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

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Koerner Office – Ep. #267

Title: He Copied an Idea I Posted and Built a $2,600/Week Business
Host: Chris Koerner
Guest: Tim
Date: January 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Chris Koerner interviews Tim, an entrepreneurial listener who took a business idea Chris shared on social media—an RC (remote control) excavator café concept popular in Dubai—and successfully launched a thriving side business in Erlanger, Kentucky. Tim details his journey from being a risk-averse IT worker to building a business generating up to $2,600 a week, the challenges he faced, the mechanics of launching at fairs, scaling up to a retail location, and plans to potentially franchise the business.

Chris and Tim dive deep into the nuts and bolts: startup costs, pricing, marketing, customer segments, operational learnings, and the emotional side of betting on yourself.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Spark: How an Idea Became a Business

• Chris posted a viral short about a Dubai café with RC sand equipment, reaching 20M+ views (00:24).
  • Tim, inspired, started a similar business in Kentucky.

    “That short got about 20 million views across platforms… this guy named Tim… said that's my business.” (00:24–00:38)

• Tim had always harbored entrepreneurial aspirations but lacked the confidence to start.
  • Chris’s content and supportive community were instrumental in pushing Tim to take action.

    Tim: “A lot of your content in the group helped my confidence… Not everything has to be a billion dollar idea—you can stack smaller businesses...” (01:24)

2. Transitioning from Side Hustle to Serious Business

• Tim juggled IT and remodeling side hustles but didn’t enjoy them and didn’t commit until the RC digger idea.
• Laid off from his W2 job, Tim used downtime to lean hard into the new business before landing another IT position (01:24–03:00).
  • Kept the new biz as a side hustle, eventually opening a retail location.

3. Building the RC Business: Low Barriers, Smart Execution

• Appeal of idea: Low capital risk and straightforward setup.
  • “The barriers to entry seemed really low. The risk seemed really low…” (03:09)
• Startup costs for the trailer setup: $10–11k (21:42), with the trailer itself $6k (21:45).
• Broke even on initial investment in the first season—sold 1,700 sessions at $5 each, plus private events (03:09).

4. Pricing, Operations, and Fast-Pivoting

• Started at $5 for 10 minutes; switched to $5 for 5 minutes, doubling session count and revenue (05:55–06:26).
  • Some pushback on price, but plenty willing to pay, especially for group events.
  • Private parties: $399 for 2 hours, typically booked by parents and, amusingly, for adult parties too (06:30).
• Practical operational insights:
  • Trailer design initially hampered visibility; lowering the wall will help draw more traffic (03:50–04:51).

    Tim: “If the walls were lower… people walking by would’ve seen more.”

  • Custom software (built on Replit) tracks sessions, emails for marketing, and automates time management—keeps parents and kids on track without staff nagging (17:40–18:31).

5. Revenue & Event Economics

• Costs to be at fairs varied between $100–550 per week (08:17–08:57), depending on venue quality and exclusivity.
• Average event earnings: $200–300 on slow days, up to $800 on best days, and $499 for a private, three-hour gig (11:42–12:50).
  • “Probably $2,600 bucks in that neighborhood” at peak for a single 5-day county fair (13:29).

6. Marketing & Customer Segments

• Majority of marketing was grassroots: 1,500–2,000 stickers/magnets with the brand/website handed out at events (08:57).
• Audience split unexpectedly: about 50/50 adults and kids.

  “I was actually really blown away...so many [construction workers]…would end up over at our booth paying us to run the machines…” (19:26)

• Corporate, family, and even retirement parties (06:26–06:55); adults enjoyed the precise mimicry of real machine controls, making it enjoyable for all ages (19:26–20:12).

7. Scaling Up: The Retail Store

• Store startup: $18k, partly mitigated by taking on renovations personally (23:20).
• Rent: $1,000/month, with city grants and incentives based on community buzz and social media reach (25:36).
• The store will have two “zones”—Construction and Crawler Space—enabling up to 17 simultaneous participants (28:38).
• Open plan: 7 days a week, 10 AM–8 PM, initially family-run, with intent to hire as needed (27:57).

8. Systematization and Franchising Ambition

• Software, branding, and operational learnings designed for easy franchising/franchisee ramp-up (27:10).

