Cintas Uniform Empire
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Sam Parr tells the story of how a small uniform cleaning business evolved into the multi-billion dollar company Cintas.
"In 1929, there's this guy who starts this company cleaning rags and uniforms for circus performers. He calls it Acme Industrial Laundry and scales it up to do laundry for other uniform businesses. By 1960, his son Richard, who's about 21 years old, comes into the business wanting to work for his father.
They have an argument, and the father calls the son into the office. The son expects to be fired, but instead, the father says, 'Look, this isn't working. Here's the keys, you run it. Let's see what you can do.'
When Richard takes over in 1960, it's doing $180,000 in revenue with 12 employees. He focuses on doing laundry for companies who need cleaning supplies. After 8 years, he grows it from $200,000 to $1.6 million a year.
They rename the company to Cintas, and now it's a $75 billion company. They still launder uniforms but also supply them, plus they've expanded into fire extinguishers and cleaning supplies for businesses. They do about $8-9 billion a year in revenue, mostly subscription-based through uniform rentals.
As Richard got older, he made it his mission to keep the business within his family. Today, the Farmer family still owns about 18-20% of the business. While a family member isn't the CEO, they remain involved in governing the company."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.