Brothers’ Business Hit $3M a Year With AI Vibe Coding: Junk Teens

In 2024, when Entrepreneur first related with brothers Kirk McKinney, 22, and Jacob McKinney, 21, their Larger Boston-based junk-removal enterprise, Junk Teens, was nonetheless a side hustle, albeit a $1.2 million one. 

The then-teenaged brothers launched Junk Teenagers again in 2021 with a single pick-up truck. A pair of working audio system discovered at a dump grew into a set of resellable objects — $1,000 value — bought on Facebook Marketplace.

Now, the brothers’ largely student-run service, which additionally serves Cape Cod and Rhode Island, operates eight vehicles and has 25 full-time workers. The enterprise has dealt with an estimated 7.4 million kilos of things, sorting usable items for donation, resale or repurposing every time doable.

Junk Teenagers hit $3 million in income in 2025 and is projected to succeed in $5 million in income this 12 months, per the corporate.

The corporate additionally grew its neighborhood partnerships. A pc drive with Computers 4 People distributed refurbished laptops and desktops to under-resourced communities, and a partnership with WellStrong on the Cape raised funds for wellness and peer-support packages that support substance abuse restoration.

Right here’s how the McKinney brothers unlocked their blue-collar enterprise’s large progress — and what’s subsequent for Junk Teenagers. 

Breaking out of the bottleneck 

For a very long time, Jacob scheduled worker routes and found out the place to get rid of the objects they picked up. Managing all of it was difficult when the enterprise had a fleet of three to 4 vehicles, simply half of what it’s now. 

“I used to be working 12 hours a day, nonstop,” Jacob recollects. “So I didn’t actually have any extra time to strive to determine rent another person or something like that. Lengthy story quick, one of many greatest first issues we did was delegate my job place.”

The brothers cut up Jacob’s position into a number of totally different ones, which helped streamline worker bookings and hiring. 

“We promoted to supervisor one among our guys who had been with us for a pair years who was taking a niche 12 months from school,” Kirk provides, “and gave him among the tasks that Jake had, like calling within the workers each day and reviewing the schedule.”

With that in place, Jacob broke out of the bottleneck; he had extra time to work with Kirk on constructing higher methods and coaching, permitting the enterprise to scale. 

Benefiting from expertise and AI — together with vibe coding 

When Junk Teenagers hit $1.2 million in income in 2024, everything of the enterprise’s day-to-day operations existed on Apple Notes.  

“Then Jake would kind these out and duplicate and paste these schedules to the blokes that had been going out each day,” Kirk explains. “That was how we ran our enterprise. It was mainly a $1 million facet hustle at that time.” 

Now, Junk Teenagers is making the most of tech instruments. The corporate makes use of Jobber for buyer relationship administration, GoHighLevel for buyer knowledge assortment and Connecteam for worker administration. 

The enterprise can also be embracing AI in its many types, from the built-in “slight automation” that is sensible of information throughout the software program packages it makes use of, to vibe coding its very personal app. 

A Junk Teenagers worker who was on the workforce for a number of years and had fundamental tech abilities constructed the app, utilizing Base44 and ChatGPT for lots of the UI and UX referencing. The app includes a leaderboard and different statistics that assist monitor worker efficiency — as an illustration, an worker’s income per hour or closing price.

“Our total app was developed by a youngster,” Kirk says. “That’s one other attention-grabbing factor — that expertise’s on the level the place highschool children can create full apps. And our total firm makes use of that app each single day.” 

Within the early days, Kirk edited content material and posted movies on social media when he had the time. However Junk Teenagers has since systemized its social media technique too. Now, Kirk collects footage when he’s out on the job, then outsources the enhancing to assist understand his imaginative and prescient. 

About eight months in the past, Kirk introduced different Junk Teenagers workforce members on board too. 

