755: The $295k Kids Party Rental Side Hustle

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1:15You know, that's a business model I love. And today's guest is an absolute pro at that having built out a huge inventory of party rental options over the last few years. I'm talking about inflatables, ball pits, bumper cars, and of course, tables and chairs too. From bayareakidsrentals.com, Tayo Lanlahin, welcome to the Side Hustle Show. Thank you so much for having me, Nick. You bet. Stick around. In this one, we're talking how to get started, how to market and grow your own rental business, mistakes to avoid, and how to get it all done while still holding down a day job. Now, Tayo, my understanding is the business started with a personal pain point.

1:52You wanted to find some kid-sized chairs for your own son's party, and they just weren't out there. Yes. So we were planning our son's first birthday, and the theme was First Reep Around the Sun. And kids, kids are very visual, right? You want to immerse them into a world of the theme that you're going for. And I looked around, and there was none of the chairs, tables that I thought would go with the theme. So they had a lot of plastic white chairs, but not what I had imagined would make this theme amazing. And so I just said to myself, what if I brought this to the Bay Area? What if this is something that I could do?

2:28And I went out and did it. Yeah, you're like, I can't be the only one, right? I guess there's maybe some confidence in saying that. So what happens next? So you go find the chairs that you're looking for through Amazon, through Alibaba? Like, where do you even go? Yeah, so I did order some chairs from abroad. We had a basement that was empty. You know, I think it was about a thousand square feet of storage. So I ordered these chairs. I think it was probably four styles, 20 of each chair. And I set up an Instagram page. I started reaching out to some event planners. Before I knew it, they were reaching out back and they were asking me for packages that included tables, but I didn't have the tables.

3:07I've only got chairs. Right. And so I was like, okay, this is really a thing. And so I went and got more tables, some custom styles, and they just kept reaching out. And I remember there was one client, one event planner who was like, oh, this is, you know, I have a VIP client. And, you know, we did that. And I just, I made sure that we had everything arrive on time. And it was, you know, it was a huge client. And I think from then on, it just really went off. One of the points that I will say was really a point that I was like, okay, this is going to work out was I had reached out to the wife of a top NBA player online.

3:48I reached out to her by email and I just put together some of the items that we had. I was like, oh, you know, I can see that your daughter's birthday is coming up. You know, are you looking to have these kid-sized rentals, whatnot? This is what we have. And she reached out right away and she was like, yeah, I'm going to put you in touch with our event planner. Event planners for like a kid's birthday party. Oh, yeah. Is interesting on the one scale. It is. I mean, we work with different types of event planners and the events range from, I don't know,$500 events to$80 ,000, you know, for a kid's party.

4:22And we've heard from event planners that, you know, we're so glad you're here because we have these clients that we have to buy these rentals for and somehow dispose of them. So we're glad that you're here because now it can be sustainable. We can rent. And you also have, you know, different types of styles and a variety, if that makes sense. Yeah, let's break some of these down. So we couldn't find the chairs. So you order them up,$2 ,000 investment. We can keep them on site in the basement. Set up the Instagram page. And then tell me about this outreach process, because it doesn't sound like you're the type of person who's going to sit around and wait for business to come calling.

5:02you're going to be proactive and start thinking, well, who are the people that my target customers are already doing business with? It's going to be these event planners, these local Bay Area event planners, and kind of get on their radar. Do you remember what the Instagram page or portfolio looked like at that point? If you only got shares, like how interesting could the inventory look like? And then what kind of outbound messages were you sending? I think our first post was me essentially unboxing the items. Okay. Just being like, look, Bay Area, we have kids' tables and chairs now. We have cute things for cute kids' parties.

5:38And the name of our company is Bay Area Kids Rentals. So I was coming from a place of empathy where when I was looking for items for my son's birthday, I just didn't know where to look. I didn't know what they would be called. So when I thought of Bay Area Kids Rentals, I was like, okay, what would parents search? Right? I think they would search Bay Area Kids Rentals. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's a nice exact match. Exactly. So that was the first thing. And then I made a list of the different event planners that I could find online. And I just started following them on social media, putting together pictures of our items, sending them, you know, a price list, like a menu, telling them what we do all about us, introducing myself.

