$800K/yr removing junk, $360K/yr selling superfoods, $130K/yr CAD design biz

Hey starters - happy Thursday!

This week, we feature 4 inspiring stories + 30 ways founders grew their business:

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#1: Dustin makes $800K/year getting rid of 'junk' in peoples homes:

Dustin started SOCO Waste - a residential waste removal business.

Four years ago, he started the business with his pickup truck and a $35K loan. Here's how the business is doing now:

• 800K/year with three employees
• Two delivery trucks, 51 dumpsters and two garbage trucks
• Main growth strategy: Facebook & Google Reviews - they have glowing reviews on both platforms which helps customers find and trust them:

Snapshot of SOCO's Google & Facebook reviews

Check out Dustin's full interview here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to check out more junk removal success stories? Check out this 25yr old that started a $492K/yr junk removal & demolition company.

#2: This solo founder built a $120K/year business solving her son's skin issue:

We just caught up with Dr. Garima, founder of RaGaNaturals - an all natural skincare brand.

After struggling to find the right skin product to treat her son, she decided to build her own product from scratch, and it worked instantly (proud mom moment).

The business is now doing $120K/year with two employees.

​Her secret? Word of mouth - From the beginning, customers have been her biggest influencers and biggest revenue source.

Check out Dr. Garima's story here!

#3: From triathlete, to chronic fatigue, to launching a $360K/year superfood:

Adam started SuperGreen TONIK - a green superfood supplement.

After receiving a life altering diagnosis, Adam decided to develop a supplement that would help combat his fatigue.

Now, he's doing $360K/year with one employee.

His secret? Affiliate partnerships - their main source of growth has been through affiliates who review their brand and write content on their site .

Adam's story is amazing, check out the full interview here! 

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to check out other successful health and wellness business opportunities? We put together a list of ideas (with examples) here!

#4: Scott turned his side hustle into a $130K/year CAD design business:

Scott started CAD Design Help - a business that designs and brings product ideas to life with 3D printing.

In six months, he left his corporate job and turned his side hustle into a full time gig:

• $130K/year with zero employees
• $50K/year in expenses
• 200 clients/year
• Bootstrapped the business with $27K

​His main growth strategy? SEO - he launched a podcast (The Engineering Entrepreneur Podcast) which has helped his SEO efforts significantly.

Check out Scott's full interview here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to learn how you can improve your SEO? We just launched a course all about it here!

#5: 30 Ways Founders Grew Their Business:

After interviewing thousands of successful founders, we've collected the data and identified the top 30 ways to grow your business.

And of course, with these tactics, we show you real-world examples of founders who have tried these strategies.

Here's the list!

#6: Are you ready to boost your revenue?

I want to give a shoutout to our long-time sponsor Klaviyo.

Using Klaviyo will open up a massive, untapped sales channel and bring you closer to your customers!

I'm a huge fan of the product (I use it for Starter Story and love the segmentation/drip features). I've also been able to collect so many emails using their website form integration - my list growing over 3k/month now 😲

Here are just some of the impressive businesses we've interviewed that use Klaviyo for email marketing and are raving about the product - all great interviews you should check out as well!

• Brumate ($1.1M/mo at 23 years old)
• Sheets & Giggles ($76k/mo in just 6 months)
• Beardbrand ($100k+/mo - 1.5M YouTube subscribers)
• Abs Protein Pancakes ($25k/mo passive income business)
• Xero Shoes ($460k/mo - featured on Shark Tank)
• The Longhairs ($30k/mo)
• Framed Tweets ($25k/mo)

Level up your email marketing with 👉 Klaviyo!

(And thank you for your support 🙏)

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Thanks for reading! See you next week.

- Pat Walls, Founder @ Starter Story

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