  “I want to franchise it… if I can prove it works. I think I’ve built everything… to be highly franchisable.” (27:10)

• Future plans include additional equipment for dual operation (event trailer & store) and outdoor RC courses to diversify revenue (32:07).
• Tim breaks even at just 12% capacity in the retail format; at 20–50% capacity, potential profits modeled at $300k/year (31:36–32:07).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On why he took the risk:
  Tim (01:24):

  “I've always had that bug, but I've always been, you know, too shy to pull the trigger honestly. And I think a lot of your content in the group helped my confidence in those areas.”

• On testing price elasticity & doubling volume:
  Tim (06:26):

  “…we changed from $5 for 10 minutes to $5 for five minutes… it doubled our business.”

• On customer demographics:
  Tim (19:26):

  “It's a good mix of 50–50... so many of them at the end of their shift… would end up over at our booth paying us to run the machines…”

• On vendor network and learning by doing:
  Tim (11:00):

  “We met a ton of other vendors at that event that were, you know, in different aspects. You know, we talk to everybody at every event because we've learned so much. So much so that we're opening a food truck this year to stack on top of it.”

• On tech enablement:
  Tim (18:31):

  "We don't have to be [telling people their time is up], because their parents do… the fact that we can do it so smoothly makes all the difference in the world."

• On break-even and the future:
  Tim (33:27):

  “Most of the summer? Eight months? Six, seven, eight months. It was, you know… because fall was a huge time for us.”

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Key Timestamps

• 00:24 – Chris describes Tim’s business origin story.
• 03:09 – Why Tim chose this idea; low risk, easy entry.
• 03:50–06:26 – Building and evolving the trailer, session pricing pivot.
• 08:17–08:57 – Economics of fair fees, marketing through handouts.
• 11:00–13:29 – Learning curve, best/worst event revenues, vendor networking.
• 17:40–18:31 – How the custom app (built with Replit AI) revolutionized time management and session tracking.
• 19:26 – Unexpected adult appeal—customer split.
• 21:42–23:54 – Startup costs (trailer & store), cost-saving tips.
• 25:39 – Rent and location advantages.
• 27:10 – Franchise ambition and systematizing operations.
• 28:38 – Store capacity and layout.
• 31:36–32:07 – Revenue modeling and profit potential.
• 33:27 – Reaching break-even and reflecting on progress.

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Takeaways for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

• You don’t need a billion dollar concept. Small, well-executed ideas—especially borrowed ones—can become lucrative, defensible businesses.
• Low startup risk can be powerful fuel, especially when paired with community and accountability.
• Test your pricing and iterate quickly; don't fear pushback. Tim’s 2x revenue insight was critical.
• Leverage technology to streamline operations. Tim’s custom session app turned a logistical nightmare into a scalable, possibly franchise-ready operation.
• Start grassroots—every sticker/magnet counts. And don’t underestimate the marketing power of literally showing up, repeatedly.
• Don’t ignore the 'grown-up' market for kid-centric ideas. Dads, grandpas, and construction workers love RC equipment.
• Design for scale and franchising from day one, even if you don’t franchise. Systematize everything—branding, tech, ops.

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Final Thoughts

Tim’s journey embodies the spirit of Chris Koerner’s show: take immediate action on good-enough ideas, learn and adapt fast, and use community plus simple tech to build real revenue streams. For listeners, this episode is a masterclass in validating, testing, and scaling up a business from humble beginnings—without betting the farm.

Chris Koerner wraps up:
“If you love entrepreneurship, marketing, business ideas or agency life, this show is for you. Let’s make you some money with cool business ideas!”

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For more on The Koerner Office and to connect with Chris Koerner:
TKOPOD.COM

Transcript

[Tim]

I was able to do it with very little risk involved. The barriers to entry seemed really low. When I ran the numbers, it was kind of one of those moments where if I even got to 50% capacity I was like, yeah, this is gonna be a home run. 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.

[Host]

So about a year ago I posted a short about a cafe in Dubai that also has a huge sandbox where they have remote, remote controlled excavators, diggers, cranes, etc. That short got about 20 million views across platforms. And would you believe it, this guy named Tim in Erlander, Kentucky of all places said that's my business. He'd had a W2 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, 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.

[Interviewer]

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]

I've always had that bug, but I've always been, you know, 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, you know, 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 you know, 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. You know, they're used to their phones and tablets. So 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 going to do. And so I was just leaning into a lot of things, including this.

[Interviewer]

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 W2 most of your life, right?

