Business Innovators Radio - “Trash Talk: A Conversation with San Antonio’s Leading Junk Removal Expert”

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

In this episode of Business Innovators Radio, host Marco Salinas interviews Jared Moring, the owner of Space Makers Junk Removal based in San Antonio.Jared shares his journey as an entrepreneur, from studying environmental consulting in college to working for Waste Management, a Fortune 100 company, to starting his own business.Jared talks about how he got the idea for Space Makers Junk Removal and how he turned it into a successful business. He also shares some of the challenges he faced along the way, including competing against larger companies and dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.One of the key takeaways from this episode is Jared’s emphasis on customer service. He believes that providing excellent service is what sets his business apart from the competition and has helped him build a loyal customer base.Another highlight of the episode is Jared’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. He encourages them to take risks and not be afraid to fail, as it is all part of the learning process. He also stresses the importance of being passionate about your business and having a strong work ethic.This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, customer service, or the waste management industry. Jared’s story is an inspiring example of how hard work, determination, and a commitment to excellence can lead to success in business.About Jared Moring:Jared didn’t follow the traditional path of becoming an entrepreneur. He enjoyed building cities on the floor as a kid, which sparked his interest in becoming an urban planner. However, he ended up studying science in college and worked in environmental consulting for a while. Eventually, Jared found himself in the waste industry with Waste Management. He never thought he would become an entrepreneur, but his business-minded personality led him down that path.To learn more about Jared and his business, visit his website at:https://www.spacemakersjunk.com/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/trash-talk-a-conversation-with-san-antonios-leading-junk-removal-expert

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. And welcome back to another episode of Business Innovators Radio. I am your host, Marco Salinas, and we are back again with another really cool, awesome, exciting business owner's story. Joining me today is a very special guest. His name is, Mr. Jared Mooring, and Jared is the owner of a company based out of San Antonio called Space Maker's Junk Removal. Jared, welcome to the program, my friend. Thank you to have, thank you for having me, Marco. Glad it on you. Absolutely.

It's my pleasure. I've got some questions lined up for you. I want to learn a little bit more about you and your journey as a business owner. my favorite thing is talking to other business owners because every business owner has a unique story. And that's one of my absolute favorite things about being able to have the privilege of interviewing business owners is that I've never heard the same story twice. The other thing about it is is that as a business owner, there's less and less of us, it seems like, when you kind of zoom out and you look at the big picture over, let's say, the last hundred years, you know, there's not as many business owners. owners these days as there have been throughout, you know, throughout, like I said, throughout about the last hundred years or so. So we're kind of a smaller little group here.

And it is getting a little bit more challenging and more difficult for us to survive against some of the, you know, certain bigger, bigger companies or government bureaucrats, always trying to find something else to trip us up on or, you know, and that's not even counting like the whole entire country shutting down for a period of time, right? So, Let's start talking about that type of stuff, Jared. I've got a question, though, specifically for you first. Was entrepreneurship something that was kind of always on your mind when you were growing up? Would you say that it was like in your DNA?

Was it something that you aspired to at a very early age? Like, when did you decide that maybe you wanted to be a business owner? And tell me a little bit about your background in that regard. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I think I've actually taken a little bit. of a less traditional path to becoming an entrepreneur. There's a lot of people that, as you mentioned, maybe had it in their DNA. They sold lemonade to lemonade stand when they were a kid or cut grass.

And that was the story. They're like, I've always been a business-minded person. But sure, I cut grass growing up, but I never thought I would have a business as a kid. I actually wanted to be a urban planner, which is really random. I don't know why. but I used to build like cities on the floor and have cars, you know, going through and trying to figure out where roads should go. Okay. And I completely, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I didn't end up doing that, but that was something I really loved as a kid. But, you know, I went throughout school and college. I didn't study business in college. I went down a science route in college, thought I was going to be doing environmental consulting. So I ended up doing. environmental consulting for a little while after college. And then I got into the waste industry with a company called waste management, which a lot of people may be familiar with.

Oh, yeah. 100 behemals. Those are the big dogs. 35,000 employees. Yeah, large company, right? Yep. So I was one of those 45,000 for about three years in Dallas and learned the ends and outs of kind of the waste hauling business.

