The Backyard Side Hustle That Made $10K in a Week - Ep. #307

I did $10,000 in sales and bookings. Last week? Just last week. Holy cow. I got it on Amazon.

But it's not like commercial, right?

No, it's not commercial.

How much did it cost?

$250, maybe $300. So I was like, let me just kind of toss this up on Marketplace.

You weren't trying to make it a business?

No, absolutely not. It was a Christmas gift for my family.

Okay. Quick heads up. I'm actually filming this on my front porch right now. So if you hear a bird or a dog or a car, just stick it out. I promise you it's worth it. So I found this guy on Facebook Marketplace, total stranger to me, who bought his kid an inflatable movie screen for Christmas, and he turned that into a business. His first screen cost about $300 on Amazon, and he just threw it up on Facebook Marketplace to see if he'd get any bites. And of course he got a bunch of bites. Now he's having $10,000 weeks and working towards $100 grand this year at 80% profit margins. And his big unlock was when he realized we can't even start these movies until 9:30, 'cause in Texas in the summer, it doesn't get dark until then. That doesn't work for little kids. So he built his own version of an indoor air-conditioned inflatable outdoor movie theater that is printing money that literally no one else on the planet is doing. You're going to love this. Please enjoy. All right, Derek, tell me about your business.

Uh, Backyard Movie Theater. Uh, started it 2 years ago. It was a Christmas gift for my family. Okay. Yeah. So for my wife and I got a 10-year-old son at that time, he was 8 years old. I thought this would be a great idea. We'll watch movies in the backyard, set it up, got like a couple chairs, inflatable chairs. Mm-hmm. It was nice. Wonderful. They enjoyed it. My son was going back to, or was ending school and he was like, hey, you know, daddy, I want to do a movie night for my friends. So I ordered some more chairs for his friends and all. Did the whole movie night. Parents came through and they loved it. So I started getting people just in the neighborhood like, hey, do you do this? And I was like, kind of did this as a Christmas gift.

Yeah.

You know, for my family now, my son doing it because he was going back to school or ending school. And it just kind of started from there. So I was like, let me just kind of toss this up on Marketplace.

You weren't trying to make it a business? No.

Yeah, absolutely not. You know, I, I just that little twinge when I did it for my son and the parents came through and I just threw it up just to see if I would, you know, get any offers. First one was an HOA.

Okay.

That, that did it. And I wasn't prepared to be totally transparent. I was not.

That's good. If you are prepared, you've waited too long.

Yeah.

That's what I say.

So I get there, I see the food trucks outside. I'm the main attraction.

Everyone's legit. They all have businesses. They've been doing this. And you're like, yes, what am I doing here?

You know, I just did this for my son, for my family. Yeah. I get there, the wind is blowing. Now, mind you, I got this inflatable. It was a Christmas gift, so I got it on Amazon.

It's not like commercial, right?

Not commercial.

How much did it cost?

$250, maybe $300.

And how many inches is it or feet?

Like, how big is it? It was— this one was like, I think it was 16 feet. Okay, so, you know, I get that. I go to this HOA event, I see all the vendors setting up. I get there, the wind is blowing like 10 miles an hour. I blow this thing up, which for Dallas, that's not even all that much. Yeah, but for this thing— are you familiar with the oil changes and those things out front?

Oh yeah, yeah.

But it was doing that to the inflatable.

It was— they're gonna be watching the movie like this.

It was, it was a nightmare, but a great learning experience. So I comped them. I was like, hey, I'll do this again for you. In the meantime, let's take it inside the amenity center. But it killed the whole vibe of doing an outdoor movie setup.

So, so sorry, did you not end up going through with the movie on that?

Oh, I went through with it. We just set it up in the amenity center. Okay. But some people had left.

It just killed the vibe. It wasn't a great experience. You comped them. Yes. Okay.

Yes. So I said to my wife, I was like, you know, if I'm going to do this, I need to invest in a commercial, you know, theater system. So it took me a few months, ordered a 20-foot industrial movie screen.

And how much did that cost?

I think it was about $3,500. Wow. Another in shipping because it was coming from overseas, I probably spent another $900 to $1,100.

Okay, so about— is this like from Alibaba?

This was from, from Alibaba, from one of their—

Okay.

Yeah. So from there I was like, okay, now if there's wind, I'm prepared for movie night. So it just started rolling from there. I started getting pretty much booking from people in my neighborhood. Marketplace would come through just kind of random, and it just kind of kept going. Schools started booking from me, and I've been doing it for the last like year and a half, 2 years or so.

And how, how much did you charge for the first real booking?

The first, the first real booking? I think I did that for like $290.

Okay. How did you land on that price?

$290? Yeah. How much is it going to cost? You know, and I started looking around my prices for that event since it—

Yeah.

