It started with a bike ride to the local dump, where then-teenaged Kirk McKinney stumbled on a pair of “really nice speakers” that still worked.
The speakers became prized possessions and the inspiration for Junk Teens, a Norwood, Massachusetts-based junk removal and reselling business that McKinney launched with younger brother Jacob McKinney in February 2021. The brothers are now ages 22 and 20, respectively — and their business brought in $3.04 million in 2025 revenue, including more than $686,000 in net profit, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
After finding the speakers, “I was hooked. I just kept going back to the dump ... and, eventually, my bedroom looked like a mini hoarder’s house,” says Kirk McKinney, the company’s CEO. He sold abandoned items he found on Facebook Marketplace as a side hustle, and hanging out at the dump, he met people willing to pay local teenagers to remove more unwanted junk from their homes, he says.
He knew he’d need help, so he quit a grocery store job and enlisted his brother, who was a high school freshman at the time, he says. They bought a used 2006 Ford F-150 pickup truck with $4,000 of their own money to haul junk, Kirk McKinney says. Two bored teens in the middle of a pandemic looking to make extra cash, they also picked up odd jobs like landscaping and moving gigs.
