Kevin

Smash My Trash: compact dumpsters, split the hauling savings

Industrial sites pay roughly $1,000 every time a 40-yard open-top dumpster is swapped. Smash My Trash trucks use a crane-mounted spiked arm to compact the trash so customers need fewer pickups, then take half of the savings as their fee. Kevin bought into the franchise for about $185K upfront.

“So we have these trucks that back up to the dumpster. Like you said, Sean, there's a crane on the back with this spinning spiky arm that goes in, pushes the trash down. The deal is basically, let's say you get 10 pickups a month, $1,000. That's $10,000 a month you're spending on trash. We'll get you down to just round numbers, 5, and we'll split the savings with you.”

Steal thisCharge a cut of the money you save the customer instead of a fixed fee, so the sale pays for itself.

The red hard hat move: skip the front office, go to the dumpster

Kevin paid someone overseas to pin every dumpster on Google satellite view, then drove to those sites. He skipped the front office, put on a red hard hat and carried a clipboard to the back, asked the workers loading the dumpster how many pickups they got and who was in charge, and only then went to the front with enough information to reach the decision maker.

“You don't want to go to the office. Because the office, they're going to, you know, they're going to tell you no. So what I would do is I had a red hard hat that I would put on, get the clipboard going, right? Walk into the back and try to find the person who's physically loading the dumpster. You got the red hard hat on, start asking questions.”

Steal thisGather account intel from the frontline workers before you pitch, then walk into the front office already knowing the numbers.

Smash My Trash franchise: ~$450K EBITDA, ~$300K take-home, sold for $1.8M

Kevin spent two years reinvesting everything into trucks and territories. In the last two years his five territories made about $450K EBITDA, and after $150K of debt service he took home about $300K a year. He then sold the business to neighboring franchisees for $1.8M.

“The last 2 years, basically 2024 to 2026 summer, it was like maybe around like $450,000 EBITDA, if you want to call it that. But $150K, that was debt service. So really my take-home was like $300K.”

The no-brainer ROI offer: the only objection is belief

Kevin chooses businesses where the pitch is an obvious financial win, the only objection is that the customer doesn't believe you, and proving it costs little or nothing. He names auditing utility bills and site-speed optimization for e-commerce stores as other examples, and says the model suits people who aren't that smart but are willing to work hard.

“So what I got really interested in was like this concept of how you could sell somebody a financial ROI no-brainer where the only objection is that they don't believe you and it would be like cheap or free to prove it to them. And so I was looking at all kinds of stuff like that. Like, I think you can like audit people's utility bills. I think the idea of doing like site speed optimization for e-commerce is kind of interesting.”

Steal thisLook for an offer that clearly saves or makes the customer money and that you can prove cheaply. Then the only job left is earning belief.

3 times a franchise is worth buying

Kevin says a franchise makes sense in three cases. First, the franchisor gives you one of Hamilton Helmer's 7 Powers, such as a brand or a cornered resource like Chick-fil-A's recipe. Second, you plan a roll-up, because identical franchise units are easy to integrate and franchisors oversell units, which later need consolidating. Third, you would never start a business without the training wheels a franchise provides.

“I think there's, 3 situations where doing a franchise makes sense. I think the first one is if the franchisor actually has some secret sauce. And like the nerdy way that I think about it is if you listen to like the Acquired podcast, they do the 7 powers. If the franchisor gives you one of the 7 powers, it could be worth it.”

Steal thisOnly buy a franchise if it gives you a real power (brand or cornered resource), a roll-up path, or the push you need to start at all.