The $16K/Month Business He Runs Without Quitting His Job - Ep. #342

0:00 Speaker 1 Spent $100 in Facebook ads and got $10,000 in bookings. Yes, that's amazing. It's an infinite money glitch. Yeah. 0:06 Speaker 2 Our highest month has been 22, five. Wow. And then on average, we're right at like 16. 0:12 Speaker 1 Do you have employees? 0:14 Speaker 2 No, just my wife and I. 0:15 Speaker 1 Really. You still have a job? Yeah, No way. 0:18 Speaker 2 I have three churches right now that are every Sunday. 0:21 Speaker 1 Holy cow that that covers your rent. 0:22 Speaker 2 Exactly, they had goat hanging from the ceiling and they were taking torches and cooking pieces of the goat. 0:32 Speaker 1 If someone who really wanted to start this business on a budget, what's the least it would take? 0:36 Speaker 2 You could do it for under 3000. 0:38 Speaker 3 So my guest today rented out an empty church in a strip mall parking lot. Spent a little money cleaning it up, not as much as you might think. And today, just a year later, it makes $16,000 a month part time. No employees doing this on the weekend, renting it out to birthday parties, anniversaries, etcetera. 0:56 Speaker 1 Here's what I didn't. 0:56 Speaker 3 Expect he spent $100 on Facebook ads that got him a $10,000 worth of bookings in one day. He has three customers that pay him every single month that cover all of his rent and they never even throw a party. And then he has AQR code on the wall that turns every party into four more parties. 1:14 It's a viral referral marketing loop. Oh, and one night he came back to check in on a party and found a goat hanging from the ceiling. If you have a wife that loves to host, she's going to love this. 1:25 Speaker 1 Will people learn a in this episode to know everything they need to know to start a profitable event venue? 1:31 Speaker 2 I hope so. I think they will. I mean, it's not that difficult. It's finding the space that works for you. It's not a lot of money involved once you find the space and then it's finding the customers. 1:41 Speaker 1 What first gave you the idea to start a venue? 1:44 Speaker 2 So my wife and I would do lots of events and for our kids, we have a six and four year old. And so we would do big birthday parties and they do a fall party each year, which has grown really big where have some kind of large activity where it's decorating pumpkins or decorating hay, something large and hay rides and that kind of stuff. 2:09 And. 2:09 Speaker 1 You would rent out other. 2:10 Speaker 2 We would actually, we have a good size house and yard. So we would do all that in our in our in our yard, but we would rent. And then for our second child, I said, you know what we should do somewhere else. 2:26 So I started looking for venues to have a baby shower and my wife was with me and I went to a bunch and just was not satisfied. We end up choosing one and during that conversation and towards the tail end of COVID, we say, you know what, we should do this because we also heard about people saying they couldn't book restaurants and other stuff, but you could book venues that we had Lacser Laws, I guess at that point, if you just brought your family to a venue. 2:54 So we said we should look into that. And so we've spent about three years just kind of, you know, playing with the idea and looking for venues, looking for a place that would work for us. And we were really close to signing leases on like 4 venues until we found the one we're at now. 3:13 So we so yeah, it was just a we thought we could do. And then after hosting her baby shower at that venue, at that venue, and the price I paid just for the venue, I think I paid like 2200 bucks and, and I still had to come in and decorate with friends. 3:29 That was for. 3:30 Speaker 1 Like an afternoon. 3:30 Speaker 2 Yeah, it was. It was a Sunday from like 11:00 to 6:00 PM and we probably weren't even there to 6 and so it was a brunch. So I hired a chef. So on top of the 2200, I probably spent another two to probably 2 to $3000 on everything else. 3:47 And you're like, wow, we that we could have we and we could have done a better job, we thought. And no slight to them. But it wasn't, it wasn't a huge venue. 3:56 Speaker 1 What type of venue? 3:57 Speaker 2 It was in a strip mall and was probably about 1200 square feet. This is like a narrow. 4:03 Speaker 1 Like a retail? 4:03 Speaker 2 Like a yeah, like a retail space. And it was pretty narrow. And I think we hosted 60 people. And then we said, you know what, We could do this for the price I paid. I was like we. 4:17 Speaker 1 I mean, I used to rent 1200 square foot retail spaces for my iPhone repair store and you're looking at like 2 to 4 grand a month. Yeah, so you're thinking, wow, they just made their whole payment in one afternoon? 4:27 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. From some, yeah, from just our booking, yeah. And so we started looking around and the one thing that did say make one of the things that made me say we can do this, then we just intentionally started shopping venues, taking a tour, sitting with them. 4:48 And I would go into all these places and they would say, all right, what date do we want? And they'd, I say, you know, I want October 10th. They said, come on back to the office and they dust off their desk and they have the large file calendars. And she's like going through. 5:04 So OK, Yep, I got you on the 12th. We have that available. I'm all right. I'm going to take my yellow highlighter and when you book it, I'll come back with my red highlighter. 5:12 Speaker 1 Most low tech, yeah. 5:13 Speaker 2 And so I said to my wife, you know, I've, I've, I've been a, a technical PM for a lot and got an interest in technology. Anyway, I was like, this could be so much easier than than they make it and, and why is no one doing it this way? 5:30 And so that really got the the gears turning and then we we found, found a place potentially. 5:36 Speaker 1 What types of places did you start shopping for? 5:39 Speaker 2 Retail stand alone, what I tell people that now if anybody's interested, you know, don't fall in love with the property. You got to see what you can have the most beautiful property that has horrible parking. 5:56 Speaker 1 It's all about parking. 5:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a lot about parking because there's some spaces that were in downtown Atlanta that were beautiful and we were wondering why the rent was so cheap. But it's because that it may be two 3000 square feet, good size, but can't park there. So that and speaking the landlords, a lot of landlords did not want event venues. 6:19 Speaker 1 Maybe because of the parking or just the liability a bunch of people. 6:22 Speaker 2 Liability people that that was I was surprised it was so many spaces that we like that they came back saying, well, sorry, you want to do because they'd ask for your business plan or what you're going to do and they were so sorry. We, we, we nice to meet you, but we can't, we can't do event space in here. 6:40 So, you know, we continue to shop and we eventually found one. It was in a retail Plaza, but it was a church. 6:48 Speaker 1 Oh, interesting. And standalone. 6:50 Speaker 2 No, no, yeah, OK. And it was a church and. 6:55 Speaker 1 How many square feet? 6:56 Speaker 2 3000. 6:57 Speaker 1 OK. And they were moving. 6:59 Speaker 2 Yeah, So what happened is they they were building a convenience store across the street. The owner had to choose. Yeah, owner had to choose and and he chose to chose the convenience store. So we just happen to be peeking in the window and someone from church was inside work and came out and said, hey, would you like to take a look around? 7:20 And she literally gave us a tour. We told her we were doing. She's like, oh, I'm gonna put in a word for you to the owner. She's like, unfortunately we have to go, but we found a new, we found a new venue. So, so we're good. And that is worth 3003 thousand. 7:38 Speaker 1 And it's perfect because it's basically already an event venue, but it's not. It's different types of. 7:41 Speaker 2 Events, different types of events. So it still took a lot of work. They had carpet inside things that weren't, you know, suitable for weekly events. 7:51 Speaker 1 What city was this in? 7:52 Speaker 2 Stone Mountain, GA. 7:53 Speaker 1 I know where the where the big. 7:54 Speaker 2 Stone Mountain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right now. I used to. 7:56 Speaker 1 Go there every summer. 