By Eric Spitznagel
Jacob D’Aniello, co-founder and chief executive officer of DoodyCalls, can imagine only one scenario in which his business could fail. “If one day, everybody in the world woke up and decided they loved picking up dog poop,” he says grimly. “If it suddenly became everybody’s favorite recreational activity, that would be a terrible day for us.”
Photograph by Greg KnottDoodyCalls has managed not just to stay afloat, but thrive. The company’s annual revenue for 2011 was $4.5 million, a big jump from 2009′s comparatively modest $2.9 million. (If you’re curious, that breaks down to approximately 6.6 million poops disposed of by DoodyCalls last year.) They currently have 55 franchises in 22 states, and there are plans to open as many as 250 locations in the next decade. The biggest challenge, says D’Aniello, has been customer awareness. Not just letting the public know that DoodyCalls is open for business, but that paying somebody to come out and pick up your dog poop is a real service that actually exists. “People don’t usually come up with crazy businesses they’ve never heard of to type into the Internet,” he says. They’re as likely to search for “dog poop pick-up service” as they are “astronaut yoga” or “clown exorcism.” In other words, they have to know it’s something they can buy before they look for the best place to buy it.
“That’s one of the things that was so attractive to us when we first started,” says D’Aniello, who started the Charlottesville (Va.)-based company with his wife, Susan, in early 2000. “The sky wasn’t defined yet. Nobody knew what a big pooper-scooper company looked like.” In recent years, he’s encountered some competition—most with similarly silly-sounding names like Dr. Scoopy Poo and Call of Doodie—but DoodyCalls remains the industry leader. At least D’Aniello thinks so. “Maybe I’m a small pooper-scooper company,” he laughs. “I don’t know. I think I’m doing well, but there isn’t much to compare myself to. It’s like trying to judge your success in a vacuum.”
As with any company in a relatively new and unproven market, setting the right price point is often taking a stab in the dark. Charging by the dog makes sense in theory, but the job can become a bigger, depending on the size of the yard. And then there are the unmentionable factors, things nobody wants to bring up with a new customer. (There is apparently no kind way of asking if a dog has a spastic colon.) The seasons can also bring unforeseen consequences. As D’Aniello’s learned the hard way, winter is the cruelest month for a dog-poop entrepreneur. “It wasn’t a big deal this year because we didn’t get a lot of snow,” he says. “But when it does snow, it’s like putting poop in the freezer.” Trying to chisel out the hardened remains of Fido’s digestive output can be an exercise in futility. Worse still: When the snow thaws, a winter’s worth of preserved stool is unleashed at once.
“Thank God for my wife,” D’Aniello laughs. “She has the stronger stomach. There were a few times …,” he shudders, unable to recount the unsavory details. “Let’s just say I had to leave.”
