Omar Soliman | He Got Rich Hauling Trash… Now His Business Makes $300 Million/Year

James (0:00)

You got rich hauling trash.

Omar Soliman (0:01)

Hauling trash, man.

James (0:02)

Our guest business does over $300 million a year. Is that correct?

Omar Soliman (0:06)

That's correct. We borrowed my mom's cargo van and said, hey, we want to haul junk as a job for the summer. And she looked us up and down and said, you guys could be the college hunks who haul junk. The first job we went to showed up, a lady showed me a bunch of stuff in her basement, asked me how much it was going to cost. In my mind, I'm thinking 50 bucks. And somehow I said $250. And she handed me the 250 bucks. And I looked at it, and it was the most money I'd ever made in my life, probably the most money I'd seen in my life. And I told my parents, I'm going to be a full-time junk man. I'm not going back to college.

James (0:31)

You started in what year?

Omar Soliman (0:32)

2005 We were on the very first episode, season one, episode one of Shark Tank. We were the first company to refuse a deal.

Josh (0:38)

What were some of those lessons you had to learn early on?

Omar Soliman (0:40)

Businesses don't die from starvation. They usually die from it. You put too much into the business, you lose focus.

Jack (0:46)

I know you went to college.

Omar Soliman (0:47)

I did.

Jack (0:48)

What do you think about the current education system?

Omar Soliman (0:50)

Oh, man.

James (0:51)

All right.

Josh (0:51)

That's a badass response right there.

James (0:53)

Omar, if me and you were to die tomorrow, and you could be one last message with the younger generation right here, what would that be?

Omar Soliman (0:59)

Oh, man. That's a great question.

James (1:02)

What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks Podcast. I'm James. I'm here with Jack and Josh, and we have an incredible guest for you all today. Our guest business does over 300 million dollars a year. Is that correct?

Omar Soliman (1:15)

That's correct.

James (1:15)

Omar, you got Rich Hauling Trash.

Omar Soliman (1:18)

Hauling Trash, man.

James (1:19)

That's fascinating, man. But I want to get right into it, man. You know, I want you to take us back. You know, you borrowed your mom's beat up van.

Omar Soliman (1:25)

We did.

James (1:26)

And you went around, you know, colleges, right?

Omar Soliman (1:28)

So, no, we actually, our primary customer is like your parents, people that are homeowners, people think we...

James (1:32)

You were in college.

Omar Soliman (1:33)

We were in college. Our name is College HUNKS, but we service homeowners, offices, businesses. We borrowed my mom's cargo van and said, hey, we want to haul junk as a job for the summer. And she looked us up and down and said, you guys can be the College HUNKS who haul junk. Right. And we all just stopped. We're like, I felt the earth move when she said the name, went home, put it on some computer printouts, and six o'clock that night, the phone started ringing.

James (1:55)

What was the exact moment that you realized that there was a fortune hiding in people's trash?

Omar Soliman (1:59)

The first job. So the first job we went to showed up. Lady showed me a bunch of stuff in her basement, asked me how much it was going to cost. In my mind, I'm thinking 50 bucks. And somehow I said $250.

And she handed me the 250 bucks. And I looked at it and it was the most money I'd ever made in my life, probably the most money I'd seen in my life. And I went home, I made it rain. And I told my parents, I'm going to be a full time junk man. I'm not going back to college.

I ended up going back to college.

James (2:24)

Were you competing against these big junk removal companies?

Omar Soliman (2:27)

Yeah, we compete against junk removal companies.

There's hauling companies. Certainly some people can put their stuff out on the curb. But the value for us is we come in the home, uniformed employees, we remove the stuff from wherever it's at. And then we also added moving services. So we now offer local and long distance moving.

James (2:45)

But I would imagine a lot of those companies you were competing against, some of them, aren't they backed by the local government?

Omar Soliman (2:50)

There's companies that are, there's certainly like your local municipal trash companies that are local government. And then you've got like big kind of hauling companies and you got big giant moving companies. So just in Tampa Bay alone, there's 700 competitors that do what we do.