Dirty Jobs, Big Profits: Inside the Poop Scooping Business

**Erica Krupin** (0:00)
Kroopin's Poopin Scoopin, Erica speaking.

**John Wilson** (0:01)
Hey, it's John, my dog everywhere. I need so much help.

**Erica Krupin** (0:05)
2024 almost broke me, so I had to really get back to baseline, bad things are gonna happen. How fast are you gonna get back to it so you can keep moving?

**John Wilson** (0:13)
I've lived that variation of that story 100 times.

**Erica Krupin** (0:15)
We doubled the business this spring rush.

**John Wilson** (0:17)
That's crazy.

**Erica Krupin** (0:18)
You have to put in the work and be willing to grow as an individual.

**John Wilson** (0:21)
Like at 106, if you're on the higher end of the market, you could go to the mean, it would solve churn.

**Erica Krupin** (0:26)
Now that you're talking about it, it actually sounds really silly, but I haven't implemented it.

**John Wilson** (0:30)
If someone was new to this industry, how hard is it to start inside the scooping industry?

**Erica Krupin** (0:34)
What the hard part is, is people think it's going to be...

**John Wilson** (0:43)
Welcome back to Owned and Operated, A Top 150 Business Podcast. I'm your host, John Wilson. For fun, I run a $45 million plumbing, HVAC, and electric company here in Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee. And for shits and giggles, I run a podcast where we talk about how to grow home service companies on the internet. Today, I'm joined by Erica Krupin from Kroopin's Poopin Scoopin in Michigan. Yeah, I had to practice.
And we're talking about pet waste removal, the pet waste removal industry. So this will be a ton of fun.

**Erica Krupin** (1:13)
I'm excited. Yeah, this will be good.

**John Wilson** (1:15)
Before we get too deep, you do have a podcast. So like, let's give that a shout out real quick, where you break out the industry. So if people want more information on you or the industry, they can go to check out your show, which is Kroopin's Poopin Scoopin on YouTube.

**Erica Krupin** (1:27)
Yeah. So it's Kroopin's Poopin Scoopin on YouTube. And then the podcast is called The Scoop Podcast with Erica Krupin.

**John Wilson** (1:35)
And in there, you sort of explain the industry for aspiring scooping entrepreneurs.

**Erica Krupin** (1:40)
Yeah. I share like tactical tips of how to do things within the industry and within your business. And then I'm also just documenting my process because that was the main reason of why I started it was just to like show what I was doing. And so you get to see it all, the good, the bad, the ugly.
And it's been really cool.

**John Wilson** (1:57)
Yeah.
Yeah. I think sharing like I think we've you've said five years. I think we've been doing ours for, yeah, five, like I think March or February of 2021 And you definitely get back a lot more than you give, but it is fun. I mean, you've made a dent, a dent on your industry. So like, that's really cool.

**Erica Krupin** (2:16)
Yeah. When I had recorded a video, I was I left my hospital job. I had put in my two months after being there for 14 years. I'm going all in on this poop scooping thing and I quit. And on the way home-

**John Wilson** (2:27)
Were you scooping part time?

**Erica Krupin** (2:29)
I was. I started super part time just to, I don't know, just to make extra little bit of money and just try something different. And then once it finally surpassed my hospital income, I could have retirement. I could put money away for insurance and all of that stuff. I was like, okay, I'm going to quit.
And I just decided to turn on my little crappy Android phone and recorded a video and uploaded it on YouTube. And so that's how the social media journey kicked off.

**John Wilson** (2:53)
Yeah. Mine started with a tweet.
Oh, tweet tweet? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you, yeah. I want to, I want to hit that a little bit more. So you started this part-time, how many hours a week in COVID? It sounds like.

**Erica Krupin** (3:06)
It was before COVID. So I started it in 2000 The business started in 2018 I was doing all sorts of things. Like I was working at a house.

**John Wilson** (3:14)
Like side hustling, you mean?

**Erica Krupin** (3:15)
Always.
I've had side hustles ever since I was like five, right? It's always just been like in me, but my dad was also a business owner and he struggled. So he said, baby girl, you have to get this job at the hospital. You're going to have health insurance. You're going to make good money. It's going to be stable. Stability.