- Anti Status Quo
- Posts
- They Said Storage Was Boring. Then Clutter Made $600M
They Said Storage Was Boring. Then Clutter Made $600M
How Clutter turned the most boring industry into gold by doing one thing differently
Yoela Palkin
January 25, 2025
Hey there,
👋 Welcome to our third deep dive in the $100M Business Strategy Series. Today we're unpacking Clutter, a company that turned the painful experience of self-storage into a $100M revenue business by solving one critical problem: making storage as easy as ordering takeout.
Ever notice how much we hate dealing with storage units? In 2015, two founders saw beyond the obvious inconvenience - they spotted a $40B industry stuck in the 1970s. Here's how they rebuilt it from the ground up.
✨ Yoela’s Picks
My favorites of the week:
👊 Story: Turning Storage Upside Down
When most founders would have chased the next tech unicorn, Clutter's team took a radically different approach. They started by solving the market's biggest pain point: the terrible experience of renting and using a storage unit.
The team began by doing everything manually - literally moving customers' stuff themselves. No fancy tech, no robots, no AI. Just two guys with a truck, building trust one move at a time. While competitors focused on real estate plays, Clutter focused on service: photographing items, creating digital inventories, and handling everything door-to-door.
Here's what's fascinating about their approach: While most startups try to remove human touch, Clutter leaned into it. They hired full-time employees instead of contractors, built their own warehouses instead of renting space, and controlled the entire experience. This vertical integration taught them exactly what to automate and what to keep human.
The lesson? You don't need to reinvent an industry. You just need to make it dramatically better for customers.
🤫 Framework: The Secret Sauce
Most logistics startups try to minimize human involvement. Clutter did the opposite. Here's how they won:
Get your hands dirty: They moved stuff themselves to uncover what really sucks.
Own the process: Built their own infrastructure to control every detail.
Hire pros, not gig workers: Trust is everything—full-timers made that possible.
Blend tech with a human touch: Photographed every item but stayed personal where it mattered.
Win locally, then scale: Nailed one market before moving on to the next.
📈 Opportunities Hiding in Plain Sight
Clutter's playbook reveals massive opportunities in "boring" industries. Here are 3 markets ready for their Clutter moment:
Event Supplies Storage & Logistics 🎉
Pain point: Event planners and individuals waste money on buying or storing supplies (e.g., chairs, tables, decorations) that are rarely used.
Key insight: They value a reliable partner for inventory, setup, and teardown to simplify planning.
Your move: Create a subscription-based service for storing, renting, and managing event essentials, complete with transportation and setup services.
Travel Gear Storage and Management ✈️
Pain point: Frequent travelers and adventurers struggle with storing bulky, seasonal, or specialized gear (think skis, backpacks, scuba equipment).
Key insight: They want their gear ready-to-go, maintained, and delivered on demand.
Your move: Build a service that combines storage, cleaning/maintenance, and destination delivery logistics.
Home Gym Equipment Storage & Sharing 🏋️
Pain point: Fitness enthusiasts invest in bulky home gym equipment that goes unused is underutilized most of the time.
Key insight: They’re willing to rent or share equipment when not in use to save space and enable some cashflow.
Your move: Build a platform for a network of home gyms, where neighbors can rent, share, or access fitness equipment and spaces locally. It’s a peer-to-peer marketplace for affordable and convenient workouts.
The playbook is simple: find "boring" industries where customers hate the experience, fix it end-to-end, and scale what works.
💬 Quote: “Prove People Wrong”
This quote takes on a whole new meaning when you think about Clutter's journey. Storage is a painfully boring, unsexy industry. You can almost hear the chorus of "How is this any different from traditional storage?" they must have faced.
But here’s the thing, we know that the best opportunities often hide in plain sight, buried in industries where people shrug and say, "That’s just how it works." Clutter didn’t invent storage, they created a better and needed model. While everyone else was chasing the next crypto hype, they focused on making an old idea radically better.
Makes you think: What "boring" problem is everyone else too cool to solve?
With love,
Yoela
P.S. Forward this to someone who you think needs to declutter their brain and take the next step and launch their own “Clutter”.
What’d you think of today’s email? |