November 18, 2025 • 17 mins
How to Start Swoop Scoop Business
Can $1,200, a bucket, and a rake turn into a multimillion-dollar company? Yes — and Will Milliken is living proof.
Find out about jobs in the pet waste removal industry - from entrepreneur William Milliken, Founder of Swoop Scoop®, one of the fastest-growing pet waste removal businesses in the country!
It’s simple, low-cost, and you can start making money from day one.
If you thinking about a career change or wish for an amazing side hustle, this episode is for you. We uncover the secrets behind building a multi-million dollar business from scratch.
Listen and get motivated to start on your own journey!
Learn more:
▫️ Swoop Scoop® → https://swoopscoop.com
▫️ Poop Scoop Millionaire → https://www.skool.com/poop-scoop-millionaire/about
If you like the show, please leave us a review, it really helps!
Want us to cover a specific job? Shoot us an email!
Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:03):
Realistically, you can get started with just like a
bucket and a rake.
Um, and if you have if you haveuh transportation, I guess you
could ride your bike or youcould walk around, but I
probably wouldn't recommend it.
You can you can go out there andstart making money within like a
day.
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
Welcome back to season two of How Much Can I
Make?
I'm your host Miravozeri, and weare kicking off things with a
job you absolutely will notbelieve.
Just 32 years old, WilliamWillikan built a$3 million
business within just five yearsand he did it with an initial
investment of only$1,200.
(00:39):
You wanna know how?
By picking up dog poop.
Yes, he turned poop into gold.
Literally.
Will is the founder andpresident of Swoop Scoop, a
booming service that picks upyour dog poop.
So let's find out how he did it.
First of all, thank you so muchfor giving your time and
enjoying the show.
(01:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for having me.
Let's start with the name SwoopScoop, which is very catchy.
How did you come up with that?
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
So we actually started off with a different
name and we ended up having tochange it because we couldn't
get a trademarked push through.
So we ended up just putting likefive different trademark
applications through the uh theprocess, and that was the only
one that came back.
So that's kind of uh how weended up with it.
SPEAKER_01 (01:21):
How did you come up with the idea of scooping poop?
What's your background?
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
So my background uh uh was in digital marketing.
I have a couple other homeservice companies, I got an
electrical company, I got agarage door company, um, and I
had a friend that wanted tostart a company with me, but he
didn't really have any tradeskills.
He wasn't a plumber, wasn't anHVAC.
And my wife had ended up hiringa pooper scooper service at the
time because she was pregnant, Iwas just too busy with work, and
that's kind of where the ideacame from.
Had no idea what we were doing.
(01:44):
My business partner started offlike timing himself, scooping
rocks in his backyard just tosee how long it would take so we
could set pricing and stuff.
Really just kind of took offfrom there, but that was kind of
how we got it, got it started.
SPEAKER_01 (01:54):
Ever since I read about you and listened to your
videos, I started to ask friendsof mine with dogs.
Because for me, it's likeunfathomable that people will
pay to clean their loan, right?
So I started to ask them, wouldyou pay for the service?
They all said in a heartbeat.
Were you surprised when peopleagreed to do it?
SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
Uh a little bit, yeah, because one of the first
things I do when I start a newbusiness is I'll look and see
how much like Google searchvolume there is, so how many
people are searching for anyparticular service?
And there was nobody searchingfor this service when we first
started.
I was pretty surprised, but oncewe were able to get the word
out, it was just yeah, peoplejust wanted to sign up.
I guess people don't likepicking up uh dog food
themselves.
SPEAKER_01 (02:31):
So, how did you get the first customer?
SPEAKER_00 (02:33):
First customer we got, we really were grinding and
out, just kind of reaching outto friends and families.
I think we had some doorhangers, we're knocking on
doors, we're going to vetclinics and just trying to build
relationships that way.
That's how we probably got ourfirst, I don't know, 15, 20
customers or so.
And then once we had some cashcoming into the business, we
started to invest into paidadvertising.
So uh Facebook ads in particularwere very, very powerful for us
(02:54):
once we started doing Facebookads.
I think we went from 20 to over300 customers in about three
months.
SPEAKER_01 (02:59):
And how long did it take from the idea to the first
customer?
SPEAKER_00 (03:02):
Probably by the time we got all the business license
and all that stuff set up, maybeI don't know, maybe like four or
five weeks.
SPEAKER_01 (03:08):
How many customers does one need in order to make
it a full-time job?
SPEAKER_00 (03:12):
So one technician or owner operator, they can they
can handle up to about 150clients by themselves, which is
a pretty pretty good income.
Our average client pays usaround$110 a month right now.
I mean, there's not that manyexpenses in the business if
you're just running it byyourself and you don't have any
employees.
So, I mean, realistically, Imean you could replace your
income with 60, 70 clients formost folks out there.
SPEAKER_01 (03:32):
You go to a to a customer twice a week, once a
week.
SPEAKER_00 (03:36):
Yeah, so it works on a subscription model.
So we have uh differentsubscriptions based on how many
dogs you have and what servicefrequency you want.
So if we come out, we'll eithercome out twice a week, once a
week, once every other week, oronce a month, kind of depending
on whatever the customer'sbudget is and how often they use
their yard.
And that's really all there isto it.
We show up, we scoop the poop,and we leave.
It's as simple as it gets.
SPEAKER_01 (03:55):
How long does it take you to do a yard, roughly?
Uh, I think the average yard isaround seven minutes.
What do you need to start abusiness like this?
SPEAKER_00 (04:03):
Realistically, you can get started with just like a
bucket and a rake.
Um, and if you have if you haveuh transportation, I guess you
could ride your bike or youcould walk around, but I
probably wouldn't recommend it.
