Junk to Gold: From Salvage to the World’S Largest Online Auto Auction

Admit Your Mistakes

I learned that from the military. You don’t leave anyone behind.

Despite these improvements, Jay was still concerned that the senior management of Copart was still too far removed from the people working in the yards, as was demonstrated when the woman who answered the phone didn’t know who he was. As he was talking to a business associate one day, he thought out loud about how great it would be if he could meet

It was time to make a major business decision. That decision wasn’t whether we were going to roll out VB2 to all the yards—that decision was obvious, even to the auctioneers who would lose their jobs. So we had to figure out what our job was. We literally sat in a room and wrote the words, “What is our job?” on a board. We decided our job was to he

Embrace Adventure and Learn from Second Chances

We all met at a restaurant—which had become my favorite place for these things because deals just go better on a full stomach.

It was all about making the company stronger, without any debt, and having more cash in the bank. We wanted to take care of our employees, the insurance companies, and our buyers.

Even with the larger building to display parts, I knew that to really compete with other auto dismantlers in the Sacramento region, I would need to do something different. I just couldn’t realistically keep every make and model part stocked like the larger dismantlers with more money and space. But I knew of some dismantlers like Al Parker in Citru

But I knew what I could do with that company, how far I could take it. Expanding my business ventures with an auto auction would help me diversify but also made good sense as the businesses were compatible. Bob and his sons had mainly set the business on cruise control over the last several years, and I felt that with some focus, the potential for