Trash to Treasure: How CanMonkey.com is Changing the Game for Short-Term Rentals

Josh: Welcome to the Wealth and Yourself Podcast, where we help people to design their ideal life and take control of their time and money. I’m your host Josh St. Laurent. Today we’re joined by Alex Shapiro, the co-founder and CEO of Can Monkey, a vacation rental trash solution.

Can Monkey is the first can to curb service provider and the largest in the country. Alex is a serial entrepreneur and financial advisor, and we’re excited to hear more about what he’s been working on. Alex, thanks for being here.

Alex: Thank you man. This is a great honor, I really appreciate that. I’ve been following you on LinkedIn, so it’s awesome that the universe, you know, assisted us together and I’m here now, so I look forward to diving into this with you and answering any questions that you have for me.

Josh: Definitely, I’ve been excited, I’ve been looking forward to this. For the people who are listening who aren’t familiar with you and your work, can you give us kinda a high level overview of what you do?

Alex: Absolutely. So Can Monkey is a marketplace. Think about Airbnb or Uber. We help bridge the gap of individuals or homeowners or business owners, whether it’s vacation rentals That wanna take their trash and recycling hands to the curb, we bridge that gap to where they sign up on a platform and then we put them onto a route that is recurring weekly.

And so it’s kinda like a modern day paper route. And it’s just, one of our first of our kind, that thought process started in Scottsdale, Arizona took off during the pandemic with Airbnbs and short-term rentals. And now when we get into a market where we are sustainable with a route we’re able to add on individual people after that, the onesies and twosies.

We’re in 17 states, over 80 cities, currently operating all from Tempe, Arizona. You know, with using our own technology that we built systems and processes and then, yeah, so essentially just it’s up a marketplace.

Josh: Yeah. That’s super cool. I love the concept and the idea. I think that’s how we initially connected. Can you talk more about how did Can Monkey come to be? I know you said it sort of had its rise during COVID times, which makes a lot of sense, but how did the idea come to be?

Alex: My business partner and I—I actually met him right after college. And then he was in the clothing industry and I was trying to find my way into my young adulthood. I worked together a little bit under him where I was really, he helped me kind of see the world bigger, and is one of my first mentors.

But then we kind of drifted apart. I got into the real estate industry during 2010 during the r e o Boom. Got into title and escrow working with different hedge funds that were buying in the Phoenix market basically through 2010 to 2000 20. Mark and I, my business partner, got back together.

Probably we always stayed in touch, but in 2018, he kind of brought to my attention how he started Cam Monkey. He had already got like a fiat little car wrapped it, spent money on marketing, on PR. Spent money on everything that you would need for a business. And after the first year, only had like 20 signups and it wasn’t really hitting like he thought.

And when he brought it to my attention in 2018, I kinda laughed it off. I was like, that’s a silly idea. I wouldn’t pay for someone to take my trashcans to the curb. And then there was like that drip, you know, I think the next morning I forgot my trash cans, you know, I forgot to take ’em out. And I was like, oh my gosh, maybe he’s onto something.

But he was only servicing a different city and wasn’t servicing my city, so didn’t really think anything of it. And then when I was in real estate, one of my clients was converting some of his long-term rentals into short-term rentals, and that was still in 2018. The first time I had really heard of Airbnbs or short term rentals.

And when we were at lunch one day, he was just telling me how. The client was telling me how many issues he was having with his trash cans, and then the light bulb went off. I was like, I know a guy that could probably help you with those, like what? You know? And he gave me 20 properties of those short-term rentals, and I took him to, now my business partner basically doubled his business, you know, with, I was like, look, it took you a year to get to 20.

I have one person that got 20 right here. Let’s change the business model. Let me buy in, let’s do this. And it wasn’t just like, yeah, let’s do it. It was kind of like I’m going after homeowners. I’m not doing that, you know? And then slowly but surely, kind of realized it was a niche, especially in Scottsdale.

It was like a short-term rental mecca. And then right before the pandemic, we were already looking to kind of scale our business, and the pandemic happened and we were like, oh, crap. You know, we missed our chance. And then, a couple weeks, you know, we lost some properties and a couple weeks later we got those properties back and then we got more properties.

And then we got more properties and we’re like, holy crap. You know? And then it’s like, how do we get, you know, to 500? It’s like, well, what if we scale to another market? You know? And so then we found some of our clients that were using us in Scottsdale also had properties in Austin, you know, in Park City.

And it’s like, well, whoa, if we can help ’em here, what if we can help ’em there? And then you just kind of. Go to one market and then you go to one market and that’s just kind of how it, you know, scaled. And, when the pandemic happened I lost my job in title and escrow in corporate America.

And I was gonna get a job somewhere else and do the same thing. And I was like, know what? Screw it. I’m just gonna go all in for the rest of the year. I didn’t know what really was gonna happen with the world. I knew at that point. We had lost some properties, but we were getting more back. So I knew we were onto something a little bit, but it was still like a crazy idea.

