The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner - How 15 & 17 Year Old Teens Built a $1M/Year Business⏐Ep. #263

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Check out my newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://TKOPOD.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠�...�⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and join my community at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://TKOwners.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠━This story is absolutely wild. Kirk and his brother started their business, Junk Teens, when they were just 15 and 17 years old. They went from riding bicycles to the dump to find old speakers to buying a $75,000 dump truck with CASH.We talk about how they managed high school while building a company , how they scaled from $120k to nearly $1 million/year, and why they don’t talk business at the Thanksgiving dinner table.If you want to see what real hustle looks like, do not miss this one.Follow Kirk & The Junk Teens: https://linktr.ee/Junk.TeensYouTube: @JunkTeens (Go subscribe, this is where they show the behind-the-scenes) Instagram: Search "Kirk McKinney" or "Kirk McKinney Jr." Enjoy! ---Watch this on YouTube instead here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tkopod.co/p-yt⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ask me a question on or off the show here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-ask⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn more about me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-cjk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn about my company: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-cof⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow me on Twitter here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-x⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Free weekly business ideas newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-nl⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Share this podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-all⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Scrape small business data: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tkopod.co/p-os⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 They were paying me like $50 an hour, which is kind of ridiculous. But I saw like, all right, if they can pay me this and still profit, what if I did this on my own? And then I just started going out and trying it on my own. The second year with the pickup truck and dump truck duo, we did $460K in sales. And then we pretty much doubled from the 2022. And then how's this year looking? Welcome to the Kerner office. So I was on Instagram last week, once again, and I saw a video of these teenagers doing junk removal.
Starting point is 00:00:31 They started at two brothers when they were 15 and 17. And I thought, I got to talk to these guys because my 15 and then 17 year can start a million dollar a year junk removal business and pay cash for a $75,000 truck. These guys are impressive. That means anyone can do it. And I want anyone to do it. I want all of you guys to start six, seven, eight figure businesses. So if a teenager can do it, you can do it, especially because they didn't borrow any
Starting point is 00:00:54 money from their parents. They weren't raised on a silver spoon or whatever. They did this themselves. They're just hard workers. So I want you to hear their story. And hopefully you're inspired by. Share with your friends. Love you. Bye. What first gave you the idea to start this business? It actually all kind of happened on accident. When I was exploring one day, I was on a bike ride,
Starting point is 00:01:11 and I discovered the dump with my friend. And then we went to the dump and rode our bikes around to explore. And I saw this pair of speakers there that someone threw away. And they were really nice, probably like $50 speakers. And I just, I couldn't believe that they were in the trash. So I asked the guy if I could take them and he said yes. So I brought them home. And then basically after that point, I kept going back to the dump and finding cool items and valuable things. And it was more speakers in the beginning. And this is why it happened on accident because eventually I collected so many speakers from the dump that my entire bedroom, actually where I'm sitting right now, used to be a pile of speakers.
Starting point is 00:01:54 And my mom said that I had to throw it all away. So at this time, I was working at a grocery store too, making $12 an hour and just finding speakers for fun. I didn't think it was like money I was making or anything. It was just a hobby. And when my mom said I had to throw them all away, I just, I couldn't do that because I went through so much effort to get those speakers here. So I ended up selling them on Facebook Marketplace. And that was my first time ever making money for myself doing something that I loved. And then from there, eventually I got into the junk removal industry.
Starting point is 00:02:31 And that's how I ended up starting the junk removal business with my brother was through that opportunity. It eventually led to me buying a pickup truck and then discovering junk removal and starting that business with my younger brother. Okay. All right. Zillion questions. I love it already. So first of all, why were there so many dang speakers at this random junkyard? There was the electronic section where people would drop off their old electronic.
Starting point is 00:02:56 And that was my favorite section. So I would just camp out there all day until people would bring good stuff. And if I wasn't the one taking it, other people who were going to the dump would take the stuff. So it's kind of a common thing. It's called picking. Like it's a picker. You ever seen the show American Pickers? Those are picking through the junk.
Starting point is 00:03:17 Yeah, I love that show. That's basically what I did all day at the junkyard. And how old were you when you first started all this? When you first found speakers? 15 or 16 years old when I was finding speakers and I was riding them home on my bicycle. This was before I had a license or anything. Okay. So you pick up these speakers on your bike and then you go back like all the time.