7:57 Speaker 2 OK. Yeah, the venue that we went into or the the Plaza was pretty much empty when we took it. 8:06 Speaker 1 Oh, that's which is usually not a good sign. 8:08 Speaker 2 No lots of parking but also 70 spots I believe. Wow, there's. 8:12 Speaker 1 Going to be less parking once there are more tenants. 8:14 Speaker 2 Yes. So we had to, we had to submit a, a business plan and give a full detail to the owners of the building and they said wow, this is really good. And so we signed a lease. 8:30 But lo and behold to us, they started targeting other event places or event venues because they thought that was a good thing to bring into their wait Plaza. 8:40 Speaker 1 You had already signed the lease. 8:41 Speaker 2 We had signed the lease. Nothing was on our lease. I said you could not have another event venue. 8:46 Speaker 1 Was that a regret? 8:47 Speaker 2 Yes, at one point in time, at the end of 2024, there was 5 venues and what? Yeah. And they same shopping, the same shopping center. So they had moved in four others besides us. 8:59 Speaker 1 And none of them had non competes in their lease. 9:01 Speaker 2 No. 9:02 Speaker 1 It's crazy that not one of them was like, hey. 9:04 Speaker 2 Yeah. And so it was weird. We we see people moving in, hey, what are you, what are you guys doing? And we had one occasion where they're like, we don't want to tell you. And we realized because they were thought they were in competition with us, but there's no one there now. It's just us. So we've outlasted all of. 9:20 Speaker 1 Them what month in 2024 did you launch? 9:23 Speaker 2 So we signed our lease in like August. 9:30 Speaker 1 OK. So two years ago, yeah. And then when were you open? November. 9:35 Speaker 2 Of 2025. 9:37 Speaker 1 Wow, it took that long? 9:38 Speaker 2 Took that long, so you have to. 9:39 Speaker 1 Pay rent the whole time. 9:40 Speaker 2 We, we, we, we had about six months free rent. So we negotiate a pretty good deal. We went into it thinking that we could do the reconstruction a little bit faster than we did. And that's our, that's our biggest regret. And being cheap, well, not even cheap, just what we could afford. 9:59 I did most of it myself. So nights and weekends I still was working a regular 9 to 5 S Nights and weekends I'd be in there changing ceilings. We put up a new entry wall. We changed the bathrooms. 10:09 Speaker 1 Do you have skills? 10:11 Speaker 2 Or have I can follow, I could follow, yeah, I could follow good directions. So YouTube University and. 10:16 Speaker 1 Let me be clear. So like you've been open less than a year, right? We'll get to your numbers in a minute, but the only thing you were working on is we like doing events. Seems like they make a lot of money. Seems like they're old school and we can be, we can have better technology. 10:33 That's kind of what you're working with. You still don't kind of know you're you're kind of hope and praying if we build this, they will come. Is that right? 10:39 Speaker 2 That is and when we started putting very little marketing, but a little bit of marketing out there just to see and test. And so we, our official grand opening was November of 2025, but we did some events, we maybe did 10 events that prior year and we learned from each of those. 10:59 And some of those were even profitable. Like we gave somebody a full wedding and reception for $3500. And I still see them posting the pictures saying the most amazing wedding ever. And we and so we learned from that, that helped us gear our pricing structure to what it is now. 11:18 Speaker 1 How did you have 10 events before you were done? 11:22 Speaker 2 Because it just, it wasn't perfect, but it was suitable. Like once we had new tile floors in, once the bathrooms were done, once the walls were painted, we made, we didn't have an entry wall, but it was good enough. And, and we would shop and we would shop it to people saying we didn't shop it enough, but we shopped it a little bit. 11:42 We said, hey, we're come take a tour. We're not 100%, but this is what you get the. 11:48 Speaker 1 Price isn't 100%. 11:49 Speaker 2 Either and This is why you're getting such a great price. So we did, we did about 10 of those events and we were probably, we could have probably did fifty of those events, but we were scared to take them. And both of us are slight perfectionist. And you know, eventually once we got to November, like, look, we, we have to do, we can't, we're losing. 12:09 Speaker 1 RIP the Band-Aid off. 12:09 Speaker 2 Yeah, we're losing so much money because we're paying rent in this empty building, essentially. What was your rent about 3000? 12:17 Speaker 1 3000 a month OK, which is not bad I mean. 12:19 Speaker 2 No 10 bucks. 12:20 Speaker 1 10 bucks a foot, yeah, yeah. Now, where did you find these 10 customers? 12:26 Speaker 2 Instagram essentially posting organically, just posting organically and they came to us. No paid marketing or paid media. 12:32 Speaker 1 Is this on a new Instagram page for the venue or your page or your? 12:36 Speaker 2 New for the for the venue. OK, Yeah. 12:38 Speaker 1 Do you guys have experience with Instagram like organic content? 12:42 Speaker 2 Just my own, but I started converting people over to new page. 12:46 Speaker 1 Yeah, as well. OK, so you start a brand new Instagram page and you're just doing like vertical videos, like there's our venue. Are we doing like build in public? Like watch me build this event venue. 12:58 Speaker 2 A little bit of both. So what I learned from my studio 10 years ago that we were the best kept secret and no one knew about us because I didn't want to share it until I thought it was perfect. 13:09 Speaker 1 And it's that's out of like insecurity fear, right, which is not a big insecurity decisions from. 13:15 Speaker 2 No, it's horrible. And even though we did a better job, we didn't do the best job. But it was a lot of and I started realizing videos of us pulling up carpet or my kids in there with paintbrushes outperformed all the other still out for other stuff that we do today where we pay people to do stuff. 13:34 So yeah, so we realized that, you know, we're building. This is like we started with us the key signing and and it was also none of our friends knew. I don't think in our parents knew. We have been kind of working on this and secrets of everybody found out at the same time. 13:51 Well, you guys acquired a space. So then, but they knew us as always throwing parties, but they're like, oh, that's great. So so those those organic things is what helped. So we had people and then we didn't have we didn't have pricing. I think when the first person reached out to us, they're like, hey, so how much is it? 14:09 Yeah. 14:10 Speaker 1 Exactly. I'm surprised you reached out so. 14:12 Speaker 2 Yeah. So, you know, we should have doubled down on that and we should have said, look, we'll rent you an unfinished venue and that would have paid for. In hindsight, that would have paid for and we could have moved faster. 14:28 But you know. 14:28 Speaker 1 Is it safe to say that you posting about the venue in this neighborhood kind of grew the market? Like there were people that were going to have events anyway, but they were probably going to do it at a friend's house or something. And when they saw your post, it kind of pushed them over the edge. You know what, maybe we should just get a place. 14:45 Speaker 2 Is that accurate? I think so. 14:46 Speaker 1 Grow the market by posting. 14:48 Speaker 2 Yeah, because one thing even with paid promotion, I've said, look, we should be superstars in our neighborhood. There's there. So with there's 7000 single family homes within 3 miles of our venue. So like all of our paid needs, everybody they need to. 15:06 My goal is when I'm pumping gas, people say, hey, Justin, do you do you own the, do you own the hall? And that's what we really target in because a lot of people still come to us like, hey, I never knew you were here. We get that every day. So now those other venues are gone all. 15:22 Speaker 1 Of them. 15:22 Speaker 2 All those other venues are gone U. 15:24 Speaker 1 +4 or U + 5. 15:26 Speaker 2 Plus +4, so it was. 15:27 Speaker 1 Five in like the first three months? Yep. 15:29 Speaker 2 But you know, it wasn't it. For whatever reason, that didn't bother me. Like I still said, we're going to run on race and I thought that and also I would talk to those venue and they would be like, yeah, I don't do Facebook. Like that's not good. 15:44 It's word of mouth. They Justin. 