Since it tanked, you know, I should have gave them $290. Yeah. But from there, you know, I just started kind of sourcing around, see like how much would it cost and then I would go to other movie events, like when schools would have them, just to see like, okay, how are they doing and how can I do it better? You know, what could I, you know, improve upon? So I would go, I started adding the, like the chairs that I have for my family. I started adding them because mainly were for birthday parties. So I would add like 10 to 12. So then I started adding packages. So if you wanted 6 inflatable chairs, 10 inflatable chairs, A big party might have 20 inflatable chairs. Some of them were the cinema-looking chairs, others were the LED chairs. So I kind of carved out a niche that I didn't see anyone else doing. So I've always been like, okay, how can I make it better? And mainly it's been for kids. So, you know, they want the lights and pretty much an overall good experience for movie night. Yeah. Yeah.

Molly, someone's pulling in right now. Uh, all right, so do you charge extra for the chairs and all that, or is that just part of the package?

It's— I pretty much put it in a package. So if you do like, say, a package— we'll call it package 1— it may come with 6 chairs. Uh, package 2 may come with 10 chairs. So they just kind of— I tried to do it, okay, what's a happy medium? Yeah. And people just typically, 9 times out of 10, they're going to choose the package.

Okay, what do your packages cost today?

So a beginner package, which is just a complete screen and speakers, starts at $375.

Okay.

So if they want to do, say, like 6 chairs, that's going to be like, I believe it's like $450. Okay. You do 10, 15 chairs, say like a customer did one with 20 chairs, LED chairs. That one was like, I did a little customization, but that was $850.

Okay. Yeah. Wow. So they go all from $375 to $850.

Even more. I have one top tier for just that one is $1,500. Wow. Yes.

You get a lot of those?

Uh, I've had like about 4 of them.

Okay.

Yeah.

Dang, still. But you still need a Bluetooth speaker, right? Or 2?

Uh, I use— I don't use Bluetooth. They are Bluetooth. I just don't do it because when you sync it, you can always—

okay.

Yeah, I just run wire to it. So it's like seamless.

How much is your, um, projector?

My projector? Um, well, when I do it, I do it as a package, but when I got it, I think I spent like $1,100.

This is a good projector though.

Yeah, it's a good projector.

Okay, and then, um, how much for your speakers?

Speakers? Uh, I got the top-of-the-line JBL, and those speakers are $1,500 each.

Each?

Okay.

Yeah, $3,000 for the speakers. Call it $4,200 if you include the projector, another $4,500 or so, and then chairs. So you're in at like $10,000 for all the hardware and equipment, give or take? Yeah.

Okay. And that's just for that theater.

Yeah.

I have an indoor theater that's just a game changer.

Ooh, tell me about that.

So the indoor theater, like in the summer, it starts getting dark at 9:30. So like I said, a lot of times families do this for kids. Mm-hmm. 9:30, like I got a 10-year-old, you know, he'll try to like stay up late. But if a movie's an hour and a half, it's starting at 9:30, it's not going to be over till 11. Yeah. So I was like, how can I start showing movies earlier? So I looked into a, uh, one of those inflatable, uh, theaters on Amazon. But I was like, it's going to be like an oven in there, that's not going to work. So I just started looking around, looking around. So I went to my manufacturer that I got my first movie screen from. They couldn't do it. Found another one, and it took me about 2 months to kind of design it out. I wanted air so I can put an air conditioner in each corner. Uh, I wanted lighting on the inside. So when I did that, I really wanted to have— wanted you to have a, a theater experience. So I put full carpeting in. It's amazing.

Yeah, full carpeting, LED lighting, and it's all inflatable.

It's all inflatable.

Holy— it's an inflatable room. It's an inflatable for watching movies with air conditioning and air conditioning. Is anyone doing that?

Like anywhere? I haven't—

I looked. Yeah, because you had to make this for your UK. It's not like you bought an indoor inflatable movie theater.

I wanted to. It would have been so much easier. I would have avoided shipping the 3 to 4 months to get it. So I just kind of like kind of had it in my mind. I want, you know, the screen on the inside. I didn't want to look like you taped up a screen.

Yeah, um, you gotta do it right.

Yeah, it's beautiful.

How— well, Do you have like pictures and videos we can add over the video?

Yes. Okay. Yeah.

How much did all that stuff cost you?

Um, the just inflatable alone, I spent $2,000 on that. Okay. Uh, when I started adding, like I had to do carpet, I probably spent another, um, I don't know, maybe about $400 on carpeting. Mm-hmm. Uh, the ACs, I picked them up off Marketplace, so I probably got those for maybe about $150 each. Mm-hmm. I tried to like, okay, maybe I can just do 2 of them. I did 2 and it's like, oh, it's comfortable, but 4? Yeah, it's colder than your house. Yeah. Um, so I probably spent about $150 to $200 on the ACs. Um, I already had the speakers, the projector, so pretty much I was done. Yeah, yeah, I was done.

So all in on that, $5,000?

No, I would say probably about $35,000.

Are you able to use the same speakers and the same projector? Yeah. Okay, so the room is the only extra. What do you charge for that setup?

So that one is, if you do it what I call, if you do it right with the, you know, with the, the, um, the carpet where it's plushed out, it's $1,700. Wow, $1,700.

How many takers do you have on that?

Uh, I've had probably about 10.

Wow. Yeah, that's crazy. Do you try to upsell them to that?

No, um, either you see it or you don't. Yeah. And here's what I notice, um, um, who get them every time I pull up to their, their house, they're sitting on a few acres.

Okay, uh, so that's your client for this? Yeah, someone with a few acres.

Yeah, they don't blink at the, uh, if they, if they say, oh, can I get so much off, it's probably not for you. Yeah. A lot of times people will just pay in advance and say, Derek, I'll see you in a month. Yeah, yeah, man.

What types of events want an indoor movie theater versus your normal outdoor? Like, um, how do those types of events differ?

They're the same. They're almost the same customer. It's still at their home, still in their backyard. Um, they just want a different experience. It's a definite wow factor.

I mean, in Texas In the dead of summer, this is perfect.

Oh yeah, yeah, it's perfect because one, it's not going to get dark till 9:30, but in there it's dark all day.

Oh, you're saying—

yeah, and during the day, like right now, it's going to have like a tint to it. When the sun goes down, it's like completely dark.

Wow. Yeah, you just invented that whole industry.

It's— but I was, I was really trying to solve a problem because, yeah, kids are going to bed, a movie starting at 9:30 for a 7-year-old.

Yeah.

I was like, this night in the summer, you think, okay, great, this summer I can watch a movie.

It doesn't get dark until late.

Yeah, it doesn't get dark till late. And you cannot project on a screen like you can't beat the sun.

No, no, no, you can't. Um, how long have you been doing this?

For 2 years.

And what are your numbers like today?

Um, it's, I still don't have like a, a system. Like for instance, just last week,. And I don't have a formula for it. Like I did $10,000 in sales and bookings last week, just last week. Holy cow. Yeah. So that was with the— I do LED dance floors. We'll get to that as well. Um, just last week. And I don't know, I'm just out there like on Marketplace, I'm emailing, just see, just seeing what comes through referrals and it just comes through. I saw your, your podcast with, uh, Kyle.

Yeah. The Appliance Rental.

No, he was talking about SEO. Oh yeah.

Yeah. The Website Landlord. Yeah. Yeah.

I was just watching that, and I was like, like, a system like that where I can get leads so I don't— I haven't, like, I don't have like this bonafide, like, I'm getting like a repeatable system.

Exactly. You're relying on Facebook Marketplace.

Yeah.

Okay.

Referrals.

What do you think your sales will be this year?

Um, with the addition of the LED dance floor and looking at kind of just what I did last week on like very minimal effort, I'll probably do about 90 to 100.

Mostly profit? Yeah, because after I get all my stuff purchased, it's all, it's just your time.

It's just my time. Yeah.

Yeah. So like 70, 80% profit margins.

Yeah, absolutely.

My gosh. What, what did you do last year? Last year was your first full year.

Uh-huh.

What did you do in revenue and profit?

I think it was probably about—

Is this the only thing you do or do you have a job?

I was flying drones commercially. Okay. Yeah, I was flying drones commercially and I was like, all right. You know, I've always been a serial entrepreneur. Me and my wife own a drinkware business as well. So I'm all over the place. But yeah, we have a drinkware business and I wanted to do— because we were shipping to Macy's, American Eagle, and it was kind of on autopilot. So I was kind of twiddling my thumbs and Christmas came around, got this, and I just kind of went in on this.

Seems like you obsess over something and you have to get it perfect.

Yes.

You're not content with two air conditioning. Like, it can't just be comfortable. It has to be like a movie theater where you're freezing. It has to be right. I want to show you.

I put on music beforehand.

Oh yeah.

I put on movie coming, same thing you would get at the movies, coming attractions. And I'll put on music after the movie's over. Yeah. And how I tapped into the LED dance floors was when a movie would end, I would have music or YouTube videos playing Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, whoever. When I get back after the movie's over, the kids are in the back dancing.

Mm. You're like, hmm.

Yeah.

How could I monetize these kids dancing?

So I was like, let me start looking into these LED dance floors. Yeah. And that's how that whole thing—

So tell me about that business.

