Business ideas can flourish at any time, in unexpected circumstances and, sometimes, very far away from home. That’s what happened to Nicolas Devaux and Sarah Weyssow who came up with the idea of Wasch, an eco-friendly laundry detergent made in Luxembourg, while returning from a road trip to Indonesia!
While enjoying the beautiful landscapes of Bali during a scooter road trip back in 2019, Nicolas and Sara were shocked to see how much plastic waste was polluting the island and its amazing nature. This sad observation had a strong impact on Sarah. Indeed, she immediately considered starting a project that would allow her, to fight the increasing pollution all over the world. Luckily, convincing Nicolas, an aspiring entrepreneur, was not too hard.
As soon as they returned home, they started to work together on finding a business idea that could make the environment greener. After analysing all the products they were buying on a regular basis, Nicolas and Sara identified laundry products as the most polluting and harmful ones in terms of packaging but also chemical composition.
From testing to market fit
After brainstorming for a while, they established a clear goal: creating an eco-friendly laundry detergent that would be efficient and created without plastic packaging or polluting components.
During the following year, the two aspiring entrepreneurs dedicated their time to selecting the suppliers that could help them meet those criteria. They started testing their new product with the help of their family and friends who gave them valuable feedback that allowed them to improve the two most important aspects of their product: the recipe and the packaging.
After that initial test phase, they were finally ready to propose two types of laundry detergent: liquid detergent in glass bottles and DYI packs. The company Wasch was officially launched in February 2021 and the first orders came in straight after thanks to a Facebook Ad campaign. This confirmed the interest of their target customers and motivated them to continue their business journey.
“Test your idea as soon as possible, even if you have to start small. Results can be long to come but don’t give up, be persistent, don’t be scared to start from scratch” advises Nicolas to future entrepreneurs.
The next big challenge
Like in every business journey, there are some big challenges to overcome. For Wasch, the main one was to find a solution to produce laundry on a large scale, meaning being able to store large amounts of raw material, produce large quantities of laundry and deal with all the logistics.
However, even with the increased pressure that came with taking those steps, Nicolas and Sarah stayed focused in developing their business further.
They just passed the 500L of production and are currently in contact with production and shipping centres to move to the next level. To make their business more profitable, the goal is to reach a production of 2000L this year, 10 000L in 2022 and 60 000 by the end of 2023 for Luxembourg and the Greater Region.
A very ambitious plan supported by their very strong motivation to make a change and see the planet benefiting from their initiative.
“Lauching a business is not an easy journey, otherwise everybody would become an entrepreneur. At each obstacle, I repeat myself that someone else would maybe give up. But we won’t!” concluded Nicolas.