But really, you just need abucket and a rake, and then uh
we also highly recommend thatyou get some like disinfectant
so you could spray down yourequipment in between each yard
so you're not spreading likebarbo or anything like that to
dogs.
So technically you could startfor a couple hundred bucks if
(04:23):
you want to get your LLC and allyour legal stuff, and obviously
that's gonna cost a little bitmore.
But uh as far as like the barebones, what you need to get
started, you can get started fora couple hundred bucks.
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
Wow, and you turned your business into a
million-dollar business, butwe'll get to it in a minute
because you have a a side hasslesort of with all your members,
which was very impressive.
One of our uh listener, MariaDavid from New York, sent me a
few questions.
She wanted to know have you evergot bitten by a dog?
SPEAKER_00 (04:49):
I haven't been bitten by a dog.
I actually haven't even scoopedmyself.
So I started with a businesspartner that was doing all the
the scooping, but he has beenbitten by a dog a couple of
times, unfortunately.
Um it's pretty rare when ithappens.
Uh, I was running through thenumbers.
It happens about once every20,000 yards that we clean.
Most of the time when it doeshappen, it's if there's like a
kid or something that like letsout a dog that's not supposed to
be outside while we're in theyard kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_01 (05:11):
Right now you're only on the West Coast, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:13):
Yeah, we're in uh yeah, North Idaho, Eastern
Washington, then we're also inuh Seattle, Everett, and then we
just opened up in Tacoma.
SPEAKER_01 (05:20):
But how can you protect your idea?
Anybody could do it, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
I mean, at the end of the day, it's not rocket
science, it's just picking updog poop.
So I feel like uh it's more ofan execution thing, right?
So it'd be really hard forsomebody to come into our market
and become bigger than us justbecause of how much brand
recognition that we have now.
We also have a full team, wehave a lot more resources, we
got an ops manager, we got amarketing manager, we got
finance people.
So it's really hard for somebodyto come in that's starting their
(05:43):
first business and kind ofcompete with a business like
that.
We got, I don't know, close to1,500 five-star reviews across
our location.
SPEAKER_01 (05:49):
So I know, I saw that.
SPEAKER_00 (05:51):
Yeah, so there's definitely a brand moat, and
then I think the biggest thingis just that uh the execution,
right?
So I know there's a guy in NewYork, he calls himself the uh
the king of poop.
He owns a company called ScoopyDoo over on Long Island.
So he's got about a thousandclients himself over there.
Whoa.
But he's he's been in it forover, I think he just hit his
25th year, which was cool.
SPEAKER_01 (06:10):
And how do you deal with seasons when it snows?
I don't know if it snows whereyou are.
SPEAKER_00 (06:14):
Our first location it does snow.
Our second location it doesn'tsnow.
Uh we actually clean all yearround.
So when it does snow, most ofthe waste just stays on the top
of the snow, so it makes itreally easy to pick up.
And then when the snow melts, Icall it uh peak poop pain
season.
So people have two, three, four,five, six months worth of snow
that just melts off in theirbackyards, like totally
disgusting.
That's actually when we getprobably 70, 80 percent of our
(06:36):
clients for the whole year, iskind of during that.
So we call it the spring rush.
SPEAKER_01 (06:39):
Yeah, every business has its good season.
Do you only do loans orapartment complexes also?
SPEAKER_00 (06:45):
Yeah, so we'll work with uh homeowners associations,
uh, some commercial buildings,some apartment complexes.
So we'll actually go and installthose like uh pet waste stations
uh that have like the bags andthe garbage can.
So we'll install those and thenwe'll also uh yeah, clean up
like after apartment complexesand stuff like that.
It's not a huge part of ourbusiness, but uh definitely we
definitely get calls for thatcoming in.
SPEAKER_01 (07:05):
What is the biggest challenge of this job?
SPEAKER_00 (07:08):
The biggest challenge.
We had a lot of challenges overthe years.
Uh it kind of it kind of variesdepending on the season.
So when we first started off, itwas all trying to figure out
like how to hire people uhefficiently, how to keep people
working for the company.
So that was a big challenge whenwe first started.
Another challenge, especiallywhen you get bigger, is uh
managing like your customerchurn.
So like how many customers arecanceling every month.
(07:29):
So as you get bigger, maybe youonly have a four or four percent
churn, but you got a couplethousand clients, you're losing
over a hundred customers everysingle month that you gotta
replace to stay the same size.
That's probably the biggestthing that we're always
battling, especially with asubscription base, is just how
do we reduce our uh customerchurn?
SPEAKER_01 (07:44):
Why do people leave?
They move away or they theydecide they can pick up
themselves?
SPEAKER_00 (07:49):
Yeah, a lot of it's uh people will move away, their
dog passes away.
Oh a lot of people will uhcancel during the summertime,
which is actually the oppositeof what I thought.
I thought the summertime wasgonna be the busiest time of the
year.
But a lot of people go onvacation, their kids are home
from school, they try to maketheir kids do it.
So for us, the worse the weathergets, the busier it is for us.
So, like quarter four andquarter one are is like the
(08:10):
busiest times for us.
People don't want to go outside.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
Nothing like benefiting from people's
laziness.
I must ask you though, what doyou do with the poop?
SPEAKER_00 (08:19):
Yeah.
So yeah, this one comes up alot.
There's a couple options.
So unfortunately, dog poop isn'treally good for anything that I
know of right now.
So, like, if you try to use itas fertilizer or anything like
that, it'll just kill yourgrass.
So you gotta dispose of it.
So at our first location, wejust have a deal with waste
management.
We got some big dumpsters, andthen they come and they take it.
And I think honestly, I thinkthey just like incinerate it.
I don't know, it's not not good.