6:20And then we had people follow us back. I remember the first event that we had was also an event planner for her own kid's birthday. I made sure that I was on site recording the process, recording the party and put that out there. And that got a lot of views as well. So you could tell that this was stuff that people really were interested in and didn't exist. And so from then on, I just kept on coming up with different outreach strategies, whether it was reaching out to venues and just collaborating on styled shoots. And then obviously you then get tagged by those vendors who might have a following and then people see that you provided the kids rentals and then, you know, you get that following and all of that.

7:05So that's kind of how the early days were. So you almost have to set this stuff up for your own purposes in order to get the content that you can use to get future business. We had a woman on who was doing these cool slumber party tents, and she had a dozen different themes of them. But she was like, it has built-in virality in that everybody who comes to the party is like, I want that for my party. And it's like, it's made for Instagram. And she was doing really well with that. It sounds maybe similar here, except starting out in a more, I don't know, it feels like somewhat commoditized where it's like, okay, can you deliver these chairs at this time?

7:45And it's like, yes or no. Otherwise, I'm calling the next person on the list. But no one was focused on the kids' niche. Right. Nobody had the type of items that we had, right, to start off. And so even though I only had, for instance, four styles of chairs, very quickly, I realized that I want that this was this was going to work out because of the demand. And so we invested in a whole container of these kids tables and chairs within like two months of starting. OK. Yeah. So that was a big investment and that was a big risk. And once we had all the different styles, right, we had so many options to choose from, we were really the go-to.

8:31Because if you really wanted to match your theme, right, to the style, we had everything. And so that was really helpful in positioning us as, you know, serious about this space. What gave you the confidence to go all in? It sounds like you had some initial traction and it was like, we need more inventory if we're going to be able to serve this demand. I don't know how much a container costs, but I imagine it's not cheap. We definitely did some analysis, but it was still early on. It was really the traction we were getting. And just even some of the anecdotal feedback from the event planners who were doing like an 80K event and saying to us, look, we're so glad you're here.

9:11We have multiple clients like this with multiple kids and they do events every year. and we are constantly scouting, looking, getting stuff, having to dispose of them. And this is great what you're doing. And also even just some of the clientele that we were getting. So I mentioned reaching out to the NBA player's wife, the Warriors player's wife, and they had a great party. The event planner said to me, oh, you were actually already on our radar, right? So that showed me that we were becoming a piece of the type of party that these event planners were trying to put together. We were like almost the missing piece.

9:48Do you see this working in a different geographic area where people aren't spending tens of thousands of dollars on a kid's birthday party or, you know, where the budget might be a little bit lower? A hundred percent. So we don't just do high, like super high and fancy parties. We also work with like DIY moms who want to do their own thing themselves. And some of the things that we do, for instance, we offer free customer pickups so that they're just paying for the item, right? If you want to transport it in your own car and things like that. Okay. So we offer that because we want to be available to all types of clientele, right?

10:28So I do think it's something that can work all over. Do you remember your first paid booking and how much you charged for that and that story? Yeah, so that was an event planner that reached out to us to book for her daughter's birthday. I remember it was a Barbie party. And it was our pink garden bowl chairs with like the pink cushions, like velvet cushion. And myself and my husband went to do the delivery together. And it was just, it felt so good, really. And I remember that was really the prop of the moment for that party. Because when we went to pick up the items, the event planner had taken all the chairs and she put them in her house because she really didn't want the kids to like put cake on it or anything like that.

11:15Like it literally was like the prize. She was so grateful. And it was such a cute birthday and it felt so good. So it looks like charging per chair at 10 bucks, of course, pricing subject to change. And then you got to deliver it on top of that. And you're like, they don't look like they're going to stack super easily or fold down. And so now do I need a trailer? Do I got to go rent a U-Haul for the day? How does this part work? I delivered maybe like two events in my car and I was like, okay, we need something else. And then we hired a driver who had his own truck, a small truck. And then I believe within maybe a couple of months later, we got like a transit van.

11:55Right now we do have a transit van and two 16-foot trucks. Oh, dang. Okay. Yeah, it scaled up pretty quick there. Yeah, we do. I mean, it worked out well for us because we do charge a delivery fee based on the mileage. It does cover just running of the vehicles, the insurance and whatnot. And it's much cheaper than having to hassle going in and out of U-Haul. Is there a way that you think about pricing in terms of your acquisition cost and the return on investment? If I rent it out three times, I've covered my costs. What does that part look like? The way I price, typically I want to cover my costs.

