Ryan Fish: Failure Is Feedback

This week on Cleaner Conversations, we talked with Ryan Fish from Red Hanger Cleaners in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ryan bought his first dry cleaning business at 23 years old with no background in the industry. Since then, he has built routes, sold a business, bought back in, led through COVID, expanded into restoration, and become one of the most respected voices in garment care. In this episode, we get into Ryan’s journey from a young owner learning dry cleaning by fire to leading one of the defining dry cleaning brands in northern Utah. We talk about pickup and delivery, route density, scaling a team, restoration, buying and selling businesses, closing stores, rebuilding stronger, and why improvement matters more than growth at all costs. This is a practical, honest conversation about ownership, leadership, failure, resilience, and what it really takes to build a stronger dry cleaning business in a changing industry. Topics Covered: • Ryan’s path into the dry cleaning industry • Buying his first dry cleaner at 23 years old • Learning the business hands-on after his partner left • Why small business is more complex than people think • The early grind of running a dry cleaning operation • Building pickup and delivery routes from the ground up • Why route density matters more than simply adding more stops • The difference between route drivers, route managers, and route builders • Why owners need a champion for every major project • How Red Hanger built a strong brand across northern Utah • The role of same-day service in Ryan’s market • What dry cleaners need to understand before adding restoration • The difference between wholesale restoration work and going all in • Storage, admin, insurance, documentation, and operational challenges in restoration • Lessons from buying, selling, and buying back into the industry • Why many owners accidentally buy themselves a job instead of building an asset • What changes when you go from leading 20 people to leading over 100 • Why communication becomes harder and more important as a company scales • How culture depends on access, training, and consistent leadership • What it was like closing stores during COVID • Why failure can become feedback for building a healthier business • Why Ryan believes improvement matters more than growth at all costs • Ryan’s outlook on consolidation and the future of garment care • Why he is still optimistic about the dry cleaning industry Subscribe for more conversations with operators, founders, and leaders across the garment care industry. Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: L0AZNBKBJEEVY8Y9