Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - How This Atlanta-Based Selfie Museum Generates $320K Annually

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

In Episode 352 of Acquisitions Anonymous, the hosts explore an Atlanta-based Selfie Museum, a 5,500 sq. ft. venue with curated rooms designed for Instagram-worthy moments. From analyzing the numbers to questioning the sustainability of this business model, they break down whether this is a smart buy or just a picture-perfect hustle.Link to the listing: https://www.bizbuysell.com/Business-Opportunity/highly-profitable-selfie-museum-franchise/2221336/ Thanks to this episodes sponsors:CapitalPad: The ultimate marketplace for acquisitive entrepreneurs. Whether you’re looking to invest in small businesses or need capital to fund your next deal, CapitalPad connects you with the right people and handles all the fine details. Check it out at CapitalPad.com and tell them Acquisitions Anonymous sent you!Viso Business Capital: Simplifying SBA loans for small business acquisitions. Get the best rates, fastest closings, and customized loan structures. Sign up for a free live Q&A session at VisoCap.net.📸 Key Highlights:- The growing trend of selfie-centric entertainment venues.- Financial breakdown: $320,000 revenue with ambiguous cash flow claims.- The challenges of franchising in a niche, trend-driven market.- Why pop-ups might outperform fixed locations for businesses like this.Subscribe to weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking here Do you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show! Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations. For inquiries or suggestions, email us at [e-mail]

With a brand like this, it's so difficult because you have kind of a really strong founder personality. That founder has a core business that this is now just an extension of. Selfies in a made up space like this, Gen Z by and large is not very interested in that at all. Those pop up or for a party or a specific event would be kind of fun, but as a fixed location, I don't like it. These businesses are too cool for me. I'm not cool enough to own this business and I don't understand, you know, trends well enough to stay in front of them. We don't have 100% here. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous.

I'm Millsnell, one of your co-hosts, me, Bill, Heather, and Michael talk about a fascinating company today. This one kind of confused us. We weren't really sure exactly what was going on with this business and what was being offered, but it was unique. It was on Biz by Sell. This company is a Atlanta-based selfie museum is what they call it. The name of the business is in the listing. We didn't sign an NDA, so all this was disclosed to us in the public listing. But it's an extension of a influencer brand and kind of a larger kind of family of companies is what it seems like.

But it's about 5,000 square feet. The business, it looks like does 320,000 in revenue. There's some ambiguity over how much money they're actually making and what is being offered. But these are these extremely well curated, very, very stylized rooms where people pay money to go for 15 minutes or an hour or have a party. And it's a selfie-centric kind of culture, big Instagram kind of influencer type theme. We talk about the nuances around this of how transferable is it buy versus build. How do you separate this from somebody's fashion or kind of lifestyle or, you know, influencer brand?

And we talk about is this really a transferable business? Also, the pros and the cons of hiring a broker versus doing a listing yourself because we kind of walked away, having a lot more questions than we had answers to. But it's a really interesting one. It's a good one to probably watch on YouTube because we're pulling up pictures of their website and of the listing that kind of help paint this picture of what's going on. here. Really interesting, really difficult business to kind of get to the bottom of and figure out what's going on. But a really fun episode and I hope you enjoy. Stick around for a quick word from

our sponsors. Hey, everyone, it's Bill. And I want to tell you about maybe the most exciting sponsor we've had in a long time on the pod. It's called Capital Pad. And it is the thing that I wish existed when I started my journey of operating and investing in small businesses. So CapitalPad is a marketplace for acquisition entrepreneurs that is people who want to buy a business and need capital to list their deals and solicit capital from other people who want to invest in acquisition deals. So if you want to back somebody buying a small business, Capital Pad is a place to do it. And if you want to buy a business and need capital, you can go on CapitalPad to be introduced to investors. So the really great thing, too, from the investor side,

is that CapitalPad takes care of all of the details that can get hairy with small business acquisitions. They handle standardized terms, standardized governance, standardized distributions all up front in black and white. Basically, CapitalPad professionalizes investing in small businesses, and the returns can be really, really good. I'm so stoked they exist. It's founded by my friend Travis, who is a phenomenal entrepreneur in his own right. So if this sounds like something that is appealing to you, if you want to buy a small business, and need capital, or if you want to invest in small businesses, go check out Capitalpad.com and tell them that Acquisitions Anonymous sent you. Guys, this is amazing.

