The Idea
Kirk McKinney was still in high school when he found working speakers at a local dump in Massachusetts. He started collecting discarded electronics, then selling them on Facebook Marketplace. His first radio sale brought in $50.
But hanging around the dump revealed a better business. People were already paying companies to take this stuff away. Kirk started helping local removal crews, learned the work, then recruited his younger brother Jacob to do it themselves. Business Insider
The proposition was simple: you wanted your garage back. They had the muscle to clear it.
This was the beginning of Junk Teens.
The Execution
- 2021: The brothers pooled their savings for a $4,000 Ford F-150. An early job paid roughly $100 to move a couch in 15 minutes. They found customers through referrals, neighbourhood groups and word of mouth. Founder interview
- 2022: They reinvested most of their earnings in a dump truck costing over $80,000. It carried roughly eight times as much as the pickup, cutting disposal trips and opening up bigger jobs. Annual sales passed $200,000. Business Insider
- 2023: Another dump truck followed, then a warehouse. They’d outgrown their parents’ driveway and needed room to sort items for donation, resale and repurposing. Business Insider
- 2025: Revenue reached $3.04M, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The brothers say the company completed more than 5,500 jobs that year. CNBC
- 2026: With Kirk aged 22 and Jacob 21, the company projected $5M in annual revenue. Getting there meant taking work off Jacob’s plate: scheduling and staffing had consumed his days, so they divided his responsibilities and promoted an experienced employee into management. That freed the brothers to improve training and expand. Entrepreneur
The lesson?
The first opportunity was selling something someone had thrown away. The bigger one was getting paid to remove it. Then growth came from fixing practical limits: a truck that carried more, somewhere to sort the load, and someone else to organise the crews. Sometimes the next million starts with making fewer trips to the dump.