So the LED dance floors is something that I just introduced. I just got that. So I've been talking to the manufacturer for like over a year, like trying to get the best price and really trying to— since it's kind of a language barrier, like I'm trying to ask them, like, give me the questions that I don't know to ask you. Yeah. And so that, like, that took a year. So I'm like, okay, so what if I want to do a, you know, a dance floor, but someone else wants to do it? Well, you only have enough equipment to do one. I was like, okay, how can I, if someone wants to do a 10 by 10 and someone else wants to do a 16 by 16, how do I do that, you know, in the same day? It was like, okay, well, you need to get extra, you know, supplies like power and all that. So I was like, okay. Let me kind of triple up on it. So if I book 3 in a day, I'm just not stuck with a, you know, not shamming, say, $1,000. Yeah. What if I can make $3,000? I want to make it. Yeah. So it just took about a year just to say, okay, this is how I think I want to do this.

Okay. So how does that business work? Like you post about on Facebook Marketplace, people want a dance party.

Mainly what I've been getting is weddings.

Okay.

Stone anniversaries, someone's 30th, 50th, 25th. Mainly it's been weddings, and just here recently, which I hadn't even thought of, it's been schools, end-of-year celebrations.

Yeah. And I mean, what is this exactly? Like, it lights up? I'm not familiar with this.

So it's an LED dance floor, and they come in these, these, uh, 2-foot panels.

Okay.

So I have a 24 by 24 dance floor. So you can get as small as like an 8x8 floor. Okay. Or you can get a 16x16, which is good for maybe about 70, 80 people. If you're having like this full-on reception wedding, typically that's going to be a 20x20 or 24x24, which will accommodate about 100 to 125, 130 people.

Okay. Yeah. So people dance on top of these?

Yes.

And they light up and light up. Do they have sensors? To like based on where you step? No, they don't.

Okay, they don't.

And does it like sync to the music?

It does sync to the music, and the technology is not great. The, the best effect you're going to get is just the revolving colors, but you like would have to put this speaker like really close to the equipment for it to do it. Okay, so they're not there. Okay.

Yeah, for 24 by 24, how much in equipment does that cost you for, for rental or just to buy it?

To buy it, it was about $20,000.

$20,000. And then what do you charge for 24 by 24.

3,000. Okay.

So, all right. 8, 7, 8 rentals and you've paid it off. Yeah. How's that going so far?

I've only done one. Okay. Just like when I, when I spoke with Molly, I was like, you know, I got something new that I'm excited about.

Yeah. How did that first one go?

It went great. I even set it up in my home for my son and my wife. And my wife was like, all right, once you get this, you know, get a few pictures, I want it out of here, but leave a size 8x8 in case me and Ian want to dance.

Just in case. Yeah, exactly. Man, that is awesome. And you're able to like cross-sell and upsell and cross-promote.

Well, it was perfect because like I said, when I would show up at the end of the movie, I would have the YouTube music videos playing. They were already dancing. Yeah, I didn't have a dance floor.

So that's where you got the idea. Absolutely. What advice do you have for people wanting to start any of these businesses?

I would say do your research first, you know, find a good, you know, manufacturer. The lowest prices is not always the best, you know, down the road. So, and that's just what I did. Like, do your research with the movie thing. I just kind of, I didn't start it as a business. I started as a Christmas gift that evolved into that. Yeah, that's why, you know, I end up crazy when I showed up to this first event. Yeah, it bombed. But, you know, it was a great learning experience. So I would say, you know, do your, do your research, you know, talk to people, you know, I reach out and ask people like, hey, you know, Dallas, I got this movie business, I got this LED dance floor business. You mind answering a couple questions?

Yeah.

So typically I'll reach out to people out of state because someone local might be like, I don't want you infringing on my business. I'll just reach out to someone out of state. It's like, just be transparent, tell them what I'm doing.

What side of your business are you most excited about?

They— I think they coincide.

It's just one business. Yeah. Three different kind of services or products.

Yeah. Because One thing, if you've ever worked a 9 to 5 job, you've had those days where you wake up and you're just like, oh, this. Like, how do you say that to yourself when you know kids are looking forward to this movie night that's coming up? So, you know, it's exciting.

And Derek, is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't ask you about?

Um, my website. I'll be glad.

No, no, I, I want to go there for sure, but no. Um, what is your business? Where can we find you?

Uh, I'm at backyardmovietheater.com.

How'd you get that domain?

I don't know.

That was open?

Jesus.

My goodness.

Yeah, it was open. Backyardmovietheater.com. On Facebook is Backyard Movie Theater, and on IG is Backyard Movie Theater Texas. Okay. Yeah.

That's incredible.

Thank you, Derek. Thank you.

I appreciate it, guys.

Absolutely. Hey guys, if you're still listening to this, it's probably because you haven't had a chance to take your AirPods out. You're still mowing the lawn, you're still driving, what have you. If you're still here with me, I would really, really love and appreciate a 5-star review on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. It would mean a lot. If you want to go the extra mile, share this episode with a friend that might have an interest in starting a business. It would mean a ton. Hope you have the best day of your life today.