Tag: small businesses

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Entrepreneurs Features

From Dog Poop to Electricity

Jendell Duffner is the owner behind central Ohio-based pet waste removal company Green Scoop Pet Waste Management. Founded in 2013, they are the first business in the country to collect pet waste and turn it into energy. According to their website, over 10 million tons of dog waste end up in landfill sites across the country. The company provides residents of central Ohio with a means to lower landfill waste while also supporting alternative sources of energy production. One of Duffner’s greatest achievements is producing many jobs. Since starting the company, she has helped many families earn a living doing a job that they respect. 

Through their Pet Poo Recycling Program, the company provides buckets and supplies to interested pet owners who then fill up their bucket with pet waste and have it collected on a weekly or biweekly basis by Green Scoop Pet employees. The waste is then deposited at a bio facility which collects the methane and converts it into energy in the form of electricity and natural gas. Some of the energy is used to supply power to the processing plant while the rest is fed back to the grid. The solids left behind undergo an extensive cleaning process, removing harmful pathogens and bacteria before being sent to farmers to be used as fertilizer for their fields. 

Duffner also provides an option for cat litter recycling. The company supplies a special cat litter made from locally processed grain in a pellet form that owners can use to compost their cat’s waste and turn it into energy! 

‘I’ve Always Been Passionate About the Environment’

Image courtesy of Duffner.

While in high school, she embarked on an environmental project which led to her convincing the mayor into purchasing a wood chipper for their small town in Bucyrus, Ohio rather than burn piles of branches that fell during the ice storms. 

After college, she continued her environmental studies, receiving training in naturalism and tree identification. With each new experience, Duffer realized she wanted to do more.

She always wished to start her own environmental business but didn’t want to compete with larger franchises. She settled on pet waste recycling but needed to come up with a unique angle—something that was missing from the businesses of the time. Having a background in environmental science was a huge advantage for her as it meant that she had a solid foundation. 

Duffner’s vision was to start up a business that turned pet waste into energy. During her research, she came across two existing companies that composted pet waste and used the output to generate fuel for energy. Inspired, Duffner went about incorporating that into her business model. However, it wasn’t what she had hoped it would be. Profit margins were incredibly low and the energy required to break down the pet waste was exceptionally high, resulting in great financial setbacks for her company. 

Learning From Her Mistakes

“As a business, you need to be able to make a profit to make a difference. And you need to be able to pay people properly,” she said. To offset the high operating cost, one would need a steady stream of customers, which would mean collecting a lot of waste. “It takes a lot of knowledge to use the right ingredients and recipes to make them [pet waste] break down on a timely basis,” said Duffner. “So for it to break down, you have to have a really expensive in-vessel.” The basic equipment itself tends to cost upwards of 200,000 USD, making it not the most cost-effective model for most small businesses. One needs to also ensure that the temperature in the in-vessel is high enough—131° F or greater, to destroy harmful pathogens present in pet waste—a very precise operation that can only be achieved through commercial means and techniques. For Duffner, it meant changing her business model to better suit her requirements. 

Despite the many difficulties and financial losses, Duffner realized that she could still make a difference without having to be directly involved in the composting. “I can do what I can, still make a profit while offering a good service, and still be able to grow my business,” she said. For her, the main focus was always about providing the best possible service to customers to ensure profitability which would, in turn, allow her to provide jobs for her employees. “Make sure you’re offering a service that they value. And then you integrate things from there. That’s how you can continue to make a difference. Not by trying to completely change every aspect of things that currently work,” she said.

‘Producing Jobs Is my Biggest Joy’

Duffner’s biggest source of joy is the ability to provide jobs to people. This effort has now become the main focus of her operation. “I have employees that depend on me for paychecks,” said Duffner. “When you have an employee come up to you and say thank you, because of you, I was able to buy a dependable vehicle. Because of you, I was able to move out of my sister’s house and get my own place. Thank you so much for giving me a job. That’s what really matters.”

