The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner - Matthew returns! How to copy competitors & make $6m/year with indoor sledding. Ep. #033

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Remember my alpine slide guest from 2 weeks back? Well he's back! You're gonna love this one.---Ask me a question on or off the show here: http://form.typeform.com/to/Eb8KaY0pLearn more about me: http://chrisjkoerner.comLearn about my company: http://cofounders.comFollow me on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/mhp_guyFree weekly business ideas newsletter: https://newsletter.chrisjkoerner.com/---00:46 The Pigeon Forge Snow Story01:52 Innovative Snow Park Design03:54 Testing and Market Research05:58 Challenges and Solutions07:51 Entrepreneurial Insights19:34 Future Ideas and Expansion28:34 Building Demand and Opening Challenges29:12 Navigating Seasonal Business Fluctuations29:48 Impact of COVID-19 on Business31:00 Creative Financing and Investments34:38 Franchising and Expansion Plans40:45 Real Estate Ventures and Challenges46:27 Reflecting on Business Ventures and Ideas48:58 Encouraging Entrepreneurial Spirit

That ski resort had a webcam up on their snow tubing their whole season. And so you can guess where I'm going with it. The season before, I literally just sat there with a clicker. I've got it somewhere. I need to find it. And it's pretty easy to figure out how successful something like that is. Welcome to the Kerner office. I think you're going to love this one.

Why? Because you love the last time I interviewed Matthew Ayers. He was the guy that started the Alpine Slide business, episode 29, to be exact. we had a follow-up episode because we just couldn't get it all out. So he talked all about his business Pigeon Forge Snow and the subdivision that he's putting in and other random business ideas. He's a cool guy. I think you're going to like it.

Please like, subscribe and share with your friends. Thank you. When we last left off, you have mentioned the Pigeon Forge Snow, but we didn't really get into what made you think to start that? What did you see that triggered that idea? What was the startup process like, funding it like the first month, first year? I want to hear the Pigeon Forge Snow story because it's such a unique business. Yeah, so that's a lot of questions right there.

I guess to give somebody a recap, so Pigeon Forge Snow is an indoor snow park. It's mainly snow tubing. And it is actually the first. It was the first of its kind in the U.S. And so what I mean by that is it is actually, first off, it's temperature independent, which means that it is not sub-zero. So it's called 65 to 70 degrees in the building at all times. Maybe sometimes people reference one and maybe Dubai or whatever.

And those are sub-zero. You got to wear jackets or be really cold. So there's one. And then the second thing is sometimes there's some snow parks, but they're not open year-long. And yeah, ours is year-long, indoor temperature independent snow park. So a big word there. I created this indoor snow park. And a lot of people asked, like, how did I come up with that?

And as much as I would love to say that it was just my idea, I actually took inspiration from another business. About 30 or 45 minutes away, there's a ski resort, an outdoor ski resort. And they have snow tubing every year. From Thanksgiving to Easter, they guarantee it. And so I was like, how is that possible? Sometimes it's 70 degrees, sometimes it's raining, all that kind of stuff. And so what I found out was they use these machines that basically make the snow inside these giant containers

and then they spit it out. And they basically pile up snow all year long. So people can snow tube. And that really, from the outside looking in, is a critical part to their business because they can guarantee that. So my next question was, okay. If they can do that, can I just build a building

and control the temperature, and control the conditions, and blow snow just like them? And the answer was yes. And once we enclosed the building, we had to overcome other facts What do we do with all the melt? And one thing that I learned very quickly is water is snow's enemy.

And so if you have a glass and you put an ice cube in it and the ice cube starts melting, it'll melt even faster when there's water accumulating. And so anyways, so we have to get rid of the melt as quickly as we can. And so under the snow, we designed this water capture system where basically we're getting the water away from the snow as quickly as possible. The other thing is there is water in the air and there's water on top of the snow. And so it's like, okay, how do we suck it out of the air, suck it out of the snow? And that's the technical term, right? Yes, exactly.

We have giant dehumidification systems that you might see in like ice skating rinks or whatever. And so we're pulling all that water out of the air. And what I think is really cool is it's gallons and gallons and gallons. But we actually recycle it and we use it for snow, you know, the next night or whatever. And so anyways, by controlling the temperature and conditions, we're able to offer snow 365, 24-7 in a controlled environment. And it was like testing a theory with those machines and it worked. And yeah, I'm a big fan of testing things. If you want to, I can test how, or I can tell you how I even tested if there was demand for this.

Yeah, I want to hear all that. Two questions that come to mind as you talk. First of all, how when you saw the ski resort 30 minutes away, and that was your inspiration, how deeply did you go in like competitive intel? Did you camp out there? Did you talk to the manager? I've done both, right? I've literally camped outside a store and counted people walking in and now like average order value, $12. Okay. And then I've also been like, that's a good idea. I'm copying it. And then that's it. That's all my research. Yeah. So Chris, I think you can, I think you're an honest guy. and you will attest to this was not a pre-planned question. So the answer to that was that ski resort had a webcam up on their snow tubing, their whole season. And so you can guess where I'm going with it. The season before, I literally just sat there with a clicker. I've got it somewhere. I need to find it.

And it's pretty easy to figure out how successful something like that is. On top of that, you could only buy those tickets online. And they had X number per slot. per day. And on their website, when you went to buy a ticket, it'd say, I don't know, 40 out of 150 or whatever. And so they made it so easy for you. They were begging you to copy them. I know. It was insane. And so, yeah, somewhere, I need to find it. Somewhere I've got those notes. And it's like, I know probably down to $100 what they did in that season. And so, yeah, as I was planning it, I just counted that each day. Like, as I was eating dinner or whatever,

I'm sitting there just counting. Had other people counting for me too. And yeah, and then even after a week or two, you get a pretty good idea of, okay, are they busy during the mornings or the evenings or whatever? And yes, I, so for me at the time, and still is, snow was a huge financial bet. And I was not going to risk my life in terms of being set financially and this and that and just my peace of mind for something that I wasn't sure that was going to work. And so, yeah, I found every which way to test it. I'm calling up potential customers, this and that. I had to make 100% sure that this thing is going to work.