Starting point is 00:03:39 You want to be the first one to get the best speakers. But what's funny to me is you don't immediately start selling them for a profit. You're just like hoarding them like it's just awesome. You're just stacking them up. And then you first sell them on Facebook marketplace. Was that, did you sell them all at once or individually or how did that go? So my mom wanted me to get rid of everything quickly. So I listed a few items just to see if people would even buy things like this.
Starting point is 00:04:04 And literally the next day, I listed a Bose radio that I found and sold it for $50 the next day. And that was like such a shocker for me because like the amount of time that went into selling that radio for $50, like all altogether probably wasn't even an hour. and that's way more than I was making at the grocery store. So then after that, it really encouraged me to want to try to sell everything. Then I just listed everything. Not everything sold because I didn't really know what was valuable or not. I just saw speakers and I would save them. So my room did look like a junk pile.
Starting point is 00:04:41 I learned over time like what to sell, what was valuable. And eventually I stopped only selling speakers and started realizing like, I quit my job at the grocery store to do this full time. And then I realized. I could probably make more money selling other things too. So I started selling bicycles and lifting weights and all sorts of stuff that I could find. Okay. So how did you go from that phase to buying a truck and getting into junk removal?
Starting point is 00:05:07 Yeah. So in the beginning, the truck was partially influenced by the junk removal idea, but also I told myself and my brother, I was like, all right, if I had this truck, I'd be able to sell more things. and a higher volume. It would be easier for me to sell things too. But if I ever get a junk removal job, I can do that on the side too. So I'm going to buy this truck. And I took a lot of the money that I saved up and went in on it with my brother. And we spent $4,000 on our F-150, which was our first truck. And the way I got introduced to junk removal was the guys who worked at the dump. They actually did it on the side is like a side hustle and they saw how hard I was working. I was literally at the dump from the minute that they opened to when they closed and I would help the guys there too.
Starting point is 00:06:02 Not expecting anything. I would help those guys clean up just literally to be in the environment. And then they started saving stuff for me too. So they liked how hard I was working and they just wanted to help me because I was helping them. And they actually brought me into work with them. and they were paying me like $50 an hour to work doing people with them, which is kind of ridiculous. I just think they didn't really know how to run the business. But I saw like, all right, if they can pay me this and still profit, what if I did this on my own? And I asked the guys and they were totally fine with me trying it. So they gave me some tips and I saw how the business worked through them.
Starting point is 00:06:43 And then I just started going out and trying it on my own. Okay. So how long was the junkyard open all day? Like what were the operating hours? It was three days a week because this is a small local junkyard. Like only one town is allowed to go there. But there's still a lot of cool stuff you can find there. And it was open from Wednesday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Starting point is 00:07:07 Saturday from 7 to 4. And then Sunday, I think also from like 12 to 4. How are you able to do that with school? On Wednesdays, the second I get out of school, I'm just riding my bike to the dump. And sometimes on Wednesdays with our school, it was a short Wednesday every other week. So I'd get out early, be able to go. So it was good timing. But the dump was on the weekends.
Starting point is 00:07:35 But managing junk removal with school was a whole different ballgame. How old are you today? First, when you started this? Right now, I'm 21 years old. But when I first started the junk removal business, I was 17 and my brother was 15. And your partners in it together, right? Yeah. We're 50-50, 50-50.
Starting point is 00:07:54 Okay, 50-50 partners. So you buy the truck for 4 grand at F-150, the most American truck you can find. And how do you get your first customer? What does that look like? Yeah. I think our first customer was actually a word of mouth referral from the guys at the dump. But then after that, we posted on Next Door, Facebook, created business cards, went door knocking. Eventually, we did yard signs too.
Starting point is 00:08:22 What proved to be the most effective after the first six months? Yeah. I would say being persistent with our customers and really leveraging every customer to go out there and market for us, like following up with them after the job, asking if they were able to tell anyone about. about us or if they wrote us a review, a recommendation, whatever it was. Then also second would be Nextdoor, especially when you're first starting. I think the community on Nextdoor really is just like wanting to support a beginning stage business, especially. So that was huge too.
Starting point is 00:09:03 It's funny how true that is because a lot of people are too prideful or they have too much ego to want to go beg for business on Facebook groups or Next door. But they want to help. Yeah. especially if you're a new business owner. Exactly. Okay, so you think or you're finding that customer referrals are even more fruitful to you than anything else, including next door.
