Who’s behind all these Green Doors?
You might wonder how Green Doors began.
Every day we walk past skips filled with debris from homes being renovated and refurbished and never consider that the majority of this waste will end up in landfill.
For me, Joseph, the founder and CEO of Green Doors, I saw this as not only a major business opportunity, but a chance to change this waste to a useful resource and help create a better world.
The idea for the company was formed when I rescued a set of French doors from a skip while training as a plumber.
A decade later, we have over 20 employees and operate out of a 30,000-square-foot warehouse filled with thousands of doors and windows that we’ve given a second chance to.
Just last year alone, we rescued over 3,000 items- not bad for a company that literally grew out of a skip!
My first steps as a budding entrepreneur began from an early age and, having been diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD at the age of 7, I struggled at school but had an aptitude for trading with my fellow pupils in football coins, tazos or Pokémon cards.
My first “break” as an entrepreneur came when I was 12. After visiting a toy shop with my parents I came across a magnetic ‘sticks and balls’ game and I was desperate to build the biggest sculpture possible as advertised on the box but was really disappointed to find the contents only allowed me to build a small sculpture. I needed more boxes and, having previously seen my dad grab some bargains on eBay, I convinced him to let me do some searching using his account. I found a seller who had a job lot of a similar game at an incredibly cheap price. I wanted to purchase the lot with previous birthday money I had saved up, but my parents were a little more risk-averse than me and eventually only allowed me to purchase around half of them, which was for 200 boxes.
They arrived on a pallet which I offloaded into the hallway and set about listing my items.
Within 6 weeks they had all sold. I tried to purchase the remainder from the seller but unfortunately they had all been sold. (I’ve still not forgiven my parents for this!)
I ended up netting a profit of around £2,000 and realised that I was hooked on retail.
I tried my hand at importing items from China but found it very hard to turn a profit unless I was willing to purchase large quantities.
Over the years, I tried selling almost anything imaginable, from toys to car parts, soaps to statues. I taught myself the skills of selling and could make myself a nice income from it.
My parents didn’t see selling on eBay as a viable career move and so convinced me to train as a £700-a-month plumbing apprentice. While training as a plumber I was shocked at the amount of waste the industry generated; perfectly usable parts were being thrown away. So I started to strip down boilers for parts and was making £3,000 to £4,000 a month selling them on eBay.
Then in 2014, while still working as a plumber, I noticed a set of modern uPVC French Doors a customer was disposing of in a skip. He said I was more than welcome to have them, explaining he was building an extension at the back and had decided to replace them with bi-fold doors. My plumbing mate and I dug them out, loaded them onto my van, and cleaned them up. I advertised them on eBay that very night, and they sold the next day, netting me a profit of hundreds of pounds.
In the following weeks, I scoured skips and building sites to rescue more doors & windows but it wasn’t until I visited a local door fabricator that I had my eureka moment. I saw a mountain of surplus doors & windows destined for landfill and instantly knew this was the business opportunity I had been looking for. I decided to set up a company to give a second chance to all pre-owned, mismeasured, and ex-showroom doors and windows, selling them to customers at a fraction of the original price.
I instantly packed up my plumbing career and founded the company Green Doors with a plan to disrupt this wasteful industry.
Friends and family thought I was delusional and urged me to stick to plumbing, but I knew I could make a difference.
Much to their dismay, it wasn’t long before my parents’ back garden resembled a building site. Consequently, I rented a single garage at the bottom of my road (which filled within a week), and then rented a 3,500 sq ft barn unit in Luton to house the stock.
I found the first few years very tough; making a business from reselling doors and windows was harder than I expected.
Juggling collections, deliveries, logistics, cleaning, advertising, repairing, sales and paperwork amounted to a very stressful lifestyle and I was frequently temped to give up but customer feedback was always positive so that gave me confidence in what I was doing. No matter how many 16-hour days I worked, it was never enough for the amount of work required; and although profitable, still no one could see my vision.
To say it was a rollercoaster was an understatement; it felt like I was trying to build the theme park!
In 2015 I reached out to an old work colleague Aaron, (our logistics manager today) who came on board as a delivery driver. He was at first skeptical as to whether there would be enough deliveries/ collections for an entire week, but he was soon caught up working 7 days a week as well!
Noticing how much this was affecting my health, my mum left her job of 10 years to join the company in 2015, taking over paperwork and administrative duties.
In 2017, Levi, my sister’s partner and a full-time developer, joined the business. Levi comes from a business-minded family, so joining a startup felt natural to him.
Later, my sister Lauren left her job in commercial property management in central London and joined Green Doors to help us with the daily operations. My partner Elena, a Project Manager, came on board in 2023 as our Growth Marketing Manager. Even my dad has been coaxed out of retirement and now works part-time as one of our Door Doctors, so all in all I have a lot of my family working to help build the company.
Despite trying to obtain investment along the way from multiple investors and entrepreneurs, no one could see how they could add value or help scale up our operations. I believe this is mainly down to people being unable to see the gap in the market for Green Doors and there not being any other businesses we can be compared to.
Accepting investment in those early years would have likely meant giving away a large proportion of the company to someone more interested in financial gain than in following our mission to reduce waste.
In 2020, though, I met with a successful entrepreneur who gave me incredible advice on what to change and how to improve the business.
So together with Levi, we built systems, a strong team, rented more warehouse space, and scaled up our operations.
For the last ten years, I’ve paid myself near minimum wage for the hours I’ve worked and we reinvest the majority of our profits back into the company to help scale up operations and rescue more stock.
We are on a mission to ensure all doors get a second life. We believe it makes sense both economically and environmentally.
Looking back, all my childhood I assumed I wouldn’t get anywhere due to my disabilities. Now, I know these ‘Superpowers’, as Sir Richard Branson would say, are what have got me to where I am today. They have given me the ability to see the bigger picture, think differently, take risks and become obsessed with making this the success I know it can so easily be.
Our company is tackling a significant environmental problem with about one third of global waste coming from the construction industry. Our business is needed not only by customers but also by the planet.
Every year, more than 10 billion doors are produced; unfortunately, some don’t even make it out of the factory because they were made slightly to the wrong specifications. Even though a small amount is recycled or incinerated (both causing additional harm to the environment), there is nothing better than reusing what we have already produced.
The average lifespan of a door is surprisingly long: uPVC doors last about 20-30 years, composite doors over 30 years, aluminum doors 30-50 years, and timber doors 50-100 years or more, with proper maintenance potentially extending these times. Unfortunately, the lifespan of most doors is prematurely cut short, which is where Green Doors steps in.
If you, like me and our team, care about the planet, consider becoming a customer, recommending us, or donating your items. Together, we can all make a significant impact.
Green Doors has since gone on to win two awards at the Small Business Awards 2024: ‘Net Hero’ and ‘Small Business of the Year’ as well as being mentioned in multiple articles, publications and radio stations: check out our Press Page! Joseph has also been shortlisted for ‘The Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2024’. All this has started to open even more doors for us :)
At Green Doors, we understand the importance of sustainability and preserving our planet.
When you purchase from us, you’re not only getting a high-quality door or window, but you’re also helping to reduce the damage to our planet by reusing and upcycling existing products.
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