15:46 Speaker 1 Was it mostly like existing venue businesses moving there, or was it people like you starting from scratch? 15:51 Speaker 2 People like me, starting from scratch. 15:53 Speaker 1 That's crazy. There would be that much that many people starting. 15:56 Speaker 2 Yeah, it took six months just to get our fire code inspection and so we get our occupancy and it was some miscommunication. We were told we didn't need a didn't need a entertainment license because we weren't serving food and people were actually renting from us. 16:12 And then, but it really did require entertainment license. So I took good notes. I wasn't trying to get anybody in trouble. I was able to direct them to who told me didn't and that person actually admitted. So, you know, I was that was my second day on the job. I didn't know we didn't need this, but that one not needing that sentence back four months because then the clock restarts. 12 grand on everything. 16:34 Yeah. So it was very expensive, but I started going down there and said, hey, can I speak to the commissioner? Started bringing muffins and I just to the point where like one of the commissioners like, hey, let me just drive over there with you now and see if I can get somebody because I was like, I'll just, I was like, you guys are costing me thousands of dollars a month. 16:52 So I I need to you need to know my name and eventually that got it through and I have a good relationship with them now. 16:59 Speaker 1 How did all of those competitors survive? Like do they have to break their lease or? 17:03 Speaker 2 Sure, they broke their lease to leave, but they also a lot of them I I know for a fact didn't weren't doing the right paperwork stuff, which to me was always vital. And they just, I don't think they were good operators. They just, they none of them, they were all stuck on word of mouth. 17:21 And so the owner had a thing. He's like, it's great you guys can all work together because if somebody's busy, they send business the other way. And I was like, it doesn't, doesn't work that way. Yeah, so but I would go into them and then eventually they started coming to us and like, wow, your place is looks nothing like ours. 17:40 And the other ones, they just paint the walls. They did nothing, cement floor, paint the walls. And we had, you know, we're big on tech. So we have screens on the outside of the building, screens inside. We have a 10 by 16 LED wall in the main hall. So they would come to us and realize we weren't running the same race either. 17:58 Speaker 1 OK. So you said from the time you sign the lease, the time you open, you could have had up to 50 customers events if you wanted, that's all from just organic? 18:08 Speaker 2 That was all from organic. 18:09 Speaker 1 Did you have anything like going viral or was it just the right people viewing your content? 18:13 Speaker 2 I think it was the right people, you know, and engagement. We tried to engage, you know, engagement, the right people, the right engagement and people just didn't just didn't know we existed. And then once we hit November and did said, look, we're not done. 18:30 We still wanted a wall and some other things, but we said we're we got to go. So we did a full scale. Then we ramped up the paid social and then we were we were doing tours six days a week. 18:42 Speaker 1 Wow, from paid ads on. 18:44 Speaker 2 Paid ads, yeah. 18:45 Speaker 1 Facebook and Instagram. 18:46 Speaker 2 Yeah, Facebook and Instagram. 18:47 Speaker 1 What were your ads like? What did they look like? 18:49 Speaker 2 At first they were just stagnant pictures of a post because we were running specials like our we have a gold package that comes with a lot of decor. That package is now, I think we sell it for 2800, which is still a great deal. 19:03 Speaker 1 For one day. 19:03 Speaker 2 For yeah 6 hour block OK, we were doing that for 1000 bucks OK and I think I booked like 10 of them in a day whoa because it was such a great price it's still profitable for us still profitable still we need the cash so it it works so. 19:17 Speaker 1 10 grand in a day in bookings. Obviously it's going to take 5 to 10 days for all of us to be used, but how much in AD spend would it cost to get 10 like that? 19:28 Speaker 2 That was that was less than $100 in AD spend. Yeah, so. 19:33 Speaker 1 Spent $100 in Facebook ads and got $10,000 in bookings. Yes, that's wild. Yeah. Were you like geofencing the ads to only show to people in that area? 19:44 Speaker 2 We and what we found we did wrong is we were actually all of Atlanta and we were doing 22 miles out of us to catch Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Marietta. We're and it's tempting because you're like, Atlanta's right there. 19:55 Speaker 1 Yeah, why not? But since you've learned. 19:57 Speaker 2 Now we've learned, just focus on, you know, our, our zip, our meet, 55 to 7 miles. 20:05 Speaker 1 Five to seven. That's the sweet. 20:06 Speaker 2 Spot. Yeah, that's the sweet spot. 20:07 Speaker 1 OK. Do you live in Stone Mountain? I do. So you're like a a local you? 20:12 Speaker 2 Yeah, I live about my my I'm 4 minutes away from Nevada. 20:16 Speaker 1 OK, OK. How much did it cost you to build it out? 20:19 Speaker 2 Say it was. It was in the $20,000 range. 20:23 Speaker 1 That's it. 20:24 Speaker 2 Yeah, 20 to 30, like like almost 30,000. I'm shocked, I thought. 20:28 Speaker 1 You were going to say 100 at. 20:29 Speaker 2 Least no. Like 30. 20:30 Speaker 1 3000 square feet. Tell me what all you did. So you painted it? 20:34 Speaker 2 Painted it new floors. 20:35 Speaker 1 Ripped out the old floor put. 20:36 Speaker 2 It floors are the most expensive thing. Tile. Yeah. LVT, OK. Like luxury vinyl tile OK yeah, redid the bathrooms. Tile in all the bathrooms. The LED screen camera, security system created a prep kitchen. 20:54 We can't cook on premise, but we have commercial warmers that you could slide your trays in. Commercial warmers added sinks to that prep area, and like stainless steel countertops, that kind of thing. 21:08 Speaker 1 If you did, if you were able to cook on premise, do you think you'd make more money or is it not? 21:14 Speaker 2 That I don't know but my the difference in insurance you play when. 21:20 Speaker 1 Fire hazard. 21:20 Speaker 2 Fire, yeah, because it's like a restaurant at that point. I don't think for the difference I'd pay an insurance I don't think it would value. 21:28 Speaker 1 Juice isn't worth the. 21:28 Speaker 2 Squeeze. Yeah, but we do get asked that a lot. But we tell people if you know, most caterers just bring their hot trays anyway. And we have the commercial warmers, stick them in, keep them to the temperature warmer that you needed. 21:44 And then we, I built a big chafing cart buffet that lights from below. And so people drop their trays in there. And those are also I built the DJ booth, I built the chafing table, I built the bar. Those videos were great. 22:00 You know, come with me as I go to Home Depot and build, build a build ADJ. Those were great organic videos. All of those, I don't want to say viral, but all those did very well on building stuff for the space. 22:13 Speaker 1 If you were to list out like the top five types of events, you have what would be #1 through 5. 22:20 Speaker 2 11 will be birthday parties. 22:23 Speaker 1 What? What age? 22:24 Speaker 2 We do a lot of that, 50 through 70. 22:28 Speaker 1 Really. Yeah, OK. 22:30 Speaker 2 And I think that's just because of our area too, seems to be we get older clientele and I'm and I'm happy to have that because they have money. Yeah, they have money. And I don't know if I really want to do too many 21 year old birthday parties either. 22:45 Just for a liability. Yeah, just for a liability and stuff. So, but yeah, we do a lot of like that 50 to 70 seems to be the sweetest. 22:53 Speaker 1 And they're doing like 50 year birthday party, 60 year. 22:55 Speaker 2 5055 and with some of our now mail, our direct mail marketing, we're able to pull birthdays. So because it has a driver's license information, we pull it. So I target. 23:10 Speaker 1 DDM and your direct mail. 23:12 Speaker 2 Yeah, OK. And I, so now I target 3 months out to that milestone birthday. So if we turn in 55 in January, I'm going to start hitting you now so I can touch you 3 times before your birthday. 23:24 Speaker 1 Do you have any numbers on what the return on investment is on the direct mail on that strategy? 23:28 Speaker 2 On that strategy, not yet. I, I just started doing it, but it works. But I we've been getting people to come in, so it works. 23:35 Speaker 1 Thirty $0.50 It's per postcard. 23:37 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, it's like 50 and you know. 23:38 Speaker 1 Exactly who you're sending it to. 23:40 Speaker 2 Exactly. And it's just The thing is you have to touch him though three times that. That's where it starts getting little. 23:45 Speaker 1 People send 1:00 and they check a box and they're like why didn't I get results? It doesn't work. 23:48 Speaker 2 It doesn't work. Yeah. You just don't want it works. And so I think now what we're going to do too, is we're starting to design our own birthday cards in the hall. And we're going to now we're going to send those for the three month out. People say we're just catching early. 24:04 Happy birthday. Hope to see you at the hall. And so we have the MPO like, hey, I got this. I didn't know that you're I live in the neighborhood right behind you didn't know you were here. And I pass by this every day. I didn't know what the hall meant when I saw the sign. So, so that that's been a great strategy. 24:23 Speaker 1 So what is a birthday worth to you get? Give me a breakdown of like an average birthday revenue and profit and then a like a birthday with upsells revenue and. 24:30 Speaker 2 Profit. So our average our average intake is about 1800 per party. 24:35 Speaker 1 Six hours. 24:35 Speaker 2 Six hours and I like 6. We, you know, we're, we're juggling between 6:00 and 8:00, but I like 6 because when people say 6 is not enough time for me to come and decorate, I say, well, great. That's why you need to step up to one of our packages where we can do the decor. 24:51 Speaker 1 What about a six hour party with upsells? What does that run? 24:54 Speaker 2 So our basic package is our blank canvas which is just 1000 and so that's just tables and chairs. 25:01 Speaker 1 In addition to the 1800. 25:03 Speaker 2 No, I'm saying our average, our average party is 1800, OK, but our base price? 25:08 Speaker 1 That's as cheap as it can. That's as. 25:09 Speaker 2 Cheap as it can be. And So what we find is up sales will be the screens. So that's the biggest up sale. If you get just a blank canvas package, most people come in and they want the screens on because usually we're running something or running a slideshow and saying this is what your party could look like. 25:29 They want linen, you know, tablecloths, napkins, chargers, tablescapes for the actual table, balloons, that kind of thing. We try to move people towards the package. So if you do a $2800 package or a $4000 package, you're going to get all that. 25:47 You just have to show up with your food. And we've really even been working with some of our caterers that are on a preferred vendors list to see how can we have food packages even because what we find the biggest thing people don't want to think about it. They want to show up and and party. Yeah. And, and we want them to we, we want it. 26:04 We're selling convenience. Yeah, yeah. That that's we're not selling space, we're selling convenience. And so do. 26:09 Speaker 1 You find you get customers from people that come to events, you know what I'm saying? 26:14 Speaker 2 We do and I market to them. It's like. 26:16 Speaker 1 Inbound like it's like a, it's like a built in viral marketing. 26:20 Speaker 2 So one thing we had discussed, part of one of my favorite tools in the venue is we use a thing called Instant Spotlight from a small company called a Start that started working on us two years ago. Right now we're the only company our venue in Georgia with this. 26:35 But on our LED wall, we have a thing that we call Instant Spotlight with the hall. So on the outside, when you walk into our building, there's 40 inch screens on each pillar. When you walk in, there's AQR code on those, There's ones on the tables, one in there. 26:51 And we tell your guests, look, your party starts outside the scan the QR code. So throughout the night, every time they say happy birthday on Sarah or they do a video or to take a selfie, those pictures show up all throughout the building and people go crazy over that. 27:07 People love being able to take a selfie and it show up and then the party. 27:11 Speaker 1 Capturing that data. 27:12 Speaker 2 Yes, so they have to you know, of course their phone number, e-mail and so that all goes into my funnel system. And then also if you did 40 pictures, if you took 40 pictures throughout the night, I'm assuming you had a good time. And so that helps me market to those people. 27:29 And then also our Google is all automated. So hey, did you have a good, good time? We would love that when so we send everybody the the the gallery at the end of the night. So if they took 200 pictures, everybody that took a picture is going to get all 200 and said, hey, looks like you had a great time. 27:47 And on Sarah's birthday, if you did, we'd love for you to give the hall five stars. They give five stars shows up on Google. If they give less than 4, I actually it comes back to me e-mail and I can address it. But the biggest part is that's the largest funnel I have now. 28:03 So if your party has 120 people and sixty of them take photos, that's now information I can use as my lead. 28:11 Speaker 1 You have any math on of those 60 people, how many will book their own event? 28:16 Speaker 2 So right now my latest numbers is about it is about 8% of those people have have book stuff. I think we could get it higher. 28:25 Speaker 1 So if you have 120 people at an event, half of them upload pictures. 8% of those will end up booking an event. 28:32 Speaker 2 That's what we've had so 8% with that, that's like an infinite money glitch, like 4 people yeah from each thing. So that's that's been great. And I think we can even get that number higher with with the. 28:42 Speaker 1 That's amazing. Yeah. It's just, it's just, it's an infinite money glitch. 28:46 Speaker 2 Yeah. And and and we, we've we've loved it and it's a value add. It is a up charge to get that I was going. 28:53 Speaker 1 To ask less of it. So you're charging them to get marketed? 28:56 Speaker 2 To yeah, those up, but if you get one of our packages, we throw it in sure, but if you just get the blank, we up charge you for the screens. OK. And also the birthday girl or birthday person, we say hey, what's your cash app? And they or Zelle or Venmo, whatever they give to us. 29:12 And so as they upload pictures and you put in your information upload picture when you hit submit your pictures also a tab that says hey, you want to tip the birthday girl? Yeah. So if they tip the birthday girl $10, then across the screen it says Jessica, just tip Sarah $20.00. 29:28 So then it gets everybody else to say everybody else say, oh, well, Sarah tip 20. That is brilliant. I got to do 30. And and of course, the, the, the, the guest of honor loves that feature. Yeah. But even if you weren't going to take a picture, it still gets you to log into the system to try to tip the the birthday person. 29:48 Speaker 1 How expensive does a six hour event get if you sell them everything you've got? 29:53 Speaker 2 The for just a party would be 4000. OK, that that's everything we got and there there would be some possible charges, but at that point we've given you everything. You're just showing up with food. 30:05 Speaker 1 And what's your profit on like a $4000 event versus a $1000 event? 30:09 Speaker 2 So on a 1000, it's essentially whatever my marketing went into to maybe get that person, it would vary, but essentially that's almost all profit because they're going to tell me where they want the tables and I'm there do. 30:23 Speaker 1 You set up the tables yourself. 