Starting point is 00:09:24 But you have to be like aggressive and persistent with it. Yeah, and Facebook was definitely huge for us to establishing our presence in our local community through Facebook. But that was also a big part of leveraging every customer to spread the word on Facebook. Because that's where all the Facebook moms and kind of our target customers are hanging out. All right. If you were watching this clip right now, you are watching this on YouTube. And if you are a fan of podcasts, please check on my podcast while you're at it because sometimes I have podcasts that aren't on YouTube and sometimes I have YouTube's YouTube that Kurner off as on any podcast platform or you can go to tkotpod.com. Also, my newsletter will throw that in there.
Starting point is 00:10:00 There are no ads. It's weekly. It's different content than my podcast and YouTube. Newsletter.com. You'll see the link and we'll see you there. After you buy the truck, what was that first six months like? Were you crazy? Were you all over the place? Were you taking on any job? Like what broke those first six months?
Starting point is 00:10:16 Yeah, those first six months, that's pretty accurate description already. We were doing whatever we could to make money with the pickup truck. Junk removal being one of the things that we knew how to do the most because we learned from the guys. And we also loved doing it the most. But we did little treework jobs on the side, trimming trees, bushes, landscaping. We did moving jobs. We honestly did whatever we could with our pickup truck. make money doing side hustles, gutter cleaning, all that. I never knew about window cleaning
Starting point is 00:10:49 or any of that back then. I feel like it became more well known after COVID as like a side hustle, but I probably would have done that too back then. And the reason why we stuck with junk removal is because for us, we had the most connections. We enjoyed it the most and it was definitely the hardest. But with scaling, I felt like it could be the most lucrative too. So even though it would have been the hardest and most competitive one. I just wanted to stick with that. But the first six months were definitely a lot of hustle and learning from mistakes. We had to be really confident that we, like if a customer is like, oh, have you done this before? Even though we haven't, it's like, I mean, yeah, like this is definitely something we can handle. Like where we have all this experience,
Starting point is 00:11:33 we can definitely handle it. And some, a lot of the times, like when we're doing jobs, even if we've never done them before, we have the confidence as if we know exactly. how to do it. And then we also deliver on that confidence too. Even if we made a mistake, we would do everything we can to fix it and just provide the best service we can. And we are confident that we could do that. So at the end of the day, we didn't have any dissatisfied customers because even when we made a mistake, we would own up to it and fix it and learn from it, you know? Yeah. Yeah, the customer's like, so have you done this before? And you're like, we're confident we can get it done. Have you done this before we're confident we'll do a great job for yeah yeah yeah we're confident it's like you show that
Starting point is 00:12:15 like oh yeah sure it's done like i could get three guys in here we'll get this done in a day that type of thing yeah i've totally been there you fake it till you make it and then when you screw it up you just have to fix it and own it right yeah yeah okay so how are you managing school both you and your your younger brother was this mostly after school in the summers weekends just planning around around school? Yes. So we would definitely do the work after school every day and then we'd have a full truck and sometimes we would dump the truck in the morning before school because some of the dumps
Starting point is 00:12:51 were open pretty early. Sometimes I would have a free block in the morning which is a class off and then I'd go to school late and I'd go and dump the truck during that time. Sometimes we'd have to dump the truck after school and yeah, we would just do whatever we could to manage it, do everything out of school hours. Like we would still get homework done whenever we had time. But our main priority was business at all times and we would find, we would make time for it. A lot of people always say like, how do you do this during school? But like, let's think about it. You get out of school at at 2 p.m. every day. And then you have two weekend days.
Starting point is 00:13:35 Think of how many hours from two. That's a full-time job. Yeah, exactly. Outside of school. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. That's seven hours every day after school. We could work on our business. Then you got two full weekend days.
Starting point is 00:13:51 That's a lot of hours that you could dedicate towards building a business. So you just have to make sacrifices. No sports, less hanging out with friends. But that's just what we did. We made sacrifices and used our time well. That's amazing. I love it. A lot of people are like, oh, you can't, oh, they just immediately write off having a business while in school because that's just not what you do.
Starting point is 00:14:12 But it's like, no, let's look at this logically and actually break down the hours. You can absolutely do that. Like, and anyway, all right. So at what point did you go from taking any job you could to saying we are only doing junk removal? How long did that take? That was probably the end of our first year when we, it was around the winter time. So we bought our pickup truck in February of 2021. And then around like February of 22 a year later, we looked at how much we made.