[Tim]

My whole life, yeah.

[Interviewer]

Okay, and so you did when you started this, and then you got laid off, and now you have another W2, but you're still doing this on the side, right?

[Tim]

A hundred percent.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Tim]

What?

[Interviewer]

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

[Tim]

The barriers to entry seemed really low. The risk 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. To do it with very little risk involved. I've 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 1700 sessions at $5 a session over the summer, and we booked seven private parties at 3.99 for two hours.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Tim]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

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]

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. Had 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, we, you know, it's orange and, you know, 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 there's our trailer.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. This is your trailer that you were just referring to?

[Tim]

Yes, sir.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so you're saying if the walls were a little lower, maybe closer to the level of the sand, then you would have gotten more like eyeball traffic, correct?

[Tim]

I think so. I think it would have helped people see what was going on. We built it this high because not knowing what you don't know, I kind of assumed it was going to need to be deeper because you're digging in it. But the truth is, you don't really need it to be more than, like a footprint deep of dirt. And then, you know, the kids really like the 4x4 stuff. So we're splitting the store up into two zones. There'll be construction and the crawler space by itself, they don't work well together. But it works in this. In this form. So you can see this is a trailer. Just a standard utility trailer. On the back end, there's a gate. We have some signs hung on it. And then you can see we have a TV hung on it in portrait mode. I built some software around it to help us track the sessions. Because when we started flushing out this idea, one of the first things that hit me was how do we manage it? How do you manage sessions of kids and adults running up and you're handing them a remote and you're, you know, you gotta track all this stuff. And we tossed around a lot of ideas. And then I finally built. I built all this that you see here in replit. I built all the tools we use in replit. I built it with the idea that if it works, it's gonna be franchisable. So all the software can be, you know, reset for somebody new and set up for you specifically. We built a trailer. We started hitting all the events. We started tracking sessions. It worked great. When we started, we were selling sessions for $5 for 10 minutes. Almost immediately, I realized the problem, that the parents didn't want to stand around for 10 minutes. So took a little convincing, but I convinced my wife that we needed to go to $5 for five minutes. She thought we both thought it was too expensive, but it doubled our business.

[Host]

Did you.

[Interviewer]

Did any people get turned away from that? Like, did your conversion rate suffer at all?

[Tim]

Yeah, some people think it's too expensive, Especially our party. Right. Some people think 3.99 for 2 hours is too expensive, but we've had plenty of people pay. And honestly, as a father of an 11 year old, I know what a birthday party costs, so. Yeah, yeah, it's for 10 people. For 3.99 it doesn't. It's not a bad deal. We actually just did a retirement party two weeks ago that was a lot of fun. It was a bunch of middle aged guys and their dad. Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So at 10 minutes it was like the parents kind of got bored or restless and you just thought that was bad for business. And you know, I mean, you can only handle half as many people that way.

[Tim]

Right. You could do more sessions at five minutes. And in my area, the way we went after it this summer, I was competing with really tough dynamics, at least I think. Right. Cause a lot of my business came from the county fairs and things like that. And the county fairs around here generally cost about 15 to 20 bucks to get to get in. And then that includes all of your rides. So I'm compete, you know, they literally just paid 15 or 20 bucks ahead to get in. And the kids are passing us screaming, I want to play, I want to play. And you know, a lot of the parents were dragging the kids by and then eventually they'd come back the other way. You'd see them come back when the kids won. You know, even at that, the people who were into it, were into it. You know, we had several groups of people who, you know, because it's all local county fairs, they would be at other. And they come back and oh, I saw you at this county fair, I saw you that county fair. Even to this day, you know, talking to people out in the public. Now that we're opening the store, you get a lot of, oh, I saw you guys at this fair, I saw you guys. So I think it worked well for our marketing perspective and we're still going to do it. If you look on our website, we still have a lot of those events planned because the store opens in February.

[Interviewer]

How much does it cost to like be at the fair?

[Tim]

It's interesting. It's quite dynamic, at least around here. We paid as little as $100 for a week and we paid as much as 550 I think was the most we paid for a week. And then there were some. We tried to get into a lot of like the bigger church carnivals around here. And man, you want to talk about them having a lockdown and being a hustle to get into. And there's there's one school event around here that, you know, it's a whole, you know, it's a whole thing just to even try to be considered, to get into it. So the ones that have the crowds on lockdown charge a lot more. But most of the county ones, you know, they're pretty reasonable.