And I got to a point that I was confident enough that it was. And, yeah, it was through being a little bit creative in seeing some other people's success or failures and keeping track of that. Oh, man, I want to do a whole podcast series. You can do a whole podcast, period, about just how to copy potential capacity, how to, quote, draw inspiration. Like, man, it reminds me of e-commerce. I come from the e-commerce world, and it's so easy to reverse engineer how much business a store does. You just, you place an order. You see the order number.

24 hours later, you place another order. You subtract. You multiply by 365. You account for seasonality. And then you figure out their average order value. And now you know how much any e-commerce store in the world does. And then you can just, I'm so cheap. I don't even take delivery of the orders.

I just canceled. I'm like, no, mind. That's so funny. I got what I needed. I, you know, we talked last time about the coaster that I built and that there was a competitor doing that first. And I think they actually changed their ticketing, like receipt numbers because of me because, yeah, I just do that every day. It was like zero one, zero two. And anyways, yeah, there's a lot of that.

And there's things that you'll hear other people doing that I would have never even thought of. Obviously, you've got the classics. Like, if it's a retail business, you sit outside and count cars. I think we've all been there to some extent. And, yeah, there's a lot of things you can do. I think that would be great inspiration for some people to have, yeah, you could ramble probably for hours about different ways to test ideas. Yeah, I think that there's a common misconception with entrepreneurs that we're risk takers. Yeah. And I feel like we are experts at mitigating risk.

Like more than a W-2 worker, like we do so much research because I've been there. I've never launched anything that was that off the wall and risky. But it's like, this can't fail. We're talking seven figures here. This cannot fail. And so I'm guessing what you did is you got their numbers and I want to hear what their numbers were. And then you said they were like 30, 40 minutes away. If it was a ski resort, it can't be in the middle of Pigeon Forge, right? So you're thinking, okay, it's only upside. I'm going to put this in the middle of Pigeon Forge. I've been to your facility. I know it's tucked back off the main road, but it's like it's more convenient. It's more temperature controlled. I don't care about the rain. In fact, the rain could actually help me. This worst case, I do

half of what they do when I make a $500,000 profit. Best case, I do three times what they do, right? Yeah, yeah. And so one thing that I usually get on to people about wasting too much time on is creating pork pro forma's and budgets and stuff because usually they never come true. But I spend a lot of time on mine. And I can safely say I am so proud of that because it was so freaking accurate at the end. I'm calling the electric company and trying to calculate like how. much electricity, I'm going to use this and that. And then in terms of demand, you hinted at it. Some people say, okay, if I, best case scenario, I have 100 customers a day and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I want to know what is the least amount of customers I can have and still

make this work. And I worked backwards. I said, okay, if this thing is a flop, what does that look like? And I was still happy with those results. And then, yeah, it's something that a lot of people cheap out with some of their budget stuff. And it's like, why would you underestimate some of that stuff, every single pro forma or budget I've ever put together, you have this miscellaneous at the bottom. And for me, that's usually just some of everything plus 20% or 15% or whatever, because you're going to miss stuff. And it's about testing. It's about working those numbers. I will, for next time, I will go and look and see what the ski resort did. It was something that the ski resort, Ober, they are open from Thanksgiving to Easter, typically. So I've,

got a whole season, or actually three seasons, that they are not open. And so that should be a win. The other thing was that that ski resort during the popular times during the winter, they were selling out. Like, I went on, I'm sure. So who knows what their, who knows what their Tam was, right? Oh, of course. It's something that if you go on, like, local Facebook groups or anything like that, they were a little bit more popular when I was doing that. But it's like people were like selling snow-toeing tickets, like black market, whatever. And yeah, you just see it. That's always a good sign. Yeah. And so anyways, I got really comfortable with the numbers, both in terms of revenue and potential costs. I was still nervous, of course, but believe it or not, that was the least of my worries.

I just got so comfortable with it. Do you remember what they were doing, ballpark? Yeah, I mean, it was definitely, I mean, don't quote me on this, but it was in the millions. An amazing thing, too, is every year they would raise their ticket price. So, It was something like maybe like $25 plus taxes and fees and blah, blah, blah, the first year, then it was 30. Then they went to dynamic pricing. I think last year. I love these guys. I know, I know.

I know. And so I think they were at like 45 or 50 last year. And it's a classic like supply and demand issue where they've got more demand than supply. So yeah, good on that. So you just wanted to help them with that. Exactly. I don't think they particularly liked me at first, but we've come around. And yeah, they're doing great. I'm doing great. And yeah, I mean, I don't want anyone else to open up one, but there'd probably be room for another one. Yeah. That's just like your coaster story. You just grow the market. When there's so much demand for something. Yeah. You just, the rising tide situation. Exactly. My next question revolved around like your water capture system. Like, yeah. I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs and sometimes. they come up with this innovative method. Sometimes like they're actually having to beat their head against swall and invent an innovative method because that's the only way. And a lot of times it's

just like they outsourced it. Or it's very simple, right? Like it's like water capture system. I installed rain gutters. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I went to Home Depot. I bought gutters and put them underneath the sides of the slide. How extensive was that? So that was something that I knew we had to have because you just go broke if you had to be on city water the whole time. And I have said it a lot lately. I don't know if you resonate with this or not, but a lot of times I jump out of the plane holding the parachute and I try to put it on in the air. Don't recommend that for others, but for me, that's how it works. And so really, like, if you go back and look at our blueprints, we were building. And for the water recycling system, there was just a big question mark on the

blueprints. And it's like, okay, we'll figure it out. The reason I was okay, just figuring it out was it couldn't be that complicated. It's basically. at the end of the day, what it is, the snow is on this hill. And obviously, through gravity, as it melts, it's going to go downhill. And we have a huge collection tank under the, under the hill. And then from there, we have a series of pumps like you can buy locally. And they take them in different tanks. And when it's something that it's actually on paper, it's a pretty simple system. Obviously, it took some engineering, and there's no worse day than when I get the call in the morning that the pump is broken. water everywhere, but that happens a couple times a year.