Starting point is 00:14:44 And it was around $120,000 with just our pickup truck. And we realized like, okay, out of all this, what did we like the most? What was the most profitable? What makes the most sense for us to stick with? And that was junk removal. And we realized we can keep doing this side hustle type of thing and make another 100K and keep doing this. But if we ever want to get to something big, like we have to be the best at one thing and just stick to that and become experts at one thing. And that's what we did. And that's why we stuck with junk removal.
Starting point is 00:15:16 So did you have any employees that first year? Or was it just you and your brother? Yeah, it was just my brother and I. And our friends would come and help us occasionally, maybe a couple times all throughout the whole year. We had some friends help. But it was mostly us like every day working together. So 120 grand. And your costs are gas. I mean, the truck was a little maintenance. It was like a legit business. So we had an LLC.
Starting point is 00:15:43 We had insurance on the truck. And then dump fees, gas. There's got to be more like tools. Obviously, we started buying tools like maintenance on the truck. And then, yeah, we didn't spend any money on marketing. So that was really it because it was our own time. No payroll. Were you taking any money out of the business or just like paying your bills and just kind of growing the business?
Starting point is 00:16:08 Yeah, just saving, to be honest. We would save. We weren't spending a lot of money. And that's how we were able to buy a dump truck in our second year of business. So then the winter kind of dies down and you're in year two now and you're like, we're going all in on junk removal. Were you doing stuff during the wintertime or were you just planning? Yeah. The wintertime is really slow for.
Starting point is 00:16:31 the junk removal industry and a lot of home service businesses. And for us, we spend that time, we spent that doing kind of a rebrand with the company. It used to be K&J removal. And then we realized we wanted to stick to junk removal. So that's when junk teens was born. And then we took the steps during the slow season to establish the junk removal business. We redid the website with the junk teen's brand. We bought a dump truck and then all around established ourselves more for the junk removal industry. So how much did the dump truck cost and how were you able to afford that just with your savings?
Starting point is 00:17:13 If I remember, it was around like 75K for the dump truck and we spent every penny that we had. She paid cash for it? Yeah. Holy cow. 15 and 17 year old. Jeez. Yeah, it started to pay itself off pretty quickly because with the pickup truck, we might have made like $500 to $700 every time we fill up that truck. But with a dump truck, we can make $1 to $2,000 every time we filled that truck up. So then we were able to make a lot more money in the day because it was less trips to the dump. And it really quickly started to pay itself off. Did you buy the dump truck new or used? No. We actually have used.
Starting point is 00:17:56 Wow, okay. Used ones a lot. The problem is too, we bought the dump truck like right after COVID and COVID like shocked the manufacturing process of the trucks. So they were really hard to find. So everyone was buying the used ones and we actually had to order it from a dealership and it got to us like six or eight months later. It was like six months later or something like that.
Starting point is 00:18:23 So in the meantime, we bought that dump truck and kept making money with the pickup truck and eventually upgraded our pickup truck for like, it was like $10,000 upgrade that we did. We got a new one, an F250 with high mileage, but it was really nice. We still have it today. What about a trailer? Did you ever use that? A trailer would have been really good.
Starting point is 00:18:43 But unfortunately for us, we just didn't have space at our house to have a trailer. So, yeah. And also we're more in a suburban neighborhood, so trailers weren't as ideal. Gotcha. Okay, so you buy this $75,000 down truck. Are you out of pocket while you're waiting for it? Or did you have to just put a deposit down? I believe it was a deposit.
Starting point is 00:19:06 Okay. Yeah. So how did your marketing efforts go once you made that pivot to junk removal? Did you find it harder to find only junk removal clients to fill all your time? Or was it even easier? It was really hard, actually. And it was a slow transition into it. We knew like this is our priority.
Starting point is 00:19:24 But if we need to make money right now to pay. pay off this truck. We'll do moving jobs. We'll do landscape removals, like brush piles, all that. And it just slowly started to niche down to junk removal over time. But we knew that that was our main goal. All right. So what happens when the dumpster arrives? Like, do you have jobs to be able to use it? Does it sit empty? Like, is it stressing you out? Are you able to just put it right to work? Yeah, we just used it to work with what we were doing before. And it made everything's so much more efficient that we had more time at the end of the day to build the business, go market. And we would market by networking with realtors and just going out and
Starting point is 00:20:09 establishing ourselves however we could, whether it was building our website, going on Facebook, whatever we could do, yard signs too. We started doing yard signs around that time too. Tell me about like your tech stack, like what were you using for website and your CRM? Did you have automations? Like, was it? pen and pad. What did that look like? Even to this day, we still use Apple notes for our scheduling. Like, we don't even have a CRM yet. We're literally in the next month, I think we're probably going to get a CRM or start to use one. We haven't done any of that because at the end of the day, the way we looked at it is like you get junk, you put it in the truck and you get paid.
