Most entrepreneurs look for flashy industries with big margins… but what if the real opportunity is hiding in the last place you’d ever think to look?
In this episode of The Agent of Wealth, co-host John Williams is joined by David Sauers, co-founder of Royal Restrooms — the company that transformed the portable restroom experience from dreaded necessity to unexpected luxury.
David shares the origin story behind Royal Restrooms, how he scaled a simple idea into a national franchise, and what entrepreneurs can learn from building a business in the most unlikely of places.
In this episode, you will learn:
- How one frustrating experience at a public event inspired the creation of a luxury portable restroom business.
- What differentiates Royal Restrooms from traditional porta-potties — and why upgraded facilities can significantly boost event revenue.
- How David scaled from two trailers to more than 50 franchise locations across the country.
- The biggest challenges in shifting public perception and creating a new category within an established industry.
- What it really takes to become a successful Royal Restrooms franchisee — and why community involvement is key.
- And more!
Tune in for an inspiring conversation about innovation, entrepreneurship, and finding opportunity where no one else is looking.
Resources:
royalrestrooms.com | davidsauers.com | Bautis Financial: 8 Hillside Ave, Suite LL1 Montclair, New Jersey 07042 (862) 205-5000 | Schedule an Introductory Call
Disclosure: The transcript below has been edited for clarity and content. It is not a direct transcription of the full episode, which can be listened to above.
Welcome back to The Agent of Wealth Podcast, this is your co-host John Williams. Today, I’m joined by a visionary entrepreneur who found luxury in one of the most unexpected places — portable restrooms. My guest, David Sauers, is the co-founder of Royal Restrooms, a company that transformed what was once an overlooked industry into a model of comfort, style, and innovation.
David, welcome to the show.
Thank you, John. I appreciate you having me on this morning.
We’ve been talking about this podcast in the office because it’s such an interesting and fun topic — and really relevant. Everywhere you go, every event you’re at outside, there’s always this opportunity. And as a person named John, sometimes I take a little bit of… I’m quite offended by some of the names these porta-John companies come up with. Johnny on the Spot is one of them. Anyway, before we get started, I’d like to begin at the beginning — to learn a little bit about you and what inspired you to take this direction and challenge of reinventing portable restrooms.
So, John, first off — to that point — yes, there are a lot of companies out there that definitely tackle your name. But portable restrooms, or the portable toilet, it’s a basic human function that we all have to go through. So why not do it in a way that’s meant to provide a little bit of comfort and dignity?
My business started a little over 22 years ago. I took my daughters to a porta-potty at a Shakespeare in the Park event here in Savannah, Georgia. And as a guy, I never really thought about it that much — it just is what it is. But taking a child into a portable toilet for the first time, while also potty training and teaching them how to use the bathroom… that was a real eye-opener.
We walked in. I had CC on my hip, and Stella — she was just dumbfounded. She’s looking into a hole in a bucket. I turn around and she’s got her hands on the seat, looking down. I go into panic mode — “Whoa, what are you doing? Wait a second. How did I not think about this consequence here?” We couldn’t move around, it was dark in there, it was troublesome. I had to hand CC off to a stranger outside just so I could maneuver in the toilet. I’m still worried about keeping everyone clean or sanitized. There’s nothing to wash her hands with. So I’m lifting her above the toilet, and the next thing I know I feel this warm stream down my leg. We completely missed the toilet, and I am covered in pee.
So I go from “oh no” to a very upset father.
It was frustrating. I walk outside — there’s nothing I can do. I’m wet, we’re all dirty, we don’t feel right. Suddenly everything is kind of ruined. And as I look around, I see the tents, the lights — everything is put together — and then I turn back and look at these nasty porta-potties they’ve relegated to us as the standard.
I went home, went to my half bath, measured it out, and said, “Why can’t we just put this on a trailer? We make RVs, we have boats — this shouldn’t be rocket science.” So my business partner, Robert Olsen, and I invented the first private half-bath restroom trailers for small events and gatherings, and we set out to change the industry and elevate the portable restroom experience.
How long ago did you get started on this?
That was in 2003, and we started our business in 2004.
Okay. Yeah, that experience right there — I didn’t know whether we were going to be laughing about it or horrified. I mean, that experience will change your mind about a lot of things.
I can look back on it now, and there are a number of ways I could tell that story depending on the show. I can go back to saying that — not that I ever envisioned a golden shower — but that is certainly not the way I pictured the first one.
Yeah. As a father — whether it’s that or something else — you have those experiences. You just flash back to certain moments where everything goes wrong, and once one thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong. And you’re just like, “Oh my gosh… when it rains, it pours.”
Exactly. Well, I think we all have that. And we’ve all had a similar experience with a portable toilet. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to anyone who said, “Oh yeah, I love a portable toilet.” There’s always that cringe — that secret anxiety of, “Oh no… what are the bathrooms like?”