I'm a big redundancy guy, so now we have three pumps everywhere. But yeah, it was something that I knew that was a critical element. Through this whole thing, I had to have architects, engineers, blah, blah, blah, even just from a legal standpoint. But it was something that one of my favorite processes was sitting down and working with them, and you just start spitball on ideas and you say, hey, we need a recycling system. and somebody throws up this idea or that idea. And you just work through it together, or at least we did.

And so, yeah, it was something that was actually, believe it or not, like, one of the very last things we figured out. We just knew we would. And no one ever really stressed about it. It's funny how I imagine you encountered this in both of your businesses a few times where it's like you talk to some expert, quote unquote expert. And you're like, all right, I need to recapture and recycle this water. And there's just, we can't do that. That's not a thing. You know, dude, like I have employees.

tell me this on a weekly basis where it's like, hey, we need to fix this marketing funnel so people get a text twice. And like, yeah, it doesn't, it actually doesn't work like that. It's like, dude, stop. Yeah. We got rovers on Mars. Like we've got, what is actually impossible today? It's not an automation for SMS. It's not what recycling water. And then you always figure it out. You figure it out. Man, I, we are cut from the same cloth. I mean, I get so even sometimes personally frustrated. And like, take a step back. Like, when people say no, it frustrates me. But when people say I can't do something that really frustrates me.

And yeah, people are so comfortable saying no or it can't work or whatever. It's like that's what they gravitate towards first. And even sometimes when I, quote, do the impossible, even if it's something simple, like, it's just like, okay, on to the next reason why it won't work. On to the next reason. And it's like, man. And, you know, a funny story about. experts, one of the, I think maybe the first person expert I hired in this was found out there

was a guy. That's what he specializes in terms of like friction coefficients of like snow and ice and snow tubing hills and all this kind of stuff. So it's like perfect, awesome. You're hired. And this is how long we are going to make the hill. We need to figure out where are these people going to stop. These are the twos we're using, blah, blah, blah. This is what you do. And so I got this fancy report and it's like, okay, you know, all this engineering speak. It's like, great, okay. He knows what he's doing, I guess. And it was nowhere close. It was absolutely nowhere close. Really? Yeah, it was terrible. Because if you think about it, there's way too many variables like temperature and water and and bulletinity and yeah. And you know how we did it? We, as soon as we could blow snow in the building,

we blew a bunch of snow. I had some friends and family and whoever come over one night. We all took turns going down the hill, saw where we stopped, we loaded up with sandbags and this and that, and just experimented. And thankfully, we had some room there to play. It wasn't a mission critical kind of equation. Sometimes, for me, at least, I think playing around yourself and experimenting and seeing what you can find out is oftentimes way better than hiring an expert, regardless how much they cost. Okay.

I've got so many thoughts here. First of all, I've got to get this out of my head. So the water recapture, the gravity does this job. You accumulate water on the slide. Gravity pushes down to the bottom, falls through a metal grate, ends up in a tank, pumps it up to a different tank. And then the snow system needs an intake of water. And instead of just using your city water, it's just pulling from the recycled water, right?

Nailed it. Nailed it. Love it. Okay. Second, I have to imagine that the whole time you're doing this, you're meeting with experts, you're investing a ton of money, like you're past the point of no return. And if I were you, the big question mark in my mind is, will this be fun enough? Yeah.

Right? Was that a worry? Like, that first trip down the slide must have been, must have felt amazing when you got down it. Because that's the big question, right? Yeah. Yeah, of course. You're right. That was a huge worry.

Obviously, I tested that in a lot of ways. One thing is I think sometimes, you know, you can make up for a lot of mistakes through price. And so it's like, okay, if I'm totally wrong, what if it's $5 or whatever, can I make it out? And yeah, I agree. So one of the things was, and this was one of the reasons I hired the expert, was you want to go fast enough that it's exciting, and then you want to go slow enough that kids and whoever can do it. And I'll be the first to admit, I think we got a little lucky in that regard. We ended up kind of clocking in around 30 miles an hour.

And if it was a lot faster than that, probably too scary for some. And if it's slower than that, yeah, it's going to get lame. And so, yeah, that was a huge worry up until the very first day. I, himself, admittedly, I have very thin skin in terms of, like, I don't take criticism that sometimes. And so it's like the first couple of people that had like a negative review or something, it's like, oh, my gosh, it's over. Oh, my gosh.

Screw you. Yeah, yeah. And so it's just, yeah. And, but anyways, like, then for every positive one, it started outweigh all the negative ones. And anyways, yes, I think we got a little lucky there. I always knew in my back pocket that if we didn't, A, we can physically change some stuff. And then B, we can add and do more exciting things. I've left it the same more or less, mainly because it works.

There's a part of me that I feel like I should make time to add some more exciting elements to it. I've got some really out there ideas, but if, man, I'm just focused on whatever else and just never have that day when it's like, okay, let's figure out how to step this up. But it's definitely needed sometime soon. Yeah, one thing that I love about launching businesses in areas like Pigeon Forge, which this is going to directly contradict what I said in our last episode 29. In our last episode, I was saying, like, you need to put something like this, not you, but someone should put something like this in Dallas, like gem mining in Dallas or an alpine slide in Dallas because there's nine million people baked in and they're getting visitors, right? Yeah. But I think the counter

argument to that is you have a fresh crop of people every year. Aren't there like 10 million people a year coming to bitch and porch? Yeah, it's wild. I would love to know what percentage of them are there for the first time, first repeat visitors. Yeah, it's something that I grew up there. My grandparents are from there and I have a unique inside of watching the demographics change. over the years, it used to really skew much older. And that is changing more and more. And I think that works to our favor. Yes, I would love to know repeat versus first time. But yeah, I think even millennials and even younger start to come in, that's going to be better and better for us. You spoke about doing it in Dallas or whatever. And I've got an idea that, yeah, if somebody wants help with,

I mean, not financially, but just knowledge. I am a believer that you could do this somewhere like Dallas, but you don't have to invest millions. And so how you would do that is they make those snow machines that I have on mobile units. So mobile is a loose word. You've got a tractor trailer, basically, but you can move it around. And believe it or not, you just have to have access to just reasonable water, like a little bit more than garden hose, but not too much more. And three-phase power. The three-phase power does get a little hairy, but there's ways. around that. Anyways, I have thought about sometimes what if you went to, called Dallas or I'm in Knoxville, the local mall or wherever that's not using a large part of their parking lot, whether you just have snow just on flat ground that people can play with or you've got it, you know, that you build a hill out of kind of plywood and stuff. It doesn't, or even out of snow. It doesn't take much. Obviously, you would have to work out some kind of lease or rev share, but potentially that comes down to how much you can, you know, work out. The snow machine, you can rent for a month or whatever.