I had three kids at the time and a wife, and I have four kids now, but you know, it was a crazy time to like not go after something with a little bit more protection for my family. but I’m glad in the long run now there’s like light at the end of the tunnel. We have 5,000 properties over on subscription right now.

Like I said, over 80 cities and now we are just kind of really fine tuning our systems and processes to help us scale to 10,000 to 15,000. ’cause what we’re doing now, We can’t do at the next level. And we’re learning it now. So it’s, you know, the growing pains, what helps you get you here, doesn’t help you get you there.

And then you gotta surround yourself with people or mentors or people who’ve already kind of done it in another way that can say, Hey, you’re going down this hallway, but skip the first three doors and go to the fourth door. I’m telling you, just bypass all those or use this tool or use this. And that’s where we’re doing now, is we’re partnering ourselves with the people who’ve seen.

not exactly what we’re doing, but has scaled maybe other businesses like a, an Uber-esque or a GrubHub or something along those lines and can give us insight of what they did at this point when they were trying to scale their marketplace. 

Josh: Man, that’s exciting. What a journey, you know, to go from zero to 5,000 like that as someone with a short term rental. In bear country, right where bears are going through the trash. Like I completely, you know, right away was like, man, this is awesome. Like I can see the utility here. And then before we started recording, you mentioned a different use case too.

You said maybe older parents and things like that as something that didn’t even cross my mind. So are there sort of a few different demographics that you think of that make a lot of sense for Can Monkey?

Alex: A thousand percent, and that’s what’s I wouldn’t say that’s the hardest thing, but it’s one of the hardest things is like, where do you narrow your, your thought process to? Because when you really want to think about this, you could probably now start thinking of HOAs and elderly and 55 and older communities and like rv, like, there’s like, now your mind just blown.

It’s like for me, when you’re starting a startup with no capital, you’re, you know, bootstrapping it. I think like what’s the smartest, you know, what’s the low hanging fruit? And for me, when I came on the low hanging fruit was the short term rental, the one person giving me 20 properties. And when it even goes back to when I was doing real estate selling title and escrow I could go after a real estate agent that sold one property a month, that would be a good client.

Or I’d go after an investor who was doing 10 deals a week. And maybe the fees were a little bit lower, but I got more in volume and that’s the same thought process. Would I still deal with the real estate agents? Of course, but did I want more investment in it. Yes. And that’s how I saw here when we started this business.

Okay. Like. If I replace my income or I have to start making income quickly, or revenue covers all sin. So how do I just bring in revenue right away? Okay. Go to the people who need it. You bring the people who need it. You build a base, you build a foundation, you build a nice route that you have someone that can now run that route.

And then now what do you do? You fill it in with the next, you know, nearest neighbors. Understand when companies get hundreds of millions of dollars and how you see like five years later they have no business and they’re paying for it. Like, I see that, like I see if you had to go from having a lot of capital, you can throw money at problems all day long and come up with, you know, some solutions, but they’re temporary, they’re not permanent.

And when you come from a way where you have no capital and you have to figure out a solution, it’s more permanent than anything because you don’t want to keep doing it again. And that’s where we come from now. So like I see companies like. I’m a technology. I’m a logistics and technology company now, but that’s so crazy to me that I’m the CEO co-founder of Logistics Technology Company because that’s not my background. I don’t even know what the background you would need to have to take out trash cans to the curb and back. But, you know, it was really like, hey, that is a need.

Can I scale that to a thousand? Can I scale that to this many? I could, can I scale up to 10,000? I can. Okay. Reverse engineer that. Okay. Now work to that goal. And that’s where I’m at. So do I believe it can be to a million subscribers? Yep. Can I get it there? Yep. You know, but what do I wanna start at first?

You know, let’s get to 1,005 and, you know, so I’m going through my benchmarks and we’re hitting ’em. But like using the Excel formats and using all the systems that we used in the beginning would not work right now with 5,000, it could work with a hundred properties, especially when like me and my business partner were actually taking the cans to the curb and then, you know, and you can, you know, you don’t really need to take pictures for proof. I’m the proof, like I did it. You know? 

Then when you start outsourcing it, you’re like, wait, did they actually do it? Like, how do I know that? So I have to build technology. So like we did the reverse where we built the process and systems and the infrastructure and a profitable company and a scalable company.

And then we say, know what we need technology for. And then now we built the technology for our business that we created that we were on the Apple Store, Google Play. So now we’re a tech company that we built strategically for business. And unlike people building technology for business, hoping they can sell it, we already sold the business and are now building the tech for it, if that makes sense.

Josh: Definitely, definitely. I want to dive a little deeper into maybe lessons learned along the way. ‘Cause that journey is motivating to hear and we have a lot of listeners who are trying to build wealth, trying to scale companies and even invest in real estate. I. And so maybe if you can speak to the journey and maybe lessons learned along the way.

I’ll even throw out there, I was looking at your LinkedIn, I saw, Pool Monkey too, maybe came before Can Monkey, maybe there was some lessons that you piggybacked off of that really helped with the rise of Can Monkey. 

