A garbage truck on Clark Street during the February 2011 blizzard. Photo: t3xt (talk) / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Mark Lestina thinks most businesses pay too much to have their trash hauled away, and not because they are careless. The problem, he says, is that almost nobody knows what a fair rate looks like.
Lestina founded Wastemaster Corp. a year ago to fix that. The company calls itself a waste broker. It arranges hauling for small and medium-size businesses, condo associations and property managers across the Chicago area.
No comparison point
Waste bills are hard to compare. Billing cycles differ, fees and permit charges vary, and quoted rates can be far apart for the same service. Without a reference point, Lestina says, customers have no easy way to tell whether an offer is good.
Wastemaster’s model is to collect pricing data across many accounts, negotiate preferred rates with haulers, and pass the savings along on one consistent bill. The company’s argument is that volume and transparency give small customers leverage they don’t have alone.
From sales manager to owner
Lestina is new to owning a business, but not to the industry. He previously managed a sales team at a waste management company, where he saw firsthand how widely pricing varied across the city. That experience convinced him there was room for a broker.
His biggest hurdle, he says, is awareness. Many potential customers simply don’t know a service like his exists, so a large share of his time goes to marketing across the city. He also wrestles with a problem familiar to most founders, balancing cost control against the push for new revenue.
His advice to other first-time owners is to stay flexible. Rereading his original business plan now is a little shocking, he says, because so much of it has changed. The early milestones that mattered most were not big sales but the first few customers who signed on, proof that people liked the idea.
Lestina’s five-year goal is to expand to other major Midwest cities while keeping Chicago as home base. He describes Uptown as a strongly diverse neighborhood with room for almost any kind of new business.
Marcus Hadley covers business, transit and real estate in Uptown.
