Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Winfield, Abbie Seidel.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Lisa, Abbie. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
The timing sort of came together and created the opportunity to start Poo B Gone. After over 20 years as a graphic artist, I [Lisa] found myself out of work at the end of 2006. Abbie had been working for her sister’s landscape company for 25 years. When the economy took a downturn and design jobs were few and far between, I began working with Abbie at her sister’s landscape company repairing and installing residential irrigation systems. I also returned to school to focus on a degree in web design.
Abbie is definitely the “idea machine” behind the business, and one day she proposed we start a business picking up dog poop for people. At first I laughed. But the more we talked about it, we realized that there was really a need for this service. We had been in many yards while working in landscaping and found that few people were attentive to their dog’s “leave-behinds” in the yard. There were no other companies that we were aware of offering this service in the Dallas area so we knew there was a market for it, but we didn’t realize how difficult it would be to convince people that dog poop is NOT fertilizer. We set out to educate people, not only to grow our business but also to help people understand the environmental impact of pet waste. Dog waste, left to seep into groundwater, ends up in our streams, rivers and lakes. Our other goal was to support local dog rescue groups – we wanted to give back to the rescue community. Our love for dogs and animals in general gave us the motivation to keep going during the first three years.
We made the decision from the start that we did not want to purchase a franchise and end up in immediate debt. So we opened a business account with $1000 and purchased a beat-up small truck for $1500. We started our advertising campaign walking neighborhoods putting fliers on doors. Our first customer called two months later. When we weren’t working at our full-time jobs we were promoting Poo B Gone. We participated in every dog event in Dallas that we had time for, we offered gift certificates to local dog rescue groups to give as raffle prizes at their events, we did everything we could think of to get our name out there even if it meant giving away free services. After three years it began to pay off. I would say the most important thing we did to get the phone ringing was to build a website that put us at the top of Google search results. It is still our number one way we get new customers.
Today, Abbie and I both work for Poo B Gone full-time and have had up to five employees. Starting our own business from the ground up has been the most difficult and most rewarding endeavor either of us has ever done. Owning your own business is not for the faint of heart. You will work harder than you ever have, give up more of your free time than you ever have, but you will also feel great satisfaction and pride in knowing you built a successful business that created jobs and made a difference in your community.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In the beginning, it was a struggle to convince people that their dogs’ poop needs to be picked up. We would have a booth at events like Earth Day and people would walk up to our booth and argue with us about the need to pick it up. One guy even argued that his landscape acts as a “filter” that prevents the waste from ending up in wastewater, which is completely false. But the biggest struggle has been the sacrifices we made such as giving up our free time on weekends because we were always working. We lost friends during the first few years because we didn’t have time to spend with them.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Poo B Gone – what should we know?
Poo B Gone specializes in dog waste removal for residential and commercial customers. Our mission is to provide superior service and give back to the local animal rescue community in the Dallas area and we are well known for this. We are very proud that after 8 years we are still growing, and we are also proud to support local animal rescue with donations, volunteer work, and financial assistance. We feel that our competitive edge results from the care we provide for our customers – we treat them like family members, we take time to play with their dogs, and alert them to anything in their yard that might be wrong. We also look out for the health of their dogs by alerting them to anything the dog may have eaten that is visible in their poop.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Perseverance. Many companies fail in the first three years because the owners give up when the business is not an instant success. We believed in our concept, believed in the importance of what we were doing, and believed in ourselves and our ability to make it work.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.poobgone.biz
- Phone: 972-247-6964
- Email: poobgoneonline@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poobgone_dallas/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/poobgonedallas/
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