Alex: One of the things that I really learned along the way, but I did subconsciously, was I started to diversify, some of my income that comes back from being a financial advisor, you know, first and foremost. learning that from my family of just, Not putting all your eggs in one basket. And I watched the TV show, Billions on a bachelor trip. And I remember that was like in 2018, March of 2018 and November of 2018 is when I actually invested in Can Monkey. But I was trying to be like my own little axle rod.

You know, I was trying to be like, Hey, if I can invest in this company, maybe I can manipulate it a little bit and like, you know, sell, like I was trying to be like that, guy. And so I’m glad that I did those things. ’cause when. When my eggs all fell from the one, you know, the Fortune 500 company basket, that got wiped away from me.

You know what? It was a pandemic who would’ve thought, you know? But when it got wiped away I had other things to go to. So that’s something that I’m glad I did subconsciously. So I was able to have another fallback, even though I wasn’t really bringing in any income from Can Monkey. It was still an idea and a concept. I know what it will hit, let’s just go with it. And then from that it taught me also like I’m a delusional, optimistic person. I think I can do anything. Even though I might not be great at it, I’ll give it a shot. Once I did Can Monkey, I was like, no, I wanna do Pool Monkey, I’m gonna do Grass Monkey, I’m gonna do Lawn Monkey, I’m gonna do all these different monkeys and have like, you know, all these different like one-stop shops, right?

If I already had the client and Josh has already paid me to take the cans to the curb, well if Josh has the pool he you know, take care of the pool. But if he has palm trees, I’m already there, you know, 16 times a month taking his cans to the curb and back. Why not? That thought process is still there.

But I also go back to my real estate background of Gary Keller, Keller Williams, the one thing, and my one thing in building was, you know, can’t occur. And so these other things I have laid foundations for and know that they can hit, like Pool Monkey, we got clients on it. Am I putting all my eggs in? No.

Like I’m still doing some things, but it’s not my one thing. And now with Can Monkey, you know, even though that’s our one thing, the can to curb, you know business, but we are, like you said, a vacation rental trash solutions. And in bear, you know, markets like yours where they have bears and Prescott and Sedona have javelinas and some areas have raccoons.

We have different, you know, services, maybe you have bear cages for your trash cans. So we have, on demand trash removal where we go to your property and remove the cans you know, that way. So we’re not taking the cans to the curb and back, we also do can cleaning.

When I had my clients, I tried to be their one-stop shop, you know? And that just comes back even from like, from the real estate days and financial advising. Who do you need? Do you need, you know, life insurance? I got someone for you. Do you need, you know, title insurance?

I got someone for you. Like, do you need your cans taken out? I got, so I was trying to be that, you know, one. Stop shop for anyone, for any of my clients. And if I refer ’em to someone, I’d like to know that, like I had a piece of that on the back end. ’cause I made those relationships or already laid those foundations.

Josh: Becoming the one-stop shop. I love that message. I think it can be translated to so many different industries too. Is there, you know, for someone listening who’s an entrepreneur, maybe they’re trying to scale, maybe they’re not as far along, is there a message that you would bring to them as someone who is maybe earlier in the entrepreneurial journey, it could even be a mistake that you made, a learning lesson that you had early on that reshaped your own journey.

Is there something that you could give to some of the listeners? 

Alex: The main thing is just do it. Just do something every day toward whatever you want to do, and that’s something that I didn’t know that I was doing in the moment, and that’s where like, now that I’m conscious of it, that’s something that I tell like my younger siblings or you know, just, I have this idea, do it. Just do something, whatever it is, like start the process, you know, at least get the ball out of your court. So if it’s like, I wanna be on Josh’s podcast. Okay. Did you reach out to him, you know, on LinkedIn? Did you send him a message yet? Did you even connect with him yet? No. You just want to, well you’re not gonna do anything.

Just wanting to, so it’s just, do something, just a little bit. And that’s what has surprised me is like just the littlest thing has just built a little bit of a momentum that would grow off of something else. Something that I learned a little bit later that I’ve also did subconsciously, but now I do consciously, it’s the five M’s.

More meetings mean more money. So whenever you take a meeting, just take it with a positive, you know, mind instead of thinking like, what can I get out of this meeting? ’cause more meetings mean more money. Whether maybe it’s not that person directly, but maybe that person’s uncle, you know, needs help with, you know, parking their money somewhere and now you can help with that annuity or whatever.

You know, you never know what that situation is. It’s just being top of mind. And you know, when you meet with these people just, go in there always just like, how can I help that person? That’s what I’ve kind of done. Like, just thought like every meeting being like, okay, what can the best thing be outta this?

So I don’t think of it as a waste. and I’m glad, ’cause some of these meetings I took that I thought were stupid actually were some of my best meetings. Because I went into it with like, what can I get the most out of this?

Josh: Wow, that’s a great lesson, I know I was guilty, you know, some of my early businesses of analysis paralysis, right? I need to have all the answers before I get started. And I’ve come to realize over the years, that’s just not the case. You know, because the problems that you think are problems might not even exist.

