come to you, so when they do, you better solve the problem and have your entire process laid out, so at each point of the journey, there is no breakage. I believe that that is the most fun part because it keeps you on your toes as you’re constantly running on the high of improvising the touchpoints of the journey. For example, how can the customer’s pick up and drop off experience improve? We don’t only do limited locker or concierge pickup, our model is built to suit the customer’s needs whether they live in a high rise or a brownstone.
Q: Lastly, How Have The Operations At NimNim Been Affected By The Current World Crisis? Tell Us About The Situation Briefly.
A: The business has been affected by COVID-19 tremendously. The working professionals (who make up a large portion of our target market) are no longer going to the office, so the majority of our business is down. Nevertheless, we have continued to provide our service and are now offering pick up and delivery 7 days a week. During these tough times, we lost a lot of business but we are also grateful to service even 20 percent of our customers during these times. We had to let go of our drivers due to the business taking a substantial hit. But it has made us stronger as it allowed us to look beneath the surface and help myself and Nimish align further on our mission by focusing on things we need to improve so we can come back as a more improvised and community-focused brand.
We appreciate how Akshay thinks BIG. It is with his guidance and support that NimNim has gotten to the place it is at today! And finally, thank you so much to YOU GUYS, the NimNim fam, for helping us make two brothers’ dreams a reality. Here’s to the next five years!
