Matthew Connelly, founder and CEO of on demand tech laundry company ihateironing wins ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ award at the British Business Awards 2022.

Matt Connelly pictured (on the left) along with other winners at the British Business Awards in October at King’s Place, London

After spending the first years of his career supporting the growth and success of several UK start-ups, Connelly went on to found ihateironing in 2014, making it the first on demand laundry scale up to operate on demand drycleaning London.

Since then, he has championed the growth and development of the business, guiding it to reach the milestone of 100,000 customers and serving residents across the UK in Oxford, Brighton, Edinburgh and recently expanding to New York in the USA.

Operating through a network of professional drycleaning centres, the service allows customers to have their laundry collected and delivered with a same-day or next-day turnaround and continues to provide steady revenue and new customers to small local businesses year after year.

This is the fifth year that the prestigious British Business Awards recognise and celebrate the outstanding achievements of small and medium-sized British business across all industries. The Entrepreneur of the Year award was on the lookout for a candidate that has demonstrated excellent growth in the last two years, with a coherent and sustainable strategy in achieving it.

“I’m thrilled to win this award, and it is truly a testament to the hard work and resilience of our whole team.” says Connelly.

This win reiterates the resolve of the business to not only survive through the difficult years of the pandemic, but also thrive to reach new horizons and accelerate its growth.

At the start of the pandemic, the business was hit with its hardest blow: losing 70 per cent of its sales in the first three days of lockdown.

However, Connelly saw an opportunity to use the systems the company already had in place to pivot the business to providing essential food box deliveries to vulnerable people who weren’t able to leave their house during lockdown, and offering free cleans to the elderly in self isolation.

“This really proved the adaptability of the team we’ve built, and how we can make the most out of an unprecedented difficult scenario,” he says.

The business was able to return to its laundry and drycleaning operations, and has since doubled its pre-pandemic annual sales to £12m and its head office staff count to 30 employees.

Looking towards the future, Connelly realises that small businesses are once again faced with a new unprecedented strain due to the current economic climate. The entrepreneur is pushing for better resolutions to the cost of living crisis by the UK government.

“The pandemic was an incredible challenge for us and all small businesses alike, and we feel very fortunate to have come out stronger as a business.” He says, “We are now urging the government to act responsibly and get a grip of the inflation. This is the absolute key to ease the pressure on small businesses, as well as on our customers and employees.”

Connelly hopes that the business will only continue to conquer the hurdles to come and looks towards new successes on the horizon. Alongside this win, he is also shortlisted as a finalist for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards as well as our very own Laundry and Dry Cleaning Awards 2022 which will announce their winners in November at a glittering and sell out awards night at Mercedes-Benz World in Surrey.

Matt Connelly pictured at ihateironing head office with Entrepreneur of the Year award