'Foolish' Idea: Selling goods salvaged from rubbish tips.
Start-up Capital: £800 for salvage rights.
How Idea was Launched: Together, Geoff and Jackie, sorted through heaps of garbage, recycling wood and metal, sinks, old clothes, ornaments and furniture. It was 4 years before they made any real money. Geoff eventually invested in 12 more tips and machinery, and started up a company, Weymouth and Sherborne Re-cycling. They now have 75 staff.
Sales: To scrap dealers and also holds jumble sales.
Earnings: £3million personal fortune.
Spin-offs: Geoff also has a half share in a pub, rents out properties and owns charter firms in Barbados.
During the recession of the 1980s, builder Geoff Thompson lost everything when the building trade collapsed. Geoff, his girlfriend Jackie, and their daughters were left with no option but to live in a bed and breakfast. While searching for a way forward, Geoff came across an advertisement offering salvage rights at the council tip in Weymouth, Dorset. Determined to seize the opportunity, he borrowed £800 from his friend Frank Bartholomew to cover the first month's rent and started his venture.
Together, Geoff and Jackie sorted through the piles of junk and waited for people to bring in old pieces of furniture and other unwanted household goods. It was hard and dirty work, which Geoff hated at first. He had to knock the back seats out of his Cortina to take pieces of furniture to a 2nd hand shop.
The real breakthrough came with the beginning of the recycling trend. Geoff invested in 12 more tips and machinery, and started Weymouth and Sherborne Re-cycling. The company has 75 staff amongst them is Frank Bartholomew, Geoff's benefactor.
Geoff and Jackie have a fine seafront home, take five foreign holidays a year, own a speedboat and Range Rover. The three young girls are all at private school. In ten years, Geoff Thompson and Jackie have built up a personal fortune of £3 million, most of it from salvaging unwanted junk.