102. Side Hustle Turned Into $500K/Month Business (Here's How!)

0:00Josh Pather was just a few months into his photo booth rental side hustle when a sudden job loss prompted him to take the business full time. Before long, they had more business than they could handle. And today, Josh runs a booming seven-figure business doing upwards of 850 events a year. Let's hear how he started his rental side hustle and what advice he has for other entrepreneurs who want to follow a similar path to financial freedom. After work, I would come home, keep working on the website, really sharpening my skills. Just taking a step back and figuring out, hey, what skills do I need to grow this business?

0:33Yeah, a lot of people miss out the opportunity to capture what's happening. And even if you have to hire somebody, but make sure to capture what you're doing, because what you're doing helps you sell to the next person. If you do have a small office, we went from my house to storage units. Then you're looking at about 50, 45 % profit margin range. Whatever it is you want to do, whether it was a photo booth business or something else, if you want to go and chase your dreams and make it happen, there's no better place on earth to do that than right here. But you do have to put in the work. I'm your host, Alex Freeman, and this is the Upflip Podcast, where we get to unravel how great businesses are built, how they are run behind the scenes, and how their success can be replicated.

1:13Josh, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. Awesome. Thank you for having me. So when and how did you start the photo booth rental business? And what kind of drew you to this niche as a side hustle? So I was working a corporate job. This was back about 2012. and I was working with somebody that was a wedding DJ. So I was actually doing some side gigs with him. I was his roadie. And eventually I bought my own DJ equipment and started doing events myself. So when you go to weddings and you do events, it's a lot of preparation. You have to prepare for the first dance, the father-daughter dance, and it's a lot of work to move the equipment.

1:46So at these events, I started seeing photo boots pop up and I'm like, hey, that may seem like a cool thing to add on to what I'm offering. It became eventually the thing that I did full-time. It was a lot easier to do than being a wedding DJ. We made pretty much the same amount of money. It was a lot easier. I could get there after the event started and I leave before the event ended. So that's what kind of drew me towards the photo booth business. Talk to us about the transition from doing a kind of part-time as the side hustle into being the full-time business. What kind of led you to go full-time and what precipitated the transition?

2:17Yes, I had a nice job. At the time, I was actually working at Experian Credit Bureau and at 401k, had health insurance. I was like, hey, I'm going to stay here. I'm