I have a past in running, and whenever you’d show up to one of those races, before the race everyone is racing to get their business done. Everyone’s nervous. There’s a lot of interesting product going on there. And you just hope and pray when you open that door that it’s one of the newer ones, just for a little bit of sanctity.
Yeah, we’ve done quite a few of those races. And early mornings — there’s definitely some power coming out of there right before y’all run.
I actually have a personal experience with that. I worked for a company called Brooks right out of college. They had this idea: at these big expos, to encourage purchases, they’d say, “Hey, if you buy a certain amount of product, you get access to these luxury porta-potties,” which were separate from the standard ones. Everyone wore those t-shirts with the tuxedos, they actually had a velvet rope, and they were really nice. I wondered when I saw this whether it was you guys — but I guess with that said, is this a space where you have much competition? Are many people doing this in the way you are? And what differentiates you from that space?
Well, let me give you the backstory a little bit. Portable restroom trailers are not necessarily new — large 53-foot trailers were made by Kohler and Black Tie for golf tournaments and large sporting events. The problem was they were all large. They were more like walking into a big trailer lined with restrooms. They were highly expensive, and typical communities and events couldn’t afford them. They were also sparsely located throughout the country.
The trailer we came up with was a small, private half-bath trailer — similar to what you’d see at home, just on a trailer and at a small scale. And we made it affordable. We were the first to bring that out and change the market.
Now it’s almost a standard. You see them everywhere — in almost every market. There are a lot of mom-and-pop companies doing it, but from a national standpoint, we’re probably the largest for events and weddings. Larger contractors like United Site Services and United Rentals focus on more commercialized units, whereas we specialize in the private, higher-end market — even though we still do a lot of local business remodels. Their model is based more on a typical porta-potty setup, whereas ours is a professional event service.
Gotcha. And I imagine the cost is a big issue, because when people are planning events they look at line items, and if it’s cost-prohibitive it’s tough to fit in.
They do, and we’ve managed those hurdles well over the years. Of course, we’ll never be able to compare to a regular porta-potty — that just is what it is. But when you’re putting on an event, you want people to stay. You’re putting all your effort into bringing people there and giving them a good time.
When you provide an elevated product — something they’re used to, like a portable restroom trailer — at a six-hour event the average person stays 37 minutes longer. Imagine what that does from a revenue standpoint for eating and drinking.
How many times have you left an event because of the bathroom situation? Or your spouse left because of it? And not only that — you change your habits. You might think, “Okay, the porta-potty lines are disgusting, so I’m not going to drink as much. I’m not going to try all the food. I don’t want to go to the bathroom.”
Event organizers didn’t understand this before, but now they do. We’re seeing explosive growth in festival and event attendance when nicer restrooms are available, and we’ve seen it time and time again.
That’s amazing. And as you’re saying that, I recalled probably at least a half dozen instances where it was an issue — especially for females. Not to get too much into the details, but typically women are sitting down, and the experience is even less comfortable for them.
Well, think back to family events — ones inclusive of people with disabilities, the elderly, children. You’ve got baby-changing stations. You’ve got somewhere to wash your hands. You’ve got a more sanitary environment that spreads fewer germs. It creates an overall sense of security — that the organizers put thought into protecting you and making you comfortable.
If there are food trucks and crowds, you have somewhere to wash your hands, go to the bathroom, change your baby. You can push in a stroller, or bring your grandmother who’s in a wheelchair. It enhances the enjoyment of the day. People talk about it, people post about it, and they may not even realize that this is why — but it is.
Yeah. You mentioned sanitation a few times. What is the hand-washing situation in yours? Is there running water?
Our restrooms are fully functioning restrooms — the kind you’re used to. When you walk in, there’s a flushing toilet. You have space to move around. You have a vanity, mirrors, a sink, paper towels, nice toilet paper. It’s climate-controlled. You can move around comfortably, even with a couple of children. You don’t have to hold everything or worry about touching everything. It’s a nice, clean, friendly environment.
I think that really paints the picture. Even in the generic porta-potties, sometimes they try a foot pump with a little bit of water, but it still doesn’t feel clean. Let’s go back to the business in the beginning. I’m interested to hear: you had this idea and started down that path, but it’s quite different from what people are used to. What did that look like, and what were the challenges to reshaping how people think about this, getting in front of people, and growing the business?
Besides the fact that it seemed like everybody and their mother was against us — that this was a horrible idea and we’d lost our minds — we focused our primary target on weddings and very high-end events. We knew they’d be willing to spend money to try the product, because there would be dresses, people in suits.
So we targeted weddings, outdoor wedding venues — and it took off from there. Once people used our product, they walked out saying, “Why didn’t I think of this? This is brilliant. I’m never using another one again.” And through word of mouth it spread: “Hey, there’s a nicer option. Check this out.”
