u/SwoopScoopLevi

sup yall

Last night (October 8), I was randomly searching domain names on GoDaddy and somehow Artificial.com showed as available for $0.01.

I was half asleep and figured I'd just buy it tomorrow. Big mistake, apparently. Today it's unavailable, and Google suggests the domain could be worth anywhere from $200K to $1M.

Is anyone here tech savvy or knowledgeable about domains who can tell me if this is complete BS? Does GoDaddy sometimes mistakenly show valuable domains as available, or is it actually possible that Artificial.com became available for a short period?

Is there any way to know for sure? Just trying to figure out if I actually got cooked or if GoDaddy was messing with me D :

Howdy 🙂

i've noticed a big influx of people online talking about poop scooping as the hot new service business, so I will share some of my story...

about 5 years ago, I was working a soul sucking social work job making no money, job hopping through my twenties & feeling pretty stuck. I knew I wanted to start a business to escape the wage cage, but I was broke and needed something cheap to start. I also wanted something that was easy to hire for, not overly regulated, not overly saturated, and solved a real problem.

i was super close to doing carpet cleaning, but my business partner told me his wife had hired a pooper scooper company to clean their yard and told me to see if that had any potential. At first I thought he was joking, but I loved the idea immediately.

did some research & found out the industry has actually been around since the late 1970s. Almost 50% of households own dogs, most people hate picking up dog poop, and a lot of people still do not even know this service exists.

We started with about $1,200, my Ford Escape, some basic tools, door hangers, yard signs, car magnets, and free Facebook group posts. 5 years later, we’ve cleaned over 300,000 yards and ranked the 10th Fastest growing company in WA state last year on the INC 5000 list.

Scooping Poop is a very real business if you treat it like one!

I'll be popping in to answer your questions on this thread. ask away!

EDIT: The moderators temporarily removed the post while verifying my claims. I submitted proof and the AMA is now verified and restored. I’m back and answering questions!

Hi all 🙂

I started a Pooper Scooper biz 5 years ago. It is not glamorous, but it is a thing!

Here are some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned for anyone starting or scaling a biz:

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1. Sales is Everything Early On

when you’re brand new, the perfect logo, perfect slogan, perfect business cards, perfect uniforms, and perfect systems do not matter nearly as much as getting customers. That stuff matters later, but early on it can become a trap because it feels productive while letting you avoid the uncomfortable work.

you need sales!!!

knock on doors, call people you know, post in local Facebook groups, hand out flyers, put up yard signs if your city allows it, talk to neighbors, ask for referrals, do whatever you need to do to get momentum. in a recurring revenue model like poop scooping, the first 25 customers are huge. Once you have that base, you have real feedback, some cash flow, proof people will pay, and hopefully a group of customers who can start referring you. So make sure you race to your foundation as fast as you can.

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2. Know your numbers

the big numbers I care about are churn, LTV, and CAC.

Simple example: let’s say you have 1,000 recurring customers. They pay $100 per month on average, and 5% cancel each month.

that means your rough LTV is $100 / 5%, which is $2,000.

That does not mean $2,000 profit. You still have wages, taxes, fuel, insurance, software, admin, and every other cost. But it gives you a target. If a customer is worth around $2,000 in revenue, acquiring that customer for 10% LTV ($200) or less is usually solid. Under $100 (or 5%) is amazing.

The channel does not really matter. Facebook ads, Google ads, yard signs, Nextdoor, Yelp, door hangers, whatever. What matters is knowing what it costs you to get a customer and whether that customer is worth more than what you paid. If you do not know your numbers, you might be scaling something that loses money every time a new customer signs up.

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3. Awareness is everything

in my industry specifically, one of the biggest advantages and disadvantages of poop scooping is that a lot of people still do not know the service exists. The good part is that once someone hears “we pick up dog poop,” they instantly understand it.

there is no long education process. No complicated pitch. No convincing someone that dog poop in the yard is annoying. They already know the problem. You just have to show them there is a solution. That means visibility matters a lot. Vehicle wraps, yard signs, Google reviews, Facebook ads, local groups, simple branding, and being seen over and over again all help make the business feel real. People need to see you enough times to go from “is this really a thing?” to “I should probably hire them.”