[Interviewer]

So 100 to 500 for an entire.

[Tim]

Week of being there for a lot of, a lot of faces, a lot of tight talk. I mean, we've handed out probably 1500, 2000 stickers and magnets and all different kind of, you know, because we, we played around all summer with different things to hand out to pack parents and kids. The kids love the stickers we made. We made a bunch of stickers with our logo and website. And then we made. My wife had a genius idea to make. We wanted to give like business card style things to hand out, but we made them in magnet so you could just put them on your fridge. I'm sure people have done it before, but I just didn't think to do it smart. So we hand those out. Those work well. And you know, we're just really excited to have the store opening up because I think having a store, one that was. We got two main questions at all the events this year. Where's your store? And do you sell these things? So the store is going to answer both those questions.

[Interviewer]

Like sell the trailer, the whole kit?

[Tim]

No, the machines, the excavator. Oh, the rc, stuff like that. Yeah, we gave a couple away. Those are, those are pretty popular. You know, we gave a couple away for marketing events and things.

[Interviewer]

Okay. Is there a correlation between the cost to be at an event and the.

[Host]

Potential success of the event?

[Tim]

Sometimes, but not always because a lot of these county fairs, like any outdoor event, they're so dependent on the weather during the summer, you know, around us we can get some rain. So it does change the size of the crowd. They're very much dependent on the size of the crowd. So they're charging you based on the numbers of people they saw last year is basically how I understand it works.

[Interviewer]

Okay, now, what was the worst event you ever did? How much like revenue did you do and profit?

[Tim]

Oh, the first one, the first fair we did, we did on purpose was a really small county fair. And, and you know, I mean, we were, I think if we sold 10 sessions that whole week, it was a lot and it was just a couple of kids, but even so that was a huge learning experience. We met a ton of other vendors at that event that were, you know, in different aspects. You know, we talk to everybody at every event because we've learned so much. So much so that we're opening a food truck this year to stack on top of it.

[Interviewer]

I'm gonna get to that. I'm very curious about that.

[Tim]

Yeah. So. So, yeah, I just. I've learned a lot this year, and honestly, I'm just pushing hard. I'd like to get rid of the W2 as soon as I can, because I learned a hard lesson this year when a company I worked for for 13 years just went, yeah, sorry. Yeah, you don't have any money anymore. It's. It's a shit place to be.

[Interviewer]

So your first event, you lost money and you maybe made 50 bucks in revenue, give or take.

[Tim]

Yeah, if I. I don't even count that because whatever. I made that event. My daughter and her friends spent on food at the. At the event, so. Okay, it was clear it was all a loss.

[Interviewer]

What about an. What's an average event for you? Revenue and profit.

[Tim]

So our average events, once we got going, we were. And profit's hard because it's my wife and I running it, so we're not really spending any money to run besides the cost of the event. And so most of our. Most of our events, we paid for the event the first day because most days we would. On a bad day, we would do two or 300 bucks a day. On our best day, we did $800. That was a crazy day. And then on our busiest day, we did a private event for Choice Hotels at a Bengals tailgate. I've never been, so. There were so many kids, and it was all free to them because it was an open event and they had nothing else to do. And that was the first event that we actually ran through all of our batteries just as our time was almost up. So.

[Interviewer]

Wow, perfect.

[Tim]

If we had given them an extra hour, we'd have been in trouble.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So for that event, they just paid you to be there for free? And what did they pay?

[Tim]

Well, they paid us. They paid us to be there, and then we offered it to the.

[Interviewer]

To the guest.

[Tim]

For free? Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And what did they pay you?

[Tim]

That one was 499 because it was such an open, public event.

[Interviewer]

And how long were you there for?

[Tim]

Total, about three hours was set up.

[Interviewer]

Wow, that's awesome.

[Tim]

And that one, that was just. We were at. There's a local pizza pub, brewery kind of thing down the street from us, and they had a fall event we were at for two days, and the guy who runs Choice Hotels marketing Came with his kids and they played. And he's like, hey, we have this big tailgate. You guys should. We'd love to have you. And I was like, sure. Great. You know, that kind of stuff. You have those conversations all day. Two days later, he's like, hey, what are you doing this Sunday? It went pretty fast on that one, but I suspect that one will be a repeating event because they had so many kids. It's a big family event that they have a big family tailgate for everybody.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Now your best fair ever. What was your revenue that week?