You know? And then there’s gonna be tons of stuff that comes up that you never, ever could have possibly thought of. So I love that message. 

I wanted to switch gears and talk about marketing really quick. I know we were talking before the recording, but the “we’d love to handle your cans,” kind of messaging.

I love that. I thought that was hilarious. It can be easy, you know, marketing for a trash pickup company. I’m sure there’s things that you have to do differently, and that’s, you know, that’s unique to every industry. But can you talk about the messaging and how you came up with some of that?

Alex: You know, it’s like, how do you make yourself different than everyone else? Copy from all, steal from none. And I would say this in the real estate days, you know, like, hey, like I’m not recreating the wheel.

This real estate agent over here in this, you know, state sells $5 million a year, you wanna sell 5 million, but this is what they do. So it’s like, for example, like, Yeah, we got a billboard out. We got both sides. One side said “we pull out in time” and the other side said, “we’d love to handle your cans.”

And it was one of those things where it was like, we kind of had a feeling it caused some kind of controversy, but it’s like, no news is good news or like no bad news is, you know, is publicity something along those lines. And so it didn’t even last 30 days, it got taken off and I think it was just bad timing because it was during like the Roe Versus Wade and like the abortion ban. And we had like, “we pull out in time” and we weren’t even talking about anything political. It was just like we pull out in time, like the cans. And so I think they thought like, ‘ cause like someone called and was like, how do I explain this to my daughter? And I was like, we just take your trash cans to the curb, ma’am.

That’s all we were trying to say. And she’s like, you guys are dirty. I bet someone’s patting themselves in the back over there. And I was like, Did you like it? And so no. So we had to get taken down. So unfortunately, But we still have a lot of, you know, marketing that we took from, you know, aerial views of the drone and whatnot.

But what we had to do is kind of get our name out there and, you know, go out with the bangs. That’s where those ideas came from. But what we got that from is like Amazon had. It was like, “let us handle your package.” Or something along those lines it’s like, how did Amazon get away with this?

But we, you know, we can’t have like, let us handle your cans. But, you know, we just tried that, you know, they used that. It was kind of clever, you know, we used ’em along those lines. we’re gonna try it again. Maybe in Vegas, maybe somewhere where it’s, you know, maybe not frowned upon to say that stuff.

And then the marketing that we’re doing, like right now on social media, we’ve used a company that helped us, you know, do something about myself where, they’re big on like showing that you’re the expert of your industry. I think a lot of people may maybe not think they’re the experts, but I guarantee if they’re sitting at a dinner table with, you know, some friends and they’re the only ones in their friend group that does what they do, they are an expert.

So what he helped me do, this company helped me start kind of showcasing myself as an expert. And that kind of got me into the bug of doing social media. And then from there, like I don’t really like talking about myself and I didn’t really want myself to be the brand of Can Monkey.

So then I went in this like different kind of back to like the let us handle your cans phase, but then also like, video aspect of like these memes. And that’s kind of where I’m at now, where I just, Like I, Treat it like a job where I make myself do like five a day and some of ’em make ’em out, some don’t.

I use my wife or coworkers or people in the office like, hey, who likes this? Or I’ll put it on like a story. And if I got a lot of, you know, likes, then I’ll use that one on like a TikTok or whatever. I don’t really overthink anything anymore.

Like if there’s a video, I just put it out there, like I don’t critique it. ’cause I could critique it all day long and give myself every reason not to put it out. You know, I misspelled something and someone’s like, you misspelled it. And I was like, thanks for looking at it. You know, like, at least you saw it, you know?

So It’s like, you know when you go to the gym, you’re never mad when you leave the gym. You know, at least you went. So like, I’m never mad after I do the marketing piece. It’s always like the thought process of doing it and like, I’m not gonna, what am I gonna say?

I can’t say anything clever this time. the ones I never wanna post are the ones that get the most Impressions and you know, I get business from, I’m like, what? And the ones I think about carefully and like, like chatGPT, it gets no what, you know? So it’s like, that’s why I just do it. I don’t even try to look at it anymore. I just post it, just do it.

Josh: Yeah, that ties in perfectly with the message before, “just go for it. Just do it.” Right? Just put the information out there. And we were talking before about repurposing other people’s content, right? There’s almost an unlimited amount of content out there. I know every morning I wake up and there’s a new video on next door of someone’s trash on the ground and a bear going through it, right?

Alex: So true. 

Josh: So that’s cool that you can kind of piggyback off of that as well.

Alex: Our customer service is just getting all of our systems and processes are getting better and we have like our technology that collects all the photos from every single stop. So like, I have pictures and data for days and I just try to take from what we already have, right? So if I get an issue that comes by my email, like, Hey Alex, they said that they blah, blah, blah.

I’m like, oh, look, I’ll take that screenshot right there. I’m like, I’m using this as a marketing piece. I had nothing today. This is a good one. Let’s just use it. So like, I just really don’t try to overthink it, you know, but you’re right. Anything, it’s, it’s already there. I’m just taking what’s in front of me and just putting it to use and not recreating the wheel.

