Host: Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses. My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs. And on this podcast I talk to the people who do it. My guest today, Neil Granberry, bought a business just before starting an MBA program, a program he's now enrolled in. So he'll get his MBA and also have acquired his first business already pretty well positioned to kick off his career. But I actually think the takeaway from Neil's story is not just for students. It's how anybody can buy a very small business. Neil's does less than 100,000 in revenue and have a side hustle and additional income and maybe see it as a starter acquisition as Neil does. Say you don't feel ready to quit your job and go out and buy a business for a million dollars. Well, there are intermediate paths you can take and a business like Neil's is one of them. So listen to this interview from that perspective. Here's Neil Granberry's story of a starter acquisition in the business of bubble ball. Neil Granberry, thank you for joining me today on Acquiring Minds.

Guest: Thanks for having me, Will.

Host: This is going to be a fun, a fun conversation. Neal, you acquired an unusual business, a fun business, a party rental business bubble. Now, I had played bubble ball once before, but I think not everybody in the audience will even know what it is. Why don't you take a stab at explaining to people what, what bubble ball is and then we'll, we'll step back, back out. But give us context first.

Guest: Yeah, definitely. So I like to say that it is built around soccer. So imagine that you're playing soccer, but while you're doing that, you're inside this personal protective bubble. So kind of from right below your hips to a couple inches above your head, you have some shoulder straps on. You're in the middle of this inflatable ball and it's kind of like there's a tube on the, in the center for your torso and you're holding on and you're running around bouncing into people trying to play soccer and a bunch of other games.

Host: It's kind of like, it's kind of like a tall donut. And your body, your torso goes up right in the hole of the donut and it acts as like a body suit that you, you know, you can collide into your co players and fall on the ground and none of those collisions hurt. In fact, that's kind of the point because you're basically got two feet of air protecting you from anything you bump into. Cool. Okay, so everyone knows what bubble ball is now. So you acquired this party rental business that basically sells bubble ball, the bubble ball activity for whatever, two or three or four hour rentals. We'll get into the exact details. You acquired that and you did. So as an MBA student, you are currently in your MBA program at Vanderbilt, correct?

Guest: That's correct. I had bought it a couple months before we started, so I kind of had my last day at my previous job, closed the business, ran that for about three, four months before my MBA program started. And now I'm doing double duty.

[3:07] Host: So let's back up. Give us two minutes on you, Neil, and take us up right to just before the bubble ball acquisition. And what made you want to go out there and buy any business, bubble ball or otherwise?

Guest: Yeah. So grew up southeast Alabama, kind of close to Georgia and Florida. Very rural town. The kind of place where no one really knows what an investment banker does. So the kind of stuff that the people I'm hanging out with now, like, very foreign. From my upbringing, I went to Auburn, which is not too far away in Alabama, and majored in mechanical engineering. Just kind of wanted to be a little technical. My family was very sciencey after Auburn and got into the automotive field. Worked at Kia at a manufacturing facility for a little bit and then took a project engineering job at Toyota. The Toyota job was like, we build engines. When a new engine comes into the plant, you have to demolish the old engine line, install the new one, figure out how all the people and the machines and the processes work together. So that was my job, was kind of two and a half years to figure out how you're going to put it in, take out the old one, put in the new one, make sure it all runs, move to the next one. So did two full projects there. The new. Our last project just came out, the new Tundra. So it was pretty exciting. It's cool to see. Kind of wish I could have been there to do the unveiling and all that, but those guys did a great job. Kind of in the middle of all that, you know, Covid happened and, you know, you're sitting in your house and you're thinking, like, all right, what? Like what. What is next? You get. You get too much time on your hands and you're sitting around and you're like, all right, well, what do I really want to do? And like, I really love my job, but it just wasn't quite what I wanted to do for her. And so I started thinking, hey, what if I just get something on the side I was looking at Internet businesses. I was like, still biz, buy, sell. Looking at like, what could I buy? Amazon, FBA or a Shopify store or something like that, just to kind of like satisfy that itch. Came across the search fund model. Got super interested in the search fund model, read all the books, got deep dive into that. So then I was like, all right, well I need to get my mba. So that's what I needed to do. I took the gmat, got into all that, applied to Vanderbilt, got into Vanderbilt and then got a full scholarship to Vanderbilt. Which set into motion a whole different set of thinking about it because now I had some money that I didn't have earmarked for anything else. I had already been like, hey, I've got this money to go into tuition. It's a learning experience, It'll be great. No longer needed it to do that. So I was still trying to keep that mindset. I was like, what's the best thing I could possibly do to like, you know, put some gas on the fire of my career?