How did we all manage to wear the exact same clothes as last episode? Who sent the text about that? It just amazes me how we recreate it every single time, even though the episode is three days later. I don't know how we do it. For those of you don't know, we tried to record two episodes per recording. So that's the tough. Which is good for you, dear listener, because it means we are already warmed up.

We're already warmed up. Well, it enables us to get ahead, right? We release two episodes a week. And if we have the potential to record up to four per week, so if we get busy, that we've managed to get through 300. How many are we on Mills, like 370 or something now? Yeah, I think so. Well, no, I think we're in the 350s.

350s. Yeah, which means we are almost to the point where you could listen to an episode of Acquisitions anonymous every day for a whole year. If you want. I am still blown away. And Heather, maybe you have thoughts on this, but I'm still blown away by how many people come up and they're like, I just listen to every single episode. And I'm like, I'm so sorry.

I have heard people binge. They do binge. So I'm glad. I get lots and lots of emails. One person was referred to me completely outside of business acquisition. And he got all excited when he realized I was Heather from the podcast. You know, he. So.

Yeah. It is pretty fun. Today we released episode 347, which is the Harley Davidson dealership, a good investment. And somehow it's explicit. So I can't remember what we said or when, but, you know, don't listen with your kids in the car. It got flagged by YouTube. I think all of ours are listed as explicit. All of them.

We swear that much. What the hell? Well, we have done a brothel before. We've accidentally. We did accidentally did a brothel. I'm glad I was a writer from the listeners. It was a brothel. This one is not, but it's almost as cool.

It looks like it could be. All right. So I brought this deal. It is a highly profitable selfie museum franchise located in Atlanta, Georgia. The pictures here, for those of you not on YouTube, are like a, Bill, what does this look like? There's like inflatable animals here. It looks like a Dr. Sue's nightmare.

This is like a place where you go. So we just did a, the last episode was about old school Porsche parts. And I said, like, let's be real. The guy that owns this is definitely a guy. The customers here are almost all women, right? Like, this is where women go to take Instagram pictures is basically what it is. Right. So the first picture is like a counter.

And then there's like a bunch of color and candy and inflatable like flamen. like flamingos and animals. Yeah. There's like a unicorn room. There's like all kinds of crazy, you know, backdrops. And then the second one appears to have women having a T set with little cakes painted pink. And in the background, is that Oprah? Like there's not the real Oprah.

It's photos of Oprah. There's photos of like prominent African American women all over the walls here. Yeah, that's pretty. That's little kids. Jim, right? Megan the Stallion. I recognize all these. Michelle Obama.

So there's like a tier. I would not have pegged you to recognize all those people on site. Now I want to know what your Spotify is like now. It's very eclectic. Okay. And then there's like another thing here where there's like a bathtub. Is that what this is? Yeah.

With like a sink. Yeah, it's like a bathroom, like an elegant bathroom. And dollar bills on the wall. And then there's another one. where there's like a pink kind of room? So if you're not, if you're, if you're just listening,

it's basically almost like stalls or study carols with like three walls and open on the other wall. And each of the little cubicles is decorated like a different room. So the idea is that you pay admission and you get to be in there for probably an hour or whatever. And you bring a friend in a ring light or maybe they have those for rent also. And you, you know, you probably go there already ready for.

camera ready and you take a whole bunch of pictures and then you drip them out on Instagram like over the next month and then you go back. I did I did find out put it in the chat. The pricing is as follows. Women winning Wednesdays. You can book online. It's one hour on Wednesdays for 15 minutes or you can do best one hour for $15. So yeah, one hour for $15. Best friend Thursdays is one hour for $50. I don't know if that's two people. Then there's general admission Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Saturday, Sunday. It's $35 for an hour. They also have these things like VIP birthday packages. It's two hours for $39.99. And then you can also get a professional photographer there for an hour for $175.

They accept walk-ins. They are cashless, so it's card only. And it looks like they host some like events and things like that there too. Let me read the description. And then we can see how they think about it. Sorry. Yeah. So they're a franchise. And it is a well-established passive selfie museum. So you can own a part of a groundbreaking franchise designed for busy entrepreneurs seeking passive income. The Girl Mob Museum, spelled G-U-R-L space M-O-B-B-Museum, is a ticket-based, immersive experience that creates lasting memories for tourists, special celebrations, and more.

Similar experiential museums like the Museum of Ice Cream earned over $10 million in their first year, while the color factory earned more than $2 million. $29 rooms, a pop-up experience by Refinery 29, brought over $1.5 million in with just a few months, demonstrating the immense power of immersive Instagram wall spaces in capturing the attention of millennials in Gen Z. The asking price is $90,000 with cash flow of $300,000. Gross revenue was $320,000 last year, and inventory is $10,000, which is not included in the asking price. Huh?

Okay. Okay. Rent is $4,200 a month, and it was established in 2021. To continue on with the description, you can step into a thriving, experiential entertainment industry with this highly profitable, turnkey, selfie museum franchise, featuring interactive, colorful, social media-ready exhibits. The museum is designed to draw in heavy foot traffic and generate substantial revenue through ticket sales, merchandise, and event rentals. Selfie museums have, like the Museum of Ice Cream, have already proven to be highly lucrative, often generating millions in their first year. And this franchise opportunity allows you to own a thriving business that appeals to today's social media-driven audience. Located in Atlanta, Georgia, the real estate is leased with a 5,500 square foot building. The lease expires April 14th, 2025. It operates out of a modern 5,000 square foot live workspace located in a high traffic commercial area with excellent visibility and foot traffic.

The Atlanta location is fully built out and developed. For example, the sale includes a fully equipped... They forgot to delete the template from Biz Buy-Sell. That's what. Oh, technology. Hi. Okay. One of Atlanta's first and most successful selfie museum, it is generated passive income for the past three years.

It operates with mental overhead and requires a small team to run efficiently. It says it as four employees. It is a highly effective business model. Then there's a bunch of other stuff here that kind of talks into a circuit, a circle. and the yeah this season serial entrepreneur actively scaling new company and seeking to LEA I guess leave so whatever what a kind of messy business listing so this looks like it's in it's in Buckhead it's on it's on

Piedmont in Atlanta so this is in like the swanky part of Atlanta and I think the CEO is the one who's listed there at Mary is it looks like it's listed by her For sale by owner, basically. Yeah. Yeah. She's a, her Instagram says she's a marketing mogul. She runs a business called Girl Mobb that has 181,000 Instagram followers. The Girl Mob Museum has 60,000 Instagram followers.

Do we think that she is trying to turn this into a franchise? Do we think that this is one of one and she's trying to sell this as the first franchise location and then elevate to franchise or and go sell more franchises? Very possible. Yeah, because. Or is she trying to repay in the corporate store and this is just a pitch to go open another one in another city? Yeah, that I can't tell. But help me understand the numbers here. So, Michael, can you go back to the listing for a sec?

Because the numbers confuse me. I want to. I'm still just fascinated this lady has a fully pink sports car. It's pretty awesome. This business is making real money. what that makes you think. Or it makes you think it's least and my red flags are going up like crazy. So.

Pink sports cars make your red flags go off. Yeah. A little bit. So I also do not understand the math here. So gross revenue 320,000. Cash flow 300,000. They also have four employees. So I don't understand how you have $48,000 a year in rent.

