Eddie Kedia is the owner of Vardhan Brothers, a dry cleaners in Phoenix, AZ. His father bought the business in 1997 when Eddie was about 11 years old. Throughout its 29 years of being in business, Vardhan Brothers went through various obstacles such as bankruptcy in 2000. They fought and went from being a normal dry cleaners to a discount cleaners. As a 14 year-old then, Eddie did not understand why his father did this since he was not making any money reducing the price by a third. However, his father explained that the volume overtime was what mattered. And so, business took off like a rocket. Once Eddie became the owner, he got the business into a lot of charity work so that it became a big part of its community.

 

          A major obstacle to his dry cleaners as well as many other small businesses, Eddie said, was covid-19. Dry cleaning had been in debt since people were working at home during the pandemic and therefore not having the need for formal business clothes. Additionally, half the people over the last 20 years have been allowed to wear polo shirts to work, so dry cleaning businesses already lost half of their customers before covid even started. The pandemic itself ended up having a huge impact on Vardhan Brothers of about 90% for 8 months straight.

 

          In order to overcome covid’s effect, Eddie explained that a lot of it was social networking through social media like Facebook. He described his new calling in life, which was charity work. The business has baskets upon baskets of stuffed animals which it cleans for free, to eventually go to homeless shelters. Another example is the wedding gowns they do for free, or even funeral gowns for babies that passed away prematurely and whose parents cannot bury them. These are just a few things they do to help the community. When covid hit, Eddie also did genuine marketing by reaching out to people with discounts to attract consumers back to the business. He said that even just being honest as a business and admitting that it is struggling, that it loves its community, and that it is always there for its consumers has helped carry many businesses through this tough time.

 

          The main resource which is essential to overcoming any hardships as a business is credit. Eddie explained how it is very important in life to have credit. He survived covid because of the credit he had kept aside, and businesses can always get back on their feet with the resources they have saved. So, his advice to others is to keep your credit good, find good people to work with, and if you cannot do your business right then make it right but don’t change what got you there in the first place!