Test the model before buying it. Yeah, totally. And or even just make it seasonal and say, I'm going to run it every November, December, January. And so anyways, yes, it would take a little bit of capital, but not what people probably have in their head. Insurance is not as crazy. I mean, you have to find somebody that's on board of what you're doing, but not as crazy. And then past that, You just need some, you need a handful of people, just, I won't say minimum wage, but whatever the going rate is. And, you know, past that, it's some water and some electricity. Yeah. So that, if it were outside, it would have to be seasonal, right?

Correct. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And that's honestly, so even for us, our best season is basically Thanksgiving to, you know, sometime in January. We will do maybe about a third of our total revenue for the year in that, call it 60-day period. Hmm. People are just in the mindset. You don't think to go sledding in July, even if it would be really nice to get out of the heat. You just don't think of it. Totally. Totally. I don't know. I was going to say, you don't drink eggnog during the summer, but that's also because they don't sell it. But there's certain seasons.

Yeah, and that's why they don't sell it during the summers because no one wants to do that. So, yeah, there's just something that triggers, I guess, and take it as far as you want. Get Santa Claus there, whatever it is. There's a lot you can do. And I'm serious with that. Like, if somebody needs some guidance or want someone on that, I think it would totally work. I can't guarantee it, but happy to help somebody. Okay.

Awesome. Yeah. Email Matthew. Yeah. If you have a question. So I like the idea of, did you hear my podcast a couple ago where I had, it was my call-in show. And this guy had the flowrider idea. Yeah.

Yeah. You could put something like that in a mall parking lot. And just like it sounds awkward like parking spaces around this fake surfing structure, but why the heck not? So with the flowrider thing, one thing. So I've only been familiar with him like on cruises or things like that. Same. And something like that, I call a spectator activity.

Like one person is doing it, but look at how people watching. Yes, yes. And like, I talk about this figurative, like, grandma all the time. And you want something that grandma and the parents and the little brothers and sisters can all stand around and watch somebody do it. It's something that I think you've got to rope in the whole family to something like that. You've got to have pictures, whether the customers take them or you professionally do it. And it's a memory for everybody, even if somebody's not participating in it. So love that.

You say it's awkward in a parking lot. Like, sure, but you can dress. that up. The other thing is like people love crowds. If there's a crowd of people standing around watching something, you're going to go check that out. And even if you were giving away, I don't know, free popsicles or something, get the people over there. And then I think it takes care of itself. I love the pictures idea or a video. Like you could just have a GoPro running 24-7 and it's like, hey, all right, let's go to checkout. It's 15 bucks. There's 25 bucks if you want us to email you the video slash pictures later. And we'll send it in 24 hours. What if you did this? I think the

downside with it being a mall parking lot is I think this could be a very spontaneous, impulsive thing. And if you don't have your swimsuit, you're not going to buy it. True. Right. Yeah. And so maybe you just go to all the hundreds of small, the mid-sized water parks. I mean, in DFW, there's dozens that you never, no one has ever heard of. And they don't have these. And they're not about to put one in. So just say, hey, we need 400 square feet somewhere, anywhere. And maybe you could even have them upsell it like at the counter like all right the day pass is 35 but unlimited flowrider access is 45 and you just do a rev share with them yeah totally it comes with stuff like that i think it comes

down to your skills of i want to even say negotiating but like getting creative where there's a win for both people and yeah it it is tough because okay take snow i've got this big multi-million dollar facility and yeah i've had people come and pitch me hey can i put a vending machine in here and we'll split it and it's like hey no offense but I can just buy it. It's all good. And so, like, you know, that's a tough sell. But I'm sure there is something that I would be open to as a business owner. One of the biggest things when you're approaching business owners like that with kind of a deal or whatever is making sure that you're not giving them more headaches. Like, you want to take away headaches. And in fact, like,

you just want to say, hey, man, I can put money in your pocket and just let me do my thing. And so, yeah, anyways, like partnering with water parks. We all, have one or two here, so I can't really speak to that. But yeah, if there's a lot somewhere like Dallas, it's like, man, it wouldn't take that much to just go talk to everyone or try to talk to everyone. No. And you just, you get a contract in place and then you buy the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. Risk free. They even make these things and your guys, water parks might have them, but they're these like little booths you can stand in and dry off pretty quickly. It just blows on you or whatever. And like whether it's a mall parking lot or whatever, like maybe you also have that. And

guess what you're going to potentially charge for that too. Yeah. Or they have the sunscreen application booths. Have you seen those? Oh, really? You just stand in and you put your arms out and it sprays you with sunscreen. Are you serious? Sounds like torture to me.

I mean, people pay for it. Yeah. So what was it? Sorry, go ahead. Now what's your question? What was the first month and year like for Pigeon Forge Snow? And COVID aside, have you had a down year? just like a natural down year?

Or have you just grown every year? Yeah, I built snow in, I say 365 days. It might have been a little bit longer. But when I say 365 days, it was every single day. And so one thing was, I was like, okay, got to get open, got to get open. And when I got open, like, I didn't have that realization. It's like, oh, okay, now it's just starting. And I think I had maybe a month or two of like just crashing in bed.

