Hilltop Views (Austin, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 6, Ed. 1 Wednesday, October 13, 2010 Page: 7 of 16
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FEATURES 1 Page 7
Hilltop Views | Wednesday, October 13, 2010
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Wendy Cawthon
Science Fiction treasures found on the shelves at Room Service Vintage.
Duo turns summer job
into booming business
I
7
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I
Tiqueofthe
Week/
sented as a news bulletin,
interrupting weather re-
ports and music. Welles
voices a fictional astrono-
mer who announces Mar-
tians landing outside of
New Jersey.
Welles’ tale of the invad-
ers also landed at St. Ed-
ward's last year when the
Transit Theatre Troupe
put on a production of the
play in 2009.
The program is Welles’
claim to fame, with ap-
proximately six million lis-
teners tuning in that night.
Reports of widespread
panic from people believ-
ing the “news reports" to be
true followed the broad-
cast.
The prank has become
folklore, and the recording
has become our favorite
tique this week.
4
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O J
-
■n
l
y
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A 6 Most of our friends were
■ • working typical ‘college
student’ jobs like waiting
tables... we wanted to do
something different.”
- Nick Friedman
However, Friedman and
Soliman offer their personal
Ten Business Command-
ments appeal to the mental-
ity of working smarter, not
harder, in order to play hard
later on.
able long-term.
"The biggest obstacles we’ve
encountered as young entre-
preneurs was not knowing
what we didn't know,” Fried-
man said. “In other words,
because we had no formal
entrepreneurial training or
background, we had to just
figure things out as we went
along.”
The two entrepreneurs
have since published a book
entitled “Effortless Entre-
preneuer: Work Smart, Play
Hard, Make Millions.” Most
business strategy books are
written from the perspective
of veterans of the business
world who have been invent-
ing new trends and master-
ing older traditions for years.
Rian Lowe
rlo we3w@stedwards. edu
If you’re a typical financially
struggling American college
student, chances are you are
aware of Facebook co-found-
er, CEO and world’s young-
est billionaire Mark Zucker-
berg, and not simply because
Facebook is one of the top-
visited sites on the Internet,
or because you're one of 500
million members.
Keeping in mind Zucker-
berg's sudden bank account
boom, it is easy to look back
back to one's own struggling
reality as a college student
and wish that it were pos-
sible for a college student to
become a millionaire doing
something he or she loves.
Not just anybody can be
like Zuckerberg, making
billions off of an innovative
service. Gaining that wealth
seemed unattainable for re-
cent college graduates Nick
Friedman and Omar Soli-
man.
Thanks to a summertime
whim, Friedman and Soliman
started the company College
Hunks Hauling Junk, and
became millionaires before
the age of 25, without any
debt or bills to stress about.
In a recent phone interview,
Friedman (whose business
partner Soliman was not
available for comment) re-
vealed the origins of the busi-
ness that would propel the
two young men to financial
success.
It all started in college,
where Friedman and Soliman
. were not doing what most as-
piring entrepreneurs would
do at this time (i.e. majoring
in business, studying around
the clock and making learn-
ing the absolute priority of all
activities). Instead, they were
celebrating the true national
pastime of all student bodies
in higher education estab-
lishments: partying. The idea
to haul junk began as simply
an avenue for extra money.
“Most of our friends were
working typical college stu-
dent jobs like waiting tables,
boring retail jobs and intern-
out of over 150 entries.”
Initially, most who heard
of it and knew Friedman and
Soliman personally swore
they were joking and wrote
the two men off without sec-
ond-guessing.
But soon, the business
would prosper into one of
the largest junk removal
franchises in the country. The
seven-figure salaries soon fol-
lowed, along with high-pro-
file appearances in the New
York Times, ABC’s Shark
Tank, and Bravo's Million-
aire Matchmaker. Friedman
said that he and Soliman
did all this while defying the
stereotype of such successful
workaholics. They were, and
in many ways still are, just
ordinary people.
Friedman said he and Soli-
man took what is considered
by some to be an overdone
concept and made it into
something they believe is
uniquely relevant and profit-
ships,” Friedman said. "We
wanted to do something dif-
ferent.”
So they did, and it started
with a borrowed van from
Soliman’s mother that she
had been using for deliveries
for her furniture store.
"We decided hauling junk
would be our summer gig,”
Friedman said. "After putting
up flyers that said College
Hunks Hauling Junk around
the neighborhood, we started
getting calls for our services.
After going back to school,
Omar submitted a busi-
ness plan for College Hunks
Hauling Junk at an entre-
preneurship competition at
the University of Miami that
won first place and $10,000
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; Ada J
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Wendy Cawthon 60s, with endless orange
Matt Frazier couches. Tucked away
.1, , , in the corner we round a
wcawtho@stedwards.edu 1,, m n 1 .
g K . , 1960s Dr. Pepper machine
mfrazie2@stedwards.edu . , nr. .
--------------------- that made us wish we were
Tique of the Week is an alive when a bottle of soda
Austin-wide search for only cost a dime.
unique and interesting an- But our favorite item in
tiques. the store, and this week's
With dozens of antique tique, was hidden in a
shops around Austin, one- crate of old records next to
of-a-kind items from the the decorative ashtrays.
past are not in short supply. In the crate, amongst
Each week we’ll f nd a new The Beatles, The Beach
favorite item and feature it Boys and The Carpenters,
as our “Tique of the Week.” we found a copy of Orson
We found this week's Welles’ radio adaptation
'tique at a vintage store on of "War of the Worlds” on
North Loop Boulevard, vinyl.
Room Service Vintage. Originally aired on Oct.
The store buys and sells 30,1938, the program was
vintage and antique furni- broadcast as a Halloween
ture, clothes and decora- episode of the radio drama
five items. "Mercury Theatre on the
Most of the store resem- Air."
bles a living room from the The program was pre-
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Hilltop Views (Austin, Tex.), Vol. 28, No. 6, Ed. 1 Wednesday, October 13, 2010, newspaper, October 13, 2010; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1523400/m1/7/: accessed July 12, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting St. Edward’s University.