Host: Bubble ball, baby.

Guest: Bubble ball. Yeah. So. And I didn't have to look Internet anymore because I knew where I was going to be. So I started looking like, what's in Nashville right now? Like that I can purchase. And bubble ball was in the price range even like very much so. And it was the kind of thing that you can run at just a couple hours a week. It's the kind of thing that if you don't grow it, it's already profitable. If you do grow it, then that's great and you have a better chance at an exit. But it is in such the micro market that there's a good chance that finding the next buyer may be tough.

[6:15] Host: Well, before we dive deeply into the bubble ball decision, just to ask you a couple follow ups on your story. Interesting that you learned about search funds ahead of time, because so many people that I've spoken with only learn about search funds once they get to business school. Once they get to an MBA program in fact.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: And that's of course where search funds came from. Some of the big name MBA programs. So I guess you had just been sleuthing around online and had learned about it there from podcasts or articles or whatever.

Guest: Exactly where I found it, it was on Reddit in a comment, but I don't remember what the thread was or I would love to go back and see like what was I actually looking at that led to this whole thing? But yeah, I found a link to an HBR article That was a link to the HBR ETA book. And I sent the article to my buddy in business school and I was like, have you heard of this? Do you know what this is about? And he's like, yeah, I got a friend doing, I got on the phone with him, he was like, oh, you need to read buy then build. You need to read the ETA book. Here's like, you need to look at the booth website or the Booth YouTube page and see some of those videos. Like, there's a ton of resources out there. So really went down the rabbit hole for a while with all that.

Host: And your interest in digital businesses was as you kind of alluded to a second ago, because you just wanted to be geography independent because you didn't know exactly where you'd end up at business school or was there something else about digital businesses that appealed?

Guest: I think at the time I, it was easier for me to imagine that I could run a digital business and have my job at Toyota. So that's what I was thinking. Location agnostic. There was lots of travel involved with Toyota. Spent a good amount of time in Japan and sometimes Kentucky and Mississippi. What they, you know, they send us all around. So I could, I couldn't have to be at a place on any given day, you know, like, I never knew what was going to come up at work. I never knew when you'd have a late night. So that was the thought initially. And then as I knew I was going to business school, I was like, okay, this makes sense still because it's location agnostic. But as soon as I actually knew where I was going to be, kind of changed gears.

Host: Cool. So you're looking at Biz by sell and all the businesses in Nashville and the surrounding area, I assume. But even recognizing that now you can buy this location dependent business, unless you are pretty confident that you can sell it in two years, it does mean that it's anchored to Nashville. So what was your thinking there? That if it's for sale on Biz by sell, there's no reason why in another two years you couldn't be the current owner and go turn it back around, back onto biz, buy, sell or what? You needed an exit strategy unless you planned on staying in Nashville indefinitely. That's what I'm trying to say.

Guest: Yeah, for sure. And Nashville indefinitely could still be a great option for me. I don't want to exclude that. My real thought process was that their numbers that they showed and their asking price was that I could be in the green after two years without making major Changes. And without an exit. Like, it's not a great IRR return without the exit. But if you do get the exit, then you're really great. But even if you had to write it off as a loss, quote unquote at the end and just close it down and move to wherever my future takes me, then it could still, it wouldn't have hurt my bottom line that much.

[9:35] Host: And that's because the size of the business was pretty small.

Guest: That's because the asking price was 1x EBITDA.

