Bolt Bins - modernising skip bin service: an interview with founder Wade Keys

By Linda

With the tagline "Lightning fast and shockingly simple", new waste management company Bolt Bins offers flexible solutions to traditional skip bins. We chat to founder and Managing Director, Wade Keys.

Have you ever needed a skip bin then realised your Wellington section or lack of a driveway was going to make it problematic to have one delivered?

New Wellington business Bolt Bins understands this dilemma and are shaking up traditional skip bins with the introduction of their flexible, flatpacked and lightweight bins in different sizes. They are also providing a seven day a week delivery and pickup service.

We visited Bolt Bins and spoke to founder and Managing Director, Wade Keys to find out more.


WCL: Who are you and what is your business?

Wade: Bolt Bins is a skip bin and waste management company. From the start, our mission has been to modernize an industry where the majority of players haven’t innovated since the days of the Yellow Pages, where you called someone up, and that’s how business was done.

WCL: Why do you feel the old model needed changing?

Wade: When we were coming up with the concept for our company, we saw a big issue with customer satisfaction across the industry. We assumed that with the volume the bigger companies handle, they often forget to put the customer first. Customer service is something we focus on first and foremost. Hiring skip bins is essential to people at different life stages, but the big companies haven’t been providing the best experience, so we saw an opportunity to make people’s lives a lot easier and save them a lot of hassle.


WCL: What was your impetus for setting Bolt bins up?

Wade: Throughout school, I knew I never wanted to take the traditional route. I didn’t go to university, but I always knew I wanted to start a company. I moved from Wellington up to Auckland and started a small landscaping business to take my first swing at the ball. After a lot of hard work and lessons learned, I was lucky enough to get an offer for the entire company. Once I sold my first business, I was hooked. After moving back down from Auckland, I was floating around a little, deciding what to do.

In Auckland, there are a few companies offering similar services, and they’ve built a strong customer base while executing the concept really well. However, I noticed that this was not being done to the same extent in Wellington. That presented an opportunity to bring the model here, and we went for it.


WCL: Are there differences in the the way business is done in Wellington compared to Auckland?

Wade: The biggest difference is Wellington’s smaller population. There’s a lot less demand, and along with that, a smaller margin for error. You really have to make sure the model works well and get the basics right. There’s a limited market, so we have to get it right. You don’t want to develop a bad reputation in a smaller market.


The wonderful thing about Wellington is that if you do your marketing well, everyone knows who you are. You can target specific areas, and it’s easy to get the word out. Wellington is more community-focused and personal. There’s a lot more soul here.


WCL: Why the name Bolt Bins?

Wade: It ties directly into the customer experience. The main thing we wanted to fix was the slow speed of delivery and pickup. The order process for a traditional skip can be quite complicated and vague, which was one of our main issues to target. Our tagline is “Lightning fast and shockingly simple,” and that plays into the lightning bolt theme.

WCL: In what other ways do you differ from other, traditional skip bin companies?

Wade: We differentiate ourselves in two main ways: the bins themselves and how we operate as a company.

Without a doubt, our main differentiator is our customer service. We put this ahead of everything else. It’s easy to say but harder to do, but our reviews speak for themselves.

In 2025, people should expect email responses within minutes, not days. Our team is on the road seven days a week, and we’re committed to maintaining our same-day service. We make a conscious effort to always go above and beyond for our customers, whatever that may look like for them.

As for the bins, we offer smaller sizes for clear-outs—whether it’s a small household, a medium garage, or a full house decluttering. We’re also more flexible about where you can place the bin. You can put them up a driveway, behind a fence, or down a bank—places where, living in Wellington with its narrow streets, you wouldn’t normally be able to put a traditional skip bin. With ours, you can place them right next to your door, in your garage, and fill them up there. You can even drag the bins around your property if you’re doing a garden clear-out, for example.

However, on the sustainability front, our bins are made out of plastic. It’s something we’re very aware of, and we’re making great strides with our new bags. We’ve been lucky enough to find a great supplier we’re aligned with to make a difference with our new Bolt bins. We’re working with Bulk Bag Co in Auckland, and we’re developing some exciting new ways to improve our approach to sustainability. The new bags we have on order are 30% recycled content. In the next 12 months, we’ll be at aiming for 100% recycled content, which will be an industry first. In the next few years, we’re looking at a completely biodegradable option using materials like hessian. If we can pull that off, it will be a world first.

Photo courtesy of Bolt Bins

WCL: Do you sort the contents of the bins in any way once collected?

