Good morning to all new and old readers! Here is your Saturday edition of Faster Than Normal, exploring the stories, ideas, and frameworks of the world’s most prolific people and companies—and how you can apply them to build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself. 

Today, we’re covering Copart and its scrappy journey from junkyard hustle to $52B juggernaut.

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From Junkyard to Juggernaut: The Copart Story

Willis Johnson didn't set out to build a multi-billion dollar company. He just wanted to make a living.

In 1982, Johnson bought a single auto salvage yard in California for $75,000. He had no employees. No grand vision. Just a willingness to work hard and get his hands dirty.

"I lived in a trailer on the property with my wife and kid," Johnson recalls. "We were broke. But I knew how to hustle."

Johnson's father had owned a junkyard, so he grew up learning the business. He knew there was money to be made in salvaging and reselling car parts. But the industry was fragmented and inefficient.

That's where Johnson saw an opportunity.

He started buying up other small salvage yards, consolidating operations and implementing better systems. It wasn't glamorous work. Long hours. Slim margins. Constant hustle.

But slowly, steadily, the business grew.

The real breakthrough came in the early 1990s. Johnson had a realization: What if, instead of dismantling cars for parts, they sold the whole vehicle at auction?

It was a simple idea. But it changed everything.

"The insurance companies loved it," says Johnson. "They could get more money for totaled vehicles. And we could process a lot more volume."

Copart went public in 1994, raising capital to fuel further expansion. But the IPO didn't change Johnson's bootstrap mentality.

"We still ran the business like we were broke," he says. "No fancy offices. No corporate jets. Just focused on operations and keeping costs low."

That discipline paid off. By the early 2000s, Copart was the largest vehicle remarketing company in North America. But Johnson wasn't satisfied.

He saw another opportunity: online auctions.

In 2003, Copart launched VB2, its proprietary online auction platform. It was a massive undertaking, requiring significant investment in technology and infrastructure.

"Everyone thought we were crazy," Johnson remembers. "Why fix what wasn't broken? But I knew the future was digital."

The move to online auctions turbocharged Copart's growth. It opened up their marketplace to a global audience of buyers. Revenues and profits soared.

Today, Copart is a $52 billion company. It sells over 3 million vehicles annually in 11 countries. Not bad for a business that started in a single junkyard.

But the company hasn't forgotten its roots.

"We still run this business like we're the underdog," says CEO Jay Adair. "Always looking for ways to improve, to serve our customers better."

That mindset has helped Copart navigate challenges like the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. While other companies faltered, Copart adapted and grew stronger.

The secret to Copart's success? According to Johnson, it's simple:

"Work hard. Treat people right. And always be looking for the next opportunity."

From a single salvage yard to a global technology company. It's not the path anyone would have predicted for Copart. But that's what makes it such a quintessential American success story.

Scrappy. Unexpected. Transformative.

Lesson 1: Make your incentives match your customers'. Copart's big breakthrough came when they switched from charging flat fees to taking a percentage of the sale price. "I proposed a deal to the Fireman's Fund," Johnson explains. "Instead of charging fees, I would keep a percentage of the sale price for each car." This aligned Copart's interests perfectly with their insurance company clients. The more money Copart made for them, the more Copart made. It transformed the relationship from transactional to partnership. And it gave Copart a huge incentive to innovate and improve their processes.

Lesson 2: Build a brand around how you do business, not just what you sell. Johnson didn't just want to grow. He wanted to create a recognizable way of doing things. "I wanted to build a brand," he says. "I wanted anything with a Copart logo on it to run the same way - same computer system, same pricing, same way of treating our employees - so people started relating our name to a certain way of doing business." This consistency across locations created trust and reliability that was hard for competitors to match.

Lesson 3: Look for hidden value others miss. When buying other salvage yards, Johnson had a unique approach. "IAA bought companies the Wall Street way—based on pretax or after-tax earnings. I had my own method based on how many cars the auction sold and the value of the land." He understood that many family-owned businesses had hidden value that didn't show up on balance sheets. This allowed him to make acquisitions that were far more valuable than they appeared.

Lesson 4: Create barriers to entry through physical assets. Copart's network of over 200 salvage yards spanning more than 8,500 acres creates a massive moat. It's not just about the land itself. It's about the network effect of having yards strategically placed to serve customers efficiently. As Johnson puts it, "I wanted to be able to build a network of locations so I could take on national contracts. I didn't want just to be able to handle some of Allstate's cars; I wanted all of them."

Lesson 5: Never stop experimenting. Even after decades of success, Johnson maintained a willingness to try new things. "I'm not the kind of guy who says, 'Look, kid, I've been doing this for twenty years, and I'm not interested in changing.' I never have a problem if someone tells me something is broken. I have always wanted to do things better and improve on the model." This openness to change and improvement has kept Copart ahead of the curve for decades.

That’s all for today, folks. As always, please give me your feedback. Which section is your favourite? What do you want to see more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.

Have a wonderful rest of week, all.

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