Thread by @barrettjoneill

In 2013 my D1 college baseball career ended.

Then the rest of my life began.

The true story of how I turned a dorm room hustle into a $2M business.

THREAD

Before 2013, I hadn’t pondered life after baseball.

Sadly, a bizarre elbow injury quickly ended my career at University of Virginia.

My athletic ambitions fading, I needed a new competitive arena.

I looked for games with good prizes - business seemed like a natural fit.

I redirected my athletic work ethic and focused on learning everything I could about starting a business.

Then a chance train ride sparked my desire to take action - all I needed was an opportunity.

[Check out the train ride story here - its EPIC]

https://twitter.com/barrettjoneill/status/1402399678142898181

While waiting for the perfect idea, I started searching for an internship.

The initial excitement of landing a summer gig at UBS ($14/hr) wore off as I realized $5600 before taxes, for the ENTIRE summer, wasn’t going to cut it.

So, I approached my friend with an opportunity…

The international and out of state students needed summer storage.

You can’t bring dorm room stuff on a plane!

Simple Storage was born.

I self-coded a website and my partner distributed flyers

Signups started rolling in...

A week later, 67 students needed our service, but…

We had a problem, storage space was too expensive.

We’d lose money - so I did what anyone would do.

I called my Mom.

“Can I store a few things in the basement for the summer....15-20 boxes max!”

Apprehensively she said “Yes”.

She knew I was sugarcoating it.

Now, all we needed was a small capital injection for the U-Haul ($300).

I'd already called Mom...

Time to hit up the old man.

As an entrepreneur himself, he loved it and happily whipped out a credit card.

Officially in business, and ready to get to work.

During finals week, we picked up and stored 350+ items in my parent's basement - it was PACKED.

Needless to say, Mom was furious, stressed (and a bit impressed.)

After a backbreaking & sweaty week we had made…over $20K!

2X my internship money in a week - it was insane.

The money was great, but the real value came in the following lesson:

Like sports, nobody is going to hand you anything in the real world - if you want more, go get it.

My value went from $14/hr to $42/hr because I decided to act.

Once experienced, it changes you forever.

In the last 5 years, we rebranded to OnDemand Storage to catch the full service storage trend.

We’ve added residential, commercial and container storage while filling 3 warehouses, inking 13 student contracts, building/selling software, and storing over 8,000 customers.

My foray into entrepreneurship was heartbreaking and backbreaking at times, but the bootstrapped nature is in my DNA.

How did you start your first business?

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