How Landmine Patrol Went From 0 to 130 Pet Waste Customers in Under a Year

How did Landmine Patrol start?

Landmine Patrol started in one night, because Derek’s cousin needed more income. His cousin was working four 10-hour shifts plus overtime when his employer announced the overtime was going away. Derek, a fulfillment manager at a distribution center who had always had side projects, asked if he wanted to build a service business and gave him five ideas. His cousin picked dog poop scooping.

Derek had first seen the industry in an UpFlip video about Swoop Scoop and had kept it in the back of his mind. Once his cousin said yes, he did not wait. “That night I bought the domain, filed the LLC, set up a booking site, ordered shirts, magnets, equipment,” he said. They were scooping their first yards one to two weeks later. That was June 2025.

He had spent years on smaller ventures: flipping pallets, reselling on Amazon and eBay, an ATM in Akron, and an attempt to buy a mail shop that fell through. Having a partner who needed it to work is what made him commit.

Why was the first summer so slow, and what changed?

They started in June, which Derek later learned is the hardest time of year to launch a pet waste business. He wanted 100 customers in 100 days. Instead the company sat at 5 to 10 to 15 customers for a long stretch.

The growth came with the spring rush. When he recorded the episode in early April 2026, Landmine Patrol had 130 recurring customers, and 100 of them had signed up in the previous 60 days.

He sees the slow start as useful. “We got all of our reps in in summer when it was light and when it was easy,” he said. They worked out their processes over the slower months, which let them handle the two busy ones.

How does Landmine Patrol turn Facebook leads into customers?

Facebook ads are the company’s main lead source, and Derek has never run them himself. His rule is that if he does not know how something works, he finds an expert. He has tried a couple of marketers and likes the one he has now.

The follow-up is his. He built it in GoHighLevel:

• A new Facebook lead gets an automatic introductory message.
• When the lead replies with details about their dogs or the service they want, Derek steps in personally and takes over the conversation.
• He works out pricing with them and gets them signed up.

He learned his market from repetition. Saying the same script many times shows where people drop off. In the Akron-Canton area he found price sensitivity and some distrust about when money comes out of an account, so he lowered his starting price a notch and tells leads to mention a small yard or a small breed so he can find them a better rate.

How do two people with full-time jobs run a pet waste route?

They built the routes around the only days they both had free. His cousin worked Sunday through Wednesday, so Landmine Patrol went north on Thursday and south on Friday.

His cousin has now joined full time as lead tech. Derek still has his job and runs the admin side in the background, which the automations make possible. He described himself as systems-minded at work and said GoHighLevel is complicated but learnable from YouTube tutorials. He expects to take “a good long look” at going full time closer to 200 customers.

How does Landmine Patrol keep customers happy while growing fast?

By over-communicating, so that customers always have the information they need. What that looks like:

• Billing explained early and often. Service is prepaid monthly, the first charge is prorated, and invoices go out on the first of the month. He covers this two or three times before onboarding is finished.
• A text the night before each service.
• An on-the-way text 15 to 60 minutes out.
• A photo of the closed gate for yards that have one.
• A follow-up after the first cleanup. During the rush, first cleanups were scheduled wherever they fit, so he told each customer which day their regular route would be.

Once, a customer’s dog had a medical emergency while the family was out of town and was getting sick all over the yard. Derek took the day off from his job to clean it up.

Beyond Facebook, the company has cards and a price sheet at his uncle’s veterinary clinic, and trades referrals with nearby scoopers when a customer is outside its area.

What would Derek tell a new pet waste business owner?

Start before you feel ready, build systems early, and do not try to do everything yourself. He handed off the things he did not know, such as ads and review requests, and built the business around what he does know from his day job: operations, routing and a communication plan.

“Find what you’re good at, focus on it,” he said, “and you can kind of outsource the rest and make it work.”