Okay. But somewhere in there, the first year or two of working there, I kind of had a seed planted that, you know, I really would like to start a business. It just sounds much more fun to invest my time in something that could benefit my family down the road. I can actually help people directly as opposed to kind of indirectly working for such a large corporation. So actually, in the podcast world, I, you know, I listened to Joe Rogan back then and I actually heard a podcast. podcast with Naval Rabatant back then. And Naval said something I remember about, you know, the true way to wealth is through business ownership or owning a piece of something, essentially.

And that was something that kind of turned to gears in my head originally. I said, you know what? I'm going to go down this path because it just sounds like something I would like to try. You know, why not try it while I'm young, too? So we dove in. So in 2019, you know, we dove in. and started the business, myself and my brother-in-law, actually. But to bring that around, I'd say I was not an entrepreneurly minded person growing up,

but I heard all it just from kind of learning things over time. Yeah, absolutely. That's cool, man. That is very interesting. And so you're one of those that, I guess, it kind of caught the bug a little bit later down the line. And then, you know, listening to that podcast episode, you realize that, you know, I think the bigger picture of your, of your, of your, of your journey would be fulfilled, um, not in having a nine to five job, but in doing something for yourself, right? And so I think

that's what inspires a lot of us to take that leap and to start doing things on our own. And we all know that we all know that obviously it's not going to be a, an easy journey, but it can be very rewarding, right? It can absolutely be very rewarding. So what, what, what, what, was it, I guess, or what was the circumstance that surrounded that moment where you pretty much said, hey, this is something that I want to do versus maybe, I don't know, was it a conversation with your brother-in-law? Like, hey, man, I really want to do this. Y'all are eating dinner. You know, are you having lunch? And you're like, hey, I've got this crazy idea. What do you think? Like, can you tell me about how the actual business was birthed? Sure. Yeah. So once again,

it may not be super traditional because I don't think I have like a passion for waste removal. But what happened was I remember when I worked at waste management sitting down and literally spending months and months compiling a list of possible business ideas. I remember everything from drones to like energy drinks that being on my list, you know. I mean, it was the gambit. And then after spending some time kind of researching like what would I, what could I do with experience and then what would I want to do, things like that? I ended up talking myself back into what I knew a little bit, which was the waste industry somewhere. Yeah.

So I kind of went the conservative route in that regard, I guess, was instead of branching out into energy drinks or drone, something I didn't know anything about. I decided to, I'm going to stick with something I know, have some experience in. And I do remember the phone call to my brother-in-law was just out of the blue. He lived down here in the San Antonio area. the time, actually. And so I called him and he was kind of between transitions in his life. And I was like, hey, I have this idea. Let's start a waste business, you know, in San Antonio. I think San Antonio is kind of an underserved market in Texas. It doesn't always get the fame it should,

you know, and things like that. So I thought it be a place to come in and do that and start a business that can, you know, we help help the community. It's a home services company. So you're more face-to-face with people there, and we enjoy that, you know. But to backtrack just a little bit, I did originally want to start like a company just like waste management, but then when I realized how much capital was required to do that, sure, on scale to junk removal, you know, with the idea that it could grow into something more someday. But that's kind of how it pro-generated there.

It was literally a phone call while I was sitting at a storage unit facility. I called him and proposed this idea to. to him. And he was like, sure, kind of let's, let's talk a little more maybe, but like, all right, you know, let's, let's do this. I mean, he didn't even seem to think twice, you know, and I love it. And three and a half, well, almost four years ago since the idea of was generated. And yeah, so it's not super traditional. Like, we just had something we were passionate about that we were already doing. I mean, it was just a waste business is what I knew. And John Crick will make sense in the St. Tony. So now did you did you did you I'm giving my two weeks notice. I've got a little savings account. You know, how did you manage that transition away from nine to five into this thing? And then, you know, how did you make sure that you still were able to eat and, you know, survive? That's actually very good question. So maybe to to really answer that right away and then I can explain more is that my wife is the one that supported me even still.

now, right? As we're trying to kind of grow this and build this company, she's just been, you know, the MVP, really, of the whole operation. She's a travel nurse. So she, even during COVID, she was traveling, making pretty good money. Yeah, sure. I was here in San Antonio, just building this and growing this with my brother-in-law. But I remember, I think I put in a little longer than two weeks. I can't remember exactly. I want to say it was a month or so notice to my employer, you know, but hey, I'm, I'm going to go start my own business, you know, and try this route. And I may be back someday, but we should have this a shot, right?

