Summer had come for college students, Omar Soliman and Nick Friedman. Both were planning on relaxing on their summer break. The only obstacle for them was the lack of beer money.
Omar’s mother was not down with enabling a summer of beer drinking and doing absolutely nothing on her dime. He and Nick would have to earn their keep over the summer and fund their own beer habit.
Mom owned a furniture store and Omar remembered people were always moving things. Omar was the visionary. He figured they could borrow their mom’s van and clean junk out of a few garages over the summer. That would be good enough to keep their beer on ice and flowing.
A partnership of two brothers and a micro-business was born. The business became College Hunks Hauling Junk. The business name was a stroke of marketing genius. Who could turn down a couple of college students working over their summer break.
They created fliers, dropped them around a local neighborhood, and waited for business. Within three hours the phone began ringing. The brothers had their first job cleaning out a garage. That job earned the brothers $220. By the end of the summer the brothers and College Hunks Hauling Junk had made $10,000. That was a pretty nice haul for a couple of dudes seeking summer beer money.
Omar and Nick were groomed to get a good job. The summer business was cool and the corporate world awaited the brothers. Omar worked in marketing and Nick worked in economics. Seemed like the brothers were settled into a life of steady corporate success. Something was missing and pulling at the two.
Shortly after setting out on the corporate world Nick emailed Omar and reignited their success path with College Hunks Hauling Junk. The time was now and they dove back into the business. Their business was truly born.
Both worked hard to build a business and their real passion. They had missteps along the way. On one occasion the brothers bid too low on a job and lost money. These were lessons, which helped their learning curve. As with any business, there are lessons to be learned, errors to be made, and persistence to embrace.
The key to ultimate success with Omar and Nick’s business was their belief that it would work out. They found failing forward a better option than throwing in the towel. To give up is to fail. To go up is to succeed.
College Hunks Hauling Junk started as a simple business to support a summer beer habit and turned into a big time success. The brothers toiled, marketed, and persisted until a large junk hauling business was the replacement for a marketing and economics career.
Somebody once gave me some sage advice. The advice was, “Sometimes you have to lose in order to win.” My immediate resistance was, “Let someone beat me!? Are you insane?” Then the advice sunk into my thick skull.
