It’s no secret that the Baylor University College of Arts & Sciences has a diverse student body. With 25 academic departments represented –– spread across the sciences, humanities and social sciences –– its graduates go on to excel in a wide careers.

It’s also no secret that an impressive number of Arts & Sciences alumni are choosing to start their own businesses after graduation, sometimes in fields quite different than those they studied in school. To get an idea of just how varied these business ventures can be, we talked to nine A&S entrepreneurs to learn about how they used the skills they learned at Baylor to achieve success in the marketplace.

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David Burrows (BBA ’85)
Laundri

If one member of the Baylor College of Arts & Sciences Board of Advocates has his way, his new business venture will change the way people get their clothes cleaned.

David Burrows is co-founder of the on-demand laundry service called Laundri. It began in Dallas under another name in February 2015 after Burrows got the idea for a company that would be “like an Uber for your clothes.”

“I was trying to think of something where I could take any smartphone and apply that modern technology to an old-school industry sector,” Burrows said. “I realized that with dry cleaning and laundry, nothing had really changed much.”

Burrows was working for Cinsay in Austin when he began his brainstorming. He soon discovered that one of his colleagues there, John Sanchez, was working on a phone app for an online laundry service. The two men teamed up and eventually launched Laundri, beginning in Dallas.

“During our first week we made $86, and it kept increasing exponentially,” Burrows said. “We knew we were onto something when we got an offer from a dry cleaning company to buy the Laundri phone app for almost $1 million in cash. We decided to keep pursuing it ourselves, and now we’ve got most of Dallas developed and are looking at expanding into Fort Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio.”

With Laundri, a customer first sets up an account. Then, when they need clothes cleaned or shoes shined, they will enter requested pickup and delivery times either online or through the app.

The customer gets an immediate confirmation by text, and then shortly before pickup they are notified that a driver is on the way, and are shown a photo of the driver as a security measure.

The clothes and shoes are picked up, taken to one of the approved companies that Laundri contracts with for services, are cleaned and shined and then returned at the agreed-upon time. Laundri picks up and delivers to homes, offices and hotels, and the company hires its own full- and part-time employees.

“Our users pay a modest flat rate for pickup and delivery, and then we mark up each item that we service to make our profit,” Burrows said.

Laundri is just the latest entrepreneurial venture for Burrows, who got his degree in business from Baylor but maintains both a professional and personal interest in the arts, especially film and digital media.

“After I worked awhile with Mark Cuban at broadcast.com, I launched my own digital ad agency and combined it with a video production company I called Fzzz! Media,” Burrows said. “We did documentaries, music videos and several commercials. Down the years I have also acted in and produced many film and television projects, so I guess you could say I’ve always had one foot in the film world.”

This future business leader came to Baylor with a pronounced fear of public speaking, but that began to disappear after the late communication professor George Stokes taught him in a speech class.

“Professor Stokes was an absolutely amazing mentor,” Burrows said. “He helped me overcome my fears and improve my delivery, and told me I had a good voice and shouldn’t be afraid to use it. That class had a huge impact on me.”

––Randy Fiedler