And just we used, yeah, savings money, money we had to just get it going. And just to, that seed money to buy a truck, you know, start some marketing. And then just Alex and I, Alex is my brother-in-law, his name. You know, we hit the ground running, just him and I on that truck. I think it was December 2nd of 2019, I believe it was day one. And so it was quick in that we actually moved. I was living in Midland when we had the idea to start the business out in West Texas. Okay.

So we were starting it here. So my wife and I bought a house down here. She still worked in Midland for about three months, I think. And I was down here in the new house with no furniture, just, you know, with like, a kitchen table and that was it trying to start the business for three months before she could come down. So, you know, it's those beginning months and really year of the business are are tough. You've got to figure things out. It's bootstrapped. It's you're doing all the work, taking all the calls. You're doing everything, you know. Yes, very much so. So what kind of a

reaction did you get Jared from family or friends as well once you let them know that you were going to take this absolutely wild and crazy leap into self-employment. Oh, goodness. Yeah. I think my grandfather is one that comes to mind. He's a very kind of straight and narrow, conservative. He was an executive at a large company, his career, and he's never been one that was a huge risk taker, I'll say, you know.

And so whenever I brought the idea to him or told him, not the idea is more like, this is what I'm doing. You know, I could see it that kind of like, good for you, but you know, you could see him kind of shaking his head like that. This, you know, going to go start a junk removal company in San Antonio of all things, you know, like you're going to go do that without knowing anything about it, really. But I just kind of proposed to all my family members, including him, my wife and everything, like the upside of what Naval said about like if you want to have, have a different, life and build some wealth and something to secure maybe for your family in the future. You need to have something that's your own that you have some ownership in. You know, because if you just work for someone else forever, that's going to be hard to do.

Yeah. And that's not even a guaranteed thing working for someone else. That's not. But I'll say most of my family, including my grandfather, even with his maybe some of the doubts there was very supportive and still are, you know, and us trying to build this. And so I've been lucky in that regard. You know, I haven't had friends or family that have tried to drag me down or anything like that.

You know, I've had a good support for them. That's fantastic, man. And that is people, people that are outside of our world don't realize how important that is. They don't realize how important even just off, you know, little off putting comments and things like that that,

you know, could slow you down mentally and, and, you know, I mean, we've got to be strong in, in that regard. We've got to be able to let certain things bounce off of us.

But when it's people that really mean something to us, it can be tough, you know, and if they make a comment about, you know, I don't know what this crazy person's doing or, you know, that sort of thing. It's like, man, this is the time that I need some support, actually. So that's fantastic. The next question that I had, I'm going to kind of combine it with something that you said earlier because I was wanting to ask what your first experiences were like as a business owner, entrepreneur, home services, you know, provider with your junk removal business.

But you said something that I cannot ignore. And you said that the business started in December of 2019. And that means that in your mind, you and your partner said, we've got this great idea. We've kicked this thing off. And usually when you're doing something at the end of the year, you know, you're basically telling yourself, next year is going to be our year, man. we're going to crush this next coming year. We're going to destroy it.

We're going to break all of our goals and do all these kinds of things, right? And never ever thinking that there could be this once in a lifetime massive event where the entire damn world shuts off. So I have to focus on that. Really, I'm just so curious to know what were the positive, what were the negative experiences with starting a business basically during COVID, man. and one that does require interactions still with people like yourself. You weren't exactly at a call center.

Exactly. Yeah. You're doing everything, you know, as the business owner. And, yeah, contact with your customers is paramount, you know, in home services. And I remember kind of back to your point is we were so hopeful going into that first full year, spring time is when we start to get very busy, spring and summer, our busy season. So winter is kind of just you make it through. You're preparing for spring and summer for that.