Starting point is 00:20:49 Everyone else is focusing on all these little details and getting distracted from the main thing that's making you money. So we just kept our focus narrow and focused on making money. And then over time, three years later is now when we're starting to focus on the automations, now that we figured out how to make money, where a lot of other people figure out on all the other stuff first, spend all their money on automations before they even figure out how to make money. It's an advanced form of procrastination. They feel productive. Like, all right, now we got the website. Let's go follow LLC. And really, they're just like afraid to start deep down. but they can't admit that to themselves, right?
Starting point is 00:21:27 Yeah, it could be that for some people. Okay, so what did the second year look like if year one was 120 grand? Yeah, the second year with the pickup truck and dump truck duo, we did 460K in sales. That's 2022? Yes. That's also when we started hiring employees. I mean, I still drove the dump truck most of the time for 2022. It was mostly me driving, but we slowly started to let our employees.
Starting point is 00:21:54 employees help as we realized that we could trust them to drive to. Did you have to get a CDL to drive that? No, it's like a U-Haul. Like you don't need a regular driver's license. Okay. Was hiring a challenge and did you have to hire people older than you? What broke in the hiring process? I mean, nothing really was broken.
Starting point is 00:22:16 But like with hiring, it was just our friends. And it was also junk teens. So it made more sense to hire people our age too. We just realized eventually that like good people make everyone's life easier and don't like it might be cheaper and it might be easier to find someone who is a B player or a C player. But putting in the effort to find the A players the best of the best was worth all the time and effort. And it took us a few months to learn that. Okay. Did you ever have a kind of a sticky situation where you had to hire or fire a friend
Starting point is 00:22:52 or awkward experiences with hiring and firing friends? Not until recently. We had one guy that actually stole from us recently. It was our first time ever really having to fire someone, and it was really hard for us. We've had people with our companies for the last three years helping us, and people don't really want to leave once they come and work with us. So never really dealt with firing.
Starting point is 00:23:16 It's more like we'll have someone in the beginning, and if we don't call them back. But we had someone that kind of like was managing our phones and they were doing junk removal on the side and started messaging our customers, like taking our customers and doing jobs on the side. So that's technically stealing. We paid money to get those customers and that money now isn't being used for to build our business. And like that we just had to fire someone because of that. It's funny how like you could back to the advanced forms of procrastination. You could sit there and like watch YouTube videos and read books and listen to podcasts about like how to hire how to fire how to manage friends how to do all this
Starting point is 00:23:58 But like the end of the day you're you just have to go through it you have to screw up oh yeah to learn it yourself The best way to learn is through your own mistakes like you can learn through other people and it can reconfirm your own thoughts But like just doing what other people say you're never you'll never have your own sense of direction if you want to be an entrepreneur you're working for yourself And other people's advice is really good. But like your own experience is definitely the biggest thing that will help you become a better leader and create the best lessons for yourself. Yeah. And a lot of times you don't even know if the advice you're hearing is based on real experience or just they're just regurgitating someone else's theory. Like I've had so many people say, oh, don't hire friends and family.
Starting point is 00:24:43 Don't do it because awkward and yet. And it gets in relationships are more. And it's like, okay, but like tactically. How do you do that? Like, I go hire some Rando off Craigslist that could be a class A felon. Like, no, tactically, you have to hire your friends and family because there's built in trust from day one. And that is worth more than anything.
Starting point is 00:25:04 And yeah, it's going to get a little hairy, but it's going to get hairy when you hire randos as well. Like, you just have to. Hiring family definitely changes the dynamic of your family. Like, if you have a certain dynamic of your family that doesn't involve business and you start working with family, it will completely. completely changed that. But it was already kind of the dynamic of our family to begin with.