(08:41):
And then we realized that a lotof our customers actually didn't
care if we took the waste away.
So uh, like over in our Seattlelocation, we'll just double bag
it and we'll put it in thecustomer's trash can.
That's pretty much it.
So it saves us a lot of money.
We don't gotta buy these bigtrucks, we don't have to get all
these dumpsters, and it's just alot, yeah, a lot more efficient
for the business.
SPEAKER_01 (08:58):
And the client doesn't mind that you put the
poop in their garbage?
SPEAKER_00 (09:01):
No, I mean that's where they were gonna put it
anyways, or had been putting itanyways, so I saw that you have
something very interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (09:07):
You have 900 members.
Could you explain this to me alittle bit?
SPEAKER_00 (09:11):
Yes, we have an online community called the Poop
Scoop Millionaire.
Uh so we were looking at ways toexpand swoop scoop ourselves.
We looked at franchising, welooked at just opening more
locations, we looked at buyingup other companies.
I didn't really feel likefranchising offered enough
value, and there wasn't reallyany other companies that we
could acquire, so we decided tokind of put out all the
information that we use to growour own company.
Swoop Scoop, just out on anonline community.
(09:33):
Um we basically just walk peoplethrough how to start the
business, so what tools to buy,how to do your marketing, all
the equipment, all that kind ofstuff's gonna be there on that
community.
Um the goal is really to makethe industry a more uh
well-known industry, more of amainstream industry.
So get more people searching forthe industry, which is just
gonna help all the differentcompanies throughout the
throughout the country.
We even got people all over theworld.
(09:53):
We got people in Australia, NewZealand, Europe, Canada.
So it's kind of it's kind ofit's kind of crazy.
It took off a lot more than Iexpected it to.
SPEAKER_01 (10:00):
Wow.
If somebody wants to start thisbusiness, what the best advice
you could give them?
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
Yeah, I think the best advice is to just get get
out there and start.
I see all the time, especiallyin the community, people try to
get the perfect logo and they'lltry to get the perfect website
and they'll try to get theperfect like whatever, and they
never actually go out and uh getcustomers, which is what it's
all about, right?
If you don't have customers, youdon't have cash flow, and if you
don't have cash flow, you don'treally have a business.
So I would say just go out thereand get started, like whatever
(10:26):
it takes, get your first one,two, three, five customers, and
then start to kind of dial inthose other things.
But if you don't if you don'tget started, you're just not not
gonna go anywhere.
SPEAKER_01 (10:34):
Right.
Now you started the business in2020, correct?
SPEAKER_00 (10:38):
Yeah, right at the end of 2020, right in the middle
of uh the COVID.
SPEAKER_01 (10:42):
With little very little investment, you got to
million dollar.
I mean, just tell me what is thepotential of this business
money-wise.
SPEAKER_00 (10:50):
Definitely big potential.
I think we're one of the we'reone of the bigger companies in
the space, obviously.
I think we'll do a little overthree million dollars this year.
What?
SPEAKER_01 (10:57):
Yo, yeah, that is amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
Yeah, thank you.
So, and then we actually made uhwe made the Inc.
5000 list, so we were the sixthfastest uh consumer service
business in the country, also onthe Inc.
list.
SPEAKER_01 (11:09):
Oh my god, this is this is shocking.
It's in five years you did allof that?
SPEAKER_00 (11:14):
That's and so now now it's getting to the point
where it's like, okay, we reallygot our systems dialed in, we
got our next layer of managementdialed in, so I'm not really
doing anything day-to-day in thebusiness, I'm not scooping, I'm
not even running our marketing,I'm not even hiring people
anymore.
We got other people to do that.
So now it's gonna be a point ofhow many locations can we just
basically copy paste and open upin new cities.
SPEAKER_01 (11:34):
Um you have to buy the cars for them, or you could
just put somebody in businesswith a bicycle, like you said.
SPEAKER_00 (11:40):
Uh yeah, I don't recommend there's a lot of
people out there that will justget instead of hiring full-time
employees, they'll get like$10.99 and they'll make people
drive their cars so you can getstarted even if you don't have a
car.
I personally like to buy all ourvehicles so that we can put
those wraps on them because it'sa pretty uh core element of our
marketing.
But if you're not taking thewaste, you can literally go out
and buy a$5,000 car that getsdecent gas mileage.
(12:00):
That maybe it's a little bitolder, throw a wrap on it,
nobody can tell that it's an oldcar, and you can go out there
and get started.
SPEAKER_01 (12:06):
What would you say was the smartest marketing thing
you did?
SPEAKER_00 (12:09):
We did a lot of not smart marketing things, but like
what?
There's a pizza hut right acrossthe street from our office, and
we we thought it would be agreat idea to put our poop scoop
coupons on Pizza Hut boxes.
So I think we spent like fivethousand dollars putting like
flyers out on Pizza Hut boxes,and we signed up zero customers.
SPEAKER_01 (12:26):
Oh, that's another kind of funny one.
SPEAKER_00 (12:29):
Yeah.
Probably the best thing that wedid was we wrapped all of our
vehicles.
So all of our trucks have fullwraps, they're like kind of the
teal blue of uh swoop scoop.
They all got our logo on it,they got our phone number on it.
We've yeah, we get hundreds ofcustomers signing up every year
just from our truck wraps alone.
Um, but we got like 25 vehiclesrolling around that are wrapped
now, which is nice.
SPEAKER_01 (12:48):
So that you think was the smartest thing to do?
SPEAKER_00 (12:50):
I think that is one of the smartest things to do
because not only did we getpeople calling in right off the
wraps, more people startedGoogling the service.
So we show up on Google, whichhelps, and then our Facebook ads
that we actually took picturesof our real team standing in
front of our real truck, thosealways seem to perform the best
as well.
