How The Poop Valet Grew to 100+ Recurring Clients and Nearly 240 Google Reviews

Who is Rick Couchman, and how did The Poop Valet start?

Rick Couchman started The Poop Valet on December 22, 2022, as something to do two or three mornings a week. He came from a social work background and spent 20 years as a part-time hockey reporter, then 14 years on disability with what he called “horrible depression and anxiety.” His wife eventually told him she thought he was doing a bit better and it was time to find something to start.

The idea came at a campfire on his brother-in-law’s farm. About 15 people were sitting around, the dogs were running around, and his brother-in-law said he wished there was a company that would come and pick up after them. Rick looked into it and found plenty of scoopers in the United States but not many in Canada.

He kept it part-time on purpose, so he could work according to whether he was having a good day or a bad one.

How did The Poop Valet get its first customers?

From a Facebook post, and then a newspaper. Rick posted in a very local Facebook group and had one client in the first week. Then a newspaper reached out, saying it had never heard of a business like his, and ran a story with a photo.

“It came out January 8th, I think, and the next day I had 12 or 13 new clients.”

The business grew faster than he had wanted, and it was not long before he hired a part-time scooper to do most of the yards. Today he has between one and one and a half scoopers. He tried ads early on but did not know how to run them, and calls it “kind of wasted money.”

Why did he build the business on branding and networking?

Because he had never heard of the industry himself, and neither had most people near him. So he set out to make The Poop Valet a name people recognized:

• Every community event. He partnered with the local Humane Society and set up a branded tent at its events.
• Chamber of Commerce and BNI. He tries not to miss a chamber event. When people tell him the chamber does not work, he asks how many events they attend. Usually the answer is none; they just use the directory.
• A wrapped truck and branded clothing, in orange and navy blue.
• Listening first. “I keep my business cards in my back pocket. I never reach into my pocket unless it’s asked for.” He asks questions instead of talking about himself.
• Pens instead of cards. He orders one of the cheapest Vistaprint pens, with a stylus on the end and his contact details printed on it, and hands those out without comment. He goes through about 1,000 every six months.

“I’ll see them 3 months later and they’ll say, ‘Oh, I still got your pen in my pocket.’ That’s branding.”

How does The Poop Valet keep clients as it grows?

Communication first. Clients get a message at 7 a.m. on service day so they can unlock the gate, a text when the scooper is on the way, and a message afterward with a photo of the locked gate. Every visit also comes with what Rick calls a poop report, which notes whether the scooper saw anything unusual in the dog’s stool.

He also explains the service in terms of the customer’s problem: parasites and bacteria, a set day every week or every other week, and the fact that his company still hauls the waste away. “It’s not selling dog poop removal. It was how we can help them and how we can solve issues.”

Then there are the people doing the work. Rick has hired about 10 employees through Indeed, with hits and misses. The one he has now, Dom, is named in many of the company’s reviews. Rick pays him a couple of dollars more than he normally would, gives regular bonuses, and pays out every cent of the tips every other month, usually $400 to $500.

How is he using AI to build a business that runs without him?

By rebuilding the website and automating what he can. His wife, who is his partner in the business and does the books, plans to retire from her full-time job within two years, and Rick wants to be able to run the company from a laptop.

He is not a developer; he had built a handful of WordPress sites for himself. His first step was struggling to connect GoHighLevel, and it grew from there. He has since moved the site off WordPress and rebuilt it as a Next.js and React site, written answer-first, with FAQs, pricing and pricing structured data. He gave Claude a prompt to make it the best home service website in Canada for AI responses and let it work for what he says was about 18 hours.

He says traffic is up while other owners report theirs is down. Next on the list is having AI track his ads and suggest changes.

Where is the business now, and what would he tell a new scooper?

The Poop Valet has just over 100 recurring clients and revenue well over $100,000 in Canadian dollars, and Rick says churn this summer has been better than in previous years. Its Google reviews have gone from just under 100 to just under 240. He is still growing “slowly and intentionally.”

His advice for anyone starting out: “Have exceptional communication and always, always answer the phone.”