Josh: Yeah. That’s huge. What’s the biggest challenge right now in the company and what are you guys doing to overcome that?

Alex: I would say the two biggest issues and it’s almost like perfect that they’re like the two biggest issues at the same time. One of the biggest issues is that not enough people know that we exist. We are doing this all bootstraps, a lot of this marketing, all the marketing.

It’s just like me putting it out there on Instagram or me doing LinkedIn. And to be where we’re at right now, to have, you know, the amount of individual clients the properties on the subscription you know, is very impressive. And obviously I’m biased, but this is also from what I hear from other people.

I make jokes that like, if Shaquille O’Neal was promoting us, like he does as a general, like we’d have a hundred thousand, you know, we’d have too many people. And then that’s the other issue we had 2000 people sign up tomorrow I don’t think our systems and processes could handle it right now.

So our biggest issues right now are people don’t know that we exist, but we’re working on that right now. And then it’s, getting our operations and systems in place to where like, okay, Google Voice maybe helped us to get to 5,000 properties, but Google Voice can’t help us get to 10,000. So now we.

Implement Zendesk and Zapier and like all these other SaaS companies that are built for these companies that have scaled to the levels that we’re going to. So we’re reverse engineering. So it’s kind of like two issues: that people don’t know that exist, but it’s also good ’cause like if Shaquille O’Neal blasts us on his Instagram tomorrow, look at this company.

We had thousands of, oh crap, do I have enough can runners? Do I, you know, so it’s like all these other issues would come in place now, but like, that’s a good problem to have, you know? Would we figure it out? Sure. I’m trying to balance it out.

Josh: Definitely. Well, it’s funny you mentioned balance. That was something that, what just popped into my head is how do you balance everything? You’ve got a couple different ventures going on, still a financial advisor. How is that process of balancing all the different entrepreneurial ventures that you have going on?

Alex: It is very cliche, but I have really good partners around me. My family, my cousin, my uncle, they’re second and third generation financial advisors out in Tallahassee with Guardian. So I had had my license with Guardian Life Insurance since, you know, 2010 when I got outta college. And on low hanging fruit, people talking about life insurance, talking about like golden handcuffs, talking about things from a business, you know, owner that could utilize things that I utilize, I can kind of sell that myself and say, Hey, let me introduce you to my business partner or my cousin, and he can take it from here. If it’s higher level stuff that maybe I just don’t even wanna be involved in. ’cause I don’t even want them to like, I don’t want them to think that, like my mindset’s off of Can Monkey, I just introduce ’em to. My business partner you know, so it’s really nice when you have people that you can trust and that I know that when I hand them off you know, they’re good.

I’m more of a marketing aspect now, you know, I still hang my license, I still have it. But it’s more like I’ll talk to someone about it ’cause I’m doing it and then here’s the person that’s helped me and I’m just like handing it off. It’s an easy transition. Pool Monkey, same thing.

Like, I mean, the guy that runs pools. I mean, he lives and eats it and like, that’s his thing, you know? So like, I’m basically just marketing, right? Like, if I have the client start with Can Monkey and they say, oh, can you help me with pools? Here you go. And I’m giving ’em to someone that is, that’s what he does.

I’m helping him. Same thing with, Can Monkey, it’s like, it was as hard as at a hundred properties as it is at like 5,000 properties. it had its own issues at a hundred properties and it was hard then. And it’s hard now at 5,000 just different kinds of hards. There’s a saying like, Choose your hard, it’s hard now, but it was, it was hard at a hundred and we figured it out. I’m sure it’s gonna be hard at 10,000. I’m sure it’s gonna be hard, but it’s like, I’ll take on those hards and we’ll figure it out and we’ll keep, you know, scaling. And in the beginning it was really hard when I knew, like I felt like I was plugging in a bunch of outlets and I would turn my back and people are unplugging it and I’m like, what are you doing?

I just plugged that in for you, like, don’t do anything else. And so know when you can like, plug that in and like finally turn your back like you don’t even know how many things are plugged in now and you don’t need the password for it. Like that’s where I’m at in so many different levels.

And then there’s other levels where I’m like, don’t touch this. You know? So like I just now replicate what I’ve done before, get myself to a certain situation where like, I’m really good at building things, but I’m not good at scaling it. And now I have people around me now where it’s like, oh, hey, here you go.

And then I know their strengths. They know my strengths, I know their weaknesses, they know my weaknesses, and they just take off from where I. I’m done at, and I like doing things like this. I like being in front of people. I like, you know, selling myself in a positive way. Like whether it’s just helping with not just motivation, but like tips or like, Hey, this is what I would do.

Here’s my feedback. Oh, I don’t know the answer, but here, call this person. I really try looking for nothing out of it. Just, you know, creating win-wins that come back from title and escrow, you know, same thing with the cans. cans are not sexy. but if I can help you, make your business a little bit better, if I can help you, like protect yourself and your family a little bit better, and like, all I’m looking for in the back end is your trash cans.