But we also didn't know what to expect fully being brand new. But I remember, yeah, when March came around, you know, it started to pick up that first week or so. And then I believe somewhere in there, that spring breakish time is kind of when things started falling apart, you know, in the world. And yeah, that's something. we never could have expected.

The best thing that we tried to do was just roll with the initial punches of that. And we tried to consider like, can we continue running this business right now? I mean, we're brand new. We don't have any traction hardly. I think we basically had three months of traction going in. So you don't have a customer-based belt or anything to try to help rely on those hard times. Yep. So we ended up actually, you know, when the mandates all started coming out, we ended up shutting down completely for about two months.

Because we were just completely kind of like we're not going to take the risk. We didn't know at that point how severe COVID was either. We didn't want to get it and we didn't want to pass it to our family. So about two months, we were just locked in our house watching the bank account go down. I remember that, right? You know, because you just can't make any income. you cut what expenses you can, but you still have those fixed costs,

you know, as a business. And at some point, though, my Alex and I kind of had that hard conversation. I'm like, we've just got to start back up. It doesn't matter anymore.

We'll go out, get PPE. We're going to wear PPE to customers' houses to protect them. But we just got to start going again because we're, bank account was just days from running out of money, you know, at that point, right? And we're like,

we got to go. So, No, no. We made that decision, I think in May, right? So, March and April, we were shut down mostly and then part of May. It's somewhere kind of mid-May, I think, is when we started up again. And yeah, I guess there for the next year, right, was a completely different business, the way we ran it and the kind of the systems and precautions we had, then we had done those first three months, right? It was always wearing masks. People were, we had to do a lot of, you know, remote work, which is kind of weird in that we wouldn't go in the house, but that makes it very difficult to actually remove people's junk if you even go in the house. So some people didn't care. They'd let you in because they need the junk gone, but some would, you know, you have to stay outside and it's only things outside I need remove.

So we catered to everybody we could and took all the precautions with Alex and I to wear PPE. And, you know, business, I would say, actually went fairly well once we started back up. because a lot of people were home doing home projects. Yeah. And, you know, so I don't think we saw a huge decline in that regard. But yeah, that was, there's no business school, like in college or something that's going to teach you how to deal with a pandemic hitting three months after starting your business that has the business that has to do with being at people's houses. That's the school of hard knocks for business right there trying to figure that. Yeah, big time, man.

this is that blood in the streets, you know, actually rubber hits the road stuff here that they don't cover, that you will never find in a textbook. And so all you can do is live through it and try to survive it. So, man, that's huge, man. And so I'm thinking like what is maybe let's say over the course of that year that you guys turned everything back on, right? And you're up and running again. In a sense, it's like you started all over again after having just started. is there anything that stood out to you, Jared, in terms of maybe like a huge lesson or a huge takeaway now, even just a couple of years later, that maybe it still impacts the way that you're doing business today? Yeah.

Probably the first thing that comes to my mind is just adaptability. And that's something that has been a recurring lesson for us here, you know, running a small business since COVID, is you never know what's going to happen politically. or natural disasters or just with your vehicles like a crash or something, you know, you never know what's going to happen. And there's only so much that you can control in your business. And so maybe the right term is just that rolling with the punches and being able to adapt to whatever's happening, you need to just buckle down and be like, no one else is going to solve this except me as the business owner, right?

I don't have a boss that's going to help me with this. I don't have anything. Like it's literally just me and Alex, we got to sit down and figure this out. And COVID was the first time that we had to truly do that, you know, and make those hard decisions and adapt our business to operate differently. You know, I mean, no one, especially our age, I guess, grew up wearing any type of PPE for anything probably ever, you know. And so having to do that all of a sudden and figure out those rules and regulations and how people felt about it. I mean, you just you just have to do it at the end of the day. but you have to have a plan as well.

So we've had many things since then, though, they've tested that our ability to adapt our business to what's happening, you know, whether it's customer trends, where they are, what they're looking at, what customers need and want from us, like adapting to their needs to best solve their problems.