30:24 Speaker 2 I do. If they say we want 4 on each side, we want a dance floor in the middle, then I'll I'll do that. 30:29 Speaker 1 Yeah, how do they get in? You just have like a key. 30:31 Speaker 2 Code I'm there, I'm there so we're still working on that, but I'm there for every event I like being there to touch in the beginning and then come back at the end because we have a checklist to say look can't do this can't burn candles can't do this I need you to sign this then I need to come back and assure that they. 30:47 Speaker 1 No holes in the. 30:48 Speaker 2 Drywall, holes in drywall, no T VS ripped off the screen. You know all the weird things that could happen. We say no burning of anything open. We had an event, I left. I came back hour into the event to make sure it's going good. This was in the early days and they were had a, they had a, it was either a lamb or a goat hanging from the ceiling like and they were taking torches and cooking pieces of the goat. 31:18 Speaker 1 It's like a cultural thing. 31:19 Speaker 2 Yeah, it was a cultural thing and they on and I was like, what are you guys doing? Can't A for A's? No. Was it lame? 31:29 Speaker 1 Skinned and gutted, it was like it was ready to prepared. 31:32 Speaker 2 Yeah, it was ready to prepare. Skinned and gutted. They had all of our gut, all the guts, and just a regular one of our rolling trash cans with no bag in it and they knocked over the trash can on their way out the door. 31:46 Speaker 1 On purpose. 31:47 Speaker 2 No on accident, but I had blood in my tile on the front out. So that was that's the worst experience. So they. 31:55 Speaker 1 Apologize like. 31:57 Speaker 2 Not really. They're like, oh, we didn't know we could do this and so. 32:00 Speaker 1 I didn't know I could hang a goat from your ceiling and knock its guts everywhere and try to roast. 32:05 Speaker 2 It, yeah. And so, yeah, so there's a couple deposits we've had to keep, which is massive. People have spilled like lemonade, stuff like that, which is the worst. And then the floor is super sticky. But so we've had to keep deposits, but like the goat stuff. 32:20 And we realize, and now it's cultural because we do. The area we live in has a strong Ethiopian, Somalian, Rustian, just East African population. So now I've had to say, look, I know this is a thing because I've talked to other event venues and they've told me the same exact thing. 32:41 And we were preparing pictures and are like, Oh yeah, I had a guy hang a cow. And so I have to say, look, you can't do this. Sorry, I'm not trying. And you know, I tried to do it with baby gloves because, you know, not every respectful got to be respectful. And I don't want them to just assume that. I think every Ethiopian family's got to hang a cow, right? 32:59 But but it we've had to add it to our contract so. 33:03 Speaker 1 That's a no win situation. Yeah, if you say it, you could offend them. If you don't say it, you might have dead goat. 33:08 Speaker 2 So, well, now I say it in the contract. And so please read over your contract. And if you haven't read over that and I see it, then I can come do it. 33:16 Speaker 1 Yeah. How much is the deposit? 33:17 Speaker 2 350 for everyone for everyone. 33:19 Speaker 1 So like with the goat incident, you kept the deposit? Yeah. And did they understand it? 33:23 Speaker 2 They did. 33:24 Speaker 1 You probably don't want to keep deposit. No I don't. Leaves a bad taste. 33:27 Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't. I don't at all. I tried. 33:30 Speaker 1 To yes I made 350 bucks. 33:31 Speaker 2 So I try to do everything to not yeah, because then I'm losing, probably losing a customer. And we've found with our our especially we have a large Mexican population South of us. We have a large East African population. But I found my East African populations like we we from one bridal shower we've done we've booked like 10 events from that same community. 33:59 I have some marketing that solely is Somalian marketing. Interesting. I have some marketing that's solely smart Ethiopian Facebook ads. Yeah, yeah. And even through Flyers and things that we we hand out, Instagram does a lot better with our younger crowds, people celebrating the 25th, 30th and weddings. 34:20 Weddings do great on Instagram. 34:22 Speaker 1 OK. So your percentage profit is about the same on a 4000 versus a $1000 event because your cost is like the overhead. You got your power bill, your Internet, your utilities, $3000 a month rent. You've already paid for all the tables up front, so you need to acquire the customer. 34:39 Let's say it costs $100. Yeah. What are your costs in a in a 4000? 34:42 Speaker 2 So in the 4000 we offer step and repeat. So you know the large banners you ever see like a a premiere of a movie and the stars celebrity are standing in front of like a large vinyl sign that has advertisement stuff. So we do step in repeats because sometimes they want their name or birthday girl those things so that that cost money. 35:01 They also get standees like standing cutouts. They want like 6 foot cardboard cutouts of themself. Those are big up sales balloons. 35:10 Speaker 1 So your percentage profit is higher on the $1000 event? Yes, because they're just using table and chairs that you bought years ago, Yes, So 4000, how much profit you make on a $4000? 35:19 Speaker 2 Event about about 3200. 35:21 Speaker 1 Wow, better than I would have thought. Yeah. OK, so 70%, yeah. And then 90 ish percent on a $1000 event. 35:28 Speaker 2 About 90 ish, yeah. 35:29 Speaker 1 And then ranges from 90 to 70 anywhere between 1 and 4000. 35:33 Speaker 2 Yeah, OK. And we also now we're targeting weddings, OK. So our wedding package is 7000. Wow. So we've done two of those, OK. And we still feel like we're a great price for for, for. 35:45 Speaker 1 Wedding. That's six hours. 35:46 Speaker 2 Yeah, now weddings all complete day because it's so much legwork goes into it, you can't get the day. 35:52 Speaker 1 Are you trying to do 2 events a day? Like is that a full day? 35:54 Speaker 2 That's my goal. I I try to, we don't do a lot of that. We try to. Now we have the weddings. That was of course our whole day, and now we acquired the space next door to us. You rented it last month. 36:09 Speaker 1 How many square feet is? 36:10 Speaker 2 That that's only eleven, 1300. 36:13 Speaker 1 So you're 4300 now? Square feet, yes. Wow. How many can you comfortably fit in 4300? 36:19 Speaker 2 So with tables and chairs. Oh well, we only use one at a time. So with tables and chairs and our 43 and our 30 or 3000 square foot, we try to keep it to 120. Sometimes do 150. 36:35 But if you want 150, that means you can't get a dance floor. It just depends on your events. Appeal to have a large like a repass, like a memorial service. They're not dancing there. So you could do a lot more tables, seats. But if it's a graduation or a birthday party, try to keep the 1:20-ish because we can leave the middle open for your dance floor and still have adequate room. 36:55 And we don't want to put 10 people at a table because one thing I track is when there's more people at our table, our reviews are not as good. And people have a good of a time because they feel like they're squished. Squished. So when you do 8 at a table, that seems to be the sweet spot. OK, So I try to try to stay there. 37:12 Speaker 1 So we're talking like 25 square feet per person, give or take. 37:17 Speaker 2 Yeah. OK. Something like that. Yeah. OK, OK. And so then in the new space, if you're doing tables and chairs, we try to keep it to 60. But when we've done weddings, the beauty of now is doing that is we could do a hundred 120 like theater style just in the chairs and still aisle for the bride. 37:38 So, but now with the new weddings, we're, we haven't started marketing that yet. So I'm interested to see. I think that's going to really be a great uptick going into this year. 37:48 Speaker 1 With the 1300 square feet next door, is the hope to just do bigger events or two at once? 37:54 Speaker 2 Two at once. That's the event right now. Your capacity, Yes, because right now I am. We're in October. I'm booked through January on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in the big space. So I hate that I'm always turning away. I can't come. 38:07 Speaker 1 Up on prices or something? 38:09 Speaker 2 So we're like, we got to move them to to the news. Now the new space, unfortunately is not as small. So it's more intimate parties, but it looks different. It's completely marbles, marble walls, marble floors, big chandeliers. 38:22 Speaker 1 So is it hard to fill Monday through Thursday? 38:26 Speaker 2 I'm trying, I'm trying. So we, we've been doing a lot of trying to get corporate events, trying to get those and giving them a really reduced rate. We've had some parties because our, our blank canvas special Monday through Thursday is 450 and that's enticed a lot of people to come and say, you know what, maybe I should just have a Thursday night party instead, especially if it's leading into a holiday or holiday weekend or something. 