But I just, you know, like I try to leverage other ways, whether it’s connections or other, you know, Businesses that I know would help ’em if they need it. And then, in return, see what can happen from that.

Josh: Wow. There’s a lot of goodness there to unpack. I mean, choose your hard, you know, I got that on my desk too. Like, I love that quote. The scaling, I hear that a lot talking to entrepreneurs. It’s like, that’s one of the hardest things. It sounds like you have good people on your team, good partnerships.

I wanted to expand on that and just ask about mentors. I know for myself, like I never would’ve gotten this far without mentorship. Has that played a role kind of in your journey? maybe that’s your cousin and family members like that. You know, maybe there’s other people too, but how’s that played a role?

Have you found someone that you’ve sort of learned from and they’ve helped you kind of leapfrog some of the obstacles in your way?

Alex: I mean, so obviously yes, I have mentors and in some of those aspects of like what I’m doing. There’s my mentorship with my uncle, could be my mentor for life insurance or financial advising or for being a father figure, you know. In the aspects of Can Monkey, I went into this where like no one really could help me.

and I say that not in an egotistical way but like no one had done that business before. And if anything, if I was telling people what I was doing, family members were saying, don’t do that. What are you doing? Like, It was actually like everything you see in like, you know, these motivational things, like people are gonna tell you no, they’re gonna tell you you can’t do it.

That’s literally what happened. And it’s so cliche. But like now I’m on the other side and then you have family members like now promoting me on Facebook and it’s like, why are promoting me now? I don’t need your help now. Like, I wish you were promoted, but I appreciate it. I’m not, you know, that’s kind of how it was.

So like in the aspect of the can monkey, per se. I really had no real mentor that I could go to say, Hey, what did you do about this aspect? What did you do about this aspect? What I did was just basically take what I learned from previous. Things I’ve done and what I’ve learned from those previous mentors and just took everything I had accumulated and just did it for Can Monkey.

And I just, you gotta remember, like, it was during the pandemic, the world was shut down. My business partner that started Can Monkey was back in Canada. We were building this through WhatsApp, and it was literally me, myself and like any phone calls I would make to my business partner.

But he was three hours ahead most of the time. So it was just me, myself by like, by myself doing this all going crazy every day. Like mental health went way down. Like, what the hell am I doing this for? I was also day trading at the same time. Everyone was day trading at that time. You know, like that was helping me like make ends meet for my family.

While the world was shut down. It was like a crazy time. So like when I go back to it, like there’s no one I would even really confide in, because if I was gonna confide to someone about what I was going through, they probably would’ve just said the logical thing of, go get a job. What are you doing?

You know? Which is what I probably should have done, you know, logically. But that’s what I’m saying, like, it’s so cliche when I look at these like, you know, Instagram videos or whoever makes it in whatever aspect. It’s like a story like this, you know, like And it just goes to show that like, how many people could actually succeed if they just never stopped.

And I wanted to quit a hundred times. I can’t tell you how many times I told my business partner to fuck off, you know, like, like, I’m doing my own thing. I don’t need you. Like, you know, and like, obviously we’re still together, but the wrong way to, you know, to act. But that’s kinda like my mentality.

I was just like a dog, you know? I was just like, no, fuck everyone. Everyone said I can’t do this. I’m doing it and watch me. And it was like, watch me get to a hundred and watch me get to 250. Watch me get to 500. I can’t go to another state? Watch me. Now we’ve done it.

Okay, cool. I’m not done at all. I’m not happy where we’re at. I’m appreciative and grateful, but this is not where I wanna stop. Every mountaintop is the beginning of the next mountaintop. And that’s where I feel like we’re at right now.

We climb this mountain top, we’re at the top of it, and I’m like, oh shit. It’s a whole new mountaintop, guys. All right. And I’m just gathering the troops, we’re all like catching our breath right now. And that’s how I feel right now. And I’m like, all right, let’s go. You guys ready? And I’m just, you know, leading the pack and getting them all up right now.

And we’re at that next point of the next mountaintop. And that’s my analogy. 

Josh: I like that analogy a lot. I feel that deep in my soul. Like that’s what it feels like. Right? And I think you have the right perspective too about the naysayers. ’cause they’re everywhere. Right? I dealt with the same thing when I lost a financial firm. You know, do you know how many people have tried this?

What is the failure rate? You know, everyone wants to tell you how you can’t do it. But that, you know, repurposing that as motivation can be the way to go versus just letting it sink you. Let’s say someone’s listening and they’re just really resonating with what you’re saying right now.

They’re like, I am on day two of bootstrapping my own business that I really believe in. I’ve got a lot of naysayers. What advice would you give them, you know, as they kind of start.

Alex: Figure out where you want to be and like, what’s your five year plan, three year plan, one year plan or where you see your business. For me at Can Monkey, it was going to be my one thing. So I needed, I. To replace what I was making in corporate America, I needed X, Y, Z, right? So like, and that’s why Pool Monkey came up eventually.

