How I built ‘a low-tech, AI-proof business’
Success doesn’t always smell nice.
For Daniel Tom, the 31-year-old owner and operator of Bay Area Sanitation, success means deploying nearly 2,000 portable restrooms at events and workspaces in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tom’s company is responsible for renting and maintaining these restrooms, including weekly cleaning, restocking supplies, and emptying up to 60 gallons of waste from each unit with one of Bay Area Sanitation’s 12 vacuum pump trucks.
“When I tell people I own a portable restroom business, I get a lot of looks of disgust,” says Tom. “But once you explain the business model and revenue to them, most of the time they are interested.”
Tom started Bay Area Sanitation in 2023 with one truck and only 100 toilets for rent. The company became profitable after its first year of operation and its revenue increased, as did its fleet of rentable restrooms. Bay Area Sanitation generated a total of $3.1 million in revenue in 2024 and $4.3 million in 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
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Tom’s business operates just about anywhere a person might look for a portable restroom, from short-term outdoor events like concerts to long-term rentals on construction sites or public parks. Bay Area Sanitation’s standard-size portable toilets $160 per month For long term rentals including weekly cleaning. Short term pricing Ranging from $239 to $399 per event.
Tom says the bulk of the company’s revenue comes from long-term rentals, with weekly cleaning fees accruing over weeks, months or several years. “I like to focus on long-term leases because that equates to guaranteed recurring income for my business,” he says, adding that his business has a net profit margin of around 22%.
The irony of having built a successful business collecting human waste “right near the world’s biggest tech companies like Google, Apple and Nvidia” is not lost on Tom. at a time many workers are worried Tom thinks there will be a benefit to building his business around solving an inevitable human problem as it is replaced by artificial intelligence.
“We’ve been able to build what I think is a low-tech, AI-proof business,” he says.
‘I am proud of the work I do’
Tom’s start in the industry came during his junior year of college at San Jose State University, where he worked as a physical education teacher. She took a part-time customer service job at a portable toilet rental company.
“I liked it so much that I decided to quit teaching and work full time after graduating,” says Tom, who worked as a sales manager at Hanson & Fitch for seven years before deciding to start his own business. LinkedIn profile.
Tom saw the solid profit potential of the business and gained an appreciation for doing a necessary job that might make others shy away, saying, “The truth is, I take pride in what I do. I love coming to work every day and providing a service that everyone needs. Everybody goes, right?”
Daniel Tom owns and operates Bay Area Sanitation.
Source: CNBC Make
Tom says starting a porta potty rental business usually requires enough up-front cash to purchase equipment, which can cost around $800 per rentable toilet and $160,000 per vacuum cleaner. He declined to share details about his own startup funding but said the average person might need about $250,000 to get started.
Labor costs for Tom’s 19 employees are his largest expense, equaling roughly 30% of Bay Area Sanitation’s revenue, he says. Other costs include fuel for vacuum trucks and delivery trucks and supplies like toilet paper and paper towels, he says. Tom receives roughly $120,000 in personal annual salary; He says that figure could easily have been higher if he hadn’t reinvested most of the profits back into the business.
“We are really prioritizing reinvesting in the business to continue to grow,” says Tom. He says his goal is to have 5,000 portable toilets and $10 million in annual revenue in the next five years. In December, he adds, Bay Area Sanitation signed a lease for warehouse space with “almost twice as much truck space as we have now.”
The portable restroom rental industry generated an estimated $3.3 billion in revenue in the United States in 2025; This means a 1.7% increase compared to 2024. September 2025 analysis From research firm IBISWorld. Tom says he plans plenty of market share with numerous local outdoor events and a host of events in the Bay Area. growing construction industry.
It starts with waking up at 4am
Tom’s job probably isn’t for everyone, but he says he’s gotten used to some of the less savory aspects. “I’ve cleaned so many porta potties that the smell doesn’t really bother me,” he says. “But once in a while I’ll meet [a unit] after someone eats a bad burrito or something like that. And even for me, that’s hard to stomach.”
A typical day starts with waking up at 4 am. He heads to his company’s warehouse to meet with his employees before heading out to deliver clean restrooms to customers and clean long-term rentals. On less busy days, Tom stays in the office doing administrative work, making sales calls, or working on the business’s long-term growth strategy.
A Bay Area Sanitation worker scrubs the inside of a portable toilet.
Source: CNBC Make
Tom suggests that one of the keys to his success is taking the hygiene aspect of the business as seriously as possible. Each unit’s weekly cleaning regimen includes completely emptying waste with the vacuum truck’s suction wand, adding deodorizer that breaks down future waste and reducing bad odors, scrubbing and disinfecting every surface within the unit, and restocking paper goods.
Tom says prioritizing customer experience means trying to prevent users from encountering bad situations as much as possible. And that means working with your hands, even if you’re the owner, he adds: “What differentiates an owner in a porta potty business is how involved they are in the day-to-day operations.”
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