38:48 A lot of I've been giving away networking events to like the Chamber of Commerce and people like that say, hey, come have your network event. I'll even throw in, I'll even throw in a case of wine or something too. And and giving them that space to just to say this is what you can do on a Thursday. 39:09 So we're trying to grow that. 39:10 Speaker 1 All right, what about I? I asked you earlier. Your top five events, birthdays, number one. What's 2 through? 39:16 Speaker 2 4 birthdays number 12 baby showers, three re passes and like like a like you know a memorial like after a funeral where everybody go awake. It's like a wake, but wakes normally before the funeral. 39:33 Repass is normally after. 39:35 Speaker 1 I don't think I've ever heard of a repass. 39:36 Speaker 2 In my life, yeah, maybe that's a South Southern thing, but yeah, yeah. So the repasses 3-4 would be anniversaries and five you know 5's. 39:52 Kind of a weird one. The most calls I get from my marketing out of any other party. Which someone you want to guess is church space. OK, so church events, can we host a revival or something like that? Do they? 40:05 Speaker 1 Want to do it like every week or? 40:07 Speaker 2 Just so I have three, I have three churches right now that are every Sunday. Holy cow. So that that's I get more calls, phone calls on churches than I get on any other thing. And that's also made me LED that maybe there's a business in it, maybe there's a business into just having an open space. 40:24 Only churches. 40:25 Speaker 1 Make it look like a church. 40:27 Speaker 2 Make it, yeah. 40:28 Speaker 1 Kind of generic. What hours do they meet on Sunday and how much do you? 40:31 Speaker 2 Charge. So I have a church that is from 8:30 to 12:00. I normally do 3 hours but I've given them a little bit extra time, so 8:30 to 12:00. Then I have 12:30 to 3:30, so I have two essentially 9 to twelves. 40:48 Then I have 112 to 3 or 12 to 83. I'm trying to fill it another one. They had four. 40:55 Speaker 1 So you have two meeting at the same time in the. 40:57 Speaker 2 Two different in the two different spaces. 40:59 Speaker 1 And what do you charge all three of them? 41:00 Speaker 2 So we have two church prices, one is 1001 is 1500 and I think all three of those are currently on the 1000 a month. 41:08 Speaker 1 So wow. Oh, a month, a month. They meet every. 41:11 Speaker 2 But they meet every Sunday, OK, Yeah, still every Sunday. 41:13 Speaker 1 That that covers your rent. 41:14 Speaker 2 Exactly so the goal is to get more churches and we've offered them upgraded package where I'll bring in PTZ cameras, pan tilt, zilt cameras. I'll train somebody show them how the 11 stream live stream because more donations for them. 41:30 Yes, I show them like because I've been showing them look, if you guys want to grow because we had one church in here that grew big enough to go get their own space. So now we've moved in the other 3. And so I advertised both packages, your regular and then there's like $1800 a month package. 41:46 We're all training somebody how to, how to live stream and one click YouTube, one click Facebook. Because right now some of them do live stream with someone holding a phone. And I showed them the difference of, look, you could do this, this. And it's maybe just not in their budget at the moment. But look, when you're ready to go in, I'll move cameras in here and I'll help you guys do it because but yeah, I get more calls on churches and I turn away more churches because that, you know, you only got you only got 4 slots. 42:12 So I'm. 42:14 Speaker 1 Surprised they they all need that much time. 42:17 Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm surprised too. I don't. Well, I've see a lot of them do. Like they'll bring food and they'll have lunch afterwards together. They'll do stuff like that. And the the largest congregation right now only has I think 40 people. 42:32 The other ones are 15 to 20 and they're growing each week. That's why I try to sell them on live streaming because live streaming will help you grow and marketing they need, they need help with marketing, but that's a whole different business. I only got so many hours, but the wheels are turning there because I think literally you have a building that was a church or looks like a church. 42:53 Because the church is also pay sometimes a cup like $150.00 to come in on Wednesday and either they want to meet with some members or have a Bible study and if you and and they really would like Thursdays. 43:05 Speaker 1 Could be great. 43:06 Speaker 2 Yeah, I try to sell them on Wednesdays. Sometimes they want on Thursday or Friday night. I have events. I can't do that. But that's why I think maybe there's something to this other business. It's just a church building church space and then you have 6 church that rotates, but they also have access to the week to meet up because the, the pastors of both have said, I really just need an office for Monday. 43:31 And sometimes I'll be like, look, I'm already working in here today. If you, you want to come in for two hours, that's fine. But I really can't make a habit of that. But so that's why that's a whole day of business. I need more time. But I think there's something to that too. Because that, that that's literally, I get more calls on that than any other any other thing. 43:49 And my ads on church space will outperform everything else. Really. Yeah. The organic ads on church spaces. 43:57 Speaker 1 Just posting organically. 43:58 Speaker 2 Yeah, about church space being open. That outperforms everything else. 44:03 Speaker 1 Man, it makes me want to go rent to church and then rent it out again. 44:06 Speaker 2 Yeah. 44:06 Speaker 1 Like there's a lot of churches for rent. 44:08 Speaker 2 Yeah. 44:09 Speaker 1 Or for sale. 44:10 Speaker 2 Yeah. 44:11 Speaker 1 OK. So church is number 5. Any other kind of random events that you have that would be like 6 through 10. 44:18 Speaker 2 Fashion shows. We started doing those. We did a fashion show that was great. I, I, I know, I'm friends with a really popular designer in Atlanta. And I asked her. I was like, hey, I really want to do fashion shows. I won't. I'm not going to charge you. 44:33 Speaker 1 You post about on Instagram. 44:34 Speaker 2 Yeah, did, did, I built out runways. And so since that I I've done like three other fashion shows. Wow, That was in May. OK, we've done three since then and I get that. And I think I've won in November too. So wow, those have been good. And it's up, it's up. 44:50 I think I did 2 packages. I did a $2000 package with just a runway and you do everything yourself. And then I did a 3000. I'll bring the lighting, everything else. And so it's been a mixture of those two. 45:01 Speaker 1 I mean, it's all about surface area. Like the more types of events you do, the more you open up your market. Yeah. And the it's a finite amount of space and time. So the more eyeballs you have on your space, the more you can charge. Yeah. Do you have employees? 45:15 Speaker 2 No, just my wife and I. 45:16 Speaker 1 Really. Do you still have a job? Yeah. No way. Yeah. All right, so you've been open less than a year. Let's talk numbers since November when you open What If your monthly revenue and profit numbers. 45:29 Speaker 2 Bill So my lowest month since November, which I think it was November, we did 11. 45:34 Speaker 1 Your first month ever was your worst month. You did 11,000 revenue. 45:38 Speaker 2 Yes, 11,000 revenue profit, not so much on that month. Could you put it all back into the building? And then our highest month has been 22, five. Wow. And then on average, I think I did the average little while ago, we were right at like 16, like 15/9 is. 45:56 Speaker 1 Like profit. 45:57 Speaker 2 No or revenue. 45:58 Speaker 1 Oh, that's been oh geez, revenue. And what's your average profit on AA16? 46:04 Speaker 3 $1000 month. 46:06 Speaker 2 Would be about 8000. Wow. 46:08 Speaker 1 Yeah. So 50% net profit margins, yeah. But if you have a $25,000 a month, like your margins just go up. Yeah, because your your costs are fixed. You have no employees, which would be a variable cost. Your overhead is fixed, your utilities are basically fixed, right? 