High schoolers explain dirty details of their new venture
Few teenagers are thrilled to take manual, dirty jobs, though brothers Karson and Caden Meyer have started C and K Potties as of last month and have already learned a lot from getting down and dirty.
“I guess it’s just nice to be able to learn, at a young age, what the real world is like in business,” Caden said. “What work ethic is like.”
The brothers have 18 regular porta potties, three handicap units and two handwashing stations. The idea for launching a business came from an associate of their father.
“This guy, he was kind of telling our dad about how he had a porta potty business and he sold it and he told my dad it was a good side hustle,” Caden recalled. “So I guess we talked about it for a good couple of months. We just looked around town and other towns and we realized how many porta potties were out there and we got started.”
Since January the teenagers acquired a $40,000 loan with help from their father, Kerry, and then received their porta potty units in March.
Figuring out their new product and creating a business model did take some getting used to, according to Karson.
“We had to figure out the pump, like how to work it and everything,” he explained. “We had to figure out the best places for toilet paper and cleaning supplies.”
So far, communication and outreach have been a top priority for the boys, letting people know about their business through their Facebook and page and their father’s shop in Advanced Motorsports.
“We opened up a Facebook page, to post more, let people know that we’re available to run,” Caden said. “When people walk into our dad’s shop, just letting them know, ‘Hey we’re here if you need something.’”
As the weather warmed up, so did the business, coming as a shock just how quickly businesses have asked for their services.
“When we first started, it was kind of slow for the first couple of weeks, and then it started getting warmer out there and more and more people wanted it,” Karson said. “It was just surprising how fast it took off. One person wanted it and then another one and then it just kept coming.”
So far their clients include a number of construction companies, the Aurora Co-op, coverage for A’ROR’N Days, the Hamilton County Fair and other events.
The two high schoolers hope to keep their business balanced with school work, football and the demands of a motorcross sporting hobby.
“My dad is pretty lenient on what we can do,” Karson said. “He’s okay with us taking time to go work on these porta potties.”
One of their most important duties is to keep the facilities clean on a regular, once-a-week schedule if the units are rented out for more than one week’s time.
“We’ve seen dirty porta potties in our past and nobody wants to use a dirty porta potty,” Caden explained. “So we want to keep them clean.”
For now, the brothers stated that their goal is to keep the potties rented and see where the future of the business will take them, one flush at a time.
“Hopefully, we can get all of these rented out, full-time, so we’ll eventually be able to buy more and just keep growing our business,” Caden concluded. “I really don’t know what I want to do with my future, so I just kind of want to see how it goes.”
“Yeah, just see where it goes,” Karson affirmed.