How would you like to start a company that almost has a negative cost of goods? Inc. has a profile:
If you’ve browsed in the garden section of your local Home Depot or Wal-Mart recently, you may have seen a new plant food somewhere north of the begonias and south of the perlite. It comes in a yellow and green shrink-wrapped bottle with a familiar shape and the kind of spray top you might find on, say, Windex. It may well be the world’s first commercial product made entirely from garbage. The plant food itself is a so-called vermicompost tea, a brew made from the castings (that is, the poop) of red worms that have feasted on various types of organic waste. The containers are reused soda bottles. The spray tops are the unwanted extras that have been dumped by manufacturers of other spray-on products. Even the boxes that the plant food is shipped in are garbage: They’re the misprinted rejects of major companies.But the Most Striking Fact About Terracycle Is the Age of Its Co-Founder and Ceo, Tom Szaky (Pronounced Zack-Y). He Is Now 24. a Hungarian by Birth and a Canadian by Upbringing, He Was 19 Years Old and in His Freshman Year at Princeton University when He Launched the Company With One of His Classmates, Jon Beyer. at the Time, They Were Simply Trying to Win a Business Plan Competition. They Came in Fourth–out of the Money–but They Couldn’T Shake the Idea That You Could Build a Business Selling Garbage. and Now, Five Years Later, They Have Done Just That. in 2005, Terracycle Had $461,000 in Sales, Mostly in Canada, Where the Product Was Carried by Home Depot and Wal-Mart As Well As Other Chains. With the Decision by Both Retailers to Roll It out in Their U.S. Stores This Year, the Company’S 2006 Sales Are Expected to Top $2.5 Million.
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