And thankfully, I had some bad. I had a lot of help, but it's just like, oh my gosh, I got to take a break. And it was something that you're trying to figure out all these things on the fly. And so like the first, I'll call it three, four, five months, we're rough in terms of figuring out what we need to do and what we need to fix and who we need to have and hire and blah, blah, blah. Sales-wise, it was good. I spent those 365 days building a email list, getting people excited. How did you build the email list? Yeah, so probably our biggest thing was our Facebook page.

a little bit by accident. I just started posting pictures. Like, when the bulldozer came in to clear the dirt off the lot, I just took some crappy pictures on my phone, posted and said, hey, getting started. And people want them like, this is your personal Facebook account? Oh, no, I'm sorry. Created one for snow. Okay, you opened a page. Okay. Yeah. And at the time, I don't think a lot of people, at least in my area, were doing that. It's like, okay, wait until you have something official and you have something done. But yeah, I just let people fall along in the journey. And I did all kind of. of stuff like I created like these VIP t-shirts with our logo on it and I can't remember what you got you know you could come for free you know the first year so anyways if you bought one blah

blah and so anyways yeah built up a lot of demand that way and so anyways we got open it was just even more work as soon as we got open we had an initial way from grand opening and then died down we opened up in the spring mid to late spring and and we were going into, unbeknownst to me, the slower time of the year. May, that kind of May period is maybe our slowest month of the year. And so that was a little disheartening. I didn't know. And so anyways, it gave us a chance to catch out our first year.

I didn't say we did a couple million dollars, which was good. We made a profit. Definitely made a profit. And then we just continued to go up. Then COVID hit in 2020. I hope, I don't know what it's like where you are. but we were closed as a city for maybe like 30 days or something. Yeah, yeah.

And so anyways, we became an escape, you know, for the rest of the country. And so the whole town boomed. So 2020, even though we're closed for 30, 45 days, that was actually our best year at that point. That was your second year? We opened up in 2018. Yes. Third year. Yeah.

And then 2021, even better. I don't know if we doubled, but it was pretty dang close. We were in like five, six million range. 2023, we backed off maybe 10 or 15%, which was once again disheartening for me. I was like, oh my gosh, okay, so this isn't going to go straight up. But I think that was a rebound from COVID and some craziness there. I think the whole, from what I can gather, the whole town's that way. And 2024 is about on pace, I'd say with 2023.

Okay. I constantly worry that there's some kind of like economic slowdown. it hasn't happened yet, but every year I worry about that. But yeah, we're good in terms of sales. It's just, obviously, it's awesome when the numbers go straight up. So do you own the land and the building? Yeah, that's probably a story for another day, but yeah, it was just really kind of creative way of getting the land, and it just, you know, I think a lot of luck, and it just worked out with a seller that was tired, and so I stepped in there, and it was a weird lot. It is a weird lot. And, We had to do a lot of head scratching on like, how do we make this work?

And so, yeah, you know, when I talk about the millions invested, most of it goes into the building and the land. And in fact, the first, call it year and a half, I lease the machines. In hindsight, yeah, maybe like wasted money. We talked about minimizing risk. I didn't want to be able to hook for multi-million dollar machines. And so that's what everyone thinks the big cost is. but no, I bought those ones. I knew we were good, and I could pay for them in cash.

The building, just any metal building like that, or in general, 35,000 square feet is going to be costly. But, yeah, I tried to minimize everywhere I could. I don't recommend this, but, like, I installed the speaker system myself, like the sound system. Like, I mean, was that the best piece of my time? I don't know. You did what you could.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm buying it off Amazon myself, like that kind of thing. And so, so anyways, yeah, yeah, I forgot what the original question was, but there you go. Yeah. So you recouped your money over the course of two or three years on this? Yeah, yeah, or less. It's something that now in hindsight I have really good terms, but I think I could have done even better. But I think about debt a whole lot. I've got several different loans for different things. And like I said, I worry a lot sometimes about the say the economy and stuff and what my kind of debt load should be. I am nowhere close to being in trouble or whatever, but it's something

that I think about a lot and I try to manage. It's something that some debt I've refinanced or has come due at much higher rates, which really sucks. And then others are low and I might not pay them off for a long time. And yeah, on paper, yes, I have recouped everything and more. That's awesome. How tall is your building? Yeah, it varies. I think the tallest point is maybe about 40 feet. Good way to, if you're standing in the front of the building outside and you're looking at it, I believe that's 26 feet tall, the front facade. So it varies a lot. Obviously, we built a hill inside of buildings.

That's why there's the height. Knowing what I know now, did it have to be as tall as it is? No, I think we could have shortened that. I don't know what kind of cost savings there would have been. Let's say we brought it down five feet. Maybe it wouldn't be significant enough to do it. But just one of those things we didn't know. And another thing is we want to create this kind of grand, big kind of thing.

feel. Anyways, yeah, it's a big building for sure. It's something that I worried about, okay, well, if I need to repurpose it, what is it going to be? And the best thing I'd come up with is a movie theater. Thankfully, I don't think that's going to happen. But, but yeah, that was... I was going to ask what else could this building be? Yeah. Because I know you've thought of that. Yeah, you get creative with a bunch of stuff that, I mean, the big problem is half of the, or two-thirds of the building is a big concrete hill. I don't know. You all kinds of like storage or, again, And I think you could do a pretty sick movie theater, take a little bit of work. Or, yeah, I don't know.

If I had to think of that, I'm not worried about it. I know I could repurpose it. So if someone were to find a building with similar dimensions, could they rent it and put one of these in there? Or would it be just too much? Yeah, definitely. So, 22, 2023, I spent a lot of time working with two amazing guys that are super experienced with franchise. and we met in person for months and started to develop this brand of how can we franchise this. And it was something that I had a lot of stuff in my personal life going on outside of business.

