Ebay and Etsy don't have to pay for teams of "delivery ninjas" in every city who pick up goods from sellers and deliver them to the buyers. They leave all that to UPS/FedEx/USPS/etc.
Ebay and Etsy also aggregate lots of sellers along with lots of buyers, which makes it harder for any one seller or buyer to corner their end of the newly created marketplace. But from the article, it sounds like several of the laundry startups are all really just frontends for Wash Then Fold. That gives WTF (hey, I just realized how clever their name is) a pretty fair amount of clout over them all.
If that's the case, it actually suggests a pretty clever business strategy for WTF: let the startups burn other people's money proving the market and finding out what sort of features people want in a laundry app, and then once that's established swoop in and do the same thing yourself. Free R&D!
Aggregating and marketing is most valuable when the service providers are small entities, ideally individuals, that cannot effectively market themselves, or where you're in a situation where there are numerous sellers that need to be connected to numerous buyers. That's a lot less true when talking about laundry service than market places like EBay.
Airbnb was not just the website. The original network of hosts WERE airbnb people and friends. That is a huge asset for bootstrapping. And now they have real customer service- which I think is going to be the one thing (within their control) that is going to make them a success or not.
I agree a laundry startup should definitely be on top of quality control. Also, doing the laundry makes for a much better story. :> Imagine local news footage of thin dudes with sarcastic mustaches and tight jeans moving stuff from washer to dryer. That's gold.
