The database Entry no. 007
Turning poop into gold
EJ McCoy and Josh Cahill were mowing lawns in Texas when they noticed the job nobody would even discuss: picking up dog waste. Scoop Soldiers, founded 2010, reported about $1.25 million a month by 2023 and has franchised into more than 90 territories across 16 states.
Every category in this database has a floor of glamour, and Scoop Soldiers lives beneath all of them. The company's crews visit yards on a weekly schedule, remove the dog waste, sanitize on request, and haul it away. That is the entire service. It was earning roughly $1.25 million a month by the time UpFlip's podcast profiled co-founder EJ McCoy in 2023, and the brand's own materials now count $79 million in lifetime revenue.
McCoy's origin is the classic route-business résumé: mowing a neighbor's lawn in Allen, Texas at age eight for five dollars, a real lawn company by high school, and Emerald Lawn and Landscaping formally founded in 2006. He and partner Josh Cahill launched Scoop Soldiers in McKinney in 2010 after spotting the gap in their own customer base. People will pay to avoid mowing; they will pay more, and more reliably, to never think about the other thing.
The frequency machine
The product is a schedule, not a visit. Weekly service is the standard tier, flanked by twice- and three-times-weekly in dense zip codes and bi-weekly for budget customers, with no contracts and no prepayment. Demand renews biologically, churn is low, and route density does to margins what it does in every business in this database: everything. The customer roster runs from ordinary backyards to apartment complexes, hotels, and doggy daycares.
"It's a relatively unknown industry," McCoy says, and he treats that obscurity as the opportunity. EJ McCoy, to Franchise Times
The franchise flywheel
From 2019 Scoop Soldiers began franchising, with a strategy McCoy describes as building territories corporately, stocking them with customers and revenue, then selling them as a business in a box. The initial investment runs about $61,000 to $111,000. It works: one franchisee, a former restaurant operator, passed 1,100 clients and $900,000 in revenue within a year of taking over his territory. By 2023 the system counted 96 franchised territories in 16 states, and McCoy now evangelizes the industry under a banner that states the thesis outright: Pet Waste Millionaire.
The Boring Index panel debated this entry at length, because a franchise system is arguably a glamorous machine bolted onto a boring chore. The chore won. Scores of operators in 16 states now earn a living from a service most people will not say out loud at dinner, which is as pure as the thesis of this publication gets.
Common questions
How much does a pet waste removal business make?
Scoop Soldiers reported about $1.25 million a month systemwide by 2023, across nearly a hundred territories. The sharper number: one franchisee passed $900,000 a year with 1,100 clients within a year of taking over a corporate-built territory.
How much does it cost to start?
A Scoop Soldiers franchise runs roughly $61,000 to $111,000 all-in. Independently, the trade needs little beyond a vehicle, tools, and the patience to build a dense route, which is why the moat is operations and brand rather than equipment.
Why do customers keep paying for it?
Because the problem regenerates weekly and the alternative is doing it themselves. Most customers take weekly service, some daily in dense zip codes, with no contracts. Retention rests on the one force stronger than marketing: the chore never goes away.
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