SPEAKER_01 (13:05):
Where do you see the business going in the next five
to ten years?
SPEAKER_00 (13:08):
It's definitely growing, especially since we
started coming out and doingpodcasts and doing our YouTube
videos and things like that.
I think just over the last year,searches are up over 180%, which
is nice.
I think it's definitely gonnabecome a more mainstream
service, right?
People search for house cleaningand lawn care and all that
stuff.
So my my hope is that it'll bekind of up in that arena where
people know that it's a servicethat's available to them.
(13:29):
Because, like you said, youprobably talked to all your
friends and they're like, I hadno idea this was a thing, but I
would totally pay for that.
So it's really just getting theuh getting the awareness out
there because people want it,they just don't know that it's a
a service that it exists.
So I think it's gonna continueto grow pretty exponentially for
our company specifically.
Our goal is to get to 10 millionwithin the next three years,
which I think that we should beable to do now that we've got
our infrastructure in place.
(13:50):
But yeah, that's kind of that'skind of where we're going and I
think where the industry'sgoing.
SPEAKER_01 (13:53):
So is your dream eventually to have an exit for
somebody to buy your business?
SPEAKER_00 (13:57):
Maybe.
I mean, I'm pretty I'm only 32right now, so I gotta find
something to do.
If I sell my business andretire, I'll probably die early.
I don't know if that's a goodidea.
But uh I think I think the goalis always to have a valuable
business just so you have thoseoptions, right?
SPEAKER_01 (14:10):
What's your favorite part of the business?
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
Um the money.
I don't yeah, I like money.
I'm definitely not passionateabout dog poop, so I guess I
don't want people to getconfused about that.
I don't know.
For me, it's just kind ofinteresting to see how big we
could take picking up dog poop,honestly.
SPEAKER_01 (14:25):
So everybody asked, they thought it was a great
idea.
It is obviously a great businessidea.
The way you grew it in fiveyears, it's shocking.
SPEAKER_00 (14:33):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, it's low cost,there's definitely some upside,
you don't have any like cost ofgoods sold.
It's a lot easier to hireemployees.
Like I got an electrical companywhere I gotta find guys that
have like 8,000 hours and allthese journeyman licenses and
stuff.
I can just hire somebody toscoop dog poop.
It's like a lot easier to scalethis company and then other
companies.
SPEAKER_01 (14:50):
If somebody starts the business through you, do
they have to pay you anything?
SPEAKER_00 (14:54):
Nope.
Yeah, it's literally uh 69 bucksa month, and we'll basically
teach you everything we know toget to the point that we did.
It's a pretty good offer.
If you wanted to buy into like afranchise or something like
that, you're paying 50 grand toa hundred grand just like in
franchise fees and getting setup and doing all the stuff, and
then you have to listen to whatthey say.
SPEAKER_01 (15:10):
But this way they just learn from you and then
they go on their own.
SPEAKER_00 (15:13):
Yep, exactly.
And I mean that's kind of thewhole point of the industry,
right?
It's you don't need a giantinvestment to get into this and
actually start making money.
Um it's been prettylife-changing for a lot of
people that uh weren't happy attheir jobs, they were able to
get in there and get 100, 150,200 clients and leave their job
and have their own business.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
I know I read some of the reviews of your that side
of your business, and they wereraving.
This they are independent now,they're making great money, they
were like raving, and you have alot of hundreds of mem members.
That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
Yeah, but it's been cool.
We even did a uh in-person eventout in uh quarterly, Idaho, so
we had like over a hundredcompanies fly out called
ScoopCon, which was cool.
So that was that was actuallypretty crazy.
It took me like an hour and ahalf just to walk through the
lobby because everybody was liketrying to stop and talk to me
and stuff.
So it was that was kind of cool.
But and that was just our firstyear online, so we'll see what
happens a few years down theroad.
(16:01):
But yeah, it's definitely beenbooming more than I expected it
to.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
Yeah, it surprised you, huh?
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
Yeah, it did.
I was like, okay, I gotta notlet this go out of my head.
You're just getting started.
SPEAKER_01 (16:11):
Right.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
The opportunity that in 2020 youcould still find a brand new
business that nobody ever did.
This is fantastic.
SPEAKER_00 (16:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:21):
I really commend you for that.
I take my head off.
SPEAKER_00 (16:24):
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
I know I always kind of say,like, if you're thinking about
starting a business and you'vebeen thinking about it for years
and years, and you're notwilling to start like this
business because it's so simple,you're probably not even gonna
start one.
You know what I mean?
You can you can go out there andstart making money within like a
day.
SPEAKER_01 (16:37):
So if someone wants to start a scooping business,
where can they find you?
SPEAKER_00 (16:41):
Yeah, so if you want to just kind of check it out
before you commit too much, wehave a free YouTube channel.
So if you just search like DogPoop Business, we'll pop up.
We got like 400 videos on there.
And if you really want to divein, we have our online community
called Poop Scoop Millionaire.
That's where we have all ourcourses.
We have the live trainings, wegot like eight, nine hundred
other companies in there thatyou can ask questions to.
And then uh the other cool thingabout this community was that it
(17:02):
got so big that we were able togo out and start negotiating
discounts on stuff.
So if you join, you can actuallyget discounts on software and
equipment and things like that.
Unofficial association.
So we're trying to get somebuying power.
So it's actually cheaper to bein there if you use the
discounts than it even costs,which is cool.
SPEAKER_01 (17:16):
That is really great.
I'm gonna put in the show notesall the links for people to know
exactly where to go to get intouch with you and get into
business and start making money.
SPEAKER_00 (17:26):
Yeah, that sounds good.
I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
Sure, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00 (17:30):
Yeah, have a great day.
