USA TODAY Education - Careers TODAY (original) (raw)

June 13, 2005 (7B)

Rubbish Boy turned junk into his career
Entrepreneurial spirit struck at young age
By Gary Stoller, USA TODAY

Brian Scudamore keeps proving that one man's junk is another man's treasure.

The 35-year-old businessman has gone from high school dropout to CEO of a fast-growing trash-removal empire that aims to become to the junk world what FedEx has become to package delivery. His company, 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, operates franchises in large metropolitan areas in the USA and Canada, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Washington, D.C.

Scudamore, the son of a Canadian liver transplant surgeon, attributes his company's success to superior customer service in markets with weak competition, usually small mom-and-pop operations with one truck.

1-800-GOT-JUNK? uses shiny Isuzu trucks with uniformed drivers who call customers to confirm a pickup. Customers book online (www.1800gotjunk.com) or by calling a toll-free number.

They can designate a two-hour period for pickup. The company strives to fill a niche between curbside garbage collectors and haulers of heavy-duty waste. "No competitors offer the level of service that we do," says Scudamore, who was born in San Francisco and lived there until his family moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, when he was 8. Franchising has also made the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? brand grow rapidly -- from two franchises in 1997 to 152 today. It plans to expand this summer to Australia. Plans call for operating two trucks in Sydney. Scudamore credits success to employees and franchisees "who believe in what the company is doing." The company philosophy is "work hard, play hard," and its website has testimonials from employees. The site includes pictures of employees "escaping" the office to ride a Segway, competing in a race wearing blue wigs that match drivers' uniforms and preparing to hand out wigs to the public before a Vancouver Canucks hockey game.

The levity hasn't stood in the way of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?'s remarkable growth. This year, it expects revenue of 72million,nearlydoublelastyear.Ithadrevenueofjust72 million, nearly double last year. It had revenue of just 72million,nearlydoublelastyear.Ithadrevenueofjust2.3 million in 2000. Scudamore says the privately held company is profitable but declines to discuss earnings.

Employment at Scudamore's company and its franchises has grown to nearly 1,000, including 105 at headquarters in Vancouver.

In the beginning

The company's success contrasts with its humble beginning in Vancouver. As an 18-year-old, Scudamore was having a difficult time finding a summer job. While at a McDonald's drive-through in 1989, he noticed a beat-up truck of a local hauling company.

"I said, 'That's it!'" he recalls. "I ate my cheeseburger and, within a week, had a business."

He bought a truck for 700,placedanewspaperadthatsaid,"TheRubbishBoyswillstashyourtrashinaflash,"andcharged700, placed a newspaper ad that said, "The Rubbish Boys will stash your trash in a flash," and charged 700,placedanewspaperadthatsaid,"TheRubbishBoyswillstashyourtrashinaflash,"andcharged80 per truckload.

Scudamore dropped out of high school one course short of graduating to devote his attention to The Rubbish Boys. It was his fourth high school, including one that kicked him out for non-attendance.

"Brian was the class clown in high school, and I think he was bored," says his mother, Victoria Scudamore, a Vancouver realty agent. "He couldn't see the point in taking subjects that he wasn't going to use in real life. This was difficult for his father and me to understand, because we were both quite academic."

But Brian says he always was a businessman at heart. He ran a paper route at age 9, a car wash business in front of his house at 11 and a school store inside his boarding school dormitory at 14.

"Every student was given $5 allowance per week by the school," Scudamore says. "I spent it at the village store buying chocolate bars and Popsicles for 6 1/2 cents. Then the kids would come every night, buy them for higher prices and I had hundreds of dollars."

Scudamore's entrepreneurial pursuit at The Rubbish Boys didn't impress his much-younger brother, Trevor, who is now 20. "When he was in second grade, I picked him up from school," Scudamore recalls. "He was embarrassed that I picked him up in a junk truck."

Though The Rubbish Boys may have lacked prestige, the company made money. It earned enough to expand to three trucks in 1993 and to pay for Scudamore's classes at the University of British Columbia.

He persuaded officials to admit him into college without a high-school diploma. His early-generation cellphone would frequently ring in class with a junk-related call and disturb everyone. One year before earning a business degree, he again threw in the academic towel.

"School was a distraction, and I was having too much fun running the business," says Scudamore. "So I dropped out."

His father, Charles, says that in Brian's "early days of being a junk man," he "made the classic errors that some businessmen always get into." A short-lived relationship with a business partner didn't work out, and he trusted some of the wrong people.

"He was wise enough, however, to speak to successful people around him, learn their secrets and incorporate their wisdom into his business," Charles Scudamore says.

By 1995, Brian was in charge of about 15 employees and expanded the company outside Vancouver to Victoria, British Columbia. He found his first franchise partner there but says the city on Vancouver Island was too small to prove his franchising idea could work.

So he found a franchise partner in Seattle in 1997, and the next year renamed the company 1-800-GOT-JUNK?. Dialing the name, purchased from a U.S. company, connects callers to a customer service agent who can book a pickup. "The name is instrumental in our success," says Scudamore. "People remember it."

The company has never brought in an outside investor. Scudamore says he's borrowed money but has always quickly paid it back.

Expanding the business

The company began selling franchises in other major North American cities and expanded to 14 in 2000.

The company hauls all kinds of junk -- particularly furniture, mattresses, cabinets, bathtubs, kitchen cupboards and remodeling refuse -- to dumps and recycling stations.

It won't haul hazardous materials, including paint, oil, chemicals and asbestos.

Scudamore says that up to 60% of what the company picks up gets recycled. It doesn't resell anything, though it has come across some unique items, such as Clark Gable's piano in Portland, Ore. The average pickup is a little more than half a truckload or more than a ton, and costs $289, he says.

Franchise partners are required to build their own truck fleet and staff and to "pound the pavement to drive sales promotion," he says. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? sells trucks at discounts to its franchises and instructs them on how to hire employees and manage finances. It books customers and dispatches trucks.

A franchise partner must have 60,000to60,000 to 60,000to80,000 in working capital, part of which pays a franchise fee and a down payment on trucks, Scudamore says.

Each territory with a population of 125,000 costs an additional $8,000, and 8% of sales go to the company.

It's been a very successful relationship, says Judy Briggs, who owns a franchise in Worcester, Mass. She says she made 1,400 pickups last year and is adding a fifth truck to her fleet. She credits Scudamore for the company's success.

"Brian has a passion for the business and for providing the best customer service," Briggs says. "He's very charismatic, and he's always had a vision."

Non-believers come around

Scudamore has become so successful that the high school that booted him out for non-attendance invited him to teach an achievement class. His parents, who doubted his career path when he bought his first junk truck, are now believers.

"All we saw was a young kid in overalls and an old truck," says his mother, Victoria. "But Brian continues to surprise and delight with his entrepreneurial accomplishments, and I've gotten over the fact that he is a college dropout."