How a Tech Veteran Who Waited 20 Years for His Shot Bought 2 Laundromats

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“I definitely don’t want to build something from scratch. I’ve been there, done that.”

Meet Vishal Parihar.

Vishal landed in the US in 2003 with a master’s program ahead of him and one goal: own a business.

But years of paperwork stood between him and that dream.

So he built for other people first.

In 2008, Y Combinator rejected his startup. He spent close to 2 years building someone else’s tech company instead. The product worked, but the customers didn’t “get” it. So growth stalled out.

In 2018, he joined another startup after its Series A and climbed to director of platform. Right around then, the board shut the whole company down.

Then came 6 years at SAP, managing data engineering teams.

In 2023, his citizenship came through, and he knew it was time to do something with it.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a while,” he says. “How do I use this?”

He found Codie’s shorts, read Main Street Millionaire, and joined Contrarian Academy on June 1, 2025.

The book made him hungry for his own piece of Main Street. The numbers scared him, though. After all, in a world without guarantees, how do you know a business is worth the price?

So he did the work.

Deal reviews, questions in the community, and attending calls. It paid off.

On July 23, 2026, he closed on 2 Southern California laundromats with 160 machines between them.

Here’s how he got there.

Vishal narrowed his search to laundromats and self storage. After years of building teams, he wanted a business that could run without him standing in it all day.

By November 2025, he had an LOI accepted on a Southern California laundromat.

Then the broker cut him off. Too many questions for a laundromat, he said.

“This is my first business,” Vishal says. “I can’t just not ask questions.”

We’re with Vishal on this one. Asking questions isn’t nosy. If the other side of the table balks at them, you probably just dodged a bullet.

Still, it stung. Especially since he’d already paid an attorney to paper the LOI.

So he changed his order of operations. AI and a template for early LOIs. The attorney only once he felt committed.

That one switch saved him money and kept his emotions out of the early rounds.

In December, he emailed a new round of brokers. One went quiet, but something about the listing felt promising.

So this time, Vishal followed up.

Then again.

3 times total.

In January, the broker wrote back. He’d been out of town for 3 weeks and missed the calls. Within days, he sent over tax returns and the CIM.

“Okay, this looks like a good, legit guy,” Vishal remembers thinking. “Let’s go with this.”

That broker sold him the business he owns today.

The lesson: A broker who won’t share the books is telling you something. A broker who hasn’t written back is usually just busy. Learn the difference, and keep knocking.

With the books finally in hand, Vishal ran the numbers.

They didn’t back up the price.

The seller originally wanted $1.15M. After seeing the margins, Vishal opened his LOI at $800K.

Then he spent a month in diligence.

He sat in on 4 weeks of collections to see if the cash matched the paper, and he brought in a third-party valuation. He found old machines, plus a few gambling-style machines that had nothing to do with laundry.

He wanted those gone. Fewer machines meant less cash flow.

Every finding went back to the table. The final deal landed at $750K, with seller financing built into the structure and 10% down.

The lesson: Count the quarters yourself. Every surprise in diligence gives you a reason to reopen negotiations.

That’s what Codie’s teaching at her next FREE masterclass.

On October 17, you’ll learn why so many owners want out right now, how to find the business that fits your goals (whether it’s your 1st deal or your 10th), and how to spot red flags before they turn into your problems.

Bring the questions that keep you up at night. You’ll walk away with a clear plan for finding your perfect-fit business.

Save your free seat here.

A better price only matters if someone will fund it. So Vishal talked to several lenders at once.

One wanted 20% down. He’d capped himself at 10%, so that one fell off.

Another sent a commitment letter that put his seller’s note on full standby for 2 years. Vishal knew his seller would walk the second he saw it, so he passed.

When he posted the offers in the community, a member jumped in and helped him lay them side by side.

“You put a message out that you’re having an issue with your P&L,” he says. “Somebody just answers that really quickly.”

He found a bank that would fund the loan, but closing brought its own friction. The bank appraised his and his partner’s homes. The closing team asked for the same documents again and again, until Vishal escalated to the lender’s VPs.

He started on January 23. He closed on July 23.

6 months to the day.

SBA timelines vary a lot. Pack for a marathon.

The lesson: Read every line of every commitment letter, then budget more patience than the lender quotes you.

That’s part of why we brought Jordan Gregory, our loan ninja (not his official title), in-house. His desk gives you a leg up with banks, so the process comes with fewer headaches.

He recently helped an Academy member land a lower loan rate, saving them $48,707 in total interest.

Results not typical. Individual results vary.*

Vishal’s first day as an owner shows how much room some Main Street businesses have to modernize.

When he walked through the door, the seller handed him hundreds of keys. No labels. Just a giant ring of mystery metal.

“You’ll get used to it,” the seller said.

Vishal didn’t want to get used to it.

So he labeled every one. “I don’t want to be spending more than 3 seconds to find a key.”

Then he labeled the machines.

It’s a pain in the butt. It’s also where the magic happens.

That’s where his years in tech startups started paying off HUGE.

When the water bill came back higher than Snoop Dogg on 4/20, he dug in and found some washers drank way too much water. So he raised the price on those. Customers drifted to the efficient machines on their own, and the water bill dropped without him buying a single new machine.

Then he heard customers grumbling about a lingering musty smell. He looked into machine care and deep-cleaned the dryers in early September. Within 3 weeks, complaints dropped.

Now he’s rolling out a wash-and-fold service, and the new website just went live.

The lesson: Your last career comes with you when you buy. Point it at the small, annoying problems first. You’ll be surprised how many fixes the previous owner never thought of.

Here’s the part most success stories cover up with a Rocky-style training montage.

2 months in, Vishal’s business isn’t printing money. He’s reinvesting in repairs and new services, and he’s stepped away from his tech role to run the laundromats full-time.

“The mental struggle is daily, weekly,” he says. “I’m starting over. Literally starting over.”

So he gave himself rules.

He won’t judge performance until month 6. The bigger call waits until December 31, 2027.

Until then, he and his partner log every hour they put in right next to the revenue, so the decision runs on data instead of mood.

He built a cushion before he needed it, too: a line of credit and business credit cards for breathing room.

And every week, he repeats one line to himself: “Nothing is permanent.”

The lesson: Pick a date to judge the decision, and stop second-guessing yourself every Tuesday.

“Nobody can know everything,” Vishal says. “There will be a time you’ll say, did I make the right decision?”

That question never fully goes away. You buy anyway, with a date on the calendar and a cushion in the bank.

Certainty never shows up first. The keys do.

“Things are moving in the right direction,” he says. “I know we’re gonna get there.”

After talking with him, we believe him.

- Team Contrarian

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