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Why building & investing in hardware is overlooked // Vijen Patel, Co-Founder of The 81 Collection and Pressbox
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Why building & investing in hardware is overlooked // Vijen Patel, Co-Founder of The 81 Collection and Pressbox

The Consumer VC podcast #258 with Vijen Patel, Co-Founder of The 81 Collection and Pressbox

Hey friends,

Our guest today is Vijen Patel, who is the co-founder of Pressbox (now Tide Cleaners) and The 81 Collection. Pressbox was a 24/7 dry cleaning and laundry service that Vijen bootstrapped to a very successful exit to P&G. The 81 Collection is a VC fund that focuses on the hard industries.

We discuss:

  • Why he had no choice but to bootstrap his dry cleaning tech business

  • His approach to scale and expanding to multiple cities

  • How P&G tried to destroy his business

  • Why he eventually sold to P&G and became CEO of Tide Cleaners

  • The founding story of The 81 Collection

  • Why investing in hardware is under rated

Discussion about this episode