You know, you have to figure out what your nut is. And this comes from financial advice. What is your cost every month? You know, you gotta make that. So it’s like reverse engineering it. So like, if you’re like, Hey, you know what, I’m on day two of starting this, you know, bootstrap business and in year three, I wanna sell it for a hundred thousand dollars profit.

Okay, cool. Now reverse engineer, like where do you need to be at the end of year one to be on track to sell that for, and maybe you don’t need to put that much time into it ‘ you know, maybe you’re like, Hey, by year three I wanna be doing at least a hundred thousand dollars a month in recurring revenue.

How much monthly recurring revenue do you need, you know, to sell your product to get to a hundred thousand? Okay. You need to know this much. Okay. You need this many clients. Can you get this many clients in the market you’re in right now? Yeah. Okay. No, I can’t. Okay. Can you scale to another market? Yes.

Okay. And then, now you had the whole thing out there. Now it’s a lot easier to like, you know, attain because you can, you know, visually see it on paper, and then now you just work toward those goals that you just reverse engineered. And then now it’s gonna help you know, that like, okay, here’s a new benchmark.

And that for me was really easy to keep it going because like I celebrate the little wins, and maybe I was the only one that knew the little wins, but like, I celebrate it. Like, yeah, we’re at 250. What’s that mean? It just means that we did it. So let’s just keep going. You know, like whatever those little wins are, you gotta celebrate it because it just keeps you going.

Me at least especially in the beginning. ‘Cause I mean, you can go six months a year and feel like you could just leave it. And then that’s where you also just do six months a year. What do you mean? That’s like, this is the furthest you’ve ever been.

So keep going. And you have to keep like, you know, psyching yourself. Into, doing it almost. And like, what I was saying earlier, you watch these cliche videos, it’s like, if it’s getting really hard and you’re getting really frustrated and you know you’re staying up really late and you’re waking up really early and you’re spending all this time on this, like, you gotta remember that you asked to do that.

This is what you asked for. You asked to be busy. You asked to, you know, start a side hustle. You asked to, you know, have clients that were gonna, you know, pay you like you asked for this. When someone is like, past due on a payment, like I don’t get mad. I’m like, no, that’s so cool. That’s how I get this money.

You know, I get to like, reach out to this client and say, Hey, what’s going on? Look at it from a positive perspective. And that’s where I’m appreciative now. I try to be very appreciative. Like, I’m not mad at anything, anything happens.

I, we overpaid our can runners to mention bonuses. Great. You know, like, I’m glad we had enough money to do it. Should we overpay people again? No, but like, hey, it already happened. So there’s no reason to fret about it. Like now, if you do it again, now it’s a mistake. The first time’s a lesson learned, second time’s a mistake, let’s not make mistakes.

It’s a lesson learned, and then you just go from that aspect.

Josh: That’s a great perspective. I wanna switch gears a little bit and just ask these three questions I tend to ask everybody. What does living a wealthy life look like for you? 

Alex: I guess it depends on how you describe wealthy or your definition of wealthy? Sometimes wealth could be monetary and it could be, you know, money. I have four kids at home and a wife. And, you know, wealth to me is like the love for my family. Like, if I can spend time with my kids, that’s wealth to me.

So I describe success or I describe wealth or whatever the term is by if your kids wanna hang out with you as adults, you know, and that’s what I strive for. I strive to do whatever I’m doing in this life right now. My kids are young, so when they’re older or throughout their whole life you know, dad was always there.

And dad was their friend. And, the wealth that I accumulate, monetary, hopefully at that point will provide, you know, the life that I can have to be with my kids and have that freedom. So like wealth to me would be the time I spend with my family, the freedom of being with my family.

Josh: Family first. Absolutely. If you could give one message to someone working to gain financial freedom, who isn’t there yet, what would it be?

Alex: If you’re not there yet and you’re looking to gain it, I would start with looking at your foundation of where you’re at currently right now and looking at what you’re spending every month. You know, are you spending money on Starbucks? Are you spending money on gym memberships you’re not using?

Or that stuff that is going out. For the most part, people think that they don’t have or are not making enough money, but really it’s just the money that’s going out. And it’s like this, going back to the basics, which is kind of sometimes people think is like a derogatory term, like going back to the basics.

Like it’s bad, but it’s actually like, if you stay in the basics, then you’re always, you’re staying at like the foundational mark. So sometimes when you’re starting a stick shift car, you go first gear, second gear, third gear, fourth gear, fifth gear. If you slow down, you don’t stay in fifth gear, you gotta go back to first or second, you know, so it’s the same thing like your business.

Sometimes you start off really well and then you get off track sometimes, and you should be going back to the second gear and you’re staying in fifth gear and you’re not reevaluating. So I do that often. If I feel like things are getting out of line with my bank account or it’s not where it should be, I go back to the basics.

You know, what am I spending on? What came outta my account this month? What? Oh, that’s right. I did, I did spend money on that. Or I did, you know, sign up for that. Or that’s, you know, for me, I always go back to what, what can I control right now? And that’s something you can control. Money going out.