12:37Best case scenario, it doesn't always work out for me that way, to be fair. But the best case scenario is I'm covering my costs in about six rentals. That now doesn't include maintenance costs. Because, of course, some of the items are very sturdy and they don't need too much maintenance. but we're dealing with kids and kids are, you know, kids are, kids are interesting. Interesting is a nice way of saying destructive. Right. And you know, the events that we are doing, the parents, the event planners, the expectations is that these items look pretty much brand new or great. They want to be Instagram ready, all of that.

13:18So yeah, sometimes we do have to do a touch up with paint. That is like an ongoing cost in terms of labor. Right. So trying to break even on the raw purchase price in six rentals or less, not accounting the business overhead, the ongoing maintenance, delivery, insurance, all this stuff. Okay. That makes sense. Now there's a huge selection of stuff that you have. And was that bought speculatively or was that bought based on, we've got a lead on an event that's happening next month. Do you have, you know, fill in the blank item and you're like, Like, uh-huh, we can get, yeah, we have that. We'll have that ready for you.

13:52Then you can go out and buy it. Definitely a mix of both. I think in business, you certainly have to be very flexible. You have to be willing to take risks. There have definitely been times where maybe someone has asked, oh, do we have 30 of that chair and we only have 12? And I'm like, mm-hmm. And then, I mean, it's a rat race to get the extra 18 by the event day. if that makes sense. But I think most of it, I have released them as collections. So typically my process is to think about the types of themes that kids parties, like the trending parties and events and color palettes. And then from then I think about what type of rentals I would get, tables, chairs to match those themes.

14:41And so I suddenly released the collections in those ways. And so right now I'm actually working on another collection, which should be here in about a month's time. It took me some time putting it together, seeing what the gaps are in my collection right now and what is trending and what color palettes. And so that part is also a design part of this that I really enjoy as opposed to doing the deliveries and whatnot. Want more ideas of stuff you can rent out for a profit? Grab the free list of unconventional rental ideas through the link in the description. I've got more with Tayo in just a moment, including the trending party themes driving her inventory buys right now, plus her average customer order and more coming up right after this.

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18:02going on. Those are some of the themes. And of course, just the ones that always happen, like carnival themes are very popular all the time. Right. The Slumber Party Woman had the Taylor Swift theme and the Minecraft theme and a bunch of different things. Exactly. And so trying to acquire the inventory in step with the demand, but sometimes you kind of have to shoot your shot a little bit and try and anticipate where the market's going. Talking about Taylor Swift, I have a star purple ball pit. And that was actually inspired by Taylor Swift themes because it's a star shaped ball pit. That's like a kind of purple color.

18:39It's perfect. Nice. Okay. So continuing to do the outreach and is that's what is kind of driving sales in the first year is just kind of getting on the radar of the local event planners and trying to seed the content portfolio on the website with, here's what we have. Yeah, we definitely started to invest in different types of marketing as well. But I'll say Instagram was certainly our biggest area for getting leads and getting visibility. Did you find people were seeking that out or was just you would get tagged in events and I don't know if I suck at social media. So I'm like kind of trying to figure out how it works mechanically.

19:19It was really a mix. We were definitely getting tagged. So it really becomes also a snowball because other people, it was a multitude of things. Some event planners are tagging you and then other people feel that when they work with you too, they tag you. So everybody is basically tagging you. And then sometimes some people actually want to be featured on your page because they start to realize that, oh, wow, they're getting a following. I think right now we have almost 10 ,000 followers on Instagram. So I think people do want to be on our page, you know, or, you know, as we were grooming. And so they were probably collaborating with us because they wanted to be featured on our page.

20:00A lot of parents in the Bay Area, they use our page as a inspiration page or a place to find vendors. I've heard a lot of people who follow us for the first time because they can see there are mutual connections and people that follow us. And like, oh my God, like my, I have so many of my kids, friends, parents that already follow you. Yeah, there's some social proof in that. What else worked on the marketing side? I think with the exact match domain, I imagine the SEO started firing at some point. Yes, we suddenly invested in SEO. That was really helpful with getting just leads again to our website directly and our website being able to capture the bookings and parents just being able to book on our website.