[Tim]

Probably 2,600 bucks in that neighborhood.

[Interviewer]

Five days.

[Tim]

And that was Alexandria fair. No, that one was five days through the weekend. And that one, I think that one was our biggest event, mostly because the crowd was just perfect for us. It was in a really rural county, but this county drew an amazing crowd to their horse show. So you had a lot of people with disposable income who were there and kids who were bored. So at that show, we had a lot of parents who came up and were like, here's 20 bucks. He's going to be here for a minute. You know, like that kind of thing.

[Interviewer]

20 minutes, actually.

[Tim]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So do you offer any discounts for more time?

[Tim]

We messed around with it. I have in session in the app where we sell sessions. Cause I just. It's on your phone. So someone comes up and I can just sell it to you right on my phone. I can do basically buy one get or buy two get one free. And so sometimes I'll ring people up like that. Like, we've had some real, really great patrons who have spent a lot of money session after session. And, you know, I'll see them come up again and I'll just, you know, you know, say, give them a free session or, you know, whatever. Yeah, just to kind of. But we don't actually publicize it yet at the store. Our pricing model is going to be completely different. You know, it starts generally around the same. So we're going to do 15 minutes for 15 bucks. And then as you scale time, it gets significantly cheaper per minute. But we're also going to offer things like memberships and stuff like that. So that someone who wants to come a lot.

[Interviewer]

Now, on your trailer, how many customers can you accommodate at the same time?

[Tim]

Ideally around 10 is the max. So we have three excavators, two front loaders, a. I don't know what the. What it's called, but a big power crane is what I call it. So we have a big crane and then I have like seven different RC trucks, Traxxas vehicles that we use. At 10, it starts to get too crazy in there because most of that is the traffic. But they don't, you know, you can run those things right into the excavator and they don't even, they don't budge. The excavators are full metal and pretty heavy.

[Interviewer]

And so you and your wife's job while there is you're swapping out batteries, you're answering questions, you're accepting payments, you're telling people their time's up. Is that about right?

[Tim]

Yeah. And flipping cars over a lot. Okay, so we have a little broomstick and you know, because it's like I said, it's not an ideal setup for both to be in there. So the main issue with that is the cars flip over a lot because one, they're geared like normal cars so they're a little fast to be, you know, in there. So the kids love it. They're just like, you know, and they're running them over the mountain and just flipping, flipping them off things. So we spend a lot of time just setting them straight. But yeah, other than that talking to people, answering questions, talking about birthday parties, a lot of people asked about parties. My wife Jen thinks this year our private party business is going to blow up because, you know, we were kind of into birthday party season already when we started it. Nobody knew about us and seems to be holding true because we've already booked a couple for this year.

[Interviewer]

So yeah, so I'm starting to run.

[Host]

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[Interviewer]

Now how do you keep track of their time? Like through the app.

[Tim]

If you saw in that picture, that TV that's on there. So someone comes up and let's say Johnny wants to play. We get a name and if they'll give it to us, an email so that we track it. We keep their email for marketing. And then we put how long they're going to play? 5, 10, 15 minutes, however long they ask for.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Tim]

And then as soon as we sell it, it goes up on the monitor and it gives them about a 30 second buffer to, to get the remote and get set up. And then it start. There's a countdown timer that just says their name with their countdown. As it gets closer to the end of the time, it changes colors to warn them and it'll start flash. When it's done, it stays up there for a minute and says, your time's up. And what that has done for us is eliminate the vast majority of us having to tell kids because their parents do, their parents are like, hey, time's up or you got a minute left. You know, they're just, they're on top of it. So we don't have to be.

[Interviewer]

Is this the app that you built with Replit?

[Tim]

Yes, sir.

[Interviewer]

So I mean you have no coding experience and you built like the app that runs your entire business with just AI correct?

[Tim]

To be fair, I have some coding experience. I used to be a control system programmer. So with that came a lot of testing code experience. And I honestly think if you have QA coding experience, that kind of stuff, if you can talk to the computer the way you would someone who's coding, it does a much better job. So I've had really good success with Replit. It's also, it's. It blows my mind as someone who's been in technology my whole life, in just the eight months or so, how much better Replit has gotten every time I use it.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, let me go back to this. So what percentage of your customers are, you know, under 18 and what percentage of are 30 to 70 year old dudes?

