Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

The best part of having a dog is arguably the companionship they offer and the life they can breathe into a family. The worst part is undeniably having to pick up after them.

That’s where Bo Burchell and his company Daddy Doo Care come in.

Daddy Doo Care offers pet waste removal services in Coffee County on weekly, bi-weekly and monthly schedules. In addition to that, Burchell also offers pet drop-ins where he comes by for a 30-minute visit to feed, let out and walk customer’s dogs.

He learned about the business model on a trip out of state.

“I was driving through Indiana and some of my friends had somebody come by, and they were servicing their yard,” Burchell recalled. “I asked what he was doing, and they said he was picking up dog poop, and I said, “You pay someone to pick up dog poop?!?’”

Burchell decided he was going to try running a similar business when he got back to Tennessee. The pet waste removal business is still fairly unique in Middle Tennessee, according to Burchell, with only a handful in other counties.

“It was one of those things where there’s nobody here. I know, just by looking around, there’s probably six companies in Nashville, four companies in Murfreesboro and none here, and I know, and I’m not a market analyst, but in the next five years, this town is going to be wild,” he said. “I was like, ‘Well, you might as well get started now and hopefully catch the incoming and they start building all these houses out here.’ Really, the best thing for me is to get the word out.”

He explained that it took him a couple of years to finally pull the trigger on starting Daddy Doo Care, and even continued working part-time at a local gym for a time before making the business his full-time job.

Luckily, the business didn’t take a lot to get started.

“It’s actually very low overhead, just a business license and an EIN from the IRS and then just trying to push stuff,” explained Burchell. “Marketing is the biggest thing. Really, I’ve done most everything based off of word of mouth. I also get some stuff through Facebook.”

“I’m still pretty small, but for a year and a half in, I’m not mad,” he added. “It takes time to grow a business.”

Burchell says that a pet waste removal service isn’t something that people immediately think of.

“It’s not at the front of everybody’s mind because a lot of people will just leave the poop, but there’s a lot of contaminates and really bad stuff in dog poop, and if you don’t clean it up, you’re tracking it in your house,” he said. “Plus, it can get in your water system and stuff like that and make people sick.”

Right now, Daddy Doo Care consists of Burchell, a couple of tools and some trash bags. He also utilizes a Wisywash system which sanitizes items like food bowls, kennels and concrete sidewalks.

Burchell says he’d like to see the business expand eventually.

“I actually would love to get to the point to where I can hire some people and just grow it as much as I can grow it really,” he explained. “That would be the goal.”

Long before he started Daddy Doo Care, Burchell serve in the military for eight years in the military from 2000 to 2004 and then again from 2007 to 2011 with a year in the National Guard between them. It was something he wanted to do since childhood.

“I grew up with a Marine Corps poster on my wall, and my dad was in the Marines Corps too, so going through middle school, me and my friends decided we were going to go into the military,” he said. “We got into ROTC for four years. Most of them went to the Army or the Air Force or the Navy, but there was a few of us that went to the Marine Corps. I went to Iraq and Afghanistan and then came back.”

In addition to discipline and acclimation to varying climates, Burchell says the military instilled him with an attention to detail that’s translated to pet waste removal.

“You go out to the range and when you get done shooting, you have to walk around and pick up after yourself,” he explained. “It helps with attention to detail, and I try to pride myself off of that. I try not to leave anything behind.”

Burchell explained that he has always wanted to be an entrepreneur due to the freedom that it allows.

“You can control your own business, control your own hours, and make your own money,” he said. “It was always something that I just really enjoyed.”

Burchell isn’t the only one in his circle that owns their own business. His girlfriend Courtney King also owns her own cleaning company in Manchester called Coco’s Cleaning Co.

King says that starting her business in 2022 was a leap of faith being a mother and new to the small business world, but the support she’s received from locals has been incredible.

“I’ve met so many kind people along the way who’ve not only trusted me in their homes but made me feel truly part of this community,” she said. “My goal when I started was to show my daughters that it’s possible to build something from the ground up with grit, love and purpose.”

While Burchell enjoys just meeting people and meeting their dogs and hanging out with them, he also says he appreciates the satisfaction of owning his own business.

“I think it’s awesome, and I think more people should do it,” he said. “You can go on any forum, and you see people saying ‘I’m looking for a job. I’m looking for a job.’ Find a skill and do it. I know it’s hard but work for yourself. We need more of that.”

Though Burchell encourages people opening their own small businesses, he acknowledges that a lot of them get driven out by large corporations but that his business might actually benefit from a couple larger companies in his field move into town.

“I don’t have to worry about that unless a big, corporate poop scooping company comes in here,” he explained. “At the same time, I’m not too mad about that either because I would actually almost invite a couple more companies to come in because the more people you have in that industry, the word is going to get out. ‘Oh, they’re doing it. We should do it too.’”

Burchell says that there’s been some stress in starting Daddy Doo Care. The business is heavily dependent on good weather, but he said most of the stress is the same stuff any new business owner deals with.

“I just really want this to succeed because I don’t want to go back to work for anybody else,” he said. “I just want this to work, and if this doesn’t work, then I’ll find something else. But it’s working so far.”