He Keeps the Home Fires Burning

A passing complaint two years ago by his sister-in-law about how three Leesburg stores were sold out of propane tanks changed Jason Sabloff's life.

Was there, she asked, no one to deliver this summertime mainstay? Was this, he hoped, an entrepreneurial niche just waiting to be filled?

Sabloff, 36, had been looking for a way to launch his own business, and here it was. A little research found just one company offering such a service, in Los Angeles. Last summer he quit his mutual fund job in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and moved to Ashburn to launch Propane Taxi, delivering tanks to fuel the gas grills, fire pits, mosquito zappers and outdoor fireplaces and heaters scattered thickly across suburban Virginia and Maryland and in the District.

It was, he says now, a no-brainer. In just his second summer in business he has a "few thousand" customers, employs up to 10 drivers and found that propane delivery is a year-round business; one nationwide industry survey found that nearly 60 percent of gas grill owners cook out all year long.

"We deliver straight to you because you've got better things to do," chirps a jingle on his Web site at http://www.propanetaxi.com/.

This is welcome news to Aaron O'Neil, 32, of Georgetown. "I live in the city, and getting propane is a pain in the . . . . I've had an empty tank for 2 1/2 months. I was prepared not to grill at all this summer," he said. "This fits in with my lifestyle. I have groceries, dry cleaning and anything else that can be delivered" brought to the door.

"It was just one of those errands on my to-do list that I loathed: taking a nasty, dirty propane tank to the hardware store," said Keri Barta, 31, the at-home mother of a newborn and a toddler, who heard about Propane Taxi from an Arlington neighbor. "I would much rather spend my time blowing bubbles with my 2-year-old. Let Jason do the hooking up and lugging around."

Actually, Sabloff's drivers now make most of the deliveries in brightly painted trucks equipped with laptops and navigation systems. He spends his time at the firm's distribution centers in Ashburn and Sterling, where other employees refurbish old tanks, remove competitors' labels and attach his distinctive blue, green and white paper wrappers.

"It's a business of scale," he said of buying full tanks wholesale and marking them up.

A 20-pound tank costs customers $22, including delivery and removal of the empty tank. That compares with $13 for a tank exchange at Home Depot or $16.77 at Lowe's. (Neither chain delivers.) An extra $5 to Propane Taxi buys hookup and a test for leaks with a hand-held gas detector. For a $5 surcharge, Propane Taxi guarantees next-day service; $10 buys same-day delivery on orders placed before noon. Free standard delivery is two to three days.

If orders back up or there is a single delivery in a far-flung locale, Sabloff will jump into a truck, stopping en route to illegally plant advertising signs on highway median strips. "It's like a war, how fast the counties can pick them up," he laughs.

Leslie Wheeler, communications director of the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association in Arlington, knows pretty much everything about the grill-marketing landscape. She calls Sabloff's company "ingenious. I have never heard of door-to-door delivery," she says. "There is probably a service out there for everything these days."

Although Sabloff says he now earns more than his former $50,000 salary from that mutual fund firm, "what I make goes back into the business." His role model is Jeff Bezos, who "left a finance career to start an Internet delivery company called Amazon. Maybe I'll be Jason Bezos, God willing."

Wouldn't that be a gas?