[Tim]

It's a good mix of 50. 50. I was actually really blown away. You know, it's funny, at Boone county and a lot of the county fairs, you know, they have the dirt tracks for different things. So they have guys, they're running these kind of machines and so many of them at the end of their shift at the, you know, 9 o' clock at night when the fair is almost over, would end up over at our booth paying us to run the machines with the remote controls. I'm like, you guys have been running these things all day. And they just love it because the control, that was one of the things I learned that was really neat about them. The controls are the same as a Caterpillar excavator or Caterpillar front loader. So someone who runs these machines can come in, pick up the remote and literally use it like an expert. Because it's exactly the same. And it also leans into training, you know, kids on how to use these things.

[Interviewer]

So you're selling just as many of these packages to people like me as opposed to kids. That's crazy.

[Tim]

I don't know if there's a good. Yeah, so if you open right under the Thanksgiving turkey picture, there's some picture of some kids standing there. This was actually one of the problems. So I had to find a platform for the kids to stand on so they could see in the trailer. But you can see this is where the kids play for the most part. This whole other side here where there isn't a platform, that's all adults almost. If you look at through my pictures, you'll almost always see adults standing in that area playing. It's just always. So you can see them kind of in the background. See where that. They're just standing there.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Tim]

You know, getting ready to play or playing. And you can see the sessions in the back there. So you can see there are four.

[Interviewer]

Oh, on the screen right here.

[Tim]

Yeah. So you can see there are four sessions about the end and two sessions that are still active.

[Interviewer]

Oh, that is so cool. That app would cost so much for. To have developed.

[Tim]

Like I say it all the time to people I would not have been able to run because. No, managing the sessions is. Is so important to what's going on here. The fact that we can do it so smoothly makes all the difference in the world. This would be a nightmare to manage if I didn't have that. And we talked through all the ideas. We were going to use stopwatches and all. We were going to mount the remotes to the trailer so they couldn't. Like we had all sorts of ideas, but this software solved it all. And I think it makes it more franchisable and marketable because it makes the business that much easier to run.

[Interviewer]

What were your opening costs for the trailer version of this, your startup? Cost?

[Tim]

Right around 10, 11 grand.

[Interviewer]

It's not bad at all.

[Tim]

Including the trailer? Yeah, most of that was the trailer. The trailer cost six grand of that, was six grand of that. And that was mostly because my time, I was. I had to get like, I think it might be my ADHD or my, you know, my whatever you want to call it. But if I give myself an excuse, I'll find it. You know what I mean? So, like, we start when we were committed to doing this. We started booking events before I had the trailer, before I knew what it was all gonna, how it was gonna work. We were committed to events, so I had a timeline that I had to stick to. And I couldn't get a used trailer. Everyone I found that had one was just being a pain to work with. So I bought one new and it ran me about six grand. I'm glad I did because it's just been one less thing I had to worry about. I had six grand in the trailer. I started with six machines, two excavators, two front loaders, and two dump trucks. The dump trucks were a real disappointment. Luckily, they were only like 250, so 500 for the two of them because both of them did not work in the sand in the pit the way we had it designed. So I ended up using one as a giveaway. And then we have one we saved for the store. And so the excavators aren't about 500 a piece, and the front loaders are about four. And then the dump trucks are about three. And then I spent another maybe two grand on. On four wheel drive vehicles and other, you know, marketing stuff like that to get. To get ready. But to your point, I didn't spend anything on the website. The. Well, I mean, I spent replit fee, so maybe 200 bucks on. On the website, on all the back end stuff.

[Interviewer]

What will your startup cost be for the store?

[Tim]

18. I took on some of the renovations because I can do them myself to save cost. And in turn, I got 50% reduction on the first four months of rent. And my rent's real cheap. You know, one of the reasons we went in on this place is because again, hedging my bets, if I don't make a dime, I can afford it with my W2. If it turns into a clubhouse, it turns into a clubhouse. Yeah, but I don't think it will. We have a lot of excitement, a lot of buzz. The city has reached out to us directly just because of our social media stuff to say, hey, how can we help you? Which is really cool.

[Interviewer]

How much research have you done on the competing stores? I assume there aren't any in your area, so you're not competing with them directly. But other people that have done this in the Middle east or in the U.S. do you know like what the ceiling is as far as like a per store, per year profit?

