Curious Business–FrogBox + Exclusive Interview

Founder Doug Burgoyne of FrogBox walked into the Dragons’s Den Janurary 26th and walked out with $200,000 and two of the dragons; Jim and Brett.

FrogBox is a moving company with an environmentally friendly conscious. They supply plastic moving boxes at the same cost as cardboard boxes and eliminate the fear of having to worry about valuables breaking. Plastic sustainable? Well when each FrogBox can be used over 400 times vs a cardboard box that can be used on average twice, you start to see the picture. In Vancouver over 450,000 cardboard boxes are used every month for moving and upwards of 1 million boxes in Seattle. That’s a lot of boxes. And it’s great for everyone say’s Doug “ [even] My Harley Davison driving beer swallowing uncle doesn’t get scared away”  For those wanting to see more environmental sustainability you will be happy to know that 1% of all gross revenues goes to improving frog habitat.

In a business that is known for it’s bad reputation Doug wanted to find a business model that took a bad industry and redefined its reputation, well he looked no further than Vancouver startup Brian Scudamore and 1-800 Got Junk. He tried to understand as much as possible about Brian’s successful transformation and recreate it in FrogBox. Answer? Scalable Franchising.

Doug is inspired by people like Brian Scudamore and Chip Wilson, people who have a dream and ability to create an incredible industry out of nothing. Doug’s dream is of eliminating cardboard boxes and making himself a lot of money in one foul swoop. When people think moving boxes he wants them to think FrogBox. How is he going to do this? Franchising. Before Dragon’s Den aired FrogBox had 1,100 franchise requests, and he wasn’t even ready to franchise. Now he plans to open 10 locations this year and has a 5 year plan that he hopes will make people associate moving with FrogBox.

To find out more about Doug, listen to my exclusive interview below.
I know how and why your business is innovative but I want to know why you as a person chose to be an entrepreneur. What was the lure of entrepreneurship and when did this love affair start? 

1.41

How did you get started with FrogBox?

2.20

How often do you think franchises should blog and twitter?  

0.53

How did you come up with the name FrogBox?

1.50

FrogBox seems to be a lifestyle movement that just happens to be green.

0.44

What is your companies vision and how quickly have people been to adopt that vision as their own? 

1.05

Why did you choose to go pitch to the dragons?

1.01

How did you know when it was right to leave your job, to drop everything and do this? 

1.14

Has been leaving your job to pursue FrogBox been the most difficult point? 

0.31

Have you been afraid so far?

0.33

How can we find the right partners to start a business with?

1.54

What has made the great companies great? What keeps them staying great?

0.57

How has your curiosity driven you to where you are? What are you most curious about?  

2.11

Doug’s must reads: Seth Godin – Purple Cow, E-Myth – Michael Gerber “It’s like he’s inside my head, and knows exactly what i’m thinking”
I hope you enjoyed the interview. If you have any other questions you would like me to ask in future interviews, post them below.