This young entrepreneur really knows how to clean up

(This post originally appeared on The Washington Post)

Some kids like sports. Others like online games. Maybe 13-year-old Matthew Lock likes these things too. But one thing’s for sure: he really likes vacuum cleaners. So much that so that he’s built a thriving business around them.

Since he was about four years old, the young entrepreneur has been collecting them. He would find discarded ones or get them from eBay or Facebook for next to nothing.

“I like the way they work and seeing how they can be improved,” said in this Daily Mail story. “I like seeing how they’ve advanced over the years–different machines do different jobs.”

Entrepreneurism is all about passion and Lock certainly has it. He loves vacuum cleaners–and particularly the older models made by Henry and Dyson. He loves the old-style machines and the ones made out of metal. He’s accumulated hundreds of the cleaning machines and spends about 10 hours a week fixing them up.
Here comes the money part. Lock estimates that he has fixed around 500 machines so far and sold 300 of them–at hefty margins. He says he can get a broken machine for about £5 ($7) and, after fixing it up, sell it for close to £50 ($70). Is the markup on your product that good? No, I didn’t think so. This kid knows how to fix, repair and profit too.

It’s not all about the money, though. Lock says that some of his restored vacuums could go for as much at £500 ($700) on eBay. But he’s not ready to sell them yet. Instead, he’s hoarding about 100 of those models.

Like any good entrepreneur, he does have exit plan, and it comes as no surprise that it will be in the vacuum business. But hopefully at a much higher level. He hopes to, one day, walk in the footsteps of his idol, vacuum-inventor James Dyson and study engineering at the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology.