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Internet home to Junk Removal Business (London Free Press)
A fast-growing London company is successfully combining the old business of junk removal with the latest internet technology. Only three years after he founded 1-888-JUNK-VAN with a $500 GMC van, Marcus Kingo has expanded with franchises in Kitchener, Hamilton, Mississauga and Ottawa. Kingo Lives in Strathroy and the business is based in London, but you won’t find a head office in either community. 1-888-JUNK-VAN is a virtual business with the bookings done through a website and call centres, invoicing don’t through e-mails and credit cards, and staff working through online dispatch and cell phones. “ We have been able to expand and grow without paying rent anywhere” Kingo said. 1-888-JUNK-VAN is facing tough competition, ranging from global giant 1-800-GOT-JUNK to small local operators. Kingo has bright yellow trucks that function as moving billboards and also uses print advertising and sign on London Transit Commission buses. The company is steadily building a customer base through referrals, he said. The company charges a $50 flat fee for the truck plus the weight of the junk hauled away. Kingo is in the process of turning the London operation over to employees Martin Czech and Russell Kyle, who will become franchisees on Feb 1. Kingo is now doing a MBA online through Athabaska University and his business is the subject of a case study by a PhD student at the Richard Ivey School of Business. Kingo has past experience in the limousine service and car retailing, but saw great potential in junk removal. “All of the new technology has really allowed us to grow”
Junk-Van was launched in January 2008 with a GMC van he bought for $600. Enterprise: Kingo builds mini empire on moving junk ( London Business Magazine)
This month, the province release figures showing the average Londonder created 409 kilograms of waste in 2007, about 40per cent of which was diverted from landfills through recycling programs. That 409 kg was just above the provincial average, and the recycling rate was better than the provincial average. No matter how you cut it, that’s a lot of junk – but hardly a surprise to Marcus Kingo. In just over a year, Kingo has built a mini business empire based solely on people’s desire to get rid of junk. While many people profess concern for the environment, those concerns are juxtaposed by our collective desire to acquire more stuff and find a place to keep it. The late George Carlin had something to say about this, long before landfills were filling up and going green went mainstream. Its even more confusing now when the calamitous economy seems to require consumers to get out there and shop – for cars, homes and other big ticket items. Kingo, 36, launched 1-888-JUNK-VAN in January 2008 with a GMC van he bought for $500. He was the only employee, and he drove around loading junk into the van and taking it to landfills and recycling centres. Today, the company has nine commercial trucks and 15 employees. This summer, there will be close to 25 full- and part-time employees. “I never even dreamed it could go this well,” says and enthusiastic Kingo. “There were some growing pains and things to learn, but it’s been wonderful to have the business grow this much this quickly.” One thing he learned was to invest in tarps to cover and secure the contents of open-top trucks in his fleet. “Things fly off if you don’t cover them up, “ he says wryly. “We had a piece of wood come off and hit a Mercedes. That cost us $6,000, but we sure learned the lesson.” Working from a virtual office, tied together with cell phones and computers, Kingo has kept overhead to a minimum. However, it was a challenge initially to communicate with various cres across the city and then in the other cities as the business expanded. He parks the trucks in visible lots overnight, solving the problem of where to keep them and also using their bright yellow livery as billboards to advertise the service. After London was up and running, he launched the service in the Cambridge area. In May, He’ll start operating a truck in Hamilton as a way to ease into that market. “I hope to franchise the business one day, but we want to really establish it and get it running smoothly before we do that,” he says. In his spare time, he’s earning his MBA online from the University of Athabasca. He’s about half-way through that two-year process. A typical client is a woman aged 35 to 60. Some live alone, but many, he says, are fed up waiting for their husband to deal with the pile of furniture and other junk in the basement or garage. “You’d be surprised how often we get there while the husband is out or away for some reason,” he says, laughing. Though a lot of junk ends up in landfills, Kingo says a majority is recycled in some fashion. Whenever possible, the company donates workable items to Goodwill or other charitable organizations that can put the stuff to use.
Just three years beyond one-man status, a junk removal business establishes a franchise model (London Free Press)
To the casual observer, there’s nothing high-tech about a business that hauls away people’s junk. You get yourself a truck, fill it with unwanted items and go dump it. Couldn’t be more simple. However, behind the scenes, 1-888-Junk-Van is a sophisticated operation that relies entirely on Internet traffic and some clever programming to run its day-to-day business. In only three years, the business has grown from a one-man, one-truck operation into a thriving business that is selling franchises and expanding across the Ontario and into the U.S. The London franchise was the second sold; Ottawa was first last year. The Local buyers knew exactly what they were getting. Martin Czech has worked for the company almost from day one, alongside founder and owner Marcus Kingo. His partner in the purchase, Russell Kyle, worked for the company two years ago, before leaving to take a mechanical engineering job. Together, they own the London franchise, a business that’s been up and running for three years and has an established customer base. “We’ll open corporate stores and then look to franchise them once they’re established. We’d like to sell franchises as turn-key operations, where all operations are based on already created systems.” As for Czech and Kyle, they’re thrilled with their purchase. “We worked together here in 2009, and quickly realized how good a business it is,” says Kyle. “As soon as I started working here, I knew there was real potential,” says Czech. “I started asking about buying the franchise more than a year ago, but the company was brand new so it made sense to wait until now.” In addition to its two franchises, Junk Van operates in Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, Mississauga and Barrie. Kingo will expand to Windsor and Toronto this year, all the while working part-time on his MBA and also operating an offshoot business called Bin Rentals. Bin Rentals supplies bins ranging in capacity size from 10 to 16 cubic yards, and are available for rent across South western Ontario for as little as $99 for three days, plus disposal costs. Using subcontractors across the U.S., Kingo is about to launch U.S. Bin Rentals. With its own dedicated website, it will take orders and farm them out to the nearest subcontractor, taking a commission for the transaction. “It’s completely electronic,” Kingo says. “Our whole business operates that way with the IT Cloud Platform. We book our reservations online, and they automatically are routed by email to our drivers. If they are already on the road that day, they get the message on their smart phones. Drivers log in their work, and the system generates an invoice and processes credit card payments automatically. Drivers get paid by email transfer.” Junk Van rates are $50 plus 21 cents per pound of junk to be disposed of. However the 21 cents figure is negotiable, depending on what the materials are. “It’s never more than 21 cents, and sometimes less,” says Kyle. And he should know. He owns the business now