And I just needed to put a pause on that. But anyways, like, I have, we have done a lot of thinking about that. And so really, I think the best thing to do there is figure out what's your budget and work backwards. Because obviously, if you say, okay, I've, I got $10 million to blow. okay, that's a different answer. If you're just trying to piece something together, okay, maybe you look at something, what I said, with renting a snow machine or whatever, but if you've got a building, these are the things you have to figure out. One, you have to have a hill, and everyone, I think, takes that for granted. I think you can build it with scaffolding and supplywood and stuff, but you still, you've got to figure that out. There's a lot of weight that's going on that in terms of the snow and the people

and stuff. And so not impossible. It's been done before, but that's a big one. Second thing is, how are they going to get to the top of the hill? I have a magic carpet. You can definitely install one, too. It's not that crazy, but if they're going to walk, just keep that in mind. And then, like I said, you need to be able, you don't even have to recycle the water. I would recommend it. Not that hard to do. You just got to catch it, drain it off somewhere, filter it, all that. And then obviously, you have to have the snow machines and stuff. But yeah, if you had, I'm trying to think what would be a good, like just an empty warehouse or something like that,

if you thought that it was a good location and the right kind of demand, if you figured out how to build the hill, which is not that hard, but that's the biggest thing. Yeah, you could definitely do something like that. You can also consider, don't do a huge hill. Like, if you've got a big warehouse and you still want to do something like this, blow a ton of snow in there, and you can make little slides,

whether it's for kids or just whatever. You can make a longer hill, right? Yeah. Instead of a taller one. Yeah, there's so much you can do. Just a, quote, normal warehouse would probably be good. You're going to want to have a little bit insulation. We don't have anything special, but you don't want like a barn or something like that unless it's just really cold.

So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different ways you could hack this together. It's tough because a lot of these existing buildings are in such industrial areas that consumers would ever think to go to, right? Yeah, the first trampoline park I saw here in Knoxville was like, I don't know, way over 10 years ago. And it's like in the middle of industrial park. And I know it's changed a lot. But I thought it was the coolest thing ever, like driving in this like weird industrial park. And it was packed. I haven't gone to one in a long time.

But I don't know if that would necessarily stop me. But yeah, I would definitely consider location for sure. Yeah, I was thinking about trampoline parks too. So without in mind, is there like a fun Matthew 3.0 concept that you dream about? You got coasters, you got slides. And I also want to hear about what you're actually working on as well because we didn't Yeah, definitely. So, yeah, I keep a running list of ideas.

And when it comes, and I'm sure you've got a long list too, but when it comes to amusements, yeah, it is such an amazing industry. And so, like, I'm definitely going to do something new? One kind of high-level concept that I was thinking about is, do you know what like a Rube Goldberg machine is? Have you ever heard of it? It's like, it's a name for a contraption of like, if you ever played Mousetrap back in the day where it's like one thing happens and this blah, blah, blah. And so anyways, even though putts a little tired, I always think about it, okay, like what is everyone's favorite hole? But it's the last one. And it's because it does something crazy.

And it's like, why can't every hole be like that? And yeah, do something cool there. I've got some other. Like a Rube Goldberg putt. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just some really cool just, you know, lasers, laser trip sensor for this. and then this drops and speaks and all kinds of crazy stuff.

That'd be cool. Yeah, I definitely will do something else in the amusement space. Right now, personally, I am trying to, I guess, reel back a little bit, and I've got so many irons in the fire, and I ended up growing a lot and just doing everything myself. And so actually, I've made a commitment to myself and my girlfriend, Heather, like, I've got, my next step has to be delegation and building out the team, of the right kind of people. Delegation is something I am terrible at. And so it's something that,

even though it's not that sexy, that is my next, my next thing. If if anyone's listening to this and thinks that they can help me in whatever way, I mean, at least put it in the comments and I'll look at it. But yeah, I'm definitely going to build out a team to get some of my life back is the next thing. That's smart. Yeah, it's tough. I'm still trying. I've gotten better at it. But it's not like you flip a switch and you're like all right everything's delegated it's just you always are working at it like every time i do something in a perfect world if i was strict with myself every time i do a task it's like do you have to be doing this chris do you have to be and 80% of the time it's no yeah yeah and it's something that like even though i know that on paper it's like you constantly struggle with this okay

this is a one-off task i'll never repeat it again it'll take me three times as long to explain into somebody, I'm just going to do it. And then I've ran into a lot of people that are good people, but they, I guess, really want me to hold their hand through everything. And maybe that's even my fault, but it's something that I'm just looking for more people that are capable, autonomous. I want to support, but can support me too instead of just me trying to build up somebody's career or lifestyle or whatever.

I need those great people, and that's what I'm, that's what I'm after. Yeah. Okay. Aren't you building something outside right now? Like you were talking about those kayak rental machines. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I've got a subdivision I was working on even right before COVID. It's been just such a nightmare. And so it's 80 acres. It's beautiful. If you want me to, I can text you some pictures or whatever, but it's right on the water. And anyways, we are in an area that is very short on housing. And if you look at Knoxville and Severeville and everything, especially post-COVID, like prices were some of the highest increasing in the country. And it's because a supply demand thing, like the supply's not there. And there's a huge demand. And so anyways, I was like, okay, I've done

some what I think are amazing things, how hard could be, you know, taking a farm and, you know, putting utilities in and chopping it up and putting a road in, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not even building the homes. I'm just selling them into somebody to build them. And come to find out, That's a little harder than I thought. And really, what is so hard about that is you're dealing with all these local utility companies, all these local governments, planning commissions, zoning, all this work that I don't like. I like to take action. I like to build.

I like to get my hands dirty. You're dealing with processes and red tape and permits and procedures. And you look at them, and I mean, I've even told them, I'm like, this is why there's a housing problem. No one can get even done. And so anyways, I am close to the end there. I did it in two phases. The first phase was the largest, and we'll call that 100 home sites, which are done. On 80 acres?

Yeah, yeah. Okay. There's single-family homes in hindsight. I'd love to hear that, if you don't mind, I'd love to hear the unit economics, like what you paid for the land, how much each lot is being sold for, how many square feet and all that. Yeah, of course. It's something that I am still in the process. and we've blown the budget out of the water.

It's in a negative way. Anyways, I can give you some rough stuff. There's about 100 lots that I sold in the first phase, and there's, call it, 75 lots coming in this phase that we're finishing. We're actually paving today. That's one of the last steps, so close to being done. And so anyways, with the first phase and the second phase, there's basically three kinds of lots.