SPEAKER_01 (17:31):
You too.
Bye bye.
That's a wrap for today.
I don't know about you, but wereally reminded me that the
opportunity is everywhere, evenin places I never thought of.
If you like the show, pleaseleave us a review, it really
helps.
And until next time, staycurious.
See you next week.
Realistically, you can get started with just like a
bucket and a rake.
Um, and if you have if you haveuh transportation, I guess you
could ride your bike or youcould walk around, but I
probably wouldn't recommend it.
You can you can go out there andstart making money within like a
day.
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
Welcome back to season two of How Much Can I
Make?
I'm your host Miravozeri, and weare kicking off things with a
job you absolutely will notbelieve.
Just 32 years old, WilliamWillikan built a$3 million
business within just five yearsand he did it with an initial
investment of only$1,200.
(00:39):
You wanna know how?
By picking up dog poop.
Yes, he turned poop into gold.
Literally.
Will is the founder andpresident of Swoop Scoop, a
booming service that picks upyour dog poop.
So let's find out how he did it.
First of all, thank you so muchfor giving your time and
enjoying the show.
(01:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for having me.
Let's start with the name SwoopScoop, which is very catchy.
How did you come up with that?
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
So we actually started off with a different
name and we ended up having tochange it because we couldn't
get a trademarked push through.
So we ended up just putting likefive different trademark
applications through the uh theprocess, and that was the only
one that came back.
So that's kind of uh how weended up with it.
SPEAKER_01 (01:21):
How did you come up with the idea of scooping poop?
What's your background?
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
So my background uh uh was in digital marketing.
I have a couple other homeservice companies, I got an
electrical company, I got agarage door company, um, and I
had a friend that wanted tostart a company with me, but he
didn't really have any tradeskills.
He wasn't a plumber, wasn't anHVAC.
And my wife had ended up hiringa pooper scooper service at the
time because she was pregnant, Iwas just too busy with work, and
that's kind of where the ideacame from.
Had no idea what we were doing.
(01:44):
My business partner started offlike timing himself, scooping
rocks in his backyard just tosee how long it would take so we
could set pricing and stuff.
Really just kind of took offfrom there, but that was kind of
how we got it, got it started.
SPEAKER_01 (01:54):
Ever since I read about you and listened to your
videos, I started to ask friendsof mine with dogs.
Because for me, it's likeunfathomable that people will
pay to clean their loan, right?
So I started to ask them, wouldyou pay for the service?
They all said in a heartbeat.
Were you surprised when peopleagreed to do it?
SPEAKER_00 (02:13):
Uh a little bit, yeah, because one of the first
things I do when I start a newbusiness is I'll look and see
how much like Google searchvolume there is, so how many
people are searching for anyparticular service?
And there was nobody searchingfor this service when we first
started.
I was pretty surprised, but oncewe were able to get the word
out, it was just yeah, peoplejust wanted to sign up.
I guess people don't likepicking up uh dog food
themselves.
SPEAKER_01 (02:31):
So, how did you get the first customer?
SPEAKER_00 (02:33):
First customer we got, we really were grinding and
out, just kind of reaching outto friends and families.
I think we had some doorhangers, we're knocking on
doors, we're going to vetclinics and just trying to build
relationships that way.
That's how we probably got ourfirst, I don't know, 15, 20
customers or so.
And then once we had some cashcoming into the business, we
started to invest into paidadvertising.
So uh Facebook ads in particularwere very, very powerful for us
(02:54):
once we started doing Facebookads.
I think we went from 20 to over300 customers in about three
months.
SPEAKER_01 (02:59):
And how long did it take from the idea to the first
customer?
SPEAKER_00 (03:02):
Probably by the time we got all the business license
and all that stuff set up, maybeI don't know, maybe like four or
five weeks.
SPEAKER_01 (03:08):
How many customers does one need in order to make
it a full-time job?
SPEAKER_00 (03:12):
So one technician or owner operator, they can they
can handle up to about 150clients by themselves, which is
a pretty pretty good income.
Our average client pays usaround$110 a month right now.
I mean, there's not that manyexpenses in the business if
you're just running it byyourself and you don't have any
employees.
So, I mean, realistically, Imean you could replace your
income with 60, 70 clients formost folks out there.
SPEAKER_01 (03:32):
You go to a to a customer twice a week, once a
week.
SPEAKER_00 (03:36):
Yeah, so it works on a subscription model.
So we have uh differentsubscriptions based on how many
dogs you have and what servicefrequency you want.
So if we come out, we'll eithercome out twice a week, once a
week, once every other week, oronce a month, kind of depending
on whatever the customer'sbudget is and how often they use
their yard.
And that's really all there isto it.
We show up, we scoop the poop,and we leave.
It's as simple as it gets.
SPEAKER_01 (03:55):
How long does it take you to do a yard, roughly?
Uh, I think the average yard isaround seven minutes.
What do you need to start abusiness like this?
SPEAKER_00 (04:03):
Realistically, you can get started with just like a
bucket and a rake.
Um, and if you have if you haveuh transportation, I guess you
could ride your bike or youcould walk around, but I
probably wouldn't recommend it.
But really, you just need abucket and a rake, and then uh
we also highly recommend thatyou get some like disinfectant
so you could spray down yourequipment in between each yard
so you're not spreading likebarbo or anything like that to
dogs.
So technically you could startfor a couple hundred bucks if
(04:23):
you want to get your LLC and allyour legal stuff, and obviously
that's gonna cost a little bitmore.
But uh as far as like the barebones, what you need to get
started, you can get started fora couple hundred bucks.
SPEAKER_01 (04:31):
Wow, and you turned your business into a
million-dollar business, butwe'll get to it in a minute
because you have a a side hasslesort of with all your members,
which was very impressive.
