Rick Collins and Joel Potter like to say they`re ”No. 1 in the No. 2 business.”
Their business is picking up after pooches. In the words of the flyers circulated by the two: ”We pick up where your dog left off. No load too large, no dog too small. If your yard starts to smell, give us a yell. We`re never too pooped to pick it up.”
Collins and Potter figure they`re performing a public service that could make them a pile. Since they arrived in San Jose from Minnesota in December, they have garnered more than 100 Santa Clara County customers who pay $5 a week to have canine messes removed from their yards.
To Potter, a former vitamin distributor and pipeline designer, and Collins, who used to work in television advertising, it`s a profession with unlimited possibilities.
Operating their company, Poop Van Scoop, from a San Jose apartment they share, the two 30-year-old college graduates make house calls in two trucks and store what they pick up in a location they won`t disclose.
”If there is ever a market for dog do, we`ve got it made,” Collins said.
If there isn`t?
”We`ll have to find a big hole somewhere,” he replied.
They bill their customers once a month, Potter said. And, he said, the clients never fail to send in their checks.
”If they don`t pay,” Potter said with a wicked smile, ”we`ll bring it back.”