There's what I call the standard lot. There's a premium lot, and there's a river lot or premium, however you want to say it. So standard lot, you're looking at about a third of an acre, comes with all utilities. That's going to run, call it 50, 60,000, something like that, just for the lot. And then you've got premium lots, which are. So are you selling the lots to builders or to the consumers and then they have to find their own? Mainly to one home builder, but I have sold some individually. But yeah, so selling those at home builder, then however they package it together,

maybe they, however they come up with their price for the home. The home I was originally wanting something that was what I would call affordable housing. After COVID, I don't even know what that means. The houses are probably, you know, $300,000, which their new construction, three-bedroom, most of them, that kind of thing, beautiful. So anyways, then there are the premium lots, which are larger than the third of an acre. They might be, you know, on a corner or just a better setting. that's maybe 10 or 20% of lots.

And that'll be called on average 70,75,000 per lot, what I receive. And then there's the river lots, which are like ultra premium. I have sold quite a few of those. I still have quite a few as well. I think the cheapest one I sold was maybe 100,000. I think I sold one for like 180,000, 170,000. So pretty good. They're absolutely beautiful.

And so anyways, yeah, so you've got a blend of all of those. I've got about 40 river lots in all, so you work back and do the math. I think probably just doing it off the top of my head, probably have a potential real estate that I would receive proceeds for when you add them all up. Then I'm probably, don't quote me on this, I'm probably in it, I don't know, five or six million in development costs, something like that. It's definitely, it's taken years off my life, so I don't know what that's worth. But money-wise, yes, it is a good return.

I have learned that there is no one, no other job title that's hated more than a developer. So that is, I mean, a custom home builder. That's a brutal business. Oh, my gosh. Everyone hates you. Everyone thinks that you're just rolling in the money and not doing anything. And so it's, anyways, I don't think I'm going to build another subdivision for a little bit. It's been rough stuff.

But, but no, it's, I am proud to be able to deliver homes to families. A lot of them is their first home. Maybe it's forever home for some people. I'm really happy about that. It's something that I think I just need to get, step away from it a little bit, take a breather, and then I'm sure I'll do it again. But yeah, we're finishing up phase two. If anyone wants to look it up, the name of the subdivision is called the Farm at River Bend, kind of fancy name. But yeah, I think it's beautiful.

I think it's a great. Oh, right. In Severeville. Yeah, yeah. It's probably, I don't know, 20 or 30 minutes away from Pitchin Forge Snow in the countryside, that kind of thing. Yeah, maybe 20, 30 minutes away from Knoxville. Yeah, it seems to be a popular area. Yeah, definitely.

And so, yeah, if anyone's in the area or wants to move, give me a shout, I'll definitely, definitely show you a house. Man, I mean, a riverfront lot for 150. I would love to live on the water. That is a joke. Oh, unreal. Yeah, if I wasn't living, we bought our dream house, like, last year or something. And, yeah, I thought about moving down there. And, yeah, thankfully, I found where I live now and just so happy with it.

So Matthew, like, why do you go so hard on these ideas? Like you, you just don't, you don't start small. You're like, let's do a roller coaster. Let's do a $5 million indoor ski resort. Let's do a $10 million subdivision. Have you ever started a business that was like small? You like dip your toes in. I mean, I guess now that you say it like that, yeah, I never thought about like that,

especially when I was younger, all the little hustles and, you know, flipping and this and that. And it's all relative. I'll say even when I was coming out of college, I saw a CrossFit gym with some friends and I started a frozen yogurt store when that was hot. And like at the time, each thing that it did was like the biggest thing for me. You just kept leveling up. Yeah, yeah. And looking back at some of those things now, I'm like, oh, okay, that was nothing. But man, like I probably lost more sleep during the frozen yogurt store kind of days, which in hindsight wasn't that big of a day. deal. I lost a ton of sleep there and ton of stress. And there are many times, like, whether it's just somebody being critical or whatever, you just want to say, okay, I give up. And so anyways, I think you're seeing hindsight's 2020 kind of thing. I think you're seeing not my final form, but where I currently am. And, you know, another thing is, like I said in the beginning, like I think I like to

jump out out of the parachute and, or jump out of the plane and figure it out with the parachute on the way down and there's something about that pressure. I think that I do well under a lot of times I want to pull my hair out and scream like I and say I don't want to do this anymore. But then when I'm sitting around long enough, it's like, okay, let's, you know, let's try something else. And yeah, that's just how it goes. Yeah. Have you thought about putting an alpine coaster in Beaver's bend? I did a little research. And I mean, it's obviously two and a half hours from DFW. They get two million visitors a year. So a fifth or a sixth of the size. a Pigeon Forge, but there are zero coasters there right now.

Yeah, it's something that I get really nervous with any physical business that isn't my area. That is totally on me. Oh, okay. Yeah. You're all over. It seems like, you know, the U.S. with some things, and I've never done that before. So maybe that is like a, you know, a new frontier for me.

Yeah. I mean, it's, you said yourself, like, you can't really start one of those for 10 million bucks nowadays, so. Yeah. But, like, again, I think if somebody's listening and is inspired, like, there are ways around that. There were ways to get involved. I did not do that first one all myself.

I did not own it all myself. And there was somebody actually in the group that owned 1% of it. Did some survey and engineering work for us. And I don't know if it was a mistake or not, but he got 1%. And so I think if somebody was determined enough, like even a deal like that, I would be happy to coach somebody through how to get involved in something like that. I saw a lot of your comments on some of the posts you made about our conversation. And yeah, going back to everyone's just so saying why something won't work.

It's their comfort blanket. Yeah. They would never do it so that they don't want to think it would work. What shocked me about the candy comment was you had half the people saying, hey, this has already been done. So you can't. Yeah, perfect. That's great.