Wade: In Auckland, there’s a company called Green Gorilla. They’re kind of the north star in this industry, showing how things should be run to look after the planet. They have a large waste sorting facility with robots and people. The waste goes in one end and comes out in five or six different components—metals, wood, cardboard, etc. It’s very efficient, and a huge portion of the waste they collect gets recycled. Currently, there’s nothing like that in Wellington at a commercial level. Right now, we recycle what we can from people’s bags—whiteware, TVs, e-waste, etc., which go to the right facilities for recycling. We also separate as much as we can. We’re doing pretty well for a small startup, and as we grow, we’ll have the resources to set up our own similar facility.

WCL: How long from idea conception to business launch did it take?

Wade: It was an idea in the back of my mind for over 12 months. I hadn’t taken any action on those thoughts until October (2024), when I started concepting it. I took three weeks that month to put it on paper, create a quick website, and post a few things. Then, in November, we went all in. Straight into it.

WCL: What kind of research did you do?

Wade: We didn’t know much when we started up. We knew there was a skip bin market but weren’t sure if our spin on it was viable. For our niche, the flexible bins, we looked at why it wasn’t being done in Wellington. The answer we came back with was that Wellington is known for its narrow streets and driveways, and the trucks are often too big. So, we got a smaller truck. We’ve had fantastic support from Endura Equipped who has helped design our truck for the locations we serve.

A lot of our decisions were based on common sense and maybe a little too much optimism - but we did make sure the business model would work. We’ve got great support from our amazing long time accountant and we crunched the numbers to make sure there was a viable model in it before we started.

WCL: You’re in your early 20s, already on your third business. What drives your entrepreneurial spirit?

Wade: I’ve always wanted to do bigger things and make a change. Business is just a tool to make that happen. I want to hire people, give them good jobs, and make people’s lives easier. With a business, you have a say in how things are done.

The thing I learned with my first business is that success has nothing (much) to do with the concept you bring to the table. It’s all about the execution of the idea. If you have a great idea but don’t follow through, you’re going to get nowhere. We’ve got a solid idea that works well in a lot of other cities but now it's all up to the execution to make it happen.

WCL: You’ve talked a lot about service. Why is good customer service important to a business?

Wade: It’s not just important. It’s everything. It’s 100% of what we do. The difference between a business that folds in two years and one that lasts 50 is the service and how people feel about it. Especially in Wellington—if we don’t deliver ten times more than expected, people won’t share the word. And if they don’t spread the word, you’ll constantly need to find new customers, and there’s only so much room for that. Service is everything in this business. We want people to have an amazing experience so they’ll continue to use us and recommend us.


WCL: Have you ever used a Business Mentor?

Wade: I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have many people in my life who’ve owned businesses, Both my parents have been in the construction industry; my dad owns a building company, and my mum works for herself. My uncle Asa is in the software space and some longtime family friends, Todd and Jackie, have decades of business experience. Having these close relationships with people who’ve built their own businesses has always been an inspiration. The conversations I’ve had with them —about what worked, what didn’t, and where they faced challenges — have provided me with a lot of insight. While there’s often a glamorized view of business ownership, seeing my dad’s reality as a business owner really helped me understand that it’s not always as straightforward or painless as it may seem from the outside.


WCL: What’s been your steepest learning curve?

Wade: In this business, specifically, being more industrial and requiring a lot of capital investment, the steepest learning curve has been figuring out how that all works.

Learning to create great relationships with suppliers has been the most rewarding, we’re all in this together and people are amazingly supportive if you reach out.

Another big learning curve has been not focusing so much on the short term. The founder of Mainfreight, mentioned a key reason for success is that they take a 100-year outlook on the business. This concept is a big deal in Japan, where they are known to build solid, multi-generational businesses. If you have that view of your business from the start, it takes some of the pressure off. There’s never a point in taking shortcuts.

WCL: How do you see the business developing?

Wade: Our focus for the next 12 months is to keep helping people and solidify our position here in Wellington. We want to really test the concept and develop the bags further. We also want to ensure we’re on a strong footing in terms of our environmental efforts and how we process waste. Once we’ve solidified that, we could look to expand into other markets. In the short to medium term, we just want to keep building our reputation and helping Wellingtonians.


WCL: What advice do you have for other young entrepreneurs?

Wade: My advice is: Don’t take advice at face value. If you're seeking guidance, make sure the person giving it has the experience to back it up and that their intentions are genuine. There’s a lot of advice out there, but not all of it is grounded in real experience.

Further reading of interest: