The Real Life Storage Wars

A warehouse worker at storage startup RedBin spent 75 minutes on a recent morning piloting a van from company headquarters on the Brooklyn waterfront to an apartment building in Harlem, where he dropped off two empty plastic boxes. Then he drove back to Brooklyn. Four days later, RedBin dispatched another van to retrieve the containers, now full, which the company will store for $5 per box per month.

It may not seem like a speedy path to riches, but founder Tom Anderson believes his business is destined to prosper for a simple reason: U.S. consumers are a lot better at acquiring than they are at letting go. A serial entrepreneur whose last company managed logistics for U.S. military contractors shipping cargo to Afghanistan, Anderson launched RedBin in September. He also owns a self-storage center in Oakdale, Long Island, which has allowed him to study the behavior of the American pack rat up close.