Josh: I love that you went there. Back to basics like that. ’cause this third question really is a back to basics type question. It’s basically asking if you only had a thousand dollars and we’re starting over, what would be the first thing you’d do with that money? And I think of it in the sense of, you know, you have all the knowledge that you have now, but maybe the businesses don’t exist.

You’re just truly starting over with a thousand dollars. Like what is that first, back to basics kind of step.

Alex: Oof. That’s a good question. ’cause I went into building my, like, current business with like no capital at all, really. You know, went into it was just like door knocking. But what I would go to now, knowing what I know now, is putting that thousand dollars maybe toward marketing, depending on what I was trying to sell.

You know, using it to get my foot in the door, maybe to, take some money to make money depending on what I was trying to, you know, sell, but get my foot in the door with a client that would, you know, be able to bring me enough business every month. That I can repeat what I just spent to get my ball rolling.

Because like for me, revenue covers all sins. So what’s the lowest thing that I could do to, you know, start making some money so that a thousand dollars, I would allocate it to getting that first client where I can get some, like my first win, get something going. Whether it was used for marketing or used for whatever aspects, I guess, like I’m the kind of person that would start a business before I even had like, I would, I wouldn’t even have a website yet.

You know? So like some people, like you said, like they need all the information. I’m the opposite. So I wouldn’t even spend that money on a website or anything until I had the revenue, whatever it was first. So I’d spend that money on making sure that whatever venture I was going into, I would be able to make revenue in research and development, whatever it is pools like, okay, can I spend this thousand dollars to get more pools? Yep. How? Okay. You can spend it on marketing flyers, you can spend it on Facebook marketing, you can spend it on going to Leslie’s and, hosting it, there to the local, you know, homeowners, something along those lines where like, okay, if I spend this $500 on a H O A party. Will I meet homeowners there? Yes. Do they have pools? Yes. Can I get, you know, leads with this money? Yes. Can I skip trace? Yes. Something along those lines.

Josh: Getting attention on your business.

Alex: If you bought those leads per se, you could turn around and sell those leads to someone else and even recoup some of your money that you just spent if you only had a thousand. So if you really were trying to be strategic about it.

Josh: Right. If someone’s listening and they’re saying to themselves, man, I really want to connect with Can Monkey. I want to use their services, or I want to connect with Alex. I think the story is fascinating. Where would they track you down online?

Alex: CanMonkey.com is our website. Go on there, you can sign up, send us an email if you’re interested for more information, whatever you want on the website. For me, I’m on LinkedIn as Alexander Shapiro. On Instagram, Alexander Shapiro. Reach out or send a message on Can Monkey and would love to connect with anyone.

Josh: Great, and I’ll put all those links in the show notes. Make it easy for everyone. Anything I should have asked you anything that you were hoping to talk about that I didn’t dive into?

Alex: No, man, you asked some really good questions. And I always love getting asked these questions because like sometimes you forget about it. It’s nice to know that subconsciously sometimes that I still do the right things even, but then it’s also good to know that like I was subconscious about that.

You gotta be conscious, you know? And so that’s where I pinch myself out a lot and going back to just doing it is everything will work out as it should. And when I look back on the business now, I pinch myself. ’cause like so many times we shouldn’t be where we’re at right now. And it just worked.

So just do it, you know, it’ll work out. Having these conversations remind me that like, you know, ignorance is bliss, you know, just. Just do it, whatever it is, just call that person and ask for the meeting. You know, don’t be like, oh my gosh, he’s a CEO I can’t who caress, just call.

People want to help people you know, ask for help and be vulnerable. All those things, people will help you. And that’s something that I subconsciously knew, but now, like I consciously know and I forget sometimes. So I gotta consciously remind myself that everyone wants to help.

Josh: Right. Yeah, it’s good to reiterate it. And I mean, there were some nuggets in here, some just really good things. I wrote down twice: “just do it” and “revenue covers all sins.” And I mean, I love that, for a new entrepreneur that’s gold. 

Alex: And that’s like reverse engineering, right? Like if you know that you can bring in a thousand dollars a month in monthly recurring revenue and your costs are 500, cool. Like, there you go. That’s good profit margins. Okay. Now can you scale that? So it’s just like, it sounds basic, but that’s literally what it is.

And that’s how I grew Can Monkey’s monthly recurring revenue. So you can see where you’re at every month per se. And then it was like in the beginning I’m like, okay, this is not enough. I need to make other revenue streams. You know? And then you like, what other revenue streams can you come up with that are close to that, that are not too far off?

And that’s where the can cleaning and the on demand trash removal. But I couldn’t just do junk removal. That’d be like any other business, right?

And it wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t start the cans. You know? So like, you never know sometimes how it works out. You just, gotta do it.

Josh: Just gotta start.

Alex: That’s it. 

Josh: Awesome. Well, that’s a wrap for us. This has been The Wealth and Yourself Podcast where we help people to design their ideal life and take control of their time and money. Our guest today was Alex Shapiro, co-founder and CEO at Can Monkey Vacation Rental Trash Solution. We’ll see you next week, and thanks for listening.