While working for a junk-removal company as Westchester University students in the greater Philadelphia area, Dylan Cook and Steve Roscioli agreed they could build a similar business themselves – only better. By Cindy Charette
While working for a junk-removal company as Westchester University students in the greater Philadelphia area, Dylan Cook and Steve Roscioli agreed they could build a similar business themselves – only better. From their dorm room, Cook and Roscioli, knowing that they had the end of franchising in mind, began to design a systematized moving and junk-removal business that would stand the test of time. In 2015, Moving U & Junk U was founded.
Cook said: “We didn’t have any money; we completely bootstrapped the whole thing, with no investors or really any work experience. What we did was go out and do all the work ourselves. We did all the moving, all the labor, and introduced ourselves to all the customers. That hands-on experience was really difficult, and it was hard to build the business that way, but we got to systematically build the processes for franchising from the ground up.”
This experience also gave Cook and Roscioli a hands-on view of their business while gaining valuable employee, manager, and customer perspectives. They took the time to develop systems for every aspect of their business, from moving furniture to folding blankets. Cook focused on building systems for sales and marketing, including where to spend marketing dollars and developing sales and estimating processes, while Roscioli developed systems for operations regarding the training and management of employees and teams, interactions with customers and driver protocols and responsibilities.
According to Roscioli: “When we were developing the flagship brand, we wanted to make sure that all the roles were very do-able and repeatable for people day over day, on the mover level and the manager level.” He added: “We really wanted to iron out all the details so that when we would bring a new franchisee on, we wouldn’t be throwing them into the fire. We tried to eliminate the variables that made a franchisee’s life more difficult and really focused on the things that were able to be refined and perfected to a degree, and could be repeated.”
By 2020, with the growth of their business, Cook and Roscioli had reached the point where they could start franchising. They had set the stage and were ready to build upon their original goal of creating opportunities for franchisees to become great local business owners in their communities. Having been built on such a strong culture with well-developed systems from the beginning, the business was able to adapt and withstand some of the issues that occurred because of COVID-19.
Early on, Cook and Roscioli saw franchising as a great opportunity because it combined both aspects of what they thought was important for any home service franchise and especially for moving and junk removal. A Moving U & Junk U franchise pairs a community-based business with owners who care deeply about their community, customers and employees with corporate accountability and support, including an existing call center, professional branding and quality training. To date, Moving U & Junk U has added new franchisees in Dayton, Ohio, and Reading, Pennsylvania.
Cindy Charette