How One Pet Waste Removal Business Reached $3M+ in Revenue

What if the million dollar business you’re looking for is literally in your own backyard?

William Milliken went from zero to 350 recurring customers in his first three months in business, starting a pet waste removal company as a side project. Last year, his business racked up over $3 million in revenue, all from the not-so-glamorous service of cleaning up dog poop.

And if that wasn’t enough, William turned his knowledge into another side hustle, teaching others through swoopscoop.com and the Poop Scoop Millionaire community. That’s turned into another almost million dollar a year business.

Listen to Episode 722 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

how to start a pet waste removal business with almost no money
the surprising economics that make this a six-figure opportunity
• creative strategies to scale beyond your local market

Big thanks to Erica from Kroopin’s Poopin Scoopin for the intro!

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Why Pet Waste Removal?

William already had home service companies in the trades, including an electrical company and a garage door company. In late 2020, a high school friend wanted to start a business together. The problem was his friend had basically no trade skills.

At the time, William’s pregnant wife had hired a pooper scooper service, but they weren’t doing a very good job. Not professional, didn’t show up consistently, billing was weird, no uniforms. William thought, maybe we give that a shot.

Swoop Scoop Pet Waste Removal Service — https://swoopscoop.com/

He wasn’t expecting much. When checking Google search volume for demand, there was pretty much no search volume for this service. But he decided to try anyway.

The appeal was clear: it cost almost no money to get started. No journeyman electricians with 8,000 hours and crazy licenses.

Getting the First Customers

Before launching, they looked at local competitors and Erica Krupin, one of the OGs who had a YouTube channel.

William’s business partner didn’t even have a dog, so he threw rocks in his backyard and swept them up to time how long an average yard would take.

They came up with basic pricing and service systems, including spraying all equipment with chemical grade disinfectant so they wouldn’t spread Parvo or other illnesses.

William made his partner grind it out: door knocking, networking with vets, putting up door hangers, and posting in free Facebook groups like “Dog Owners of Spokane.” That’s how they got their first 15 to 20 customers.

When Facebook Ads Went Semi-Viral

Once they had their first batch of customers, William threw real money behind marketing. While Google didn’t have much search volume, once they started running Facebook ads,, it kind of went semi-viral.

People were signing up left and right. They went from “this is an idea we didn’t even know was going to work” to buying trucks and hiring people within the first couple months.

For minimal friction, they ran Facebook ads to send DMs directly. No website, no page speed issues. Just send us a message. They’d reply quickly with pre-formatted messages, get them a quote, and get them on the schedule.

Their best performing ad of all time was simple: a picture of a bag of dog poop in the snow. They were getting leads for $6 to $7, closing one out of three to one out of four.

The Economics: $70 to $100+ Per Hour

One tech can typically handle 125 to 150 customers on their route, doing 25 to 35 a day depending on route density. Initially, they shot for $70 to $80 per hour. Now they want to be well over $100 per hour.

Of course, you don’t tell people you’re charging $70 an hour to pick up dog poop. Over time, they learned tricks. Instead of telling people the monthly price, give them the per visit price. That converts better.

The website shows between $65 and $125 a month, but breaks it down as $25 a visit.

Pricing is based on how many dogs you have, service frequency, and yard size. Everything’s upfront and transparent on the website.

Smart Billing Reduces Churn by 72%

Every time you charge somebody’s card, there’s a chance it doesn’t go through or they want to cancel. So William offers three billing options: monthly, quarterly, or annual.

People on quarterly billing are about 72% less likely to churn than people on monthly billing. Getting billed four times a year versus 12 times means fewer opportunities to reconsider.

They offer a 10% discount for quarterly or annual billing. When they first rolled it out, they did about a 10% price increase, but said if you sign up for quarterly billing, we knock 10% off. You’re essentially locking in the same rate for the next year.

Between annual and quarterly, close to 40% of their client base is on these higher billing frequencies.

