$1M+/yr Local Businesses Hidden in Plain Sight

**Sam Parr** (0:00)
I have a business that no one on a podcast has ever discussed. It's literally the first time this has probably ever been talked about on YouTube or in the audio format. I'm breaking grounds here.

**Shaan Puri** (0:10)
Okay, Jackie Robinson. So this weekend, I went to my daughter's spring recital. And Sam, when you see this, what does this look like?

**Sam Parr** (0:33)
This just looks like just like, I don't know, a great ballerina typical program. Yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (0:38)
Right. Yeah. Show program. And that's what everybody in that crowd thought. But not me. I saw a business plan, Sam. I saw a business plan. I saw information. I saw a giant information leak. Okay. So check this out. This woman has built a million dollar plus kids dance studio just down the street from us. And I think this is remarkable. And I think it's a good reminder that like, there's these million dollar businesses like all around you. You don't have to do something really grand or innovative to do it. You just got to provide a service that people love and you got to scale it in the right way. So check this out. On the back is a list of all the dancers in the show. Now all the dancers in the show are all the dancers across her three locations, all the kids basically. Everyone performs. Okay, so I look at this and everyone else is looking for their kids' name. I'm looking for top line revenue numbers. Okay, I'm trying to figure it out. And so I see, all right, each of these columns is about 50 names. There's six columns. Okay, we got 300 kids at this dance show.

**Sam Parr** (1:38)
How much does it cost?

**Shaan Puri** (1:40)
I know that we pay something like 250 bucks a month to be a part of the dance studio. And this is the spring recital. So immediately my head says, all right, we're doing at least spring and fall. Might even be doing four recitals a year. I'm not sure. I had just bought the tickets to this recital. So I know that in addition to the 250 bucks a month membership, you're going to be paying for the uniforms. You're going to be paying for tickets to watch the show. Of course, every single parent is going to watch their kid. I think, in fact, we brought grandparents with us and a few extras, but you look around that theater, it's totally sold out.
Standing room only. I know a mom who was in our class who she did not log on to buy her tickets right away and therefore only got two tickets and got them in the back. And so she kicked her husband out of the two tickets and was like, hey, tell your mother she got her mother-in-law to come with a walker so that they could go sit in the ADA seat. Like that's how vicious the competition is for these. The demand is insatiable. Okay, so basically if you do the math on this and you say, okay, we spent 100 bucks on the tickets for this recital, then you spent 250 bucks a month, and then you're in this thing year round, you end up seeing that this is a business that's generating a little over a million dollars a year in revenue. So about 1.25 million.

**Sam Parr** (2:56)
So you said 300 names, $250, that's $75,000 a month in sales. Just off that.

**Shaan Puri** (3:03)
Just off that. And then you add on the plus plus, the shows, the tickets, the photos. Oh, for the photo package, you spend 100 bucks. You know, it's one thing after another, basically, that they sell to you. And it's great. We're happy customers. And so you get there. She basically does no marketing. The show is her marketing. And what ends up happening is that you, and then at the end of the show, she brings out the teachers to take a bow. These are the teachers. So I'm like, oh, thank you. Now I see the OPEX line. What, how do we, we got seven teachers here? Okay, cool. Seven teachers. Got it. And so I'm trying to figure this out. Okay, so I'm pretty sure that this dance studio is netting somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000 in EBITDA every year. Okay. Amazing.

**Sam Parr** (3:44)
Did she also, did she like arrive to the class in like an S class? Like, what's up with the car when she's driving?

**Shaan Puri** (3:50)
Yeah, I installed a tracking device underneath just to see where she lives now.

**Sam Parr** (3:56)
Did her Birka bag give out any hints as to how well the business was doing?