Yeah, yeah. And then you've got the other half of the people saying, no, this can't work. an idiot. And it's like, well, both of you can't. Germs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there were so many times I wanted to comment with, I don't think they realized like, oh, I'm doing that. I'll take a picture of my candy store right now. And it's okay. Like, people can doubt or hate or whatever. But if there was actually somebody listening to this and like, man, I want to try to like, you know, put something like that together. You don't have to do it alone. You don't have to be the main person. But there are

ways to get involved with something like that. So for me, I'm saying right now, like, I don't know how comfortable I would be about investing is some like that in a different state. So it's like, how would I get involved? One thing that I have is I can consult and that can take a lot of different forms. I could also just, I like to help and or maybe invest passively. There's a lot of different forms. How could you, the person that has no experience, do it? Okay, we'll fly out here where I'm at, not my house, but in Pigeon Forge, ride a lot of these,

ride them all. I'll even get you the tickets, if that's what you want. Figure out how they work. Take a bunch of pictures, put together a presentation, go back home or wherever this is going to go, and start pitching some people on like, hey, this works. If you didn't watch the last one, literally, the investment decision was started by somebody that knew my family sent us a picture of a line of people lining up on this alpine coaster. I'd never seen it before. And that is what started it all. Like that video is what started at all. And it's interesting because for every business I've started, there's probably been a dozen each that started like that. There's just an idea if someone came to me with, and then it always fizzles. Yeah. It never comes through. Right. So the fact like how much had to go right for it to go from a pitcher text to you actually having a coaster, right? What incredible odds for that to actually have come to fruition? Yeah. And I will have to. compare idea books sometimes, but mine is very thick of idea. And even stuff that I've tested or tried,

and I'm sure you have too. But it's something like, yeah, there's a ton of them that like either just didn't come together, wasn't a good idea, we didn't give the right feedback at the right time to make something like that work. And it's all good. It's, there are so, so, so many ideas out there. And like my friend, my friend had an idea just the other day and he told it to me. And personally, I didn't think it was the best idea, but I was like, hey, why don't you, why don't you go run this past a few people, see what they think, see if they can get excited about it too. And his answer to me was that I don't want to tell them because they might steal it. And yeah, I know, I just, whatever. Yeah.

He just doesn't understand it yet. Of course. And so I guess it's just like, yeah, if there's people listening and they're like, man, one exercise I do, I was thinking I was journaling last night about delegation because I got this problem that I was talking about. And it was like, okay, what creative ways can I fix this? Like, what creative ways can I view? How would I view this working in my life, maybe in a non-traditional way and work backwards? And so if your thing is, I would love to be a part of an alpine coaster, I would love to own even any of it. And I'm willing to work really hard. Like, start with that and work your way backwards. Like, I'm literally saying, contact me and I will help you get there, not financially, but through knowledge. And so, yeah,

I mean, if anyone's interested, here's your shot. All right. You guys heard them. It's funny about ideas because a lot of times people think that you got to get the timing right of an idea. And I think that is very true to an extent. Like I'm usually more early than I am late to an idea. But one thing that I've noticed about ideas that I never launched, like I could launch them today a decade or two later and it would still work. Yeah.

I remember in college. This was 13 years ago. I've read an article about some guys out of Utah, a company called Eco Scraps. And they went to grocery stores and restaurants. And they got all of their organic waste. And they did restaurants first, but then eventually they learned they just wanted fruits and vegetables. So they only went through grocery stores.

And they, grocery stores were just paying someone to throw these away. Yeah. And their pitch was, hey, pay us to throw them away. So they had a negative. They had over 100% cogs. Yeah. Right. They were getting paid to take the stuff.

And then they literally just. rented this big industrial warehouse in the middle of nowhere. They stacked all this, these nasty pieces of produce up. They mixed in some sawdust because they needed some carbon. And they just composted it indoors. And then they bagged it up and sold it for like $12 a bag to Home Depot and Lowe's. And it was like really good soil. And so it's like no one loses. Yeah. Right. They get paid to take the product. It's better soil. And they ended up selling to like some major company. And I was going to copy them with a couple investors when I was in college 12 years ago. And I had a couple lunches with them.

I put a deck together. And we were literally just going to do the same thing. Yeah. Like I was in Alabama. They were in Utah. They only have 10% of the grocery stores in Provo. And they were crushing it. So it's like there's plenty big enough.

And I never did. And like I could launch that today. And I remember going, I went to Whole Foods actually. Like I got so far down the road with this idea. I talked and like, yeah, we don't, we'd love to have you take our produce. And that's like the hardest part. And I could launch that today. And it would still be just as good, if not better.

Exactly. know there was and around the same time period i was a student in alabama i read an article about insomnia cookies and it was just a cookie shop way before crumble their whole pitch was like college campuses and delivery open till 4 a.m and you could get like warm cookies and milk delivered to your door and they were crushing it and it was like they were open at old miss they were open at mississippi state they're open at ls u there's nothing in alabama yeah yeah yeah there was nothing in alabama yeah there was nothing in Alabama. Yeah. And then I went to these investors and they're like, yeah, let's do it. And I did a bunch of research. I never did it. And I don't regret it because I just did something else. Right. But today,

right on the strip, right next to this Alabama stadium, there's an insomnia of cookies. Yeah. Yeah. And they crush it. And that could have been mine. And I think we are very similar. Because I could tell those stories all day too. And like, I don't know. I get a little pissed at myself sometimes. Like you see that and you're like, I could have done that. And maybe that's a flaw with me, but then I see others and it's like, oh, yeah, okay, so I was right. And it's like, okay, yeah, maybe. I just would love to help people get past that idea phase and start figuring out how to actually make things happen in whatever capacity. I just, I don't know, reading those comments again, it's just like so many people are stuck on no.

And maybe the answer is no. But yeah, it's just like, anyways, that's what. One reason why I'm supportive what you're doing, I think is amazing. The live call-ins where people are giving business ideas, I think I said this, like, I'm in the car, literally like giving my opinion out loud. Hey, Chris, Chris, say this. I know, I know. And so, no, you're doing great work, man. Thank you.

Thank you, man. This is fun. I'd love to have you again. I feel like we could talk forever. Definitely. Just, yeah, next time, I'll make sure to get a real connection. I thought I had it. But, yeah, we'll get a more solid connection next time.

What is your email? So if people don't comment or whatever, how can they email you? Yeah, sure. M is in Matthew and then AERS, A-E-R-S, the number 44 at G-M-L-O-C-M-O-E-R-S. Okay, so M, just M-A-R-S-E-R-S. Okay. Yep, and, yep, if I can help with anything, knowledge-wise, just let me know. I'm happy to hop on a call sometime. Okay, thanks, man. Awesome. I'll see your brother. All right, bye.

All right. I hope that was good. I hope you liked it. We're going to have Matthew back on. Please subscribe and share with your friends. Have a good day.