One of our uh listener, MariaDavid from New York, sent me a
few questions.
She wanted to know have you evergot bitten by a dog?
SPEAKER_00 (04:49):
I haven't been bitten by a dog.
I actually haven't even scoopedmyself.
So I started with a businesspartner that was doing all the
the scooping, but he has beenbitten by a dog a couple of
times, unfortunately.
Um it's pretty rare when ithappens.
Uh, I was running through thenumbers.
It happens about once every20,000 yards that we clean.
Most of the time when it doeshappen, it's if there's like a
kid or something that like letsout a dog that's not supposed to
be outside while we're in theyard kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_01 (05:11):
Right now you're only on the West Coast, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:13):
Yeah, we're in uh yeah, North Idaho, Eastern
Washington, then we're also inuh Seattle, Everett, and then we
just opened up in Tacoma.
SPEAKER_01 (05:20):
But how can you protect your idea?
Anybody could do it, right?
SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
I mean, at the end of the day, it's not rocket
science, it's just picking updog poop.
So I feel like uh it's more ofan execution thing, right?
So it'd be really hard forsomebody to come into our market
and become bigger than us justbecause of how much brand
recognition that we have now.
We also have a full team, wehave a lot more resources, we
got an ops manager, we got amarketing manager, we got
finance people.
So it's really hard for somebodyto come in that's starting their
(05:43):
first business and kind ofcompete with a business like
that.
We got, I don't know, close to1,500 five-star reviews across
our location.
SPEAKER_01 (05:49):
So I know, I saw that.
SPEAKER_00 (05:51):
Yeah, so there's definitely a brand moat, and
then I think the biggest thingis just that uh the execution,
right?
So I know there's a guy in NewYork, he calls himself the uh
the king of poop.
He owns a company called ScoopyDoo over on Long Island.
So he's got about a thousandclients himself over there.
Whoa.
But he's he's been in it forover, I think he just hit his
25th year, which was cool.
SPEAKER_01 (06:10):
And how do you deal with seasons when it snows?
I don't know if it snows whereyou are.
SPEAKER_00 (06:14):
Our first location it does snow.
Our second location it doesn'tsnow.
Uh we actually clean all yearround.
So when it does snow, most ofthe waste just stays on the top
of the snow, so it makes itreally easy to pick up.
And then when the snow melts, Icall it uh peak poop pain
season.
So people have two, three, four,five, six months worth of snow
that just melts off in theirbackyards, like totally
disgusting.
That's actually when we getprobably 70, 80 percent of our
(06:36):
clients for the whole year, iskind of during that.
So we call it the spring rush.
SPEAKER_01 (06:39):
Yeah, every business has its good season.
Do you only do loans orapartment complexes also?
SPEAKER_00 (06:45):
Yeah, so we'll work with uh homeowners associations,
uh, some commercial buildings,some apartment complexes.
So we'll actually go and installthose like uh pet waste stations
uh that have like the bags andthe garbage can.
So we'll install those and thenwe'll also uh yeah, clean up
like after apartment complexesand stuff like that.
It's not a huge part of ourbusiness, but uh definitely we
definitely get calls for thatcoming in.
SPEAKER_01 (07:05):
What is the biggest challenge of this job?
SPEAKER_00 (07:08):
The biggest challenge.
We had a lot of challenges overthe years.
Uh it kind of it kind of variesdepending on the season.
So when we first started off, itwas all trying to figure out
like how to hire people uhefficiently, how to keep people
working for the company.
So that was a big challenge whenwe first started.
Another challenge, especiallywhen you get bigger, is uh
managing like your customerchurn.
So like how many customers arecanceling every month.
(07:29):
So as you get bigger, maybe youonly have a four or four percent
churn, but you got a couplethousand clients, you're losing
over a hundred customers everysingle month that you gotta
replace to stay the same size.
That's probably the biggestthing that we're always
battling, especially with asubscription base, is just how
do we reduce our uh customerchurn?
SPEAKER_01 (07:44):
Why do people leave?
They move away or they theydecide they can pick up
themselves?
SPEAKER_00 (07:49):
Yeah, a lot of it's uh people will move away, their
dog passes away.
Oh a lot of people will uhcancel during the summertime,
which is actually the oppositeof what I thought.
I thought the summertime wasgonna be the busiest time of the
year.
But a lot of people go onvacation, their kids are home
from school, they try to maketheir kids do it.
So for us, the worse the weathergets, the busier it is for us.
So, like quarter four andquarter one are is like the
(08:10):
busiest times for us.
People don't want to go outside.
SPEAKER_01 (08:12):
Nothing like benefiting from people's
laziness.
I must ask you though, what doyou do with the poop?
SPEAKER_00 (08:19):
Yeah.
So yeah, this one comes up alot.
There's a couple options.
So unfortunately, dog poop isn'treally good for anything that I
know of right now.
So, like, if you try to use itas fertilizer or anything like
that, it'll just kill yourgrass.
So you gotta dispose of it.
So at our first location, wejust have a deal with waste
management.
We got some big dumpsters, andthen they come and they take it.
And I think honestly, I thinkthey just like incinerate it.
I don't know, it's not not good.
(08:41):
And then we realized that a lotof our customers actually didn't
care if we took the waste away.
So uh, like over in our Seattlelocation, we'll just double bag
it and we'll put it in thecustomer's trash can.
That's pretty much it.
So it saves us a lot of money.
We don't gotta buy these bigtrucks, we don't have to get all
these dumpsters, and it's just alot, yeah, a lot more efficient
for the business.
SPEAKER_01 (08:58):
And the client doesn't mind that you put the
poop in their garbage?