I mean, like I mentioned, vehicle issues and stuff that pop up. I don't know where are you doing. You have to deal with that. And it's a hit financially. It's a hit. Yeah.

There's just so much you can go into the small business owner, that journey, especially those first few years, I think. Sure. But the one word to me would be that adaptability is very important, I think, that we learned. That's huge, man. I think that is a incredible takeaway. You answered that beautifully, perfectly. And that's enough to inspire anybody, man, especially anybody that might be going through, you know, some sort of a little hiccup in the their business, we need to be reminded of that. We've got to be able to make those

pivots in those adjustments. And it's just big. It's huge. Yeah. And there's a, I can't remember who designed this graph. You may know, I'm not sure. It was a book I read, but we're basically any entrepreneurial journey, especially, you know, small business, when you're kind of using your own capital and you're starting yourself, is that first year or so, on average is like the super exciting time you're it's amazing you've got you know just the fact that you get a customer here and there you're like wow that's amazing I can't believe that that person just paid us to do work for them because if you've never been in that position right you've worked for someone else you don't have that dynamic but the first year is super exciting and then there's

always kind of like a trough for a dip mentally without business ownership that's usually that year two to three I think was what the graph was kind of showing right is like there's always like this dip of where it's not as exciting anymore. There's usually financial issues because you're brand new. You're just trying to grow and scale your company and adapt to the liquor just say. And eventually somewhere after that year two, three, maybe even four or five, depending on the length of that, how long that lasts, you hit, you finally kind of figure it out and you get, you get that uphill climb back to where it's like, these are exciting again.

There's kind of, we figured out what levers to play. and things at what customers need and stuff like that. So it's persevering through those because I think a lot of people could be, you could give up in that trough real easily, I guess, is my plan there. For sure. Alex and I have been there multiple times. We'd be lying if we, have we said we've never thought about giving it up and being like, can't do this anymore, man, you know?

But every time we've somehow kind of come back to let's keep going, just keep going. Yeah. So, you know, that's a lesson that I guess I would definitely convey to anybody starting your business is that perseverance continuing through our times, even when you think you should be given up. That's great info. I mean, it's kind of like the honeymoon phase. And then when that wears out, you know, you've got to hold on to something a little bit

more stuff, you know, a little bit more substance wise. And so, and that's where with any, with any, with any, commitment to anything, whether it's another human being or your business or your career, whatever, those dopamine hits, they kind of wear off after a while. And then you've just got to run with it, man. You got to roll with it and you got to be able to keep that thing going through. And then that's if there's not even a whole lot of like setbacks, right? If there's setbacks, all the more so it's all the more challenging to do those things. So really impressive, really impressive, Jared, what you guys have done, man, especially considering where you, you

started. I know that that was probably, who knows how many businesses didn't make it, right? Even ones that had been around for a while, they just couldn't get past all the, all the garbage that happened as a result of COVID. You know, it's just detrimental to a lot of small businesses. Especially restaurants, right? At the time three years, I feel so bad for some of those that were forced to be shut down and there's just nothing they could do. You know, luckily, we were actually categorized as an essential business. during COVID, which had to do with the waste part of our, what we do, right? And the streets clean so that there's not another pendant of famine, you know, an issue. So we were essentially not helped us a lot.

But maybe the last thing I'd say on that topic was even once you hit that uphill thing, which I don't think completely transparently that we've even hit yet, you know, we're still somewhere below down and that trough just going, up hopefully a little right now, but it's, I don't know that you ever, you have to always be in the mindset of that perseverance because there's going to be roadblocks. There's going to be things to jump over. So don't think, oh, made it, it's comfortable. You know, you got to keep learning and keep adapting always. Yeah, no. It's your fault on. 100%. So let's fast forward a little bit to where we are today. What is it like being Jared Mauring today? What is, you know, maybe just tell

me a little bit more about exactly what space makers junk removal is all about what kind of makes you guys different and then who do you guys ultimately who are you guys helping yeah so um there's a lot of things to hit on there i think we've developed kind of our mission over time um you know something that we didn't consider at all in the beginning uh as a spacemaker's junk removal was the team building and the leadership part of things and that's something that Alex and I have really learned a lot about and continue to learn about is we don't want to just have team members come on that just work here at Space Makers, right? First off, that doesn't make a motivated team and it doesn't make for good service if they don't

want to be here every day and they don't see a vision or something for the company. So we've worked on and are still working on developing kind of leadership programs, and that may involve, you know, we have a young guy come in, which we have one really young guy who's like 20. He wants to start his own business and we want to kind of help him learn the basics of business and he can do that while he's here and then maybe go off and start his own. So not only, the point of why I say that is we're not only just a junk removal company. You know, we're actually developing leaders here too that can go off in the community and do something better, you know, as well.