She advises that the best way for people to help the environment is through reusing products. If you have a lot of plastic bags or you know someone at work who is getting rid of them, ask them to save them for you. Then, you could use it to pick up dog waste or to hold your produce at the grocery store. This is a more sustainable and environmentally friendly solution to purchasing more bags.

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Features Giving Back

30 Day Fund Small Business Assistance Continues Despite COVID’s End

Pete Snyder with Tina Miller. (Courtesy of Pete Snyder)

When Virginia-based tech entrepreneur and angel investor Pete Snyder realized COVID-19 had created an economic crisis for small businesses, his wife Burson Snyder and he began calling friends in the philanthropic community to raise funds.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our country,” said Snyder, who serves as CEO of Disruptor Capital. A former candidate for the governorship of Virginia, Snyder founded the 30 Day Fund in April 2020 as a 501(3)c to distribute forgivable loans to small businesses.

One entrepreneur who benefitted from the 30 Day Fund is Tina Miller, who owns Walkabout Outfitter, a local outdoor supply store in six locations across Virginia. “In our case, we were decimated, just decimated,” Miller told NBC News. “It was also important that somebody cared about our small business.”

The Walkabout Outfitter is among the more than 2,500 small businesses that the 30 Day Fund has assisted. “Trying to keep up with the need was a constant challenge, but thanks to the good hearts of people all across the country, we were able to raise significant funds to bolster small businesses and help them survive another day,” said 30 Day Fund board member Generra Peck.

The Snyders called it the 30 Day Fund because they thought 30 days would be the life of the fund, but more than a year has passed since the pandemic emerged and businesses are just beginning to return to normal operating policies. “Businesses have had to endure more than a year of closures and restrictions, decreased sales, staff reductions, and uncertainty after uncertainty, but The 30 Day Fund is still focused on helping small businesses in the short term and has plans to continue its tradition of entrepreneurs ‘paying it forward’ to help those in need,” Peck told the Epoch Times.

As previously reported, paying it forward implies businesses that receive funds will, in the future, reinvest money back into the fund, which will then be allocated to another needy small business owner. “We are overwhelmed with the number of people who want to help,” Snyder told Virginia Business Daily.

Pete Snyder (Pete Snyder/Facebook)

The Snyders financed the 30 Day Fund with an initial $100,000 in capital. “It has raised more than $45 million through all of its efforts in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Georgia, New Jersey, and Arkansas,” Peck said in an interview. The fund provides up to $3,000 to selected small businesses that apply for financing. Beneficiaries are chosen based on a three-minute video and a one-page written application, and once selected, the business owner receives the money within three days.

“We don’t have time for red-tape,” Snyder said in a statement online. “We don’t have time for delays. The VA 30 Day Fund is designed to be quick and easy. … We will provide small business owners with both funding and hope so they can keep their employees on payroll and keep working to lift our communities through this crisis.”

30 Day Fund partners include United Way, the Kimsey Foundation, and Maltese Capital. Virginia State Senator Mark Obenshain (R-Rockingham) and his wife Suzanne are on the fund’s advisory board.

“The 30 Day Fund has assisted other leaders to replicate its model with efforts in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Mississippi, and New Jersey,” Peck said. For example, in December 2020, Dave Portnoy, founder of media company Barstool Sports, created The Barstool Fund – an affiliate of the 30 Day Fund.

“There’s no right or wrong reason why we’re choosing one business versus the other,” Portnoy said of The Barstool Fund. “They speak to us for whatever reason. I wish we could help them all. We’re going to help as many as we humanly can and try to keep these small businesses alive. So, that’s the plan. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it’s better than nothing.”

Portnoy has stayed true to his word, raising nearly $40 million for 391 small businesses through The Barstool Fund. Businesses that have received financial assistance through The Barstool Fund include Iconic Fitness in Escondido, California, The Donut Experiment in St. Charles, Missouri, Flame Nightclub in Duluth, Minnesota, and Social House of Soulard in St. Louis, Missouri.

