It’s possible you’ve seen billboards throughout Northeast Ohio for the companies operated by Waste Dynamics, not on the sides of highways or on buildings, but rather in the driveways of houses.
For whenever a homeowner rents one of the company’s large trash bins for a DIY home project, construction, remodel, demolition or cleanup project, the name “Budget Dumpster” or “Dumpsters.com” is prominently displayed on the side of the receptacle.
“It’s great advertising,” says Waste Dynamics CEO Kyle Braun.
But as the broader Waste Dynamics name implies, there is so much more to this growing, Westlake-based company than just those Dumpsters you see in driveways.
Over the past five years, the company has expanded its reach to work with more businesses nationwide to provide software solutions for hauling operations and to provide payment solutions for waste industry businesses. Four distinct brands — the aforementioned Dumpsters.com and Budget Dumpster, along with the cloud-based software provider Dispatcher.com and the payment processing solutions provider WastePay — reside under the umbrella of Waste Dynamics, the name adopted by the company in mid-2022.
“We started to have this collection of brands,” says Braun, “and we wanted employees and partners to identify with a single entity, a way to bring everything together.”
In the process of bringing those brands together, Waste Dynamics has not wasted the opportunity that exists in the industry. In broadening its customer base, restructuring its customer-facing teams and renovating its headquarters, the company has asserted itself as an important nationwide presence in that space.
“The credit goes to the two guys that started the company,” Braun says. “They emphasized the customer experience in an industry where you don’t see that much. Answering questions, making recommendations, taking time to deliver a good customer experience and satisfy the customers’ need … that’s embedded into the core of the organization and how we think.”
Getting started
John Fenn and Mark Campbell co-founded Budget Dumpster in 2009 and then acquired the Dumpsters.com brand. In 2018, they recruited Braun, who grew up in Northeast Ohio and then worked in sales and leadership in California and Chicago for many years, to come back to his roots and help them expand the sales operation.
“These are guys I had known for some time,” Braun says. “I watched them grow the company from its inception. I used to come home for the holidays and talk with them about sales compensation plans and sales structure and strategy. So, I was connected to the company in a loose way and always kept tabs on it. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to join the company and help grow it with them.”
When Braun joined — first in July 2018 as chief sales officer, before becoming CEO in January 2022 — homeowners made up virtually all of the customer base. Braun set about helping the company optimize its sales process and build out a business-to-business division that would allow it to work with general contractors, homebuilders, roofing companies and other businesses that rented Dumpsters for business purposes. The Budget Dumpster brand focused primarily on homeowners, while Dumpsters.com served more of the B2B function.
“It’s a big industry,” Braun says. “The opportunity is to come in and provide a stronger experience, to leverage technology and to grow within the industry.”
Braun helped tailor the customer-facing teams to meet the evolving needs that come with that growth. One account management team might be focused primarily on customer service and relationship-building. Another might be tasked with identifying new opportunities, such as the installation of solar farms that require Dumpsters to haul large amounts of packaging from the solar panels. A third will home in on big commercial projects, such as manufacturing and warehouse facilities.
“We service all 50 states,” Braun says. “You don’t see that in our business much. You can work with one person for projects all across the country. Our ideal customer profile is a customer with a more centralized buying or procurement function that projects all over the country. If they’re not working with us, they’re working with 50 or 100 different suppliers. With us, it’s a single point of contact, a single invoice. It’s a big time-saver and a higher level of service.”
Growing its footprint
When the business was entirely homeowner-based, it was transactional, meaning a customer would rent a Dumpster for a very specific need and the relationship ended when that need was met. Now, having grown the B2B division, Waste Dynamics has many recurring customers and has expanded its geographic footprint.
Waste Dynamics continues to find other creative ways to improve its customer experience. For instance, when customers reserve a Dumpster on the company’s website, they can overlay an image of the Dumpster, scaled for size, on an aerial view of their property to indicate exactly where they would like it placed. The company also recently launched a customer portal that contractors can use to view active jobs across the country and monitor activity and orders by job site or time frame.
Waste Dynamics had its own construction project to monitor with the renovation of its headquarters, a project completed in mid-2023. With 34,000 square feet of working space, including 36 private offices, a 50-person training room, two breakrooms, cube space and collaboration space, the new-look facility meets the needs of this growing business.
“Before, we didn’t have the ability to pull 50, 60 or 70 people into the same room,” Braun says. “Now we can have company update meetings, town hall-type meetings, together. We wanted to set this up to have people collaborate on a regular basis.” ●