So we're like planting those seeds. And that's something that Alex is very passionate about for sure. And he runs kind of the operation the day to day with the guys. So we've learned to do that. But on the customer side of things, you know, we just like our name, we're in the business of creating space for people. And that can be in many different capacities. That can be, you know, furniture removal.

If you've got things that you're getting a new couch, you're getting a new desk, you're getting something like that. You just need that old one gone. You know, we're your guys, right? We come in with two-man teams on every truck and we remove those items same day, if not at least next day. That's pretty, that's our guarantee, right? So it's furniture, it's construction debris, it's appliances. We take everything from tires to we'll rip up carpet it and haul it off for you. But at the end of the day, it's all about creating space somewhere on your property. And that's because maybe you had a problem with, you know, you wanted to get your car in the

garage or something, which is what we hear a lot. Right. I myself included, my garage was full for many years. So we've helped a lot of people do simple things like that that seem so basic. Yeah. People just want that relief of like, wow, I can actually, if there's a hailstorm or someone coming. I can actually park my car in the garage, finally, you know. Things just accumulate in places like that in your house.

And it can be very stressful, right? Mid-Talida have just clutter everywhere. And that's where we come in to kind of be your quick, like you can call us in the morning and we'll be there late morning or afternoon to solve that problem for you. Right. So that's kind of the gist of what we do as far as the actual mechanics. I mentioned the developing leaders. We also would consider ourselves back to the speed component as, you know, one of the fastest service providers here in San Antonio,

and that's a priority for us. You can schedule out as far as you like with us, but we are quick because we know we'll want that stuff done now. Sure. Yesterday. Yeah. And then something Alex and I talk about a lot is we really enjoy. enjoy talking with customers.

It's really something that's fun about this business is when you get to go meet someone, you have no idea what they do, why they're even calling you yet generally, except that they need to get rid of something. Yeah. We show up, you know, we provide a free estimate, but we love talking with the customer there on site. Like, what do you do? Or, you know, oh, you move from here.

And it's just so much fun to learn and connect with people that way. Back when it was just Alex and I, we'd spend hours sometimes at a job just talking to someone because we were just, they were so interesting. They were interested in us. And we were just like, at some point, we're like, man, we got another job. We got to go, you know. But we just love it so much. And I think that's something that you have to find an area of your business that you can be somewhat passionate about because that helps in motivating you. And we just love that.

I answer phones pretty much exclusively now. and Alex is still out there meeting customers on site, but even the answering phones is just very fun. And you never know who's going to be calling in, what problem you're going to help solve for them that day. And that's a very rewarding situation. Yeah, absolutely. That's great, man.

I'm really impressed with what you guys have built. Sounds like a super cool, fun, exciting line of work to be in. And I think, again, for me personally, just the fact that you were able to get out of working for somebody else, now you're doing your own thing. And obviously, it's not an easy journey to do so, but boy, can it be rewarding. You have a lot of flexibility, I'm sure, a lot of freedom to do things on your terms

and the way that you want to do it. Now, when you're earning your money, you're earning your money. There's no doubt about that. But again, for me, I'm big on being able to have more control. you know, and more ability to decide how and when and where we're going to do things. And can't really do that when you're working for somebody else, at least not as, certainly not as much, right? So really great stuff.

Yeah. You don't control your own destiny when you work for someone else, you know. It's hard to do that, you know. And so I have some friends who would love to start their own business, but they're just not quite willing to take that risk. Yeah. Which is the thing that a lot of people who do want to start a business definitely have to consider, right? It is a risk no matter what you do.