Robert and I were very involved in our community, and that’s still core to our business. All our franchises must do at least $25,000 of in-kind donations to nonprofits serving their local communities. We got out, worked with nonprofits, built those meaningful relationships, and by joining those alliances, we were able to introduce our product to a broader area.
Got you. So it makes sense to start with weddings — everyone’s dressed up, they’re outside. And it’s great to hear word of mouth played a role. Marketing can be expensive, but I can totally understand how people would experience this and immediately tell someone. And in this age of social media, I can absolutely see people posting pictures and saying, “Look at this — this is amazing.” So it’s good to have that wind at your sails.
Yeah. Back then, I wasn’t a big social media fan. I think it was MySpace or early Facebook. But people still didn’t understand what we had done. There was no marketing, people didn’t know how to search for us, or even know we existed. It was about creating a whole new image and a whole new industry within an industry. Changing the mindset — and the only way we could do that was one person at a time, it seemed like.
What did it look like from there? Did you start out with five trailers? What did the early days look like?
We started with two. We built two because it was easier to build two than one. From that point, we made changes based on what customers wanted. You never know exactly what will work.
The first trailers we built — we forgot to put trash cans in. So it’s one of those things you learn over time. But if you believe in something, you have to go out and do it. You can’t just make a business plan and follow it 100%. You have to make changes and choices.
Our demand and exposure changed from our original concepts. I think we had maybe 12 to 15 trailers when Hurricane Katrina hit. We sent all of our trailers down there, which really gave us a boost and a leg up. That’s when people started to take note of our product and what we’d done.
That’s great. And those are the things you don’t think about in disasters, but having something like that in the midst of it was probably huge for a lot of folks.
Oh yeah.
Really quick, I want to tell the listeners the reason why — and they’re probably curious as to why I’m asking these types of questions. I don’t know if everyone knows the scope of the business, but from what I know, Royal Restrooms is a franchisee with more than 50 locations across the country. I just want to give people a sense of where the business is today, because that’s fueling my interest: taking this idea and seeing how it scaled to that level.
So, what were some of the things that happened along the way? I mean, I’m sure at some point you grew and then you said, “Hey…” — I almost feel like we’re on Shark Tank right now — “What would that look like? What are some of these ideas? How do we grow? How do we infuse money into this business?” Was there a time when the light went off and you were like, “Wow, we’re really onto something here. We need to figure out a way to throw some gas on the fire and shift into franchising”?
So we started off by licensing, and we got in trouble in Maryland from the Attorney General, who basically forced us to become a franchise. At that point, we went through the franchise process — I think that was back in 2007 or 2008. We had sold maybe seven or eight licenses before that. It was an exciting time. We didn’t know what we were doing; we were just kind of going with the flow. It had taken on a life of its own, and we were playing catch up and riding its coattails. We made a lot of mistakes — we continue to make a lot of mistakes. We’ve never fully seen the potential of what Royal Restrooms can do.
We’ve never put marketing dollars into expansion. We’ve never hired a franchise company to market us. All of it has been through basic word of mouth from the experiences people have had. I believe we’ve failed on that front because we have a lot of copycats out there now who have based their business off of us. However, most of them operate more as a side hustle than as a true business. I would love to infuse a bunch of capital into this business and put the right people in charge to see where this business could eventually go. I think I’ve taken it to a level that is very admirable, but certainly not to where the business could be if it were in the hands of someone more experienced.
One of my lessons is that we thought the franchise and the business were kind of one and the same. The franchisor is a completely separate business, but for so long we tried to run it like our local office. We continued operating it as a small business rather than the corporate structure it probably should have taken. We’ve still done well, but we could have done a lot better.
Finding a business owner that doesn’t look back on their venture and think about what they would’ve done differently is rare. It’s always one of those things where you’re going to look back and think, “Oh, I could have done this differently.” But it’s great you’ve gotten to this point, and it sounds like there’s still opportunity too — which is exciting.
A tremendous amount of opportunity.
When you say money, are you more looking for franchisors to come in as far as that, or is it that and/or growing the core business? What does that look like for you now?
Yes, we would love to have more franchisees come on board, but we have not ruled out the thought of taking on a partner to help manage a lot of our stuff. We just recently launched our Go High Level CRM — a new system we started back in June — which will help bring us all collectively back on brand to make sure we are aligned in the same focus. We need that structure to continue developing and building better systems. We’ve gotten to a point where it’s necessary to implement different things from a training perspective, from a scalability perspective, and to continue making sure we are out in front of all our competition.
It’s hard for me to be innovative, be creative, and also manage the local franchises — from creating teams that work in social media, to teams that create marketing material, to training, to even selling the businesses. These are all very expansive jobs that need dedicated roles.