And you have $40,000 a year in rent. year of rent. They don't add up. So we've got three employees in $48,000 year or four employees in $48,000 a year of rent. That's definitely more than $20,000 of total expense. But even if- Multiple is 0.33. Right.

And so the asking price here is $90,000. So how does this work? Like you're paying $90,000 here for $300,000 a year of cash flow on 320 of gross rate. Either this is the best deal ever or the pink sports car is least. Those are the two options. I think that it's just a misnomer on the cash flow. I mean, I think the business is probably because, right, it's for sale by owner. So people are copying and pasting and typing stuff in the listing.

And I think it probably is maybe doing $90,000 in cash flow. And she's asking a one times multiple or something like that. It's a pink rolls Royce. I was wrong. It's not a sports car. They have 20 content rooms too at the museum. So are you guys like semi familiar with this business model? Have you seen it before?

Like the museum of ice cream and those, like, do you guys know what those are? Car factory. Yeah. Like these are basically touring. Those are touring exhibits though. Like they kind of pop up and go away. I can't, this looks like it's more permanent and you're going to just go. And I would think if you're going to be permanent, you probably also have to cycle the sets.

Yeah. Every so often, right? So this is starting to feel less passive to me. I've got four employees and I've got to cycle my sets. You know, every so often just gets old. To stay relevant, to stay on trend, just to stay fresh, right, at all. Because at some point, all of your customers have photographed themselves at all of your sets. You know, you need new sets.

So I've got some questions about how passive this, this passive business really is. But I do believe that the market is amazing. A digital marketing passive like e product. I mean, looking at her stuff here for Girl Mob, this is. definitely like an African-American focused female business brand. Hi, Heather here. When I'm not breaking down deals with these guys, I'm helping people get the right SBA loans for their business acquisitions. Because when you're buying a business, the best financing isn't one-size-fits-all. There's the best rate, fastest to close, the specific

loan structure that you need, or a little of all of those things. That's why my company, Vizzo Business Capital, works with over 30 different lenders to find you the best funding in less time and with less friction so you can focus on the deal. Sign up for a free live Q&A session on SBA loans at VisoCAP.net, then click Zoom sign up in the top right corner. That's V-I-S-O-C-A-P dot net and click Zoom sign up. Speaking of businesses, I'm not qualified to own. Yeah.

So, I mean, that leads to the, I mean, a museum like this or the selfie museum, like, the very first question is Atlanta is a pretty special place. right like it's you know it's there is one of the most unique and vibrant like african-americ communities in the united states there yes and like it does this and they have a super unique culture that loves the idea of like a pink rolls royce if you drove that around san atltonio people would be like what the hell is that uh like because it be so unique but in atlanta i bet there's 15 people with pink rolls royces like so that's my very first question about this is like how much is this just a byproduct of Atlanta being like a really unique place?

When it seems like with a brand like this, it's so difficult because you have kind of a really strong founder personality. And then that that founder has a core business that this is now just an extension of. Girl Mob is her brand. Girl Mob Museum is a derivative of that brand. And, you know, let's just say somebody buys this and it's a successful transition. and Girl Mob decides to go in a different direction, but you're still branded Girl Mob Museum. Do you retain that branding? Do you change it?

Is it really transferable? It becomes kind of tricky to figure out how these things are intertwined. Yeah. I've also got Buy versus Build questions here. I mean, like, what are you really buying? You know, this is a one location franchise, big air quotes, you know, and there's some sets. I mean, like the total cost to replicate this thing has got to be under 100. or grant, I would think.

I think it would be easier on a mobile basis than, you know, in a fixed location like that. You know, there are these photo booth businesses that are kind of the same thing. They'll set up at your party, but you could probably do something that's just a little more elaborate than that in a, in a vehicle and have a mobile, you know, kind of almost on a food truck basis, you know, set up in certain places and have people come. I think this is, I think this is tough to operate in a fixed location. So is she trying to sell this location or is she trying to sell other people a franchise to open another one? I think it's the latter.

I think she's trying to, I think she's trying to sell this as a franchise. And like you probably buy this and step into being the first franchisee and paying a royalty. But you're greenfielding a new location and she's saying, look, here's the model. Like the typical franchisor owns corporate stores, right, to say, hey, here's how it's done. And then they go and, you know, disperse franchisees. And ideally, it's more than one corporate store before that next step, right? Yeah. It's not usually one corporate store and then franchisees.

It's like five or six because they've tested out how to expand and everything else. Pretty scary if it's just one and you're the first franchisee to get that. And not to mention franchising is highly regulated. Like, I would be willing to bet like this doesn't have its FDD certification. Like it's not the name franchise may be a little bit of a, you know, a misnomer also. Yeah. True. Yeah.

There's a lot of just details here that are just like, huh, that doesn't make sense. Like words, words thrown around that maybe are not legally correct. But I think, I mean, I think this is, it's an interesting business because like talk about highest and best use for How many square feet did they say? 5,000 square feet, 5,500. Like the yield from a revenue standpoint on this amount of real estate, it's pretty interesting. The thing that scares me is the kind of perpetual care and feeding that it requires. And like this business just seems like it came on the scene kind of out of nowhere, I think,

in a lot of ways, these kind of selfie rooms, these selfie concepts. And it seems like it could go away just as quickly. I don't think Instagram is going to go away overnight. But I just worry about the durability of it. The lease is expiring soon. So that's another issue where you've got to say, okay, what am I going to, as a buyer, what am I going to be hit with in terms of the renewal? You have to go find a new location that might be a benefit.

I don't know. I am also very, very much thinking a lot of the selfie kind of idea is like a late millennial phenomenon. Right. And I'm worried about how much Gen Z, which seems to be kind of swinging back towards wanting to be more real and authentic and retro with stuff, selfies in a made up kind of space like this, like with a fake T set. Like Gen Z by and large is not very interested in that at all. Yeah. So I like this much more. I like it much more as a hustle than a business.

Like I love something like this as like put to, you know, spend 20 grand. cobbled it together some really cool sets, do some grill of marketing, have a big opening, break in 200 grand in two or three weeks, and then close it down. Like, I love it for that. I don't love it for like I'm going to operate this for the next five to 10 years. Yeah, I think it's the kind of thing. There was one in Columbia. So if that tells you anything, Michael, about our relevance as a great southern Renaissance city.

The last episode, Michael was like, do you still? have the internet's down there, Mills. No, I asked if you've gotten electricity yet. Are you still operating off? Then he did a great southern accent. He's like, we have water at my house. But we had one of these in Columbia, which I don't think we have the density in terms of an urban center to support something like this.

And it didn't last. But everybody in Columbia, you know, who was into this kind of thing, went, posted the pictures. And then all of a sudden it's like, well, I've kind of seen. seen seen it you know I've been there done that and now all of a sudden it's not as cool whereas to your point bill a pop up is like I missed it and I wasn't there for the three day you know long weekend thing that they did and now it's gone and I don't have a picture with you know being in like the 10,000 ball pit you know 10,000 ball pit or whatever Heather you're an expert in

ladies what do you think about this I am not an expert in selfie sets at all I am but look at your back drop It's so relevant and awesome. Yeah, I would definitely be thumbs down on something like this. Like, you know, I live near the movie industry and, you know, it reminds me of like we have properties here that are that are used for movies all the time that basically have a Western town set up. And I've seen those for sale. That's a tough business to be in, you know, really, whether it's filming for TV or movies or doing your selfies, you can go find your own backdrop. you know, and that's what they usually do more nowadays.

