Pick of the Litter
Swapping banking for rubbish removal may seem like a step down, but Jason Mohr is proving that one man's junk is another's millions
Featured February 09 Words by Tina Walsh
IF YOU'VE EVER WONDERED WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RAG AND BONE MAN, THAT BRITISH INSTITUTION OF RUBBISH REMOVAL, HE'S ALIVE AND WELL, ALBEIT IN A SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT GUISE. As an investment banker at Rothschild, Jason Mohr, 38, was becoming increasingly frustrated with the shackles of corporate life and, after a few faltering attempts to set up in business, decided to hand in his resignation, take his bonus and head off to Canada to have a look at a junk removal firm he'd heard was doing a roaring trade.
That was four years ago and his company Any Junk? is now one of the UK's leading rubbish removal businesses, with an annual turnover of just under €2.2m, making 10,000 domestic and commercial clearances a year for clients such as B&Q, InterContinental Hotels, Rentokil and London's Great Ormond Street Hospital. Even the queens of stylish living Trinny and Susannah are fans. But it wasn't all plain sailing. "I was someone on a high salary and suddenly I'm a man with a van with a wife and two children," says Wimbledon-based Jason. Luckily, wife Liz is a management consultant and comfortable in her own right, which kept the wolf from the door until things picked up. "We launched in November 2004 but had no bookings that first Christmas, which was a bit depressing," Jason admits.
They were also nearly flooded out before they'd even started after someone left the tap on at the depot and everyone ended up sloshing around in over a foot of water. "It put our insurance premium up massively and the premises next door sued us," says Jason ruefully.
Despite these setbacks and potential meltdown in the form of competition from a group of pugnacious Canadian upstarts who set up in the UK-"they only lasted 12 months, but it was still a panicky moment for me"-things started to take off.
The company now has offices in London, Birmingham, Bristol and Bath (Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and other major cities are in the offing) and a depot in Vauxhall, South London, and employs a staff of 30, who drive around town in pairs in bright red HGV vans decorated with white elephants-a nod to the village fête jumble (or white elephant) stall.(Ken Livingstone liked the vans so much he gave the company a €22,300 grant to buy a new one when he was Mayor of London.)
The vans play a jingle (a kind of up-market ice-cream-van ditty in the form of the jazz track Baby Elephant Walk) to announce their arrival, which goes down well with the punters and makes people laugh, as well as harking back to the rag and bone man's trademark call.
The company collects anything and everything, from books, furniture and IT equipment to rubble, garden waste and the contents of broken-down shop freezers. They even got rid of a to-scale helicopter, which Oxfam had been using as a prop for a publicity drive about arms dealing in Africa, two truck loads of unwanted sex toys from an "erotic retailer" and two and a half tonnes of cake mix from a Škoda car advert. The only things they won't touch are asbestos, toxic waste, paint, raw fish and meat, for obvious reasons.
Over 60% of the materials are recycled, 35% goes to landfill sites and the rest is sent back to the depot to be sold on to house clearance companies or given away to charity. By the end of the year, 250 tonnes of furniture, clothing, bric-a-brac and books will have been recycled, along with 700 tonnes of electrical and metal appliances and hundreds of tonnes of wood, rubble and paper. Such are the company's creative and green credentials that in just four years it's been awarded for both, including a Portman Award for Best Imported Business Idea, a runner-up in the Guardian Green Awards and a finalist for the Natwest Startups Community Impact Award. It also complies with the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive that came into force in 2003 and imposes responsibility for the safe disposal of all IT, electronic and electrical equipment.
While Jason is keen to grow the business and likes to hear from potential franchisees, he says he has to be selective about the inordinate amount of emails and phone calls he receives. "You have to give lots of man time to them but there's a huge appetite for it and there's always an email log jam of enquiries after we appear in the media (he's not a fan of traditional advertising but has had slots on the Radio 4 Today programme and Radio 5 Live) or wherever, but it takes a lot of time to go through and weed out those people who are serious. One guy phoned and said he wanted to be a franchisee for the whole of Scotland, which we'll obviously consider if he's got the right credentials."
James Gibson, CEO of The Big Yellow Storage Company, owns a 30% stake in Any Junk? together with a venture capital company. He was instrumental in the start-up process, says Jason. "I had £40,000 [€45,000] to put down initially and it really helped that I'd been a financier in a previous life when I approached James. The fact that the business model fitted well with his also helped-there are lots of parallels between self storage and junk disposal and his idea is also a US import." Although it's too early to think about a stock market flotation, "given my background it's definitely something I'm looking into in the longer term", says Jason.
Much of the company's repeat business comes from companies such as B&Q and Magnet, which need to dispose of old kitchens and bathrooms once new ones have been fitted. Until the credit crunch took hold and people decided to stay put rather than move house, it was also a favourite with estate agents, who would recommend it to their customers.
Competition comes in the form of skip and van hire companies as well as the council tip, but getting rid of unwanted items this way is much cheaper and easier, claims Jason. "You have to find a skip hire operator who will turn up when they say they will, you need a skip hire permit which costs money and takes time to arrange and you invariably need a parking permit. Labour costs aren't included and even if you only fill a quarter of the skip you still have to pay the full rate." And customers are guaranteed a two-hour "window" so they don't need to sit by the window all day waiting for a workman who may, or may not, turn up. If only Steptoe and Son had taken note.
Five things I wish I had known before I started:
Networking works
Cheap experts are rarely experts
How much I'd enjoy being master of my own destiny
Traditional advertising is expensive and doesn't work
How much fun growing a business can be
BEST PIECE OF ADVICE:
If you don't like what you're doing, do something else.
UNFULFILLED AMBITION:
Too many to mention, but writing a novel would be near the top of the list.
MY FIRST BOSS:
A pick-your-own fruit farmer who was really grumpy, but that's probably because everyone was eating his strawberries as well as picking them.
PHOTO: © TONY FRENCH
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