1-800-GOT-JUNK

At 18 years old, Brian Scootamore was sitting in a McDonald's drive-through in Vancouver when he spotted a beat-up pickup truck filled with junk. The truck said "Mark's Hauling" on the side with a yellow lightning bolt. In that moment, he thought: "That's something I could do." He wasn't dreaming of building a billion-dollar empire. He just wanted to pay for college. Three days later, he bought a black cab pickup truck with a red box for $753 (to be precise) from a classified ad and started hauling junk.

Brian initially called his company "The Rubbish Boys," though people would call it by the phone number emblazoned on the truck: 738-JUNK. After a couple years, he got his first major break when his girlfriend suggested he pitch his story to the press. "You had trouble finding a job, you created your own," she said. The next day, Brian was on the front page of the Vancouver Province—the largest newspaper in the city—with his truck and phone number. "The phone rang off the hook," he recalls. This early PR success taught him a fundamental lesson: stories change lives and build brands.

Eight years in, with plans to expand into the United States, Brian realized the local phone number wouldn't scale. He brainstormed with his team and landed on 1-800-GOT-JUNK, a play on the "Got Milk?" campaign. The name stuck, though the transition was painful—revenue in his existing market shrunk by half as customers got confused between the old and new brands. Friends and family thought 1-800-GOT-JUNK was a competitor. But Brian knew it was short-term pain for long-term gain, and he was right.

While most people see an opportunity and think about scaling quickly, Brian's breakthrough came from staying with one thing for 30 years. "It took eight years to get to a million dollars. We do a million dollars on any given day like today," he says. The flywheel momentum built slowly but relentlessly.

Brian's secret weapon was PR and storytelling. He appeared on Oprah, Dr. Phil, Hoarders, and CNN. He put a vision board on the office wall that said "Can you Imagine?" with "Oprah Winfrey Show" written on it. His PR hire, Tyler, would sit beneath that wall in a blue wig, visualizing the pitch, and after 14 months of outreach, Harpo Studios called. They needed junk removal for a hoarder on the show. Brian flew his San Francisco franchise owners to LA to help, and 14 months of work paid off with a national TV appearance. "Man, did the phones ever light up with that thing?"

Another vision came from Andrea, a marketing manager who pitched getting a quote from Brian on Starbucks cups. The result: a quote from him appeared on 10 million cups for free: "You are what you can't let go of." This kind of audacious thinking—willing it into existence—became the company's signature move.

At 24 years old with 5 trucks and 11 employees doing $500K in revenue, Brian realized he hated coming to work. He had hired nine people who didn't fit his vision of "clean cut, professional, happy, smiley people." Rather than fire the nine and keep two, he made a shocking decision: he fired everyone and started over, going back to doing it himself. It was painful and lonely, but he learned the most valuable lesson of his career: everything comes down to people. "I'm never going to compromise again on the quality of people I bring into my company," he committed.

He rebuilt by hiring for attitude and cultural fit first, skill second. His litmus test was simple: spend a day driving the truck with them. Are they happy? Do they smile? Do they genuinely love life? This "hire happy people" philosophy became the foundation of his culture.

But 20 years later, the lesson had to be learned again. Brian hired a former president of Starbucks US operations as his COO and president—impressive on paper, wrong in practice. The person was brilliant but didn't fit the spirit of the company. Together, they almost bankrupted 1-800-GOT-JUNK during the 2008 financial crisis. Revenue dropped $40 million in a single year. Brian had to fire the president, the CFO, and the entire leadership team, promoting middle management to rebuild. "There was no one in my business that thought I was sane, that thought I made a good decision," he says. For months, he felt sad, lonely, and depressed. But he was determined. "I was determined to rebuild my business and get it to a point again for the long term where we would be in a place we were proud of again."

Today, 1-800-GOT-JUNK does roughly $500 million in revenue across multiple home service brands under the O2E Brands umbrella (including WOW 1 Day Painting). The company operates through a franchise model that has created successful businesses for hundreds of franchise owners. Brian never sold the company despite offers of $75-100 million in the early days. "I wouldn't sell it for a billion," he said on a boat with senior executives making offers.

What makes Brian's story remarkable isn't the size of the business—it's the longevity. In Silicon Valley, 30-year-old founders are rare. Most entrepreneurs chase the next idea, the next exit, the next thing. Brian stayed planted. "Grow where you're planted," became his mantra. He proved that compounding effort, getting the culture right, building through PR and vision, and committing to one thing for decades can create something massive. As he puts it: "While it wasn't a vision of what I was starting, the origin story was absolutely legit. I just wanted to pay for college."