Alex Jekowsky has always been your classic lemonade stand kind of kid. At the age of 13, he used his bar mitzvah money to fund his first “start-up.” He purchased a batting cage and pitching machine that he used to improve his own skills, but he also offered lessons to young ballplayers striving to be more competitive.
That equipment was the start of a lucrative business Alex ran throughout his teens: coaching in Little League, running baseball camps, and giving private lessons. He became one of the youngest coaches in Marin County.
Alex wasn’t driven by the idea of making money or starting a business … he just loved baseball. But when you’re a born entrepreneur, you naturally consider all the possibilities. He discovered early on that if you pursue something you love or follow your curiosity about how to solve a problem, you may find that you can earn some money while you’re at it.
Fast forward to Alex’s first year at Chapman University, when he started his next business at the age of 18. He observed the bulletin boards all over campus, overflowing with flyers, ads, and notices of all kinds, and the whole thing seemed a little crazy to him in the digital age. Alex wanted to create an app that would digitize and organize all that information, something he thought of as a “craigslist for colleges.”
For a while, Alex juggled his classwork and his entrepreneurial ambitions, doing well in school and simultaneously raising over $250K for his startup, Ulyngo. By the end of his sophomore year, Alex realized that he wanted to devote himself single-mindedly to his business. He dropped out of college, and a few years later, Alex applied for an interest-free business loan from Hebrew Free Loan to take Ulyngo to the next level.
“I was incredibly surprised that Hebrew Free Loan believed enough in me as a 22-year-old to give me a $50,000 business loan. It’s hard to describe the relief I felt in knowing I could pay my team. I also felt a sense of responsibility to pay it back — and eventually pay it forward — so that others in the community could benefit in a similar way!”
By the time Alex came to Hebrew Free Loan, his idea had morphed from an app he marketed directly to students into a marketplace software platform he was selling to colleges to facilitate the various commercial transactions that are part of student life (event tickets, membership dues, etc.).
Our loan helped Alex build Ulyngo into a viable product that was attractive to major universities. A year and a half later, Ulyngo was acquired by Modo Labs, which helped Ulyngo’s technology reach many more campuses.
These days Alex is engaged with an entirely different venture, Cents, which has taken him into a world he previously knew nothing about — the laundry business. Alex was always interested in investing in small businesses and had heard that laundromats were great investments. Of course, he did his own laundry before founding Cents, and he was frustrated by the fact that he had to hunt down 50 or more quarters every time he needed clean clothes. Based on his fascination with being a small business owner and his own painful experiences with using coin laundries, he dove headfirst into the industry.
Soon Alex was attending events of the Coin Laundry Association and reading Planet Laundry magazine, and he realized there was absolutely no software that served the needs of the laundry industry. It wasn’t long before he and his two co-founders created a company to empower and support the way garment care operators grow, manage, and understand their businesses.
In less than four years, Cents has raised over $77M, reached a nine-figure valuation, and attracted some of the most high-profile investors in tech. Cents has also acquired two companies and employs over 70 people. It’s a strong, growing company that people want to work for, with an employee retention rate of close to 100%.
At the end of the day, Alex remembers the key lessons he absorbed from his grandfather. Being in business is not just about the money you can make, it’s about the impact you can have, the intellectual challenges you embrace, and the fun you have along the way. He also takes pride in being part of the Jewish community and wants to do his part to make the world a better place — both in his personal life and through the businesses he builds.