“ I began coaching different guys on our workforce to go on the market with Meta Glasses and GoPros and movie a few of their day-to-day operations and what they’re doing out within the area each day,” Kirk explains. “So now I’ve all this nice content material to work with, after which I can form of be the translator between that footage and the workforce.” 

At present, Junk Teenagers has surpassed 213,000 followers on TikTok, 269,000 followers on Instagram and 69,000 subscribers on YouTube.

Not solely has systemizing Junk Teenagers’ social media method helped market the enterprise, however it’s additionally served as a significant team-building instrument. 

“An organization is only a group of individuals on the finish of the day, and whenever you see your self in these movies and the social media’s capturing it, you’re part of that, and it actually elevates the tradition,” Kirk says. “Then new folks see what we have now happening right here, and it really attracts extra individuals who wish to work with us.” 

Cultivating a vibrant tradition round a younger workforce

Most of Junk Teenagers’ workers are highschool or college college students, and the corporate goals to pay them greater than its opponents to draw high expertise. 

On common, that pay works out to about $25 to $30 an hour, together with hourly charges, commissions and ideas. 

“Lots of the staff really feel like they’re constructing the corporate with us as a result of they’re additionally constructing their alternative as the corporate grows,” Kirk says. “Due to that, we have now loads of forward-thinking folks, and I believe that us all being younger is part of why that occurs.”

Though Junk Teenagers loses some workers when the college 12 months begins again up, the seasonality of junk elimination aligns effectively with the ebb and circulate, and the brothers at all times plan for it. 

The enterprise’s quantity practically doubles in the summertime months; the brand new Cape Cod location alone booked $350,000 in companies throughout peak season final 12 months. 

What’s extra, Junk Teenagers’ younger workforce members convey an open-mindedness and excessive vitality that make for a vibrant company culture, the co-founders notice. 

“In that situation the place somebody had one thing occur of their life the place they may be a bit of down coming within the subsequent day, they get picked proper again up as a result of there’s 10 or 15 different guys that every one have excessive vitality round them,” Jacob provides. “It’s unimaginable to nonetheless act unhappy or down whenever you’re in that sort of surroundings.” 

Perfecting methods for a nationwide scale

Now, the McKinney brothers are targeted on perfecting their enterprise’s methods as they eye a nationwide enlargement, ideally throughout the subsequent couple of years. 

“ For me, essentially the most thrilling factor is empowering the youth,” Kirk says. “With expertise, there are such a lot of alternatives to earn a living. However everybody’s at all times going to want junk eliminated. There’s at all times going to be excessive schoolers on the lookout for after-school and summer jobs. And younger individuals are on the lookout for totally different profession paths apart from the standard school route.” 

The co-founders obtain day by day DMs from younger folks asking for recommendation on beginning a enterprise. They might encourage anybody who’s contemplating it to cease procrastinating and go for it. 

“I don’t suppose there’s ever an ideal roadmap except you have already got $1 million and are a enterprise skilled, which we weren’t, and most people starting businesses usually are not,” Jacob says. “So begin, even when it’s not going to be the enterprise that you simply retire with. We simply began with one thing that we thought was adventurous and entertaining, not even one thing that we thought would make us essentially the most cash.” 

This text is a part of our ongoing Young Entrepreneur® sequence highlighting the tales, challenges and triumphs of being a younger enterprise proprietor.

In 2024, when Entrepreneur first related with brothers Kirk McKinney, 22, and Jacob McKinney, 21, their Larger Boston-based junk-removal enterprise, Junk Teens, was nonetheless a side hustle, albeit a $1.2 million one. 

The then-teenaged brothers launched Junk Teenagers again in 2021 with a single pick-up truck. A pair of working audio system discovered at a dump grew into a set of resellable objects — $1,000 value — bought on Facebook Marketplace.

Now, the brothers’ largely student-run service, which additionally serves Cape Cod and Rhode Island, operates eight vehicles and has 25 full-time workers. The enterprise has dealt with an estimated 7.4 million kilos of things, sorting usable items for donation, resale or repurposing every time doable.