Financial. You're investing your time in something that may not work out no matter all your efforts. But that's where the reward, like you've said, that word, you know, you've mentioned multiple times could be worth it in the long run. And that keeps you going, you know. There's maybe someday we've built a company that helps develop leaders internally. it helps as many customers and people in the San Antonio area community as we can, but it also has set up, you know, Alex and I in our life the way we wanted it to be because we didn't hard work for so many years that a lot of people aren't willing to do in that

regard. So definitely. Yeah. So I echo everything that you're saying there, just in a different aspect. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. So as we wind down the conversation here, just a question. couple of last things. I'm going to go a very different direction and ask, what does Jared

Morring do when he's not working? What does your downtime look like? What does your recharge time look like? Do you have hobbies and who do you typically spend your non-business time with? Yeah. So my personal hobby would be trail running is something that I love to do. You know, I played soccer in college, but I always hated running. That was the biggest thing, which is so ironic that I was a soccer player at the college level that didn't like to run. You know, so people always tease me about that family and friends, you know, they're like, I didn't make any sense. But I found that I love trail running.

That's what gets me going is like the difference. I don't like running on the road or the board, you know, to me it's boring to run on the road the street or the sidewalk. So I try to find trails everywhere I go, even when we're on vacation, to go get a quick run in. It's just a way to decompress, especially when you have a business, right? It's hard to turn off that business mind. Even when you're going running or even if you don't have your phone, it's like your

mind is still just gears are always turning, whether it's problems you need to fix, fires need to put out or just the future vision of what we're going to do. So trail running is something I try to do as much as I can when I have time. But I'd say my secondary hobby, which is really my wife's hobby, but I've become part of it, is horses. So we live, we technically live on a ranch, you know, outside in the hill country. And so we have horses. We have lots of cats and different things. But horses is my wife's thing.

And so I'm kind of brought along. And that tree, you know, as a lot of guys probably are. So that's become a little hobby in mine, too. It's helping her with that. We get new horses. We rescue some horses. We rescued an ex-bucking bronch that, you know, was going to become cat food down somewhere. He sent to become cat food after his rodeo days were over.

And we rescued him. And so now we're trying to basically take care of him and trying to let him or get him to let us touch him and ride him and stuff because he's very wary of people. And Jared, for those of us city slickers, can you tell us what a bucking bronc is? Yeah. So, I mean, I guess it's basically a horse that's trained to try and throw you off, right? Like, it's, they, they, you, if anyone's ever been to a rodeo,

maybe the San Antonio rodeo or something or a local one, you know, there, there's two different kinds of rock riding. There's saddle bronx. So then there's bear back bronch riding, which is people hopping on and trying to win who can stay on the horse the longest, you know. And that horse comes out of the gate and is just mad and wants to throw you off and you got to hold on, right? These horses are bred for that, you know, these bucking blocks, they have their bread to be kind of as aggressive. Not really, yeah, it's like, it's kind of, it's hard to explain. It's not really aggressive, but it's more just, they're very athletic and they, you know,

I don't really know how they do it. Maybe it would be, I can't explain it because not a Bronc, you know, breeder there. But anyway, we rescued one and that's what he did in his past life. Interesting. We may have more of those. My wife's always looking at horses and, uh, sure. So yeah. That's cool, man.

That is really cool. And it sounds like, sounds like a lot of fun and a great opportunity that you guys have to do stuff like that. I've got one last and final question for you to kind of tie this whole thing together and then we'll wrap up in part ways. If you could go back, Jared, to December of 2019, when you guys were just about to kick this thing off, aside from telling yourself, wait until the pandemic ends to start this thing, what other piece of advice would you have given yourself now with just these last, you know, three, four years of wisdom, I'm sure that you've gained so quickly.

