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Jensen Hellmers didn't grow up dreaming about laundromats. But when the idea of starting a business with his family came up during COVID, something clicked. Jensen approached his parents with a simple goal: find something they could build together that would also give back to the communities around them.
"We really loved the community-oriented aspects of it," Jensen says. "Doing something for communities, that was important to us as a family." Laundromats checked every box. They're scalable, they serve real everyday needs, and they anchor neighborhoods in a way that few other businesses do. The answer came into focus during a car ride when a photo of a laundromat for sale popped up on Jensen's phone. Five days later, he and his father, Paul, were on a plane to check it out.
That leap of faith kicked off what has since become a growing family operation across the San Fernando Valley. Jensen opened his first location, Topspin Laundry in Mission Hills, in late 2023. A second store followed in mid-2024, and a third came in 2025. Today, the three locations: Topspin, Ruby's Laundromat in North Hollywood, and Laundry Love - offer a full suite of services including self-serve, wash and fold, pickup and delivery, and dry cleaning.
Check out Jensen and Paul's story about what its like to create a safer space within a community and grow a laundromat operation. 👇
Breaking Free from the Tyranny of Quarters
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If there's one thing that defined the early days of running Jensen's stores, it was quarters. Lots and lots of quarters.
His first store ran on an all-coin system, and the math was staggering. As his father Paul puts it: "About 3 million-plus coins went through that store a year — that's almost 20 tons." Those coins had to be counted, collected, hauled to the bank, and redistributed. Over and over again.
For Jensen's second store, which was another quarter-based operation when he acquired it, the routine was relentless. "We were having to empty the store four or five times a week," he says. "People are always coming in trying to change quarters. You have to go to the bank instead of them." And it wasn't just time-consuming, those late-night quarter runs came with their own anxiety. "Having to just make an impromptu quarter run in the middle of the night, which is obviously nerve-wracking."
There was also the equipment. Quarter machines are notoriously finicky. A crinkled bill. A speck of dust. That's all it takes for a jam, a lost customer, and a phone call Jensen didn't want to be making at midnight.
Switching to Laundroworks changed all of that. Jensen has now had the system for nearly two years and says he hasn't had a single bill get stuck in a machine. But more than the hardware reliability, it's the time back that matters most. "Your time — that's obviously the most valuable asset that we all have," he says. "Laundroworks just restores so much of it."
Paul Hellmers, who had been skeptical about abandoning coin, was ultimately won over. He's candid about his initial reservations: "A lot of people said, oh, you don't want to upset the apple cart. It's a coin store. People love coins." But after the switch, he says only one customer — out of thousands — ever pushed back. Paul says, "is not a bad ratio."
Building the Right Software Stack from Day One
Jensen and Pauls' detail-oriented approach to research turned out to be a real asset when it came to evaluating tools for his business. He had high expectations and also realistic ones. "I had a low expectation of what would be out there for laundry software," he admits "but, it was definitely exceeded by Cents and Laundroworks.”
Before settling on his new systems, Jensen went deep into his research. He knew he needed something that worked for him and for his customers, including the laundry attendants at his stores, many of whom are 50 or 60 years old and primarily Spanish-speaking. The fact that the Cents POS system could operate entirely in Spanish was a major selling point.
"They were able to get it a lot easier when it was in Spanish," Jensen says. "Understanding technology is not as easy for everyone, and so that made a huge difference."
How Jensen's Stores Use Cents Day-to-Day
Cents Transact (POS): The Cents POS replaced a system where attendants were writing orders in paper notebooks. Now staff can see the full order flow, fix billing mistakes on the fly, and issue corrected receipts that automatically text the updated version to customers.
"Most payment systems, you can't just change it," Jensen says. "With Cents, you can fix a mistake, take money off for a dissatisfied customer, make a new receipt — and it updates the customer automatically. It's just perfect."
Cents Accelerate (Marketing): After realizing he wasn't fully utilizing Cents Accelerate, Jensen began using the platform to its full capacity. He sets up a trigger — anyone who hasn't placed an order in 30 days — and he can send them a personalized offer with a discount code.
"We just launched a campaign last week and over the weekend, four or five people came back in who hadn't been in for a month," he says.
Cents Assist (AI Receptionist Team): Running three stores across LA means Jensen used to field a steady stream of calls: What are your hours? What's the price of your smallest machine? When's your last wash? Routine questions, but 20 of them a day adds up fast.
Cents Assist now handles the vast majority of those calls automatically — and it does it bilingually, in English and Spanish. Jensen jokes that customers have come up to him in person to compliment "that woman on the phone," not realizing they were speaking with an AI.
Now he gets maybe one or two calls a day — only the ones that actually need his attention.
Laundroworks: Running Three Stores from Your Phone
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The Laundroworks kiosk system ties Jensen's self-serve business together. Across his two Laundroworks-equipped stores, he has five VAC touch screen kiosks. But the real power isn't just in the hardware, it's in how Jensen uses the platform to grow customer loyalty and manage his stores remotely.
Promotions that actually move the needle. At Topspin, he launched a "double your money" promotion at opening — customers got $2 in laundry credit for every $1 they loaded. He gave away over $30k in laundry credit over the first two to three months. The payoff? People who hadn't stepped into that laundromat in 10 or 15 years are now weekly regulars. "People are still thanking me and coming in because of that," he says.
Credit recovery without the headache. Under the old card system at Topspin, if a customer lost their card, that money was just gone. Jensen had no way to track or recover it. With Laundroworks, customers can restore their own balance without involving Jensen at all. "I don't even need to get a call from that situation," he says. "You'd be surprised how often people lose their cards."
Managing from the online portal. Every morning, Jensen opens his LaundroPortal to check how his stores are doing, revenue, error codes, paper in the kiosks, anything that needs attention. "I can see the lay of the land and move myself in whatever direction I need to," he says. That visibility is also what gives him the confidence to take on new stores. "When I'm looking to do a fourth store and I'm like, how am I going to do that — it's having the Laundroworks and Cents systems where I know exactly what each store is doing every single day."
Community at the Core
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For Jensen and his father, the business has always been about more than revenue. They're drawn to the community dimension of running a laundromat, providing a clean, safe, welcoming space in neighborhoods that often don't have great options.
"Every laundromat that we go to, we make the center nicer, we make the community nicer," Jensen says. "A lot of people can't say the same thing about their laundry."
Paul echoes that sentiment: "If you take care of the customer and you give them a good experience, the money will come."
What's Next for Jensen
Jensen wants to get all three stores under one brand so customers throughout the Valley can recognize it. With Laundroworks, the cross-location branding makes the whole operation one — a customer can use their card at his stores in Mission Hills, in Burbank, or in North Hollywood, depending on where they are that day.
Beyond branding, he's focused on continued growth, more stores throughout Los Angeles, and eventually expansion into other states. The systems he's built give him the foundation to do it without everything falling apart. "I run three stores," he says. "Having Laundroworks and Cents is what makes that possible. That's what gives me the confidence to buy a new store."