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4. Speed is king

answer your phone and respond to your leads!! Seriously. It sounds basic, but it is one of the easiest ways to beat competitors. If someone needs a service, they are probably not calling one company and patiently waiting three days for a reply. They are going down Google, checking reviews, calling whoever looks legit, and hiring the first company that makes it easy.

If you miss the call, take forever to respond, have a clunky quote process, or make onboarding annoying, you will lose customers you could have easily won.

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5. Build it like you might sell it, even if you never do

i heard this years ago and it stuck with me. Nobody wants to buy a job.. They want to buy an asset. Even if you never plan to sell, building the business this way forces you to think differently. You cannot be the only person who knows how everything works. You cannot be the only quality control system. You cannot be the only salesperson, manager, trainer, problem solver, and customer service rep forever.

at some point, you have to hire, train, delegate, and create layers. A lot of owners get burned by one bad hire and then decide “nobody will ever do it as good as me.” That mindset will keep you trapped.

your employees are doing a job. They are not building the company like you are. If someone can do 80 to 85% of what you do, that can still be great service and that is how real companies scale. The actual work in our business is simple. The hard part is building a company around it!

Good luck out there and LMK if y'all got questions

for my high school psych final, i didn't sleep for 3 days and made a report on it. after that i slept for like 40 hours. didn't know who i was or where i was when i woke up lol

Hi all! just got married =D

She moved from another country to be with me in the United States, and I’m trying to be the best husband I can while she adjusts to a completely different life.

She left behind her family, culture, normal routines, familiar food, friends, and everything she knew. I know that is a huge sacrifice, and I don’t want to accidentally minimize how hard that can be just because I’m excited to finally have her here.

I’m just trying to figure out the best way to support her without being overbearing. I want her to feel at home, loved, independent, and not like she gave up her whole life just to fit into mine.

Anything I should avoid doing? or any general advice from you guys would be super appreciated.

Thanks!

Curious what hiring managers and HR people think.

When a candidate attaches a photo of themselves on their resume, does it come across as professional, unnecessary, or kind of a red flag?

I know it might depend on the country or industry, but in the US it feels a little uncommon to me. Does it ever help, or is it usually better to leave it off?

I was in sales & we had a boss who would hype everyone up during busy season when we were crushing it, then as soon as things naturally slowed down he’d say, “You’re not working for bonuses anymore, you’re working to keep your jobs.”

Everyone knew it was the slow season, but instead of leading, he used fear. glad i escaped the wage cage.

Hi everyone, I’m new to Reddit and still trying to understand how everything works. I posted in a subreddit, I have a pooper scooper biz and it was a AMA style I was going to help ppl who were curious. Anyways it got I think 50k views in an hour but was removed & mods didn't say why.

Any advice on how to go about this is appreciated

Hi 🙂

I've noticed a big influx of people online talking about poop scooping as the hot new service business, so I will share some of my story...

About 5 years ago, I was working a dead end social work job making $15 an hour, job hopping through my twenties, and honestly feeling pretty stuck.

I knew I wanted to start a business to escape the wage cage, but I was broke and needed something cheap to start, simple to hire for, not overly regulated, and not super saturated. It also needed to solve a real problem.

I was "this close" to doing carpet cleaning, but my business partner told me his wife had hired a pooper scooper company to clean their yard and told me to see if that had any potential.

At first I thought he was joking, but I loved the idea immediately.

Then I looked into it and found out the industry has actually been around since the late 1970s. Almost half of households own dogs, most people hate picking up dog poop, and a lot of people still do not even know this service exists.

We started with about $1,200, my Ford Escape, some basic tools, door hangers, yard signs, car magnets, and free Facebook group posts. 5 years later, we’ve cleaned over 300,000 yards and ranked the 10th Fastest growing company in WA state last year on the INC 5000 list.

Scooping Poop is a very real business if you treat it like one!

I can answer a few questions 💩