Yeah. On the, I would say on the business side first, you know, we poured a lot of money into different marketing channels and things that we just had no idea how to track them or run them correctly. We didn't know how to find customers correctly. And we just wasted a lot of time and money, you know, trying to reach the people who needed that problem that we're solving for them. And so that's something looking back, you find you need to do more research into like what,

how to do those marketing channels effectively and everything from the technical aspects of cost per click and all those things, right? As business owners can probably, they know these terms, you know, customer acquisition costs and things. We didn't know any of that in the beginning. I think our also tools on the trucks, funny story kind of real quick was our very first, job Alex and I had, which we were super excited about. We ended up, we completed it, but we almost didn't complete it because we didn't have the right tools, right? We had no idea what to, we were just showing up with a truck to haul some stuff off. And we came across the bottom to a basketball goal that was full of sand, right? But you couldn't drain the sand, obviously, because

you didn't want to do that on the customer's property. And we had no way to get this thing up in our truck. We, we, it was just too heavy for us to lift ourselves. And we used a tiny ratchet strap that we hooked to the back of our brand new truck. This is our first job. You got to remember this. Yep. Yep. And it started bending the hinge when we started pulling it up on the ratchet strap, right? We're sitting there. They're like, this is our first job, man. And we're already destroying our truck. You know, so, uh, there's just little, little funny stories. We were talking about that story the other day, you know, it's just. But. But. But. But the other half to answer your question would be personally, you know, I've learned you've got to kind of have a schedule of blocking your time as an entrepreneur as someone starting a business because it can get really confusing, overwhelming, name all the different terms for all the things that you could work on on a database. Yeah. Should it work on the things that come up on a daily basis is one, obviously a huge one in entrepreneurship, all the fires or things you have to deal with. So I found that you have to structure your time. You have to have some system from when you wake up, you know, to like, this is what I'm going to do. This is I'm going to do it and plan that out.

That sounds me a lot. And I did not do that the first couple of years, you know, at all, right? It was just chaos pretty much every day. And so for your personal health and your mental health, which is something we haven't talked a whole lot about. But I'm actually fairly passionate about, which could be a whole other podcast, is like how you, deal with the mental health of that entrepreneurial journey because financial issues, the daily stress of everything happening. You know,

your team members coming and going when you get your company. It's a lot for anyone to deal with. Not going home and taking it out on your loved one. You know, yeah. You've got to learn how to deal with that stress in certain ways because it's going to be stressful and you're going to have a lot to do. And so having a system or having a support. system as well of other entrepreneurs is a big one.

Yeah. You have a home service coaching group and that's a big help to me. You know, we'll get to talk to them weekly and share ideas and share what's happening that's stressful. Yeah. And help, uh, you know, help each other get through that. So definitely. I know entrepreneurs are a small percentage of the population, right?

Overall. And it's a very unique situation to be in and you got to find people that are like-minded that can understand what you're going through. You know, so. Yeah. That's great, man. What a great, you know, piece of feedback and advice to close this conversation out with. Jared, you've shared all kinds of amazing stuff, man, and I really appreciate all your time and everything.

How can we continue to follow you on your journey and how do we, you know, learn more about your business space makers junk removal? Yeah. So we have, you can follow us on social media. active there on Instagram, Facebook. Instagram is just at SpaceMakers junk removal. We're constantly posting updates and what's going on at the company there and how we can help our customers with their problems. You know, you could reach out to us at our website to book an estimate online.

You can contact us through phone or email there. There's a lot of avenues to reach out to us and just make contact whether you're looking to have junk removal or you're just you're a fellow business owner that would like to talk, you know, and share experiences and things like that. And that would be wonderful too. But we're kind of all over the place. I think social media and Instagram and Facebook will be the biggest places to follow us. And you can find us on there.

Yeah. And we'll make sure we include your, you know, your website and our show notes and your phone number and that sort of thing. And that way, if anybody does happen to come across this, they'll have all your information there to reach you. So we'll make sure that's. things in there. Jared, thank you again, my friend. It's been a real pleasure talking with you and learning more about you. You did not disappoint with your unique, interesting entrepreneurial journey. So I can't thank you enough for coming on the show today and for sharing everything

with us. Well, I appreciate you having me on here, Marco. It was a blast. You're a good podcast host. Thank you. You made the job very easy for me. So I'm going to have to give the credit right back to you. But yeah, thanks again, Jared. And I think that just about does it for another episode of Business Innovators Radio. We will catch you here next time. Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, visit us online at businessinnovators.com today.