Christian Sanya’s ideal afternoon is watching Lifetime while meticulously folding laundry. She could spend hours tucking in shirt sleeves, lining up pant steams and ensuring every fold is flat, unwrinkled.
By chance, she stumbled into a side hustle that allows her to do almost exactly that: She started washing other people’s clothes through on-demand laundry platform SudShare in 2019. Last year, she made $46,000 on the platform, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
The earnings helped Sanya, 44 — who also makes $76,000 per year as a full-time medical laboratory technologist — and her husband open a laundromat of their own in Lanham, Maryland. Called the Laundry Room, it’s profitable, run by four employees and brings in up to $24,000 in revenue per month.
That doesn’t mean she’s shuttering her side hustle. In fact, she refers it to as an addiction.
“It’s not an easy side hustle, but if you like it, it’s easy money,” Sanya says. “But the laundry has always been my thing … It doesn’t feel like work to me.”
Starting a laundry side hustle
Because laundry was her designated chore as a child, Sanya says she can fold a load in three minutes flat. It’s a love she’s carried for years: She told her husband when they got married her dream was to open a laundromat. The couple even tried to buy one from an acquaintance in 2015, but couldn’t afford it.
In 2019, Sanya’s daughter, then six years old, was diagnosed with autism. Then, Sanya lost her job. She didn’t have time to apply for full-time roles, so she started looking for gigs that would allow her to be at home for most of the day while she finalized her daughter’s care plan.
She started on Instacart, but spent too much of her time in the car and grocery stores. One of her Instacart customers noticed her attention to detail, and suggested SudShare. She quit Instacart and joined the laundry platform that night.
Despite more people pinching pennies and working from home, Sanya became busier than ever on SudShare,…
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