Karen:
Today's guests are the definition of a perfect partnership. Lifelong
friends, moms, entrepreneurs, and the creators of one of my favorite life
hacks. Ally and MC are the co-founders of Lessen the Loads, a business built
from a moment of real life challenge that now lifts the burden of laundry and
clutter, freeing up families to focus on what truly matters. Ally and MC, I am
thrilled that you're here.

One of the things I think is so cool is that you guys are lifelong
friends. MC, how long have you known each other?

MC:
Well, I don't want to put numbers on it at this point, so I won't —
but since high school. We were in the same homeroom from day one, all four
years. Shout out to A5. Our junior year was when we had to take chemistry, and
that was when we really became close-knit. We were actually tagged up as lab
partners. So now I joke, we went from lab partners to business partners.

Ally:
And MC's the only reason I passed chemistry. I just want to put that
out there. I would not have passed without her.

Karen:
Playing to each other's strengths, right?

Ally:
Lessen the Loads started after I had my third baby — he was going to
be my last at the time, though it didn't end up working out that way, because
now I have a fourth. I am not the household diva type person. That stuff has
never come naturally to me. I don't like folding laundry. I know a lot of
people do, which I've since learned.

But honestly, I was sitting in
my rocker with my last baby at the time, and he was sleeping. And I'm sitting
there staring at mounds — and I'm not kidding you when I say mounds — of
laundry piles. And I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for sitting there
holding him while he was napping. I was like, this is ridiculous that I feel
like I need to put him down and I should be folding laundry or doing household
stuff. I should have just been able to enjoy that moment. Last baby, napping.
And I felt so guilty. That was a turning point for me. I was like, this is
absurd that I feel this way. Something needs to change.

After that, I hired a mom off a
local Facebook group, because laundry was my biggest pain point. For other
people it's other things, but laundry for me was it. I could get it washed, but
I couldn't get those next steps done — they're really difficult and
time-consuming. Laundry is the most time-consuming thing, because you can go
wash a few dishes in the same time frame. Laundry you can't do that. You have
to put it in the washer, you have to wait, it's a whole process.

She came in and changed my
entire life. She started out coming in for three hours every single week just
to fold and put away my laundry. And then I realized there's something missing
here for everybody else. Everybody couldn't believe I hired somebody just to
fold and put away laundry — it was an absurd concept to people. They were like,
that's a thing? And I was like, well, it's not. Or we're going to make it a
thing. Because I truly felt that household help should be affordable and
readily available to moms from all different kinds of families. So MC and I
were chatting one day and I said, guys, this changed my life. And MC was the
only one out of our friends who was crazy enough to say, let's do it.

Karen:
I love that you're busting this myth that everybody has to be a
super mom. For anybody tuning in, you might look at me and think, oh, Karen's
got it all figured out. But I have lots of people who are helping me. The myth
that you have to do it all yourself, and that you can't ask for help — that's a
really great myth to bust.

Ally:
The only way you can actually be a super mom or do it all — and it
doesn't even have to be a mom, just doing it all as a business owner, as
someone with a million different priorities — is asking for help. That's the
only way people get all these things done and then think, oh, I've got it all
figured out. Well, yeah, because I said, hey, I need help. And the reality is,
for most people, folding and putting away laundry isn't moving the needle much.
Most people aren't enjoying it, and it's not impactful for their family, when
they could be spending that time in other areas. That's really what it was for
me. I've never been happier. I haven't really done my laundry in four years
now. I haven't put a thing in a drawer.

MC:
Like Ally said, it was a couple of girlfriends sitting around one
day and she said, I think there's something here. And we always say we're crazy
enough to say yes and we'll figure it out later. We've done that from day one.
In that moment we said, okay, yes, let's figure this out. I told her, all
right, I'm coming over on Monday, we're going to figure out a way to do this.

The big thing for us was that
when Ally posted in a mom's group looking to replace the mom she'd hired, it
blew up. There were people saying I need the service, and people saying I want
to work for you. So we thought, well, it's as simple as posting in a mom's
group. And that's literally all we have done for the last four years. Because
let's be honest, moms are running the household, and they're the ones looking
for that help. That's exactly how it took off.

We quickly realized we needed
to hire. And that turned into — well, let's hire stay-at-home moms, because
they're pros at this job, and this gives them an opportunity to bring income
into their family when they otherwise might not have been able to, because they
don't have that flexibility. This lets them pick up a job with their kids in
the car, or when their kids are in daycare for two hours.

Ally:
That was very original for us early on. We wanted to provide a
flexible, good-paying income opportunity to moms who otherwise wouldn't be able
to work because of little ones at home. Even off the bat, we pay more than any
other laundry service out there. Our accountant was like, why are you paying so
much? I wouldn't do that. And since day one we have paid more than any other
laundry service to our girls. They're all contractors — they pick their own
schedule, they pick the jobs they want, they say yes or no to anything. If it
doesn't work for their family, they don't take it. So we're really passionate
both ways: helping families offload household tasks, and supporting women in
our communities by giving them a way to earn money at home.

Karen:
What are some of the challenges you had to overcome early on?

Ally:
It's interesting, because we jumped into something where we had zero
experience. It's not even like we came from running another type of business.
We still both had full-time jobs and we were learning as we went. We didn't
quit our jobs and go all in on this. I had three kids at home and we were
trying to figure out how to run a laundry business that quickly took off. We
thought we'd have a little time to figure things out, and it didn't work out
that way — which is such a blessing. There was a lot of initial nitty-gritty
logistics you don't think about when you're doing other people's laundry. Our
entire business has since been built on a lot of trial and error, things we
didn't even think about that happened and that we then implemented a process to
fix.

