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JunkGator is an online America-wide service and was established in 2021. It provides rapid, easy access for people who need help with trash, garbage and junk removal from homes or business premises to a network of professional junk removal experts in their local area.
Tell us a bit about your background
At the beginning of my career, I was involved with IT, and over time my focus shifted to meeting the needs of businesses that were just beginning to explore the benefits of an online presence. The internet was at an early stage of development, and many companies had little or no internet experience, so it was great to be involved in a small way during the development of such a massive global phenomenon.
Having seen how the internet revolutionized the way people work, shop and interact with service providers, I set out on my own as a tech entrepreneur. I have set up and grown a number of highly successful networks across the UK and the US, with JunkGator being the latest one stateside.
What are the main lessons you have learned?
First of all, you have to love what you do – if you can’t enjoy something that demands such hard work and commitment, you may be in the wrong job.
Assuming you do enjoy your work, putting the customer’s wants and needs front and center when designing a service (or a product) is really the only way to both attract and retain those customers.
First and foremost, accessing the service must be simple and hassle-free from the customer’s perspective, and the delivery of the service must be timely, exactly as promised, and at an affordable price. If you get those things right, you should succeed, no matter which sector you operate in.
What issue does your business address?
Basically, we all have too much-unwanted stuff around us (furniture, white goods, trash, garbage …), and it can be difficult to get someone reliable that you can trust to remove it and dispose of it properly. Too often, you contact a junk hauler who promises great things, and then lets you down. They either don’t show, or they don’t handle the stuff properly and fail to make sure it ends up where it should – even some big names lack trust in this respect.
JunkGator was established as an online marketplace to give potential customers with junk ready for collection the ability to find local independent junk haulers who can do the job for them. Independent businesses can operate flexibly to meet the exact needs of their customers, and because they are usually smaller, the customer feels they are dealing directly with people who have a real interest in the reputation of the business. These independent businesses rely on good customer feedback to survive, so they are usually willing to go the extra mile and also vary their prices according to the job in hand. Win, win.
What made you choose this particular issue?
Landfill sites are filling up, and if no action is taken to divert reusable or recyclable items from legal landfill sites, we will soon run out of space to create new ones. Dumping is the ‘easy’ option, but the focus needs to be on making the most of all resources – someone’s junk is usually someone else’s useful item.
Poor junk disposal practices are deadly for the environment – you can see all around you the impact of litter, pollution, and waste dumping (legal and illegal). It’s not just ugly to look at, emissions from waste are a genuine hazard, the problem is getting bigger every year, and it affects everyone.
The members of the JunkGator network are committed to landfill diversion. They go out of their way to assess everything they collect to see if it can first and foremost be re-used or repurposed (as many items of furniture and domestic goods can). They next consider the potential for recycling, and finally comes the landfill option, but only using approved disposal sites.
What makes your business special?
We don’t actually operate any of the junk hauling services, we are an online portal, and we give potential customers easy access to a selection of local junk pick up teams. The experience is simple and hassle-free, and free of charge for the customer.
Where we are special is that we ensure the junk haulers themselves are reputable, reliable, certified, and committed to quality before allowing them access to the network and we maintain quality of service through analytics via our smart technology.
The haulers benefit by receiving high-quality leads through our website, and the customers benefit by having rapid access to trusted junk haulers who are committed to high-quality and affordable price.
What is the plan for the next few years?
We will continue to make it quick and straightforward for potential customers to access reliable and professional junk haulers in their local area. We will also continue to help our network of independent junk haulers to grow their businesses by delivering high-quality leads to them, while ensuring the quality of service they offer to their customers.
These actions will in turn help JunkGator to grow to become the first name you think of when you need to get trash and junk removed from your home or business premises.
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This content is brought to you by Shahbaz Ahmed
Photo provided by the author with written permission from the owner Mateo Evans
Feature Photo: iStockPhoto