Host: So can we get into the numbers here? Give me even more detail, if you could. How big a purchase are we talking? What kind of EBITDA are we talking?

Guest: Yeah, my classmates have been really interested about this too. So I've been trying to be pretty open and forthcoming about the numbers. So asking price was, I think 30,000. EBITDA stated was about 30,000. After a while, we had some negotiations on that, but that was what I saw on this. Buy sell or buy biz?

Host: Sell biz, buy, sell. People mistake that all the time.

Guest: Yeah. So once we dug through the books, kind of came up to a different EBITDA number 22 and a half. Anchored them in my negotiations to, hey, we've both agreed that your 1x was appropriate. Here's what I actually think your accounting shows. And can we agree that 1x is still appropriate and I will pay you that? And basically, yes, we came to some agreement. We did some small due diligence things. We met up, went through the inventory, shook hands. That was it. I had to put another like 2 1/2 k in. So we're at roughly 25k all in.

Host: And so, Neil, when we say EBITDA for a business of this size, we probably mean just straight up cash flow profits. I doubt there's interest in depreciation and so forth amortization on a business this size. So they claimed it was doing $30,000 in profit a year. When you dug into it some, in fact, you really saw that it was more like 21 and a half thousand. I think that's what I have in my notes. 20. 21 and a half thousand bucks in profit.

Guest: Right. It wasn't that they were lying to me in any way. It was really that they weren't incurring some of the expenses that I would incur because they had a house and they had a place to store these things and they were run and they had a van and they were running all these events themselves. And I was like, well, my plan isn't that so let's put some numbers in here for what it would take me to pay employees. Like, let's put some numbers in here for me getting a storage unit, like accounting, all that stuff. So I was like, let's pro form out what it would look like to me. So what is its value to me?

[12:02] Host: Great. And why do you think the valuation was so low? Why only one X? Is that just because it was a relatively tiny business?

Guest: Yeah, I think just at that lower end of the market where it's not. It can't support you, you know, like, it's just not enough. And you know, the market in Nashville, like, we definitely have room to expand. I don't want to say that we don't. You know, this could be in my mind up to a hundred thousand, dollar ninety thousand business if you get your marketing going and like really churning and like. But I can't imagine it ever being a 250k business, you know, so like that room for growth and room for being something that's worth dedicating all of your time to. I think that limits a lot of people's interest in it.

Host: And so your interest in it was, I mean, as you started by saying, you had this itch while you were. While you're at your nine to five. At the Toyota. At the Toyota. Yeah, at the Toyota job. And I think there's kind of more to that story. Like once you acquire this business, it wasn't just some side money. It was. You also had kind of. This was kind of a stepping stone for you. Right. As I under. As I recall. So elaborate on that for me.

Guest: Yeah, yeah. The money is. I mean, the money is the purpose for business. Right. So I'm driving very hard to make sure that we're profitable and growing and all that. Right. But the money in my pocket really wasn't the motivator. It was a way to show this thing that I've kind of been saying about myself since college, hey, I'm interested in entrepreneurship, I'm interested in doing these things. But I had never done it. So I was like, at what point do people stop trusting me? You know, like, let's, let's signal out a little bit that I am willing to take this risk. I am serious about doing this and I am capable of doing it. So let's actually do it. Let's show some track record of success and then see where that takes.

Host: That's cool. That's very forward, forward thinking and resume oriented of you. You know, build. You're building a portfolio, you're an Artist building his portfolio.

Guest: Right. And it's been good like I'm here with you and you know every interview I've had for internships and mba it's like, you know, it's one of the first things that we talk about because it it there's a lot of MBAs that have engineering degrees who are very smart, talented people. So it can be hard to set yourself apart.

Host: Now just curious before we get off the search, did you see other businesses that you like? Did you consider other business? Was this the, this was the one.

Guest: You know I looked over some other businesses. I never got so far as to an loi with any other business. There was one Internet business that I remember very vividly. Just a super interesting model of they had basically a machined out piece of metal and then bamboo and the bike parts and it was like assemble your own bike like E Com business. And so it was like natural bamboo single gear bikes, really interesting model. I mean the biggest disadvantage was just like you have to, it's not drop ship or anything like that. Like you have to hold a ton of inventory because it comes from China and very large batches. So it was like how much trust do you really have that you can move this inventory?

