Part 2 - How Junk2Go Came to Be

 After a short period of feeling sorry for myself (I have taught myself not to dwell on set backs, rather to ask what can we learn and how do we get better from this experience) and armed with a few weeks holiday pay and a burning desire to start my own company, I decided to start a lawn mowing business. I called it “Maxwells Home and Garden Solutions”. I bought a Ford Courier Super Cab ute, some new mowing equipment, sign wrote the ute, had t-shirts printed, chucked some ads in the local rag, delivered flyers around the ‘hood and… we were in business! Yee-ha grandma, I was an “entrepreneur”. Haha .........yeah right.

Pretty quickly I built the mowing business up to 60 regular clients from some effective local marketing and a relentless pursuit to prove everyone wrong that I had not gone completely bonkers - leaving a well paid, full-time job to work for myself mowing lawns. I remember the day we hit a record sales day of $300.

I worked from daylight to darkness mowing lawns and then went home completely knackered, covered in grass and sneezing, but so proud. I would finish a hard day with a few “cold ones” to celebrate . 

 A few months went on and I realised that I wasn’t as in love with mowing lawns as I had previously thought. I don’t believe we should do anything in life that we don’t love. Life’s too short, so I decided to sell my lawn mowing round and get a job back in the corporate world. I sold the lawn mowing business quickly but the person who bought the business didn’t want my ute so I sold the business and was left with my trusty Ford Courier Super Cab ute and no income or job.

 When I mowed lawns clients would often ask me to remove some rubbish, which I quite enjoyed - not sure why. It may have had something to do with seeing the clients so happy when all their junk and rubbish was removed. So whilst I was “trying” to get a job back in the corporate world (I wasn’t trying that hard) I started to love the idea of starting a junk and rubbish removal business) . I decided to advertise in the local papers - “ Rubbish removal made easy4u” and before I knew it the phone started to ring and soon after I re-named “ Maxwells Home and Garden Solutions” to “Junk2Go”. 

 It was so very funny. I would turn up to building sites and huge rubbish removal jobs to carry out quotes on my own in my small ute. People onsite used to laugh at me - “Hey where’s your truck?” I heard often. All I would say was “Don’t worry if it takes a few trips in the ute to remove your rubbish. We can do it no worries.” and I repeated that strategy many many times until I came to the crossroads that I am sure most business owners come.

 Do we:

a)     Go and buy a truck and get super serious about this junk and rubbish business; or

b)    Stop this business before it gets too serious. Well of course we chose option A, and we are glad we did...

 I believe in business we need to be all in or, not at all

 I hope you have enjoyed reading a little bit about how we started Junk2Go. Excuse the writing, I write from my heart so if the way I write offends you then I am sorry.

 How did your business or career start? We would love to know. 

 Thanks for reading wishing you a better than a great day. 

 Dave “My Life is Rubbish” Lewis