SPEAKER_00 (09:01):
No, I mean that's where they were gonna put it
anyways, or had been putting itanyways, so I saw that you have
something very interesting.
SPEAKER_01 (09:07):
You have 900 members.
Could you explain this to me alittle bit?
SPEAKER_00 (09:11):
Yes, we have an online community called the Poop
Scoop Millionaire.
Uh so we were looking at ways toexpand swoop scoop ourselves.
We looked at franchising, welooked at just opening more
locations, we looked at buyingup other companies.
I didn't really feel likefranchising offered enough
value, and there wasn't reallyany other companies that we
could acquire, so we decided tokind of put out all the
information that we use to growour own company.
Swoop Scoop, just out on anonline community.
(09:33):
Um we basically just walk peoplethrough how to start the
business, so what tools to buy,how to do your marketing, all
the equipment, all that kind ofstuff's gonna be there on that
community.
Um the goal is really to makethe industry a more uh
well-known industry, more of amainstream industry.
So get more people searching forthe industry, which is just
gonna help all the differentcompanies throughout the
throughout the country.
We even got people all over theworld.
(09:53):
We got people in Australia, NewZealand, Europe, Canada.
So it's kind of it's kind ofit's kind of crazy.
It took off a lot more than Iexpected it to.
SPEAKER_01 (10:00):
Wow.
If somebody wants to start thisbusiness, what the best advice
you could give them?
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
Yeah, I think the best advice is to just get get
out there and start.
I see all the time, especiallyin the community, people try to
get the perfect logo and they'lltry to get the perfect website
and they'll try to get theperfect like whatever, and they
never actually go out and uh getcustomers, which is what it's
all about, right?
If you don't have customers, youdon't have cash flow, and if you
don't have cash flow, you don'treally have a business.
So I would say just go out thereand get started, like whatever
(10:26):
it takes, get your first one,two, three, five customers, and
then start to kind of dial inthose other things.
But if you don't if you don'tget started, you're just not not
gonna go anywhere.
SPEAKER_01 (10:34):
Right.
Now you started the business in2020, correct?
SPEAKER_00 (10:38):
Yeah, right at the end of 2020, right in the middle
of uh the COVID.
SPEAKER_01 (10:42):
With little very little investment, you got to
million dollar.
I mean, just tell me what is thepotential of this business
money-wise.
SPEAKER_00 (10:50):
Definitely big potential.
I think we're one of the we'reone of the bigger companies in
the space, obviously.
I think we'll do a little overthree million dollars this year.
What?
SPEAKER_01 (10:57):
Yo, yeah, that is amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (11:01):
Yeah, thank you.
So, and then we actually made uhwe made the Inc.
5000 list, so we were the sixthfastest uh consumer service
business in the country, also onthe Inc.
list.
SPEAKER_01 (11:09):
Oh my god, this is this is shocking.
It's in five years you did allof that?
SPEAKER_00 (11:14):
That's and so now now it's getting to the point
where it's like, okay, we reallygot our systems dialed in, we
got our next layer of managementdialed in, so I'm not really
doing anything day-to-day in thebusiness, I'm not scooping, I'm
not even running our marketing,I'm not even hiring people
anymore.
We got other people to do that.
So now it's gonna be a point ofhow many locations can we just
basically copy paste and open upin new cities.
SPEAKER_01 (11:34):
Um you have to buy the cars for them, or you could
just put somebody in businesswith a bicycle, like you said.
SPEAKER_00 (11:40):
Uh yeah, I don't recommend there's a lot of
people out there that will justget instead of hiring full-time
employees, they'll get like$10.99 and they'll make people
drive their cars so you can getstarted even if you don't have a
car.
I personally like to buy all ourvehicles so that we can put
those wraps on them because it'sa pretty uh core element of our
marketing.
But if you're not taking thewaste, you can literally go out
and buy a$5,000 car that getsdecent gas mileage.
(12:00):
That maybe it's a little bitolder, throw a wrap on it,
nobody can tell that it's an oldcar, and you can go out there
and get started.
SPEAKER_01 (12:06):
What would you say was the smartest marketing thing
you did?
SPEAKER_00 (12:09):
We did a lot of not smart marketing things, but like
what?
There's a pizza hut right acrossthe street from our office, and
we we thought it would be agreat idea to put our poop scoop
coupons on Pizza Hut boxes.
So I think we spent like fivethousand dollars putting like
flyers out on Pizza Hut boxes,and we signed up zero customers.
SPEAKER_01 (12:26):
Oh, that's another kind of funny one.
SPEAKER_00 (12:29):
Yeah.
Probably the best thing that wedid was we wrapped all of our
vehicles.
So all of our trucks have fullwraps, they're like kind of the
teal blue of uh swoop scoop.
They all got our logo on it,they got our phone number on it.
We've yeah, we get hundreds ofcustomers signing up every year
just from our truck wraps alone.
Um, but we got like 25 vehiclesrolling around that are wrapped
now, which is nice.
SPEAKER_01 (12:48):
So that you think was the smartest thing to do?
SPEAKER_00 (12:50):
I think that is one of the smartest things to do
because not only did we getpeople calling in right off the
wraps, more people startedGoogling the service.
So we show up on Google, whichhelps, and then our Facebook ads
that we actually took picturesof our real team standing in
front of our real truck, thosealways seem to perform the best
as well.
SPEAKER_01 (13:05):
Where do you see the business going in the next five
to ten years?
SPEAKER_00 (13:08):
It's definitely growing, especially since we
started coming out and doingpodcasts and doing our YouTube
videos and things like that.
I think just over the last year,searches are up over 180%, which
is nice.
I think it's definitely gonnabecome a more mainstream
service, right?
People search for house cleaningand lawn care and all that
stuff.
