Michael Marmo, founder and chief executive of CurbWaste, joins The Tech Trek to share how he went from catching fastballs in Europe to building software that runs the daily work of waste haulers. We walk through the very human side of leaving a sports identity, starting at the bottom in a family waste business, and finally asking a simple question about founding a company. Why not me
If you are sitting inside an industry and quietly seeing the gaps that no product seems to solve, this conversation is a playbook in how to turn that insider view into a real business, even if you do not come from a traditional tech background.
Key takeaways
• Identity can change, but the work habits that made you good at sports or any craft can transfer directly into building a company, especially persistence, dealing with failure, and showing up every day
• You do not have to love a specific activity forever, you can follow the deeper thread underneath it, like merit, teamwork, and visible impact, and find those same traits in a very different industry
• Deep time inside an industry lets you see painful, repeatable problems, and that is often a better seed for a product business than starting with a clever idea and pivoting until something sticks
• A clear why for the product and a clear why you are the person to build it are not nice to have, they are what convince customers, hires, and investors to follow you when things get hard
• Great founders do not pretend to be good at everything, they are honest about what they do not know, learn just enough to make good calls in product, engineering, and go to market, and then surround themselves with people who fill the gaps
Timestamped highlights
00:32 Michael explains what CurbWaste does and how it runs a hauler business from first customer contact through billing
01:21 From college baseball and pro teams in Europe to the first job in media and tech sales, and the identity shock that came with that change
06:27 What it really felt like when the game ended, why mens leagues did not scratch the itch, and how that led to a quiet reset in the working world
09:11 Starting at the bottom in a family recycling center, discovering a love for the waste industry, and why it felt like a merit based team environment
15:24 Walking the floor at Waste Expo, not finding the software he needed, deciding to fund and build his own tools, and seeing other haulers facing the same problems
19:40 The moment hearing the Yelp founder speak turned into a personal question, why not me, and how that idea of trying anyway shapes the way he thinks about founding today
A line that stayed with me
“At the end of the day he tried. He had an idea and he acted on it and pursued it. That really resonated. I was like, why not me”
Practical notes for future founders
• Before you write any code or quit your job, write down why this problem matters, why it matters now, and why you are willing to keep going when it stops being fun
• If your first answer to why is only about money, keep digging until you find something that still feels true on a hard day, because you will have a lot of those
• Use your current role as a live lab, list the moments that feel broken, expensive, or slow, and ask which of those could actually support a business if you solved them well
• Be direct with yourself about weak spots, whether that is product, tech, or selling, then build a basic understanding and lean on people who are strong where you are not
Call to action
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