The side hustle you can do from home
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Some Houstonians are turning laundry into a side hustle to help bring in extra cash.
Why it matters: Unlike food delivery and other gig jobs, laundry service Poplin can be done largely from home, making it an option for parents and others in need of flexible work.
The big picture: The nearly decade-old app-based service — essentially an Uber for laundry — now operates in more than 500 cities nationwide, including Houston, per the company.
- There are more than 1,800 Poplin "laundry pros" in the metro Houston area, company spokesperson Pete Bahrenburg tells Axios.
- The company has served more than 3,100 local customers — scrubbing around 890,000 pounds of laundry.
Zoom in: Zorana Velasco, who lives just south of Spring, started working for Poplin after losing her project manager job in 2024, she tells Axios. She needed flexible work while caring for her mom and helping put her daughter through college.
- It quickly became her full-time job, though she says the income supplements her husband's. She typically handles 10-20 orders a week, earning at least $500 a week, and now ranks among Poplin's top laundry pros nationally.
- Her husband installed a second washing machine to keep up with the workload, giving her two washers and one very overworked dryer.
- Most of her customers are in the Heights, Oak Forest, Garden Oaks and Montrose, and many have become regulars. "I have all my customers' clothes memorized," she jokes.
How it works: Poplin charges customers $1 a pound, and workers keep 75% of that, plus all customer tips, per Bahrenburg.
Yes, but: The work comes with costs traditional employees don't shoulder.
- Poplin workers, like most gig workers, are independent contractors responsible for their utilities and transportation, plus the wear and tear on their appliances.
Reality check: After spending hours meticulously folding customers' clothes, Velasco refuses to fold her own.
- "I'm retired from folding laundry," she says she told her husband. "I will wash our laundry. I will dry it. You will fold it."