So my my hope is that it'll bekind of up in that arena where
people know that it's a servicethat's available to them.
(13:29):
Because, like you said, youprobably talked to all your
friends and they're like, I hadno idea this was a thing, but I
would totally pay for that.
So it's really just getting theuh getting the awareness out
there because people want it,they just don't know that it's a
a service that it exists.
So I think it's gonna continueto grow pretty exponentially for
our company specifically.
Our goal is to get to 10 millionwithin the next three years,
which I think that we should beable to do now that we've got
our infrastructure in place.
(13:50):
But yeah, that's kind of that'skind of where we're going and I
think where the industry'sgoing.
SPEAKER_01 (13:53):
So is your dream eventually to have an exit for
somebody to buy your business?
SPEAKER_00 (13:57):
Maybe.
I mean, I'm pretty I'm only 32right now, so I gotta find
something to do.
If I sell my business andretire, I'll probably die early.
I don't know if that's a goodidea.
But uh I think I think the goalis always to have a valuable
business just so you have thoseoptions, right?
SPEAKER_01 (14:10):
What's your favorite part of the business?
SPEAKER_00 (14:13):
Um the money.
I don't yeah, I like money.
I'm definitely not passionateabout dog poop, so I guess I
don't want people to getconfused about that.
I don't know.
For me, it's just kind ofinteresting to see how big we
could take picking up dog poop,honestly.
SPEAKER_01 (14:25):
So everybody asked, they thought it was a great
idea.
It is obviously a great businessidea.
The way you grew it in fiveyears, it's shocking.
SPEAKER_00 (14:33):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, it's low cost,there's definitely some upside,
you don't have any like cost ofgoods sold.
It's a lot easier to hireemployees.
Like I got an electrical companywhere I gotta find guys that
have like 8,000 hours and allthese journeyman licenses and
stuff.
I can just hire somebody toscoop dog poop.
It's like a lot easier to scalethis company and then other
companies.
SPEAKER_01 (14:50):
If somebody starts the business through you, do
they have to pay you anything?
SPEAKER_00 (14:54):
Nope.
Yeah, it's literally uh 69 bucksa month, and we'll basically
teach you everything we know toget to the point that we did.
It's a pretty good offer.
If you wanted to buy into like afranchise or something like
that, you're paying 50 grand toa hundred grand just like in
franchise fees and getting setup and doing all the stuff, and
then you have to listen to whatthey say.
SPEAKER_01 (15:10):
But this way they just learn from you and then
they go on their own.
SPEAKER_00 (15:13):
Yep, exactly.
And I mean that's kind of thewhole point of the industry,
right?
It's you don't need a giantinvestment to get into this and
actually start making money.
Um it's been prettylife-changing for a lot of
people that uh weren't happy attheir jobs, they were able to
get in there and get 100, 150,200 clients and leave their job
and have their own business.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
I know I read some of the reviews of your that side
of your business, and they wereraving.
This they are independent now,they're making great money, they
were like raving, and you have alot of hundreds of mem members.
That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
Yeah, but it's been cool.
We even did a uh in-person eventout in uh quarterly, Idaho, so
we had like over a hundredcompanies fly out called
ScoopCon, which was cool.
So that was that was actuallypretty crazy.
It took me like an hour and ahalf just to walk through the
lobby because everybody was liketrying to stop and talk to me
and stuff.
So it was that was kind of cool.
But and that was just our firstyear online, so we'll see what
happens a few years down theroad.
(16:01):
But yeah, it's definitely beenbooming more than I expected it
to.
SPEAKER_01 (16:04):
Yeah, it surprised you, huh?
SPEAKER_00 (16:06):
Yeah, it did.
I was like, okay, I gotta notlet this go out of my head.
You're just getting started.
SPEAKER_01 (16:11):
Right.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
The opportunity that in 2020 youcould still find a brand new
business that nobody ever did.
This is fantastic.
SPEAKER_00 (16:20):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:21):
I really commend you for that.
I take my head off.
SPEAKER_00 (16:24):
I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
I know I always kind of say,like, if you're thinking about
starting a business and you'vebeen thinking about it for years
and years, and you're notwilling to start like this
business because it's so simple,you're probably not even gonna
start one.
You know what I mean?
You can you can go out there andstart making money within like a
day.
SPEAKER_01 (16:37):
So if someone wants to start a scooping business,
where can they find you?
SPEAKER_00 (16:41):
Yeah, so if you want to just kind of check it out
before you commit too much, wehave a free YouTube channel.
So if you just search like DogPoop Business, we'll pop up.
We got like 400 videos on there.
And if you really want to divein, we have our online community
called Poop Scoop Millionaire.
That's where we have all ourcourses.
We have the live trainings, wegot like eight, nine hundred
other companies in there thatyou can ask questions to.
And then uh the other cool thingabout this community was that it
(17:02):
got so big that we were able togo out and start negotiating
discounts on stuff.
So if you join, you can actuallyget discounts on software and
equipment and things like that.
Unofficial association.
So we're trying to get somebuying power.
So it's actually cheaper to bein there if you use the
discounts than it even costs,which is cool.
SPEAKER_01 (17:16):
That is really great.
I'm gonna put in the show notesall the links for people to know
exactly where to go to get intouch with you and get into
business and start making money.
SPEAKER_00 (17:26):
Yeah, that sounds good.
I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_01 (17:28):
Sure, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00 (17:30):
Yeah, have a great day.
SPEAKER_01 (17:31):
You too.
Bye bye.
That's a wrap for today.
I don't know about you, but wereally reminded me that the
opportunity is everywhere, evenin places I never thought of.
If you like the show, pleaseleave us a review, it really
helps.
And until next time, staycurious.
See you next week.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.