Enterprise Issues
With Siaka Momoh
The story of Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman reminds one of first, of the cart pushing trash collectors who are regular callers at homes in Lagos, especially in places like Festac and other estates in the metropolis. Second, it reminds one too of the Tinubu administration-created trash collectors who do their business in a more sophisticated way that is with trucks moving from street to street and from close to close.
I am not sure if these two categories of waste disposers know they are into a money spinning business. When I see tonnes of wastes piled up in Festac and several other parts of cosmopolitan Lagos, I begin to wonder the millions of naira that is buried in such wastes so to speak. Think of recycling opportunities, think biogas, etc, you will know what I mean. Do our waste collectors think this far? I doubt if they do.
Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman, two college pals who are taking out the trash in style are different. As college kids, they spent their break earning money by hauling away unwanted junk from attics and garages in Soliman’s mother’s cargo van. This would have ended after Soliman graduated from the University of Miami and Friedman from Pomona College in California but it didn’t.
In his senior year, Soliman had written a business plan for a junk hauling business operated by employees with clean-cut collegiate image – College Hunks Hauling junk – which won a UM entrepreneurship competition. He saw it as idea worth pursing and so turned Friedman, his friend since high school in Washington D.C., who was also eager for a new challenge. They realised they were taking a big risk by leaving their corporate jobs. But they also knew they had a good idea worth testing.
“The fact that we had a business plan that had won an award and had spent an entire summer doing the physical work and recognising that there was a demand for it was the motivation we needed to go full-scale,” Friedman says.
Friedman and Soliman were confident they were a good match, they were confident they could work together. After all they were long-time friends who had worked together for a long time. Friedman, now president, has a background in finance and CEO Soliman is in marketing and management. Start-ups who complain their problem is how to get start-up fund have a lot to learn from these junk haulers. Good sources for such funds are family and friends. Friedman and Soliman explored this as well as the bank to buy their first truck. In the early days, they had appointments as early as 5 a.m., worked weekends and employed their friends’ younger siblings for many jobs.
Talking about appointments, this is one initiative that our local junk haulers have not thought of. Appointments for trash collections can be made with residents or resident associations. This can even go up to industrial (perhaps some are doing this now). But it is possible not all firms are covered now. One can recall that the issue of spin-off industries came up in one of one’s several facility visits to Nigerian Bottling Company, Dangote Industries, etc. One that we found outstanding was factory cleaning and waste disposal.
Since they quit their jobs in 2005 to start College Hunks, the company has grown from a single operation with two guys and a truck to include 12 franchises – with more on the way. Sales doubled from $550,000(N86.5 million) in the first year to $1.1 million (N171.3 million) the second year.
In that second year, they focussed more on the big pictures. “We eventually had to remove ourselves from working in the business and doing the physical hauling to working on the business,” Friedman says. Friedman and his friend and partner worked with consultants, attorneys and software developers to refine systems and create programmes and procedure manuals to help expand the company and offer franchises.
Friedman and Soliman continue looking for ways to offer new products and services to reach new consumers – something Friedman says is a formula for success in an uncertain economy.
The catchy name of the Company is also a big plus. This and the clever marketing campaign have pushed the company up. Press mentions too are additional advantage.
Thus taking out the trash in style is a money spinning business. It is a waste to wealth venture.
Throwback story from Archives-Siaka Momoh, first published 2013.