20:45That was also something that was really helpful. What tool are you using for the booking on the site? It's called Event Rental System currently. And so, yeah, we use that as our booking host. That sounds like a very specific piece of software. Yeah, it's a specific rental software. Probably tracks what inventory you have and if it's committed for that date and where it's going to go. Yeah, it does. We definitely did some collaborations, a few collaborations with some event planners like Styled Shoots. Those are really pretty and they might have put them in some magazines and things like that. So that was nice.

21:21And I think, yeah, just content creation. I think from day one, as you can see our page, we've really always focused on trying our best to capture those items and the content as much as we can. And I think some of those skill sets for me, I've run other businesses in the past. One of the other business that I ran was a travel experience company. I used to organize travel experiences in Africa, actually, for like-minded people. And we would always have a videographer, a photographer on the trip because it was like, look, if you didn't take videos and pictures, did it actually happen? You know? Right.

21:58So that's definitely been a big part of our growth. Just people being able to follow our journey as well. We have a lot of people who have followed us from when we had less than a thousand followers. And so I actually spoke to one of our clients, but last year I got to meet her and she had a big event and I was asking, how did you, she was like, look, I've been following you guys from, from a long time. I just didn't have an event. And so they moved to a really nice house. And then she was like, yeah, I'm going to have my kids' birthday party as the housewarming and I'm going to book Bay Area kids' rentals.

22:34So you have people who have been following us from literally when I was unboxing the items. Yeah, planting those seeds because you never know. So everybody's going to have an event at some point in their future. And even if it's not for them, you want to be kind of top of mind for when it comes up in conversation. Oh, my kids' party is coming up. And then you can be the go-to referral for that person. I will also say in terms of marketing, and I think you touched on this earlier, who is going to the events? It's your ideal clientele, you know? So if you're providing an event that is spectacular, that is different, people haven't seen this before, then it really, really resonates.

23:11And when they are having their event, they're definitely going to ask for a referral. And of course, if you've done a good job, then of course, they're going to refer you. And so I think that really helped because a lot of times we would get a booking from maybe the parents work in one sector, for instance. And then that evening after the event, we'll just get like three extra bookings from that same sector. It might be a niche sector. And you kind of know, you're like, okay, they were at that event. Or maybe the same area, they were at that event. And you did a good job. That's why they want to work with you again.

23:43So I can definitely see how this snowballs. Talk to me about expanding the inventory to meet demand, because now it's like a really broad selection where it would be a huge and probably risky upfront expense to say, we're going to buy all this stuff and hopefully somebody wants it. But curious how you went about really expanding the menu here. We were really listening to the clients. At this point, we have tables and chairs, and then the clients are asking us for other things. Oh, do you have bounce houses? Do you have bowl pits? And we're thinking also like, what are they doing on these tables anyways, right?

24:19They're doing paint stations, they're doing crafts and different activities. So why don't we expand? And so we had to have a prioritized list because we couldn't go out there and just buy everything. So I believe we prioritized ball pits. I also knew that I wanted to start to break into the corporate world in terms of events. I didn't want it to just be individual kids parties. I wanted it to be like, oh, bring your kids to work or, you know, those kind of things. Right. And so we decided to get our grand ball pits with the first two big ones. So grand ball pits. And they're huge. I mean, if you scroll down, the pictures don't do justice.

25:01But the circle one is what, 13 foot diameter and the square one is like 13 by 10. Yeah. Twelve hundred bucks to rent one of these. And then we, you know, we got more ball pits and we got some bounce houses. So we got bounce houses in different colors. We started to expand our activity list. So we do a lot of customized activity workshops. The most recent one that we launched is actually our plushie making machine. So we have like, it's kind of like Build-A-Bair on site. Yes. Wow. Okay. But we help them stuff. And we like, yeah, we brought the whole setting and they can decorate the t-shirts and the kids love it for that activity.

25:44So it sounds like trying to become more of a one-stop shop instead of people trying to piece together their party from a bunch of different vendors. Like, look, we really want to be your number one choice here and we can bring all of this different stuff. Yes, essentially. It's one delivery. You don't have to go to different places. These parents are busy and they just, they really want to just deal with, if possible, one person. So it's less coordination for the parents, you know, more rentals from one company, one delivery to coordinate. And so I'm always trying to think of ways to work with parents on that end.