46:25 Yeah. 46:25 Speaker 2 So the only thing that's gone up is our rent. So now we're at 4500 rent. We're about to if we acquire that mill space that will take us to 5500 a month in rent. And so that but but the upside is now that we're marketing the other side literally just opened three weeks ago. 46:43 Yeah. So now we're marketing that like all those dates I turned away from the rest of this year, if I can even get 30% of those in the new space. And we at first we were going to charge less because it's a little bit smaller, but we found what is nice as it is. 47:00 And then the same amount of work has to go into the decorating those things. So we're going to keep the actually keep the price point the same. But if I could fill those dates in there and have double capacity, we should easily be at. We should usually, yeah, we should be at 3035. 47:15 Speaker 1 1000 Revenue What is your insurance cost? 47:20 Speaker 2 Like 2425 hundred a year. It's not horrible. 47:23 Speaker 1 Nothing. Nothing. Yeah. So I mean you pay your monthly rent in like 1 or 2 events. 47:29 Speaker 2 Yeah. The goal is I want to pay it with churches. That's that's what I'm trying to do is pay. Yeah, yeah, because they pay on the 1st. 47:35 Speaker 1 And they're low maintenance, I would imagine. 47:36 Speaker 2 Yeah, they're pretty. 47:37 Speaker 1 Lincoln and no. So you're working 40 hours a week at your job? Yeah. And you're doing this in the evenings and a lot of work on the weekends. Yeah. You enjoy it? 47:46 Speaker 2 Oh, I enjoy it. Yeah, you. 47:47 Speaker 1 Like being around people. I mean, you were PJ. 47:49 Speaker 2 So yeah, I like the people I like, I like the business stuff on this. 47:53 Speaker 1 Do you have any bearing on how much competition you have compared to any given event rental business anywhere? Like is it extra competitive in Stone Mountain or? 48:05 Speaker 2 You know, I don't know outside of our area. It's, it's right now in our there are two, there are three other on our street on Rockbridge Rd. There is three others and so, but they're different though. 48:22 The one that there's one that's extremely nice, beautiful place. The woman that runs it, she's been in the wedding industry for 40 years and she's great and her inside of her place, I can't touch it. It's just Immaculate. But unfortunately she's had two or three occasions where she's double book somebody. 48:41 And so she's called me like, Hey, I double booked this person and their party's tomorrow. Can I give them there? I'll, I'll do it. That's great. Last week she had one. They came over to people were frantic or weddings. I couldn't help them because I'm booked up now. 48:58 So, but I think unfortunately for her, she's her weddings are beautiful, some of the best in the state, but her stuff is on a notebook. She's right. That's how she's double booking, because she's writing down dates. 49:10 Speaker 1 I got to highlight, yeah. 49:11 Speaker 2 Exactly. So I think that's our advantage. And even the other ones, the one that's further down, the woman's been in the business 20 years. Yeah, they're great at what they do, but they're doing no paid social. 1 doesn't even have a website. One has a one has a Facebook page that has stuff that was posted. 49:31 Last Post was six years ago. Crazy. So when I was going into the business, I made a detailed list of everybody. Did they have Facebook? Did they have websites? And then I went, took a tour and saw all the things we could do better. And we're killing them just on the fact that our social's there, our presence there and that we're trying not to make those mistakes. 49:54 And it's also it's a lot of work to write down. We another thing, we've had several tours because people said, hey, I booked a tour with them. No one showed up. I called them. They said, oh, I'm at the dentist though, I can be there 2 hours. 50:10 And so they come to us because you know, it's all through. Either they book it or we book it. It's all through. Go high level. 50:16 Speaker 1 Your close rate on tours is probably stupid. 50:18 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. It's it's because, yeah, you got to get them by. 50:20 Speaker 1 The time they get there, I mean, you probably close 7080% of those. 50:25 Speaker 2 I think we close about 70%, yeah, yeah, about 70 the but we have, I don't know what the issue is. We only about 60, about 50 or percent of the tour show. Yeah. So and that number has gone down. 50:42 It was much higher. 50:43 Speaker 1 That's surprising. 50:44 Speaker 2 That's surprise, yeah. 50:45 Speaker 1 One big unlock for me is probably stupid simple to you is just the fact that most of these event rental places are just renting the space. Like, yeah, because I'm thinking like, oh, this is half $1,000,000 to get started here. You got to own a building, buy a building like you, and most of your competitors are just renting a space. 51:02 Speaker 2 Just renting the space. 51:03 Speaker 1 Sometimes stand alone, usually in a retail center, yeah. 51:06 Speaker 2 Crazy. And it's not. I think our space looks beautiful inside, but it's not. It wasn't like $100,000. 51:13 Speaker 1 Yeah, what did you spend on like tables and chairs? Like you spent 30 ish grand on the build out? What about all the stuff that you have? 51:21 Speaker 2 Maybe 5 Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, that's your best friend, 5 grand. So when I find, you know, the regular lifetime round tables or what yeah, 100 and 2000 and $20 in Sam's or something, I try to get them on Facebook marketplace for 30 bucks. So a lot of those. 51:36 Speaker 1 Off white plastic. 51:37 Speaker 2 Ones. Yep, Yep. 51:38 Speaker 1 And you have the six foot ones too. 51:40 Speaker 2 Yep, we have those. So yeah, so just the tables, chairs are the most expensive. 51:45 Speaker 1 Chairs like that. 51:46 Speaker 2 I don't have anything like that. I have the clear safari chairs. You have to look those up. They're they're acrylic, look really nice. They're clear. They're a little bit delicate. I've probably had 20 broken this last year. OK, But they're like $75 a chair. 52:03 OK, so that they're expensive. So you could easily spend 10 grand just on chairs. 52:08 Speaker 1 But you've spent like 5 total on all of your tables and chairs. 52:12 Speaker 2 Yep and the most expensive thing was the initial 100 chairs I bought was like $3000. 52:17 Speaker 1 OK, And then what about TV's and all that? 52:19 Speaker 2 We have 65 inches that are all nine of them are all attached on a grid so it makes the one the one screen. 52:27 Speaker 1 That's cool. So if someone really wanted to start this business on a budget, what's the least it would take? 52:34 Speaker 2 I I think you could do it for under 3003. I think you could. I think you could. What about getting a door? 52:40 Speaker 1 Rent and deposit. 52:42 Speaker 2 OK, so maybe 6000, I would say fine to rent. We wanted six months. We got four months of free rent, but the free rent saved our lives because we were able to put all we were going to be paying into rent into, into the space. So I would say, and we looked at many properties, some of them said no, absolutely no free rent. 53:00 And I knew we need to build this out. I knew we couldn't do it. I I have a another friend in the business that started around the same time he he took ASBA loan for like 50 grand and was open seven days after he did his lease and he had a build out too. 53:19 Like he how's he doing? He's doing great. 53:21 Speaker 1 Where's he? 53:22 Speaker 2 At he is in Virginia, OK, so and he and his prices are more than mine because there's no competition for him. 53:30 Speaker 1 So when did your friend in Virginia open compared to you? 53:35 Speaker 2 They open like a month or two before us. OK, grand opening. 53:37 Speaker 1 And how's it gone for them? 53:39 Speaker 2 It's been amazing their, their, their price point is like double our price point. Wow. And they're just as busy as us. They're booking into 2028 at this point. 53:48 Speaker 1 So you charge 1000 bucks for bare bones? What are they charging for that? 53:51 Speaker 2 It's like a little over 3000 for bare bones. Holy crap. And then their prices go way up from there. They they have seven $8000 events. 