Why Peak Season is Winter

The seasonality was surprising. Everyone expects summer to be busy, but it’s actually the first quarter of the year. When the weather is worst, demand peaks.

In markets that get snow, once it melts, William calls it “peak poop pain season.” People have three, four, or five months of poop they haven’t picked up and they want to mow their yard.

They do an annual price increase in December. That timing is strategic because they acquire most customers during Q1. They pre-bill everybody in December and pull forward all that cash to grow the business faster.

They’ll peak in March and April, then churn down 15% to 20% over summer.

During busy season, they hire a weekend team. Everyone leaves their trucks at the office Friday.

Weekend team works Saturday and Sunday as seasonal part-time employees. That way they don’t need twice as many trucks or worry about layoffs.

Customer Lifetime Value: Over $3,000 in Seattle

The customer lifetime value depends on the market. In their Seattle market, it’s a little over $3,000 in gross revenue. In Spokane, it’s closer to $2,500 to $2,600.

With those numbers, paying $25 to $30 to acquire a customer through ads, they have significant leeway for customer acquisition costs.

Scaling to Multiple Markets

Last year was about building the next layer of management:

office manager
marketing manager
finance person
and supervisors (or “scooper-visors”) for each location.

Now they can copy-paste new locations. They’re in Spokane, North Idaho, Everett, Seattle, and Tacoma.

They have 25-plus vehicles rolling around. Dog bites are rare, about one out of every 12,000 to 15,000 yards, usually when a kid lets the dog out when they’re not supposed to.

They also do commercial work at HOAs and apartment complexes. They use a software called Sweep&Go, which was built specifically for pooper scooper companies.

The Poop Scoop Millionaire Community

William can only expand so fast in the Northwest, so he decided to teach others. The Poop Scoop Millionaire community on Skool now has 700 to 800 people.

It started when he did a podcast with Erica. Dozens of companies reached out wanting one-on-one time. He threw out $1,500 for a consultation and ended up making close to $20,000 in a few weeks.

He was a big follower of Alex Hormozi, who had invested in Skool. He was doing something called the Skool Games. William eventually built out the Poop Scoop Millionaire community.

At $69 a month, members get a community forum with six and seven-figure pooper scoopers, plus a classroom with over 30 hours of material.

They cover everything:

what tools to buy
what software to use
how to set up pricing
how to do marketing including Facebook ads and Google ads
how to hire people
how to do commercial services

They also have two to three live events weekly including Sunday Scoop Sessions for newer companies and the Scoop Millionaire Power Hour. William does at least one Q&A monthly.

Creating Industry Awareness

Some say they’re creating competitors, but they’re really creating industry awareness.

With all these new companies advertising, Google searches have doubled and tripled year over year, which helps everyone including William when entering new markets. It also gives optionality to franchise later or buy routes from people who want to exit.

Growth came from Facebook groups, their YouTube channel with 10k subscribers, and appearances on Upflip (over 3 million views), Alex Hormozi’s and Codie Sanchez’s channels.

They started ScoopCon, an annual event. Over 100 people flew to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to hear about dog poop. This year it’s in Texas.

Tools/Tech

Sweep&Go – routing software built specifically for pooper scooper companies
Jobber – popular CRM for service businesses
Corona garden rake and lobby dust pan – main scooping tools

What’s Next for William?

They have the team and infrastructure to start copy-pasting new locations. They’re opening possibly two locations this year, one for sure. They’ll continue ScoopCon and growing Poop Scoop Millionaire.

William has built the business where he doesn’t have to do anything operationally. They have an office manager, supervisors, and his partner as VP of operations.

On the Poop Scoop Millionaire side, other content creators make videos, and community leaders run sizable businesses within the community.

101 Service Business Ideas

Guaranteed inspiration for your next income stream!

Enter your email to download the full list now:

You'll also receive my best side hustle tips and weekly-ish newsletter. Opt-out anytime.

William’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Just take action.”

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