Starting point is 00:25:25 So it just made sense for us. Everyone's situation is different too. So it's not really fair to say, don't do this because every person's situation is different. And also it's not good to take advice from just considering only someone else's situation too. Yeah. I've noticed when I hire family, I have a rule where like when we're like together as a family, like Thanksgiving, we don't talk business at all. all. Like, we're there together as family members. Yeah. But on the job site, like, it's another
Starting point is 00:25:55 employee. You just have to keep it as separate as possible. Exactly. So on the 460 grand you did year two, how much of that was profit and how diligent were you in record keeping? Yeah, on top of that, for sure. We have an accountant, a bookkeeper. And my mom has also been guiding us through all of the financial stuff from the beginning because that's what she does for her business too. But we've always been on top of that since the beginning and it's like a huge part of staying organized and scaling too and was that your only question no profit what was your profit that year oh profit i'd have to go back and think it might have been 50 but we were also reinvested like all of that too for the yeah it's interesting even in high margin industries if you're in a high growth phase you might not
Starting point is 00:26:45 take anything out of the business because you're just reinvesting at all yeah exactly Okay, so then what did year three look like, 2023? Yeah, we just, we continued upgrading all around. We started really spending money on marketing, upgrading our team, our resources. We rented a warehouse, bought another truck, just continued upgrading and building. And then we pretty much doubled from last year or from the 2022. Wow. And then how's this year looking?
Starting point is 00:27:14 This year is a big experimental year for us. So we didn't focus as much on building the business. Actually, right now we are really focused on it, but there's been a big time period where I was very focused on the social media. And that's also probably how you found us too. So the reason why I did that is really to establish ourselves in the junk removal industry as an authority, but also just showing people how we're serious and really getting people to know who we are before they know us as people. So it's big for networking and future unexpected operations. So while we're young, it was worth taking that time period and that risk. And I began building a team around the content so I can continue to focus on the business while the content
Starting point is 00:28:00 is still running. And that's how we've been able to grow our YouTube channel too. Yeah, I'm curious, like where you're at today, like how many trucks you have, what your plans are for taking over the world. Yeah. So I think in the future franchising is definitely a possibility here, but we want to scale to two or three locations and then decide if franchising is what we want to do. And we're currently focusing on systemizing this location so that it could run without us. Obviously, if it got to the point where it can run without us, the profits will be really low. So then we would be focusing our time at that point on establishing our second location, which will probably be in about a couple years when I'm out of college is when I see us opening the second location.
Starting point is 00:28:50 So at least for the next two years, we're going to be looking at every little inch of our business and how we want to scale, what direction we want to go. And in the long term, I could see franchising as an option and I think it would make sense. I just don't know for sure. And then currently where we're at is we have three trucks, a warehouse and a crew of, full-time guys, some of them that have decided not to go to college to work with us full-time. And just like so many people want to work for us. It's crazy. And that's a big thing that the social media has done is create like an endless labor supply.
Starting point is 00:29:30 Because that's one of the things I've done is show how fun it is what we do and build our culture, build the company culture too. Like just posting on social media isn't going to get you anywhere. You have to really put in your effort. It's not just creating a video. It's like posting. So where we're at now is also having that tool of our social media. And we've done a lot of upgrades on our warehouse and we're currently working on our in-house recycling facility where we like will process loads in-house so we can donate most of it and recycle. So we're saving on dump fees, but we're also helping the world. That's what we're currently focusing on. That's amazing. as your team today? We have about two to four full timers and then about 20 part timers on call. Okay.
Starting point is 00:30:23 And with three trucks, have you had to change your outreach efforts any? Like if you had to get more intentional about keeping all three trucks on the road at all times? Or is it still aggressively chasing referrals, yard signs next door, etc.? We're doing Google ads now and paid Facebook ads and that's been consistent for us. We're doing similar numbers this year than what we were last summer, but that totally makes sense because we've been putting a lot of effort into areas that don't directly return, like the social media is all in direct value because we can, you know? And I would say like it's not really easy to ever think it's going to be consistent because
Starting point is 00:31:06 one week we could make 20K, another week we can make 40K and it's all over the place. But you are finding some good, like more consistent luck with paid Google and Facebook ads? Yeah, definitely. I'd say that probably is about 40% of our busyness comes from the paid ads, but 60% or more will just come from what we put into our service and the experience we give to our customers and then them telling everyone about us. People really can tell when you put in your effort and when you care. Because for us, it's not only about the money. We really like helping people and people feel that. So it's not easy.