[Tim]

No, I've run, I've run the numbers on my store and I know what other people doing similar things. So the main companies kind of doing this. There's a cafe in the UK who I think has a nice setup. There's a place in Taiwan, There's a place called Diggers Cafe that just opened in Canada that's doing some really nice marketing. They even have a jingle, like an old school radio jingle that goes along with it. So they've got a really nice setup but they've spent some money. Whatever they do, they've got some investors or they took out some money too because they built a really nice store. I think our store is going to be really nice. It's just a little bit smaller. And we're not really doing the cafe because we didn't want to get into, you know, all the food service. So we're going to have coffee and stuff that we can sell that's not refrigerated. So baked goods, things like that.

[Interviewer]

What do you expect to do like both first year and like as a ceiling, like what is your max capacity as far as annual profit is concerned with one location?

[Tim]

You should have known that this is like a shark tank monument where I don't have my numbers in. I ran models based on the total number of sessions I can run at any given period of time based on the amount of hours I'm open at any given time. Right. So I think it was at like 12% capacity. I break even on all of my costs involved in running the store and then anything above that is obviously profit.

[Interviewer]

And what is your rent on this place per month?

[Tim]

A thousand bucks.

[Interviewer]

Oh, that's nothing.

[Tim]

I know. And it's in a great area. The neighbor, the. My neighbor is the mayor who owns a really sort of not high end but you know, like one of those brunch places that all everybody likes to go to. So every day, all morning, that place is packed.

[Interviewer]

Is this an Erlinger, how do you pronounce it?

[Tim]

Erlanger?

[Interviewer]

Yeah, erlanger. There's only 20,000 people there.

[Tim]

That's a small. Erlanger is like a little street strip in between everything else. It's Boone county and Kenton County. So we're, you know, we're Suburbs of Cincinnati, basically. There's no shortage of people, that's for sure. But Erlanger is a smaller town, which is one of the things I like because the city's really into us being there. They have a grant, they're out of money for 25, but their fiscal year restarts in July. And so in July I'm going to give back 50 of whatever I spend on my build out, which is really nice. So that was a. That was a big part of it.

[Interviewer]

What do you plan to do with the trailer? Are you repurposing any of the stuff you have or do you want to leave that as like a standalone business so you can still do events and not have to borrow from the trailer, like equipment?

[Tim]

We're still keeping the trailer. The plan is to still do all the public events for now, just to keep costs down, using all the same machines to get the store open. But then very quickly I'm going to have to buy some more to run both, because we'll have a, an event pretty soon after the store opens. Okay, so that's the plan.

[Interviewer]

What is like the grand ambition? Do you want more locations? Do you want to franchise this?

[Tim]

I want to franchise it. So that's the plan. If I can prove that it works. I think I've built everything else out to be highly franchisable. I've worked through all the problems, so to speak. I have. You know, I think the branding's pretty strong on it. Like you said, the software and the being able to manage your business right off the bat without any investment is a big part of it. So, yeah, I think the key for me is proving that it works. I think it works in a mobile model. It's just for me, it's a, it's a slog. It's a lot, you know, dragging that thing around, setting it up, going to a fair in five days, a week at night, you know, so if it's all you're doing, sure, but it's not all, you know, and what a good.

[Interviewer]

Way to prove the demand first.

[Tim]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

With $6,000 or 10. 10,000. How many days per week are you going to be open?

[Tim]

So the plan right now is seven, because we don't know. We're very fortunate in that way. Both my wife and I, when I'm not traveling, we're both, we're work from home people. So, you know, we'll take my daughter to school and then just go to the office, so to speak, and have the store open until we kind of figure out what it Looks like. And then very quickly we want to hire somebody to, to fill in a lot of the hours or we'll drown in it.

[Interviewer]

And how many hours per day?

[Tim]

Plan is to be open from 10 to 8 right now.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so 10, 10 hours. So 70 hours a week. And then how many. I know this, all of this is subject to change. Right. How many customers would be able to serve at once? If it's 10 on the trailer, what do you expect in the store?

[Tim]

I have a max of probably 17 active sessions at one time.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Tim]

Because we'll have two different zones. So you'll have. Most of that activity will be split up between both. So the plan is to have four excavators, two dump trucks, another crane and two front loaders in the construction site. And then another fleet of six or seven four by four vehicles for the mountain.

