Table of contents
Business name: Trumbug
Description: Pest control subscription service
Founder: James Schoen
How long in business: 1 year
Location: Queen Creek, Arizona
Annual 2024 revenue: $74,000
James Schoen, founder of Trumbug, a direct-to-consumer pest control service in Queen Creek, Arizona, is on a mission to empower homeowners to take on DIY projects with more confidence — including managing unwanted critters.
“I don’t have a background in pest control,” he explains, “But I went and got certified. I did all the training and testing to become a pest control technician so I know what I’m doing.” Schoen then worked with environmental agencies in all 50 states to make sure their products would meet local regulations.
Now, one year later, Trumbug is already on track to meet their big goal in year two: triple their revenue. In this first-ever edition of Money, Honestly, Schoen reveals how much he spent in the first year to get the business off the ground — and how a $20 tool saved him $25,000.
Q&A with Trumbug founder James Schoen
Editor’s note: This conversation has been edited for flow and clarity.
Square: What are your top spending categories?
James Schoen: Product (the things in our custom kits), shipping, and marketing.
Square: What goes into a Trumbug kit?
James Schoen: Pro-grade insecticide (our biggest expense), a rechargeable USB-C sprayer, a disposable one-gallon bag, gloves, and instructions. The kit box is a small but meaningful cost. We want to look and feel like a premium product, so we spend more on our packaging and on the quality of our product.
Total: $25,000/year, or one-third of COGs (cost of goods)
Square: What are your shipping costs?
James Schoen: First-time orders cost more for us because customers get a large box — shipped with UPS because I want the first box to arrive quickly for a better experience. Then, future shipments are sent in a small box through USPS — and our cost is about 40% lower.
Total: $12,000/year, or 16% of overall costs
Square: Where do you spend your marketing dollars?
James Schoen: Most of our marketing is Meta* ads — Facebook, Instagram. We’ve also run TikTok, Google search, and YouTube ads, but we’ve had more success with Meta ads. We also have partnerships with content creators who have followings that align with our target demographic. We’ll give them a free product in exchange for posting a video. That’s been very successful in driving organic traffic.
Total: $34,000/year, or 39% of overall costs
Square: What would surprise people about running an e-commerce business?
James Schoen: The barrier to entry is lower than it’s ever been. With the amount of tools that exist and platforms like Square and Shopify, you can get up and running really quickly.
Square: Best $20 spent?
James Schoen: Trumbug required a lot of custom code that wasn’t available on our e-commerce platform. I shopped one tool around to developers to build for me, and I was quoted anywhere between $10,000 – $25,000. I have a basic coding background and I thought, “Maybe I can actually build this with ChatGPT.” It took me about two weeks and I built it from scratch — and the cost was the $20 per month ChatGPT Plus subscription.
Total: $20/month, or $240/year
Square: Best return on investment?
James Schoen: One of those hokey-looking “How to create viral TikTok videos” courses. It was $75 for a 6- or 7-hour video. After taking that course, we had 3 viral videos within the next month using the principles I had learned. One video did 1.5 million views and drove a ton of revenue for us.
Total: $75
Square: Most unusual or surprising cost?
James Schoen: Last summer, we weren’t doing a lot of volume yet. I had gone on vacation with my family — about a 10-hour drive from home — and I had brought inventory so I could fulfill orders while we were there. That’s when one of our social media videos went viral. We got so many orders, I actually drove 10 hours home, packed up more inventory, and drove 10 hours back so I could be with my family and keep fulfilling orders. The cost of gas and the trailer I rented (and a 20-hour road trip) were very unexpected expenses, but it was a really exciting time.
Total: ~$300
Square: Are there any tools that make your life easier?
James Schoen: There are add-on apps and service providers that plug in really easily, and cost $300–$400 a month. I’m happy to pay that because they do a good job. We use Klaviyo for email marketing. Our subscription management service, Juo, handles our billing, disclosures, opt out. I could build that myself, but it’s going to be clunky.
Total: $3,600–$4,200/year, or 12% of total costs
Square: Most expensive lesson learned?
James Schoen: We did a ValPak campaign — we spent $2,000 and didn’t get a single sale. I’m glad I tested it. That’s part of marketing — you have to experiment and learn quickly, pivot quickly. I found out it was a complete waste of money, but now I know.
Total: $2,000
Square: How do you manage seasonality?
