Ben Weissenstein was born an entrepreneur. At the ripe old age of four, he was featured on the cover of the Houston Chronicle manning a lemonade stand. Truth be told, Ben was drinking the lemonade while his big brother Josh did all the work, but he was so cute that the features photographer, who had been cruising the neighborhood for a cover photo, couldn’t resist!
From there it was on to bigger and better things. By nine, Ben had his own business cards.
Ben would pull weeds out of his godmother’s garden or clean his grandparents’ pool. He also had a business called Ben’s Pet Co. where he would look over people’s pets. He used his steady little income to buy many baseball cards for his growing collection. But, like every budding entrepreneur, Ben was always on the lookout for that “BIG IDEA.” When he was 14, that idea fell into his lap, and Ben was smart enough to recognize it.
His mother was selling their home and needed help with a garage sale. Since Ben and his sister were away at camp, she enlised the help of some friends of the family. As she watched Ben’s buddy Matt “work” the sale, she had a light-bulb moment. When Ben returned from camp, she told him that he should start a company to run garage sales. She said that Ben and his friends were perfectly suited for the job: they liked talking to people, they liked making money, they could carry heavy stuff, thaey had a lot of excess energy and they were personable. Many people could have heard this great idea and done nothing. Ben has the complete opposite personality. He’s a go getter! Ben created Garage Sale Relief now known as Grand Slam Garage Sales and worked really hard getting local publicity which then brought in a lot of jobs. “We didn’t really know much at the beginning” admits Weissenstein. “There was a whole lot of on-the-job training!”
Two years later, after several name changes and staffing shifts, Grand Slam Garage Sales came into existence. Ben, then a high school senior, was a regular face in local news spots in print, and on television and radio. The summer after his senior year in high school, Ben was featured in an article in Entrepreneur Magazine and not long after on Dr. Phil!
As the business grew, so did Ben’s dreams! Now, a sophomore at the University of Arizona, Ben has been working on franchise development with a franchise expert and now COO of Grand Slam Garage Sales. Tons of hours have been put in, but Grand Slam Garage Sales expects to be expanding nationwide within the next few months.
Ben now focuses most of his time and energy on Grand Slam Garage Sales but he also has a few other businesses that he puts a good amount of time and energy into as well. Those are The Entitled Group (www.entitledgroup.com), his entertainment company, Bold Entrepreneur (www.boldentrepreneur.com), his consulting and PR company, and Home Run Helpers (www.homerunhelpers.org), the official charitable foundation of Grand Slam Garage Sales.
Updated 8/12/09