54:01 Speaker 1 And that's in Chesapeake, VA. 54:03 Speaker 2 Yeah. 54:04 Speaker 1 Are they doing like more weddings, more birthdays? How do their how does their event mix? 54:07 Speaker 2 You know, I don't know, I see lots of birthdays. I, I, they, I saw a big wedding there last week, but I believe a majority of it is like birthdays. OK, baby showers. I think it's the full mix. 54:18 Speaker 1 OK, that's crazy. There's so much. 54:21 Speaker 2 Demand, but yeah, but and they've had people drive 2 hours just to do an event there like me. I've realized in our marketing, I'm not even trying to market to Atlanta really, because there's so many there. Yeah. And we do get people that come in, you know, for maybe we've sold them on a wedding package, yeah, that are coming from somewhere else. 54:42 But you know, the competition is so close locally. I'm just trying to get that competition. 54:48 Speaker 1 Yeah. So you you might be in a more competitive area. 54:51 Speaker 2 I think we are. Yeah, I think we are and it. 54:53 Speaker 1 Sounds like it's four in the same place. 2 down the Yeah in Stone Mountain, GA, of all places. 54:58 Speaker 2 So I think. 54:59 Speaker 1 I'm thinking of DFW and I'm like, when was the last time I drove by an event venue? Certainly they're not in Strip. 55:03 Speaker 2 Really. Oh, 'cause I drive by them every day all over metro Atlanta. Yeah, it's a. 55:07 Speaker 1 Business that I never think about. Yeah, my wife would be good at this 'cause she loves hosting that, loves Decker. 55:13 Speaker 2 My wife too. We make a good team, but my wife wants absolutely nothing to do with the tech stuff. Yeah, or the other stuff. She just wants to meet with the people and come up with great ideas. She loves That's the best part of her day is sitting down and saying, look, you told me like she hasn't filled out a questionnaire and says, look, you told me your favorite colors are yellow and this and that, and you want this and you're having a baby. 55:36 And then she shows them. And then she'll text me and say, hey, can you create something for the screens because they're there. Yeah. So then we'll, you know, we try to when we're bringing people in for tours, we kind of know what they're doing. So I'm already selling them. I'm already having if I can, especially if I can find a picture of them online. 55:51 I already got pictures of them on the screens and the other stuff so it's an easy sell when they walk in the building. But my wife loves that part of saying look I can make I can and showing the proof like look I can make this room look completely different. Just open canvas. I can make it look however you want to look or however your vision is. 56:09 Speaker 1 Anything else that people should know before starting this business? Like something that people need to know. 56:14 Speaker 2 Yeah, like don't fall in love with the building, fall in love with the with the inside can do for you and the you got to have parking. 56:20 Speaker 1 OK, So what you can do inside parking? What else? 56:24 Speaker 2 Parking, You're you're the company or not the company, your county bylaws. Can you have? Can you have? Yeah. Can you have event spaces? Some counties don't allow them or some counties say you can have them, but you have to get a liquor license. 56:40 And most people don't know how it's very expensive a liquor license can be or how difficult it can be. So knowing those things because I'd hate to see anybody like sign a lease and then because landlord don't care, but you sign a lease and then go into the property and realize you can't build it out or do what you want. 56:57 What? 56:57 Speaker 1 Do you think about using like a buying or renting a big nice home as an event space? 57:02 Speaker 2 I think, I think there's something to that. We've we've talked about that especially as a big yard. The one thing we can't do that people see us online and see the pictures inside are like, hey, how does the courtyard? How's the outside look? I'm like, sorry about parking lot. It's a parking lot. Yeah, I don't got one, but I think the house and especially zone for commercial and a big yard, I think that's great for weddings. 57:24 And then you can have on site, you could have an Airbnb, you could have so many things If I were to do it again or if when I do it again, I think we'll learn more towards something like that. But I think a house is great. And also I think I see people doing like going to a local VFW and saying, hey, can I either use your basement or use your hall for, you know, can I pre pay for two weekends? 57:49 And then you try to sell those weekends somebody else and test the concept. 57:53 Speaker 1 Without a long term lead. 57:54 Speaker 2 Yeah, without a long term lead and then but you got The thing is like ours, everybody that walks in our door says, I did not think it was going to look like this when I walked in. And if you do that with the VFW wherever you that's what you have to sell on people can't they have to be transformed when they walk in and their pictures, their pictures have to look great on Instagram. 58:14 Every every place needs to be photograph of cool in your building lounge or bathrooms. And we spend a lot of money in the bathrooms and we see so many pictures on Instagram in our bathroom because just we have great lighting and those things. So that's, you know, selling point. 58:30 Speaker 1 I saw this stat on Twitter recently that talked about how much time we're spending at home compared to like in the 80s and 90s and it is like shocking. So it was like from like 2008 to 2020, it was like slowly climbing up. 58:46 It was like 12% of our time at home, 13 percent, 15%. And then 2020 went to 60%, obviously. But then since then it's been like dropping, but very slowly. So like 57 percent, 54. We're still like way, way, way higher than we were years ago. 59:03 We're just, we're not going out anymore. But it's reversing, right? So I truly believe like the more AI takes hold, the more that trend keeps reversing. Like events like this are going to be way more popular in 5-10 years even than they are today. 59:18 Speaker 2 Oh yeah, I I think so. 59:19 Speaker 1 We need human connection. 59:21 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. And, and we market to people want to do parties. And I think we're at a great price point for our location. But like when I market to apartment complexes, that's where we do great because you maybe can't host even 20 people in your apartment, but you still want to have a birthday party. 59:41 And it's still, and I know for Atlanta, being a previous DJ, being a DJ before the nightlife scene is not, is nowhere in this country is what it used to be. I think our age group had the got the peak, the peak of that, but it's, it's dwindling. 59:58 But if you can create that. That, that feel on your own in a safe environment, because I don't think we mentioned before we have secure, we do have security and armed security and we work with the local Police Department. People feel safe inside. 1:00:13 But I think if you can recreate that, because we have so many 80s and 90s and 2000s parties and people are trying to make it look like a club they went to in, in 2005. And so people love that. So I, I, I really think that's on the rise because you don't have to go to a nightclub or lounge to recreate that nostalgia feeling from a 90s party or early 2000s party, Yeah. 1:00:39 Speaker 1 Where can people find you? 1:00:40 Speaker 2 So they can find us at the Hall ATL on all things social. thehallatl.com. My wife and I get a lot of questions about this, so we kind of devise a little free ebook that you can download straight from our Instagram and that's the Hall ATL, OK. 1:00:57 And yeah, we're there and we take questions every day. I just want to help people. So anybody that wants to do this? 1:01:04 Speaker 1 Just connected your last name Hall. 1:01:06 Speaker 2 Yeah, worked out for it. Yeah, OK. Yeah. 1:01:09 Speaker 1 I'm sure that was intentional. 1:01:10 Speaker 2 It will vary. 1:01:12 Speaker 1 OK, Justin, this has been amazing, man. 1:01:15 Speaker 2 It's been awesome. Thank you. 1:01:17 Speaker 3 Hey guys, if you're still listening to this, it's probably because if you haven't had a chance to take your air pods out, you're still mowing the lawn, you're still driving, what have you. If you're still here with me, I would really, really love and appreciate a five star review on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. 1:01:33 It would mean a lot. If you want to go the extra mile, share this episode with a friend that might have an interest in starting a business. It would mean a ton. Hope you have the best day of your life today.