James Schoen: Our seasonality is more extreme than I expected. We see 8-9 times more revenue and customers in the summer (May to September) than in the winter. Customer acquisition really slows down in the winter. The annual subscription model saves us. Customers pre-pay for the year and we have predictable revenue that we can use to budget. We steeply discount the annual subscription at 40% off — a one-time kit costs $55; an annual subscription is $132, or $33 per treatment.
Square: How did you land on that 40% number?
James Schoen: We experimented with pricing in the first few months. We chose a 40% discount because it was where we saw a significant lift in conversions from monthly to annual plans during peak season, helping lock in revenue before our slow winter months. It also preserved healthy margins, improved retention, and gave us enough predictable cash flow to sustain operations during the off-season.
Square: What cash-flow tools do you use the most?
James Schoen: We rely a lot on our credit card. We never carry a balance, but that 30-day grace period to pay back is a huge benefit. We have a traditional business checking and savings account. The savings account has less money in it than we want, but we try. We’re conscious of saving for taxes, and use the savings account for that. We’ve considered traditional financing like loans, but have opted for owner contributions. The owners have decided to put more cash in rather than take out a loan for right now.
Square: What’s next for Trumbug, and how will you make it happen?
James Schoen: Our big goal is to triple our revenue in year two. We’re on track — things are going really well so far. If that comes to fruition, we’ll need a larger focus on operations. The volume of orders will require a more dedicated warehouse space, maybe some part-time employees to help with fulfillment. We’re considering crowdfunding and giving away ownership in the company. We don’t want to go the venture capital or private equity route, but we would be interested in smaller, friends-and-family or group investments.
The breakdown
With modern tools and creative problem-solving, Schoen has saved on big startup costs in the first year of business.
Annual costs
Product: $25,000
Shipping: $12,000
Marketing: $34,000 (incl. $2,000 Valpak campaign)
Software: $3,600–$4,200
Best bang for your buck: ChatGPT: $240; TikTok course: $75 one time
Unexpected: ~ $300
Shoen expected and planned for a loss in the first year with startup costs of bulk inventory and development. “The cost to acquire a customer is extremely high in the pest control industry, with most companies paying the entire value of the first year of the contract in commissions to the salesperson who sold the contract. We don’t use a salesforce and go direct to consumer, but still experience high cost to acquire a customer and expect to make up the difference in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years with our customers. Lifetime-value is high, so we are willing to pay a lot to acquire the customer,” he explained.
From using AI to build custom code, to finding unexpected success in an online course, the key seems to be staying nimble and being willing to experiment — even if some of those experiments lead to $2,000 lessons learned. Stay tuned to the Money, Honestly series for more candid conversations about business finances.
Editor’s note: the following columns were first featured in the Square Banking newsletter. Keila Hill-Trawick is not an employee or consultant of Square. The views expressed in this column are solely hers and not endorsed by Square..
Good With Numbers: How to manage tariff costs with a what-if budget
CPA Keila responds to real-life money dilemmas submitted by business owners.
“We purchase large, bulk amounts — thousands at a time — from suppliers overseas. It’s been difficult to forecast demand and to understand the long lead time to have our products manufactured and shipped. It can take 2-3 months sometimes. Also, there were 170% tariffs at one point recently. We had to make the decision, ‘Do we buy it now, or wait a week, in hopes that tariffs will go down?’ We went ahead and purchased our shipping boxes, and luckily tariffs went down to 55%. It’s still high, but we’ve decided to eat the cost [of tariffs] for our customers, and hopefully we can make it through.”
James Schoen → Founder of Trumbug, Queen Creek, Arizona
It’s good customer service to absorb the cost of tariffs, but you want to make sure your business can afford it. Creating a “what-if” budget can help determine the impact on your business by either absorbing 100%, passing through a portion to the customer, or increasing prices to cover the new costs.
Here’s how to create a “what-if” budget:
Start by building a spreadsheet with your key variables: current product costs, tariff percentages, shipping volumes, and profit margins. For each scenario, calculate your new total costs including tariffs, then determine pricing impacts.
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In the “Absorb” column, keep customer prices, but reduce your margins accordingly.
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For the “Pass through” column, split the tariff burden between you and your customers at a specific rate (for example, 50/50).
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The “Full increase” column will maintain your original margins by raising prices.
Make sure to include volume solutions for each scenario, since customers may buy less at higher prices. Calculate total monthly profit under each approach, factoring in potential sales decreases, so that you can see break-even points and determine which strategy best balances profit with customer retention.
