Articles Ranking
Businesses started by someone under 25
A $700 truck at 18, a $150 squeegee kit at 19, a $10 storage locker as a teenager. Five founders with a documented age under 25, ranked by what their businesses report, and two who started in college.
Of the 33 owners in the database, five have a documented age under 25 when they started, and two more founded their companies as college students. This page ranks the five by the largest revenue figure they report, then lists the students and two close calls. Every age and figure below is taken from the owner's entry.
Two cautions before the column. The top two figures are systemwide revenue for franchise networks, which counts what franchisees sell, so they are not comparable to a single company's books. And revenue is not take-home pay. The margin ledger covers what these trades keep.
Bought a $700 pickup at 18 in Vancouver in 1989 to pay for college and called it The Rubbish Boys. It became 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, which reports about $600 million in systemwide revenue across more than 100 markets in three countries. That figure belongs to the franchise system, not one company.
Founded Augusta Lawn Care in Blaine, Washington at 18 in 2014, after finishing a pre-medical degree and cancelling his medical school application. The first location ran toward $500,000 in its first year and about $1 million a year by 2017. The franchise system now reports $50 million or more across 200+ locations.
Started GoDetail with $500 of equipment in the gap between high school and college. By 22 he was doing $75,000 months. The company now reports about $900,000 a year at roughly 60 percent gross margins.
Started Orange Window Cleaning at 19 in 2017 with $150 of gear, selling $10 and $20 jobs door to door. Peaked at $65,000 to $70,000 a month (the column shows the top of that range), more than $1.3 million in cumulative sales, then sold about four and a half years in. Their peak month times twelve is roughly $800,000, which places them just below Tursunbaev.
Paid about $10 for his first abandoned locker in early 2024 as a teenager, from his mother's garage in New Jersey. In 2025 he brought in $135,000, with about $82,000 in operating earnings, per documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. He was 18 when they were published.
Started in college, age not on record
Nick Huber and Dan Hagberg, Storage Squad. Per the Cornell Chronicle, both were class of 2012 and started the business at the end of their junior year while full-time students. It picked up students' boxes in May and returned them in September, and in January 2021 they sold it to 1-800-PACK-RAT for a reported $1.65 million to $1.7 million. Neither founder's age has been published, so they are not ranked above.
Sam Evans, You Call We Haul. Started in May 2016 as a Penn State student home for the summer, with a $1,000 truck and about $1,700 all-in. By 2019 it did about $180,000 at roughly 70 percent margins, and it was sold in September 2024. His age is not in the sources either.
Close calls
EJ McCoy formally founded his lawn company at 21 in 2006, but no revenue for it is on record. Scoop Soldiers, the business his entry is about, launched in 2010. By the entry's own timeline he would have been about 25, which is our arithmetic and the reason it is not ranked. Luke Menear found parking lot striping at 19 while working for a seal coating company, and he and Heather started on their own in 1999. His age at that start is not stated.
What the list shows
The starts were tiny. Robinson and Silesky spent $150, Tursunbaev $500, Scudamore $700, and Haskell about $10 for his first locker. Evans put in about $1,700. Every one of those figures sits near the bottom of the startup cost ladder, and our list of businesses started for under $10,000 overlaps heavily with this one. A young founder usually has little capital, and the trades that tolerate that are the ones where the first customer pays for the second.
The largest ones turned into systems. Scudamore and Andes are the two biggest figures on this page because both stopped selling their own labor and started selling the method to franchisees. Robinson and Silesky did a smaller version of the same thing, moving to subcontractor crews and running the company from laptops before they sold.
Starting young did not mean staying forever. Orange Window Cleaning, Storage Squad and You Call We Haul were all sold, after about four and a half, ten and eight years. That is three of the seven businesses on this page. The exits ranking and the exit ledger show who bought them and why.
The revenue ranking puts these owners alongside everyone else, and the picker filters the documented models by what you can spend. This site is one of SideRoad's weekly builds, and ages are added to this page only when an owner's sources state them.
Common questions
What businesses did young founders start with little money?
In this database: window cleaning on $150 at 19 (Robinson and Silesky), mobile detailing on $500 between high school and college (Alan Tursunbaev), junk removal on a $700 truck at 18 (Brian Scudamore), and storage unit flipping from a $10 first locker as a teenager (Michael Haskell).
Who is the youngest documented founder to sell a business?
Johnny Robinson and Sergio Silesky started Orange Window Cleaning at 19 in 2017 and sold it about four and a half years later, after reaching $65,000 to $70,000 a month and more than $1.3 million in cumulative sales. The price has not been published.
How much can a teenager make with a boring business?
The most closely documented case is Michael Haskell, whose storage unit resale business brought in $135,000 in 2025 with about $82,000 in operating earnings, per documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. He was 18 when the figures were published.
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