[Interviewer]

Let's say, you know, optimistically you're just slammed, you're busy. What will your manpower look like that day? How many people would you have on the clock?

[Tim]

I think you need two if you're. If you're full busy because there's really not much to do. You need someone manning the counter. And then without having. So in this setup in the store, all the four by four stuff is going to be the person using it standing right next to it. So they're going to be able to turn the machine over. So all that's gone in the construction pit. There's none of that. So it's very hands off. Except for every hour of use you have to change the battery. Most of these machines you'll get about an hour. Not on the clock, on use. So depending on how much you're. If you're using them full time, you're. You're switching out batteries every hour. So that's about it. There's so far, I mean I don't know what, I don't know yet. But from what's going on at the events, that's the best I can tell you is I think two would be more than enough to handle. You know, because it's a thousand square foot store so it's not huge. So there's not a lot of space to cover. You just need someone to handle the sessions and hand out the remotes. Because the idea is, you know, you're on the clock, you can use any of the machines. Same with the trailer. When you're on the plaque. I can use any of the machines for as long as I want. I can trade you the remote any point in time.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so let's Just say. Now, humor me for a minute, because I know this isn't realistic, but I'm trying to get an idea of, like, what the absolute best case scenario is. Right? What is sold out, 24, 7 look like? So if you're open, I'm really mad.

[Tim]

That I don't have those numbers.

[Interviewer]

No, it's. All right, let's. Tell me how BS these numbers are or not. So you're open 70 hours a week, 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. And of course, you might change that as your demand, you know, comes and goes. Whatever. 70 hours a week, 17 at a time, is a dollar per minute. So that's max potential. If you are fully sold out of $17 per minute. So that is 600 minutes per day. Right? 600 minutes times 10 hours. 60 minutes of 10 hours, 600 minutes per day times $17 per minute, you're looking at $10,000 for a day. All right. Do I have the right 10 hours? Yeah. So let's just say from. From the second you open to the second you close, you are at full max capacity, which probably, well, hopefully will happen one day, but probably won't for a while, right? That could be a $10,000 day. And your overhead on that for like, your insurance, your ac, your employees is like a hundred. No, sorry. The employees would be like, let's call it $50 an hour, including payroll taxes, times 10 hours, it's $500 a day. The rent is like a hundred dollars a day. So let's just say, you know, very conservatively, your overhead is $1,000 a day. Really more like six or seven hundred dollars a day. So theoretically, obviously, the. The busy you are, the more profitable you are, because it's economies of scale. I mean, this could be 9,000 a day, 8,7000 a day in. In gross profit if you were like, fully max capacity, which. You know what I'm saying? So let's just say you're 20%. You're 20%, quote, unquote, occupied. Take out your cost. That could be $300,000 a year of profit.

[Tim]

When I ran the numbers, it was kind of one of those moments where if I even got to 50% capacity, I was like, yeah, this is going to be a home run. So. Because even at 50%, the numbers were like, jesus, because you get to multiply. You know, you're stacking that effect because you can on so many machines. Again, because I took this path, you know, I got to meet the community. I mean, I had a meeting yesterday with a guy who I met through the community and we finally met in person. He runs an organization for veterans that helps them, you know, kind of get back and re acclimated through rc because a lot of these guys get outdoors and stuff like that. So we're going to work together in some partnerships. There's a huge community of guys who use these RC vehicles of our age. Right. One of the cool places I didn't mention before, one of the cool things about the spot I got is there's this probably half an acre to three, quarter of an acre piece of property behind it that's unused. And so this summer I'm going to turn it into an outdoor course that will have an outdoor course and a fast lap course because it'll just be extra revenue. That's awesome because we're going to let people bring their own machines too. So we'll have pricing for rentals and then pricing for just to use our setup.

[Interviewer]

From the time it took you to get your first job to pay off your startup cost to get to break even, how long was that?

[Tim]

Most of the summer? Eight months? Six, seven, eight months. It was, you know, it was kind of, I should say summer most of the year. Right. Because fall was a huge time for us. We did a lot of fall events and those are pretty popular, which was surprising to me because I didn't think with the weather people would stand around, but they still did.

[Interviewer]

That's amazing.

[Tim]

I've been surprised every, every turn. So, you know, all while you were.

[Interviewer]

Working a full time job? I mean, mostly.

[Tim]

Yeah, yeah, mostly.

[Interviewer]

That's incredible.