10 Ideas that Earned $100 Million

#2 Two Men and a Truck

Master Brain: Mary Ellen Sheets

Mary Ellen Sheets before starting the Two Men and a Truck could never even imagine that mere taking away of the waste could be made a multi-million dollar business. In the early 1980s, Sheets’ sons, Jon and Brig Sorber used to do odd jobs for the locality like to haul trash and brush from people’s yard and moving furniture using their truck.

On one occasion, when the two sons were not at home, an order came and the mother had to hire two men and another truck for $350 to accomplish the job. Gradually she made it her hobby and in the late ‘80s she quit her job to offer full-time focus on the new business. And soon after, she decided to franchise her company.

Presently, Two Men and a Truck has 224 branches in 34 states in United States. When Brig Sorber replaced his mom as CEO, Sheets remained in the Board of Directors and Jon Sorber is also serving as an executive.  In the year 2011, the company could conduct 353,761 moves and could have total sales of $220 million.