Let’s say I’m a business owner or potential franchisee, and I come to you. I don’t know how much you want to talk about exact numbers, but I can see a lot of entrepreneurial-minded people being interested in this. Is there a certain amount of capital required? Is there a certain type of person you’re looking for when it comes to potential franchisees?
Well, there are two things that make us different. We want somebody who is going to be an owner-operator. We want somebody who is going to basically wear Royal Restrooms on their sleeve. We want somebody who wants to leave a legacy but also have an impact within the community — not someone who’s just looking to buy a business to make money.
From a capital standpoint, we are a slow-growth business. It’s not like we have a brick-and-mortar storefront where, from day one, you start selling. It’s a slow build. So we may start you out with a couple of trailers — two or three trailers — and you’re looking at about $150,000 invested. But by year three, you may have six or seven hundred thousand invested into it because as you grow and build, you buy trailers. Your bookings are usually four to six months out.
So you may start with a couple trailers, but you may not really be getting business for three to four months because that’s usually what the timetable is. It’s not like someone’s going to call you up and say, “Oh hey, I need a trailer.” Yes, that does happen, but for the most part, it’s a planned thing. It’s a venue that has a date that could be six to eight months away. So as you build up that book of business, your trailers increase — and with that, your expense of purchasing assets increases. We’ve got a couple of offices that have well over a million dollars on the books for buying, and they’re maybe in year five or six. Trailers are like buying a brand-new car every time you need something — but it is planned. It’s slow growth, but your revenue does match what you’re spending.
So yeah, I mean, I would imagine if someone is putting more into the business that things are profitable before they do that. And obviously, to me, it’s a good thing that expansion would occur. I’m assuming certain areas are more fruitful than others. Do you find that bigger cities are more the focus? Have you found that there’s opportunity in certain geographic locations?
Because we’re mobile, it almost doesn’t matter where you’re physically located. However, with the new algorithms on Google, it does make things difficult from an advertising and cost standpoint. In other words, let’s just say — and I’m going to pick on Nashville — if we’ve got an office in Nashville that is 40 minutes outside of the city versus a company right in Nashville, and you’re trying to get the same business, you have an additional expense of delivery that could price you out overall. You’ve got to be able to make up for that difference.
We have not seen population as the driving force so much as the individual franchisee and how aggressive they are locally — not from a pricing standpoint, but from a marketing standpoint. Some of my offices rely 100% on digital marketing, which is not very effective. You do get some outliers, but it’s more about being involved in the city — explaining what’s going on, explaining how you make a difference — that really drives the impact.
That makes sense, obviously, because I imagine hitting the pavement, hitting the phones, getting out there, meeting people, getting into the community — like you said — is a big part of it.
It’s that personal relationship: explaining it, understanding it, “Hey, give me an opportunity. Give me a chance to prove myself.” And you’re not going to get that just from someone putting an ad on Google. You need to make sure you’re in front of people and speaking with people. Even a website or a social post — those things don’t have the same impact as getting involved in the community.
I mean, we’ve got people at Christmas tree farms who are ordering portable restrooms. Why? It certainly serves them better than a porta potty. But why? Because we’ve been out there, we’ve talked to them, we’ve become friends with them. We’ve promoted them. They understand the importance of it.
Is there anything else you want to add, or anything else you want to leave with the audience — even if it’s just general philosophy for young entrepreneurs, based on your experience over the last… I guess it’s been 20 years now, right? Twenty-one years.
Yeah, absolutely. We’re excited about the future, and we would love the opportunity to expand into additional territories or help out with one of your events. But from an entrepreneurial advice standpoint, I hear so many people say all the time, “Oh, I need to get this ready. I need to do this. I need to tweak this. I need to do that.” It’s kind of like when you have a baby — you just have to do it, and you will adjust. You will find a way. Things will start to align the way they’re meant to align. But you just have to put it out there and start.
Yeah, I think that’s great advice. I love that. Well, David, that’s all the questions I have for you today. This was really great, and I think there are a lot of people out there who will be interested in hearing it and learning more about you. With that said, is there a place where people can go to learn more about you or your business? Anything you want to share as far as contact?
Yes. So, Royal Restrooms is on the web at royalrestrooms.com. You can find us on all the social media apps under Royal Restrooms. I can be found on LinkedIn — David Sauers — or my own website, davidsauers.com, which is something very new, but I’m trying to get a little more exposure out there so we can spread the word about what we’re doing.
Great. We’ll link to that in the resources section of the show notes. Thanks again, David. And thank you to everyone who tuned into today’s episode. Don’t forget to follow The Agent of Wealth on the platform you listen from and leave us a review of the show. We are currently accepting new clients, if you’d like to schedule a 1-on-1 consultation with our advisors, please do so below.
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