Starting point is 00:31:48 It's not actually very often to find a service or a company that you work with that really goes all in above and beyond on what they're giving you. What would you say to a 15 or a 17 year old wanting to start junk removal? Like if you could go back in time, what would you have done differently from day one about this business? And would you encourage someone to do junk removal or to try something else? Because sometimes business owners are so jaded and they're like, oh, you don't want to do it because X, Y, and Z. And sometimes they're like, no, it's a great business. I mean, when I first started, my only goal was to make money.
Starting point is 00:32:21 And now obviously money is, I see it differently. It's a tool that's needed to achieve my goals. But if I were like going back to when I was 15, I would say it's hard because everyone's situation is different. Like, I wouldn't say stick with one thing. For us being able to experiment with all the different services was really good in the beginning because it allowed us to see what one works best for us. So I'd recommend trying that. But eventually, not just thinking like you can build some empire by doing everything,
Starting point is 00:32:54 by being the jack of all trades, but master if not. You should experiment and then figure out what you're best at and then stick to that and just become the best at that one thing. the times when I've seen the most success is when I've gone all in on just one thing, whether it's building the junk removal company, building the social media, whatever it is, it's like all my effort is going into that one thing and nothing else matters. So keeping the focus narrow and blocking out the distractions too.
Starting point is 00:33:22 Like you'll eventually fall in love with the grind and the results more than you will, whatever friends or whatever other fun things you're doing in life. You know, there were a lot of. Yeah. I used to love cars a lot and like, and there were certain things I used to really love doing with my free time. But eventually, I've found more dopamine in the productive success and results coming from the company than I did every other fun area of life. And you can really start to shift your mind to adjust to enjoy different things. And it's just harder.
Starting point is 00:33:59 It's hard to do that because it's much easier to have fun doing. like sports or playing video games. But it's not as, it's not as easy to do something that most people won't do and then be successful with it and fall in love with that. That's what I would say. And it's hard to find the confidence. But honestly, this is probably the most simple and the best advice I can give. It all comes down to your goal, your plan, and your drive. The goal is where you're headed. You want to know exactly like what are you chasing? What are you even going for? That's your vision. You have to be a visionary to be able to make it in entrepreneurship or have someone on your team that does. That's like the most important is your goal. But then you can dream big,
Starting point is 00:34:50 but if you don't know how you're going to get there, you don't have a plan. You're not organized in your way to get there. It's not going to happen. But then this is where the drive comes in. If you have a strong goal and a plan to get there, it's the drive that pulls it all together. And realizing that it's not going to be easy is what should fuel your drive. It's definitely not going to be easy. Yeah, I think an alternative to that, to the people being lazy theory is that most people haven't found their purpose yet. And they're not really even looking for it, right?
Starting point is 00:35:23 And so I think that's why it's important to test everything, try everything like you said, and then focus once you find your thing. Most people aren't there testing and trying things. And so they're just, they're not acting on anything, right? Like you don't know what you like until you try a ton of different things. And it seems like that's what you did. Let's make money with this F-150 everywhere we can.
Starting point is 00:35:43 And then it's like, okay, junk removal is the thing. And actually, like in the beginning, the goal wasn't even junk removal. For me, the goal was to buy a Hellcat. That's my dream car. I was in it only for the money in the beginning to just be able to buy my dream car. And then two years into the business, I ended up buying the dream car. Like, I didn't just spend all my money on the car when I had it.
Starting point is 00:36:04 I realized, oh, I really like running this business. I'm going to reinvest in it. Then we bought the dump truck. So I bought my dream car like after we had already started to establish the business, even though I could have bought it. So that's part of the sacrifices. I love it. I mentioned sacrifices definitely like don't just like cash out too early.
Starting point is 00:36:25 Love it. Love it. Well, Kirk, thank you for your time. Where can people find you? They want to learn more about you or your business. For me personally, you could follow my personal Instagram. If you look up Kirk McKinney Jr. or Kirk McKinney, you'll see it. So there's that. But also honestly, Junk Teen's YouTube, I feel like that's the place where you can really get to know me and what we're doing more than anything. So definitely those two places. Okay. Well, thank you, Kirk. You've got an awesome business. Lots to be proud of. I'm excited to see where you are in 5, 10, 20 years. You're take over the world. Yeah, definitely. Thank you. Cool. Have a good day. All right,
Starting point is 00:37:04 Kirk McKinney, awesome guy, junkteens.com. Check them out. And we'll see you next time.

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