[15:16] Host: Yeah and that would have been, I mean that probably wouldn't have been nearly as easy a business to exit in two years. I mean that sounds like a much bigger bite off One of the questions always with buying a business or kind of a service business or a business is very light on capex really is what were you getting when you bought the business? So why not just rather than spend as little as 20 plus thousand dollars was why not just spend $1,000 or $2,000 on getting all this equipment yourself new and hanging your shingle and doing it that way.

Guest: Yeah, I think I only probably got 3, $4,000 worth of anything physical from them. So what in my mind what I was buying was a customer list, some reoccurring revenue, not recurring necessarily but they had several customers. If you look through the history that it's like hey every year we're going to spend 500 bucks with you and it's just a little bit of that dependability, some name recognition, a website, some training. Maybe I didn't need the training as much as I thought. I kind of just, I guess it wasn't as complicated as I thought. And yeah, that was the attitude of just why. And if I didn't buy it, someone else buys it. I have competition. So right now I'm the only operator in Nashville. So as long as that maintains, I have a lot of advantages in the market.

Host: Great. And so looking back, seems like you think you definitely did the right thing by buying an existing business rather than just going out, buying the equipment and starting from scratch.

Guest: Yeah, I do. And then also all my interest was in search funds. And still kind of a lot of my interests lie in that realm where it's like I wanted to go through the negotiation process and the due diligence process and have this path that is going to be very similar to the one I might walk further down the line.

Host: And now that you have acquired this starter business, you are still as interested in business acquisition as a next step in your career after you graduate?

Guest: I think it's an interesting question. As soon as I got in it and doing it, I think my confidence that I could do something from scratch skyrocketed because I never used to really think that I could. I think if that was really what it boiled down to was I never thought that I could be successful by myself just launching something because I didn't think that there was a market for small businesses, especially when I was like an undergrad. It was like, you're either the next Elon, like you're the next Bill Gates, whatever. It's like you're launching the next tech thing or why do anything? It was like billionaire or bust attitude.

[18:13] Host: Thank you, thank you.

Guest: Media. Like how. Yeah, right. So it really isn't how it is. I think, like, even someone came out with a podcast recently that's like riches and the niches and it's. I love that, like, you know, there's a lot of room out there to do very well without, you know, being the next unicorn startup.

Host: So it wasn't that you didn't think that you could start something. It was that you thought starters were people who had just very grandiose business ideas. The SpaceX is, the Facebooks. And now once you realize that, in fact, that small businesses can in fact be quote unquote, small businesses can in fact be great businesses and big businesses for any normal person's sense of scale, you feel like, well, no, I could start one of those. I just didn't think that that was really an appealing option until now.

Guest: Yeah, I think that's exactly it. It just didn't seem like that was a thing that exists because I didn't know anyone who had ever done it.

Host: Yeah, it is crazy, actually. On the mission statement of acquiring minds, I call out the media on saying that it's obsessed with unicorns and Billionaires. And I just do think it's a disservice. I mean, I've gone through a similar progression in my thinking as you and there's just small businesses all around us and when the media doesn't talk about them at all, who do we think are going to start those businesses or as the case may be, acquire them from the existing owners and they can be wonderful, wonderful lucrative enterprises.

Guest: Yeah, you should have Andrew Gazdecki on because you sound just like his spiels on Twitter about that.

Host: I should have Andrew on and I've heard him on a lot of podcasts say similar things.

Guest: Cool.

Host: Well, let's get a little bit into the business itself. You gave us a sense of. Or you're very specific about the numbers you acquired it for. How's revenue now? What are costs? How do you pay people? Give us like two or three minutes and just rattle off some, some numbers so people can really understand your business.

