He Copied an Idea I Posted and Built a $2,600/Week Business⏐Ep. #267

Chris Koerner (0:00)

So about a year ago, I posted a short about a cafe in Dubai that also has a huge sandbox where they have remote-controlled excavators, diggers, cranes, et cetera. That short got about 20 million views across platforms. And would you believe it, this guy named Tim in Erlanger, Kentucky, of all places, said, that's my business. He'd had a W-2 job his whole career, and he said, this is the business I'm going to start. So he spent a little bit of money, he bought a trailer, he bought some equipment, he bought some sand, and he posted up at fairs and festivals and started making thousands of dollars, charging a dollar a minute to kids and grownups, almost all men, to play with these RC diggers, excavators. Now he's opening a full retail store doing the same thing, and he is crushing it. So, of course, I had to have Tim on the pod to tell us, how'd you do it, how are you making money, how can we copy you? Please enjoy. Tell me where you were at in your life when you first saw that video. Like, had you been exploring ideas, were you content in your job or your business? Where were you at?

Tim (1:02)

I've always had that bug, but I've always been too shy to pull the trigger, honestly. And I think a lot of your content in the group helped my confidence in those areas, knowing that you had real experience to lean on. Plus, I just really appreciated your attitude towards things, that not everything has to be a billion dollar idea, that you can stack smaller businesses and still get to the same goal. So my whole life, I've been in technology, I've been in IT and AVIT my whole life, but I've always been an entrepreneur, so I run remodeling businesses and IT businesses, but I just didn't care for, I wasn't into it, so it always trailed off. My regular income always took care of all the bills, so I wasn't in any sort of rush. But I really fell in love with this idea, and we started taking it out to fairs and events and seeing kids' faces light up, and more importantly, I think, fathers' faces lighting up and parents playing at the same time with their kids. A lot of kids have never used stuff like this before. They're used to their phones and tablets. This year, I was actually laid off from my job. I've since gotten another job, so it's all good, but for two months there, it was rough figuring out what I was gonna do, and so I was just leaning into a lot of things, including this.

Chris Koerner (2:21)

Okay, so when you say you were always able to pay your bills, you had like other kind of side hustles and construction businesses on the side, but really you've had a W-2 most of your life, right?

Tim (2:31)

My whole life, yeah.

Chris Koerner (2:32)

Okay, and so you did when you started this and then you got laid off, and now you have another W-2, but you're still doing this on the side, right?

Tim (2:38)

100%.

Chris Koerner (2:39)

Okay, what of all the, I post at least three ideas every single day. Of all the ones I post, why did this one stand out to you?

Tim (2:47)

The barriers to entry seemed really low. The risks seemed really low. The more I started playing with what it was going to take to put this together, you know, I was able to do it with very little risk involved. I basically paid off all of my investments to date, except for, you know, recently because we're opening a store. But until we started the store, I was already broke even on, you know, we sold 1,700 sessions at $5 a session over the summer.

And we booked seven private parties at $3.99 for two hours.

Chris Koerner (3:20)

Wow. Okay. So do you also have like the cool factor on this idea? Like you were just like, this looks awesome. Like I would like to play this.

Tim (3:28)

I think so. I missed the execution, to be honest with you a little bit on how we built the trailer. The wall of the trailer was a little high. So the visual people had to come over to it to look in to see what was going on. And I made it lower.

People just passing by would have seen more of what was going on. Because we had a lot of up and down traffic. Because if nobody was playing, people would just walk by. We haven't yet nailed how to get people to come over. And I think part of that was they couldn't see what was in the pit. It just looked like a trailer to them. And when you're at a fair or carnival, you kind of blend in with all the other trailers and businesses. You know, it's orange and we've got a big orange tent and a lot of signage and stuff like that. But it's new. Nobody knows what it is. A lot of people thought we were selling the machines. We kind of had to explain what was going on. Oh, there you go. So this is our trailer.