Roughly 43 percent of Americans have been inoculated against COVID-19, and most states have rescinded government-mandated shutdown orders. And while those changes are helping businesses return to normal operating procedures, Peck said many are still reeling from a year of hardship and uncertainty. Others are struggling with a worker shortage in states where employees can earn more collecting unemployment benefits with additional federal pandemic assistance than reporting to a job, according to media reports.

“While the challenges these businesses face today are not the same ones they faced in the beginning of the pandemic, many are still struggling to fully recover, and the 30 Day Fund continues to be here to help,” Peck said.

In January, the Snyders announced they were stepping down from the day-to-day operations of the fund. Since then, former Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Jim Cheng has assumed a senior leadership position.

“Even though we’ve been at this for nearly a year, we are just getting started,” Cheng said in a statement online. “The ‘pay it forward’ movement the Snyders started is catching fire all around the nation and will be helping thousands and thousands more struggling small businesses in the weeks and months to come. I look forward to ensuring the continued success of the Virginia 30 Day Fund.”

Jim Cheng (30 Day Fund/Facebook)

Juliette Fairley is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Chateauroux, France, and raised outside of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Juliette is a well-adjusted military brat who now lives in Manhattan. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.

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Entrepreneurs Features

Turning Shutdowns Into Opportunity

Angela and Moe,longtime friends and co-founders of Sparrow Box.
Angela and Moe,longtime friends and co-founders of Sparrow Box. (Courtesy of Sparrow Box)

From the first hello, you can tell that Angela and Moe are go-getters ready to make things happen. Angela Knight and Maureen (Moe) Stone are both moms from Jupiter, Florida, who share a passion for their work and love for America. The friends have known each other and worked together for 15 years, first as partners in a successful charity, and then in event planning.

In March of 2020, not long after the onset in the states of COVID-19, Angela and Moe stepped out of quarantine, leaving their husbands at home, and drove to Liberty University to pick up Angela’s daughter’s belongings. Her daughter had come home for Spring Break, but was then not allowed to return to school. The ladies thought it would surely be a fun get-away road trip, but on the road they were shocked and devastated by the many, many failed businesses they saw along the way. ““The small southern towns seemed eerie with involuntary abandonment. It felt like a black and white episode of the Twilight Zone. Products were still on display inside the dark shops and upcoming sales and event signs of things that would not happen still littered the window,” said Angela. Moe added, “All these small businesses closed for so long, how will they ever come back from this?” They recognized that these weren’t just closed businesses, this scene was the destruction of the livelihood of hard-working Americans. For the next ten hours, they drove home brainstorming how they could do their small part to help their American community.

“We talked about what we wanted: to help others stay connected, feel loved and appreciated and fight the division that is plaguing our country. We talked about how to help these small businesses get going again once everything opened back up,” Angela said. Inspired by the diligent and joyful little sparrow, Angela and Moe chose Sparrow Box Company as the name of their endeavor to showcase hardworking American artisans and businesses. They’re businesses like Grey Ghost, a charming bakery in Charleston, South Carolina, where the friends had the opportunity to tour the bakery and hear from the founder the story of their journey of growth; and Willa’s Cookies, a mom-and-pop team; and Forest and Hyde, run by an entreprenurial young husband who had just bought a leather company to combine with his own.

Angela and Moe had previously worked at a nonprofit, Pink Purse, whose mission was to connect women with various causes, and in their seven years of work there were able to help 70 charities, organizations, and families. Taking their years of experience in marketing, communications, event planning, and design, the two friends sprinted out of the gate and are taking the gifting world by storm, connecting with a community of American vendors to create gifts that bring joy and beauty. It is important to them that they deal only with American-made products and that they are helping small businesses during these somewhat trying times.