Entrepreneur Success Story: Brian Scudamore
by Shane on 31/10/05 at 12:47 pm
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From About:
"Brian Scudamore started his company 1-800-GOT-JUNK? in 1989 straight out of high school with $700 and a beat-up old pick-up truck. Today they have 95 franchise partners across North America with a true national presence — they are in 47 of North America’s top 50 cities. I hired my first employee a week after I started. I knew I needed the help. His name was David Sniderman — a good friend of mine. I really didn’t know yet how to hire so I just asked a buddy." It may have started as a matter of simply not knowing what else to do, but it became a philosophical issue for him. "On a bigger level, I always believed in hiring people vs. contract or consultants. I felt that if I wasn’t willing to make the investment then I was questioning my own faith in the business. Their recipe for success has been simple. Take a fragmented business, add clean shiny trucks that act as mobile billboards, uniformed drivers, on-time service and up-front rates, and then mix in with a culture that is young, fun and completely focused on solid, healthy growth. He has managed to retain 100% ownership and bootstrapped the business solely out of cash flow — something that is very rare these days."
Shane Dryden is the 'Maven' at Ideate. The driving-force of Yuppiechef, Shane loves to write on advertising and innovation. He spots the non-obvious stuff behind the obvious, which seems obvious, but isn’t really that obvious (obviously). View more articles by Shane.