I always go back to this mantra
we have, and it's so true: we say yes and we figure it out later. Someone asks
us to do something — yes, we got you, we'll figure it out. We might be freaking
out behind the scenes, but we got it. And honestly, I would say we are
successful now because of that. We are two people who are willing to do
whatever it takes. We were both not unhappy in corporate America. We had very
well-paying jobs. We left great jobs, and people thought we were crazy. My
parents were like, what are you doing? We're going to check you into an
institution. They thought something was wrong with us. And we said, we promise
there's something here. My dad said, you're going to leave all these benefits?
But then when we tell people now, we have 70 women working for us. My dad is
the most shocked person on earth about this whole situation.

MC:
There would be so many times, especially early on — I mean, even now
— that we could be defeated and say, this is too much. And it is a lot. Even
today, it's a lot. But we always rise above that and look at the long-term
picture. I always say we'll never quit on a bad day.

Ally:
And the fact that we get to do it together — if I didn't have her, I
would have quit. Having somebody in your corner who is there and understands
what you're going through, I think that's everything. There's something about
having a partner who completely understands and gets it, where you don't even
need to talk. On my bad days, she's good, and vice versa. It has worked
seamlessly. A lot of people said, you're going into business with your friend,
that could pose a lot of problems. We haven't had one problem.

Karen:
Well, and you have that trust between each other — you can really
talk about anything.

Ally:
It's not like a friend we met at the bar when we were 28. She helped
me pass chemistry.

MC:
One of the main things is really showing appreciation for your team
and making sure they know they're appreciated. We started a trend last year — a
week of thanks right around Thanksgiving. It's hard with remote work to figure
out something that works for everybody, since we can't all get together for a
big celebration. So we do different things remotely just to show we care and
appreciate the work they're doing. I bet if you asked anybody who works for
Lessen the Loads, or has in the past, they'd say they felt appreciated. We've
had a number of people say, even in my old corporate job or other places I've
worked, I've never felt this appreciated.

Ally:
It can just be little things. Something so simple we often do is put
a couple hundred dollars on a Starbucks or Dunkin gift card and post it in our
internal systems, so they can go get a coffee or a treat on us a couple times a
year. We sent grocery vouchers this Thanksgiving so everybody could get a
turkey or ham or whatever they chose. Little things that basically say: we see
you, we appreciate you, thanks for being here.

MC:
We also learn a lot about their lives. We're dealing with human
beings, people, not just a job — that's another thing you want to keep in the
forefront of your mind. We've had folks whose parents have passed away, or who
are going through a rough time, or who've had a miscarriage, and we're sending
them flowers. It's little things, but they really add up and make people feel
loved.

Ally:
And the great thing about this job for women is that if something
like that happens, of course we're sending flowers, but we're also saying: take
all the time you need. Come back to us whenever the time is good. That is the
beauty of this company.

Ally:
Outsource and get the help you need. There should be no shame. I
know there's a huge shame cloud over hiring help, but we're in a day and age
where that is so necessary. The reality is most families need both partners to
work now. Things continue to get more expensive — but time is the most valuable
asset we all have, and that will never change, because you only get a certain
amount of it. Hire the help you need to be able to spend time and focus on the
areas of life that are more important to you, whether that's your family, your
business, your dog. It's different for everyone.

And this is something that has
changed for us since starting this business: service over stuff. We live and
breathe this now. When we gift people things, we're thinking about what kind of
service is really going to give the gift of help — what's going to take
something off somebody's plate. Is it a cleaning service? Prepared meals? We've
gifted friends prepared meals because they're going through a hard time, or
they're busy professionals. What can you gift somebody that's not another mug
or candle? That's just going to cause more anxiety at the end of the day.
People don't want the stuff. We're big service-over-stuff people here.

Karen:
I have a mantra I talk about, and I actually have it in my business
— it's called hashtag make it easy, one of our strategic directives. It's about
making it easy inside the business, in our processes, so the real problem isn't
working together, it's working on the hard, difficult things we do. And I also
apply it to my personal life: what can I do to make my life easier, what has
the biggest impact, what can feel luxurious without breaking the bank? The way
you're giving people that time back is such a beautiful gift of make it easy.

MC:
I'm going to bring us back to the both of us. I think we feed off
each other, and we are truly passionate about what we're doing. Some people
say, oh, I just work all the time. Yeah, we do work all the time, but we also
have a lot of fun. That's what sparks me. Yesterday we got off a phone call —
oh my gosh, we were so excited. She's telling me, don't get off the call with
me, we need to figure this out. And I was like, I'm so excited, let's keep
talking. And it was about business. There's just something about doing this
with one of your best friends, doing it for other people to make their lives
easier, helping women be able to provide for their family. I think we've really
found our niche in laundry, ironically, but we're able to do so much with it.
It's what lights me up. It really is.

Ally:
I've got to agree. You know that saying — if you figure out what you
like to do, you never work a day in your life. Honestly, that's truly how it
feels. It's a blessing that we're best friends and doing it together, which has
made it all the more fun. A lot of people talk about burnout, and I just feel
like we're nowhere near that. This just feels so natural, and we're still so
excited about it.

Karen:
Thank you for sharing your story with us, and for giving me my
Saturdays back — I can actually spend them with my husband now. It's a
beautiful example of how real-life friendship and the courage to believe in
yourselves creates something that lifts. Your partnership, your mission, and
your joy are such a gift to everyone around you.

Ally/ MC: This was fantastic. We loved it. Thank you.