And like you said, for more authentic backdrops, that's what people do. They'll scout something out. So I would question the long-term relevance, kind of like Bill, like if it was pop-up or for a party or a specific event, it would be kind of fun. But as a fixed location, I don't like it. Yeah, I have seen people, yeah, I'm thumbs down on a standalone as a business. I have seen people do really well as a hustle with this type of thing. Like you would do these pop-ups.

you could do, I've seen like the selfie booths that you set up at weddings. You know, you rent out, like you do a different wedding every weekend. I've seen people be really well with those. More of like the vending machines type model where it's, you know, you kind of go where the demand is. But I think you've got to, you got to have your nose of the ground on demand. You can't just say, I have this location. It's a perma thing.

It's passive income. It is impressive how much effort this lady put into building this thing out. Like, 5,500 square feet of these little kiosk where you could take selfie. phase like that is there's a level of really cool creativity here there's a barbie one the bathtub one the candy one the t set one like that's i don't know it's i just want to acknowledge this is some creative work here and a lot of effort to build out something like this but also this is the kind of thing like she's making real money doing this i just don't know that it's really sellable yeah we all seem to be all right we'll seem to be kind of stunned by this way well there's so many i mean

And this is also just a case and point where like having a business broker involved sometimes is probably a good idea because especially for folks that don't have a lot of experience in this space, you can write a listing that would just turn a ton of people off because they don't understand it. And I guess what we're hearing from this one is like, well, what is it exactly that it is here? And it's not super clear. Actually, it's the opposite of clear. Let me put it that way. All right. We're thumbs down on it. I could consider, you know, being inspired by this.

And if this was something that you wanted to do, make it a hustle. I bet you can make six figures a year easy hustling in this niche. I'm not sure why you got to buy one. Million percent. Well, I mean, one thing I do like about it is once you get a beachhead of somebody to try it out, like they are your promotion because they're going to all their friends are going to see it. Right. Because they're going to, ideally you're going to have some sort of referral, you know, when they, somebody will ask. where'd you take that photo while I took it at this place like over there there's no mode in it

that's the problem because like like they oh your your friend went to a place like this and took a cool photo like I don't I almost don't want to go take the same photo at the same place they went I want to take a similar cool photo that's a little bit different so I can be a unique snowflake on Instagram right so it's like the this is like the opposite of the rising tide lifts all boats It's like a rising boat lifts all the other boats. Like if you do well, it's that much easier to copy you with just popularity is its own, you know, demise. Yeah, in a way. Yeah, and then of course it becomes passei because everybody's done it.

So it's popularity. If you win too hard, you destroy it. These are the businesses are too cool for me. I'm not cool enough to own this business and I don't understand, you know, trends well enough to stay in front of them. I just pulled back up the photo again of the founder getting out of her Rolls Royce and she shows off her clothes, shows off her drift. stairs down the camera and then the camera zooms in to the back of the seat

so you can see it's a Rolls-Royce with the artificial stars on the inside. That's cool. Where can I rent one of those mills? Do they have those in Columbia? Can I get those at hers? I'm sure she can tell you where you can rent one of this. Yeah, I have not seen them here.

All right, well, Heather, you hated this. We thought you'd be like flying over there right now to be taking selfies. No, no. Calling up your private jet flying on over there. All right. Well, at least it was interesting.

Very. Man, I can't knock the hustle. I just, lifestyle brands, man, I just, these people that do it, it's, uh, kudos to them. I ain't got it at me. I ain't got it at me. All right. Thanks for listening to this episode of Acquisition Anonymous. Go check out our website at ACQUanon.com.

We've got a whole bunch of other franchise deals, trend deals, ecom deals, construction deals, franchise deals, anything that you want on our website, 350 or so episodes, ACQUan. com get on our email list also we send out an email highlighting all the deals we've profiled that week plus other cool stuff from us your hosts so thanks for listening we'll see you next time it's like a free MBA with bad jokes that's what it is what our website is that's not this is no longer the internet's number one podcast on buying and selling small businesses this is a free MBA with bad jobs yeah pretty much yeah even better see you bye