Guest: Sure. So we're, let's just say we're exactly six months in from acquisition. We have not quite hit the halfway point of the 22 and a half times projected profit. Started really slow one event that first month because there was nothing on the books. You know, the, the Google, my business page said permanently closed. When I bought it, they hadn't been doing events at all for the past 10 months. So we had a slow ramp up.

Host: This is because of COVID So you were acquiring a party rental business in

Guest: the wake of COVID In the wake of COVID And they, they had health issues was another reason that they were selling. So like as Covid happened, there was also a health problem with the previous owner. And so they just got the double whammy where it's like, why struggle through Covid? Like we need to focus on other things, you know what I mean? So it wasn't really in their line of sight at all to keep business in the pipeline. So they were actively telling people, hey, we're closed until we sell. So there was a serious slowdown. So we're doing probably, I think we've done 13 and a half thousand dollars right now. So we're of net or gross revenue. So that's. We're operating about 80% margin, 70% net margins, and then we have about 500amonth for overhead. So if you do all that out, we've made like I think seven and a half or something like that.

[21:42] Host: Okay, seven and a half thousand dollars for the year.

Guest: Yeah, for those six months and. Right.

Host: So far.

Guest: Right, right. But things are progressing up. This will be a big month for us. And it's looking, as Covid recovers, that some of our biggest customers will come back. Because a big key to the business was a lot of our business does recur, but it's schools and churches, youth groups and schools are two of the groups that have been greatly affected by what's been happening. And people have really pulled back on these large events where people gather and do these things. Field days, big church events, fall festivals. Nashville is still having some of those things this fall, and so we're seeing that come back. But I really think coming into the spring, we're going to have a strong marketing push and we're going to eclipse that 22 and a half basis number by a good bit. So kind of targeting to make 35, 40 going into next year.

Host: Excellent. And in terms of one of the things you acquired being the customer list, and yet some of those customers maybe have checked, having checked the website and seeing that it was closed for business or whatever, I assume one of the first thing you did, first things you did was reach out to everybody and say, hey, new buyer, open for business. So is that talk me through how you've leveraged the list.

Guest: It wasn't the first thing I did, actually. I wasn't sure that I could manage the influx if I was too successful. So the first thing I did was try to build the operating base. So let's make sure that what we're doing, the path of doing these events is well established. The other thing that I didn't get that I kind of expected to get when I bought the business, was their previous employees. They had said they have some contractors that they work with 1099, which is the same thing I wanted to do. None of those people chose to transfer. It was really. They just had relationships with the previous ownership. So the recruiting started. That was the first thing. So we started on indeed reaching out to people, posting jobs, lots of interviews, and then we do training events as part of the interview and then hopefully hire. But hiring has been difficult as there's be a million people to tell you. So that took a little while, but once we got one or two other people trained, then we start that reach out. Going into summer, we see like June, July really take off. We get two really good employees who stick and are still here. And we're starting to establish a process for hiring. We're starting to establish a process for, hey, when the event comes in, I send you this info. You tell me yes or no. If no, then I move to the next person. If no again, then I do it. If no again, then we have to decline the event and this flow of how does the business operate. So once we are established there, then we kick in the marketing kind of coming into July. And then in July we started Google AdWords, some social media marketing. I at this point felt that it was time to start the marketing because I had redone the brand, the logo and all that that you've seen that wasn't in place before. It was different. And then the website. So the website, I probably spent a solid four weeks redoing all of that. In hindsight, maybe that was an outsourcing opportunity to someone who has more artistic ability than myself. But I think it looks okay now. But it took a lot of work.

[25:08] Host: I was going to say I was going to compliment you on the website because I feel like for such a small business, I would expect a website for something like this to just be really not good or a disaster. And this is a good website for a small bubble ball business. I'm looking at it right now.

Guest: I got some good feedback on them the first couple iterations. I don't think you would have said that about my first ideas, but yeah, it's good. I like it now.

Host: Yeah. And I mean, you got the video here of everybody just having a blast, which is of course what you're selling.

Guest: So that was a huge win. That's not my video. I reached out to the owner of it on YouTube and I was like, hey, like, can I embed this on my website? I'm not going to use them promotion materials. It'll just be embedded and it'll be this segment of your longer video that, you know, you'll maintain ownership of it and I'll link to it in my media. And he was like, absolutely. No problem. Nice. Like, that's awesome. Because that is very well shot, you know, promotion.

Host: This is a phenomenal video. Yeah, it's. It's really dynamic. There's effects and slow motion and action shots. It's pretty cool. It really makes bubble ball seem like, you know, gladiatorial. It's pretty cool.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: Cool. And just I just wanted to drill down a sec on the hiring. How did you, Neal, like get people. I assume your people are all 1099, obviously. Like they're on contract so that you pay them per engagement, per party. And these are like four hour engagements, I think you told me.

Guest: Yeah, it's kind of. I pay them by the hour of however long it takes them. They go to my storage unit. They pick up the equipment, put it in their own vehicle, drive to the event, wherever that is, and then unload, set up, blow up the stuff. It takes a little while to do that. So we allow, we want to allow 30 minutes and as much as 45. So we tried to tell them, get there an hour early, let's never be late. Do the event, which is between one and four hours. Let's say we average about two. And then they tear down, bring it back to the storage unit. And then so their time is going into the gate of the unit, leaving the gate of the unit, and we pay them $20 an hour, which is good for Nashville. It is more than enough to attract a lot of interest, especially on a flex schedule basis. Like, hey, you don't have to work any of these events. Like, you tell me your schedule, I will pair you up with stuff that is a good fit and you're allowed to tell me no. So that's, that's the system that we're running. And it requires me to keep more people than if I had people on standby. But that's not really fair to them. So most of these people have other jobs or school commitments.

[27:50] Host: But you were able to draw them out to do a training even without the promise of an immediate payday.

Guest: I pay them half. I started paying them half price for the training. So yeah, so I would pay them $10 an hour for the training. I upped that to 15. I felt like people were kind of hesitant about that. Like, why is he paying me half? But I might as well just pay him 20 because once you get there and they complete the training, we have a very good stick rate. It really, our dropout rate is just people not showing up for the interview, people not showing up for that first day. And it's a pretty high no show rate. So that part is one of the more frustrating parts, I guess, of small business ownership in this day.

Host: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although better that your no shows be at the top of the funnel rather than halfway through the funnel when you've actually trained them and they're supposed to be, you know, go into a gig. And I have to say it seems like, you know, it's probably pretty fun thing, a fun way to make $20 an hour. You know, you're, you're basically just bringing people like a way to have fun and watching them have fun and ye.

Guest: I mean, it's good exercise, you're outside, it's not bad. I don't mind doing them at all myself, but I do try to Even if I'm available, push them to my employees. Because one day to make this business sellable, I think it needs to show that like 70 to 80% of these events were not done by me. I think if it's flipped and I'm doing 80%, then it's no longer a business. It is more of just a hustle that I do on my own.

Host: That's right. And you said you pay $20 an hour. What do you charge typically? So what gross profits here we charge

Guest: 295 for the one hour, 420 for two. And the four hours would be like 750. That big step change in there is because like at a four hour event is because we're assuming there's going to be like 100 plus kids. So I have tried of two employees at those types of events. So like there's a two hour event at $420. There's a two hour event at 500. One is with one employee, one is with two employees. So every event is classified based on how many people you have. So that's kind of a change. Like when I did market research on how does every other bubble ball price, it's always hey, we have these events, you pick. Well, I feel like that could misalign the expectations. So mine's really like how many people do you have? And like pick from there because I don't even. It's not to your benefit or mine for you to book a four hour thing with eight people. You're going to be tired after an hour with eight people playing the whole time, even if you're a super athlete. So it really needs to be in the opposite way. If you have a hundred people and you have an hour, I can't even get anybody, everybody through to be in one. So just making sure that we're delivering some value to the right groups and at the right price.

[30:36] Host: Nice. Well, those are great gross margins.

Guest: Yeah, I mean and that was the most attractive part of the business I thought was that and they were pricing a little lower before and they had a different scheme of how they drove people to different ones. So I thought that the margins could be good or better. And even with now paying an employee, we could probably maintain really good margins. And then so it's really just a game at this point of how many events can I have in a week and if I can drive that number up, you know, we max I've ever done right now is like four in a week. Um, and then mostly it's one to two so if we can drive that up to where I'm doing two or three a day on the big days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, um, do one on Wednesday night with the church and then pick up one random corporate event here and there, Monday, Tuesday during the week, like that's when we'll be in really good shape to overachieve kind of our targets.

Host: Cool. So on that point about just driving demand is really what your North Star is at this point. And even if you meet the goals that you just described, you do see and you went into the sidewise open that there's a low TAM here, a low total addressable market. There's a ceiling to how big this could really get because it's just because of the nature of the business for a variety of reasons. But one obvious way to expand something like this is just to offer a portfolio of activities. So not just bubble ball, but whatever. I don't know, I never have any fun, so I don't know what other activities there are. Moon bounces for kids, parties, whatever it is that people rent. And I imagine margins are similar and I imagine logistics are similar. Like, I imagine there are a lot of patterns that overlap with this existing business. So that seems like a way you expand is by offering three or four or five different activities from people to choose from. Am I right about that? And if so, is that something you're considering or that would be like, you probably want to exit this business before you, before you start doing all that.

Guest: I mean, you definitely nailed the premise of like, if you can expand your average order value per customer, that's one way to grow this business. We just did our first very simple one. I ordered a tug of war rope. So a lot of these are teenage boys. They love tug of war. You know, it's literally my, you know, they love to go against each other and compete and it gives them a

[33:05] Host: good Squid Games, man, you gotta, you gotta do this Squid games tie in.

Guest: Yeah. And so that's our first one. There's another one that I've been considering and it's foam tipped archery. So it's like you use the bubbles as barrier as like obstacles and so it kind of fits in there. So I'm trying to do stuff that fits within our idea of, hey, we're going to show up to your event and provide a lot of fun. So like the moon bounces and stuff like that. There's already so many people in Nashville that are doing that and it's a little bit different where they set up beforehand. They leave the stuff There they come and tear it down after. Like, part of our value proposition, I think, is like, we're facilitating. Like, we have someone there actively the whole time being like, oh, like, seems like you guys aren't loving the soccer one. Like, let's do like kickoff returns. Like, let's do sharks and minnows. Like, let's do any of these other games that we can to like kind of read the room and be like, let's make sure that you guys are having fun. Let's make sure that everyone gets to play whatever it is. Like, that's what parents and administrators and whoever it is that hired us is really looking for is like more of a hands off event.

Host: So they can be hands off because

Guest: you are hands off because we are facilitating. Yes.

Host: Cool. Well, it's exciting. Neal, good for you for starting up or acquiring and basically doing an entrepreneurial venture while you're still in school. I think it's like you said, it's already opened some interesting doors for you and it's a fun project. So for anybody else in the audience who's actually just very last question. Is this sounds positive. Is this something that any MBA that might be listening to this MBA student, is this something that you would recommend that they do something like this? Not bubble ball specifically, but something kind of the same scale and scope and price as this?

Guest: I mean, I think just putting your money where your mouth is is important to some extent. And then having something that can be break even on autopilot and then every ounce of effort that you put into it is generating some return is. It's a really rewarding thing. And I think it will give you a lot of value at whatever you're doing, even if you're going the more traditional consulting IB pathway.

Host: Yeah. Cool. Neil, how can people reach you if they want to learn more about this business and your story?

Guest: Twitter is good. That's how we met. So I think that's probably the best way. I think it's Eelgranberry, although I don't think I've ever had to tell anybody what my Twitter handle is. So we'll have to double check that. But I'm pretty sure it's just first and last name.

Host: Well, it'll, it'll be in the show notes, whatever it is. So. But people can check there if they, if they don't, if it turns out not to be that cool.

Guest: Great.

Host: Thanks for the time, Neil. Fun story.

Guest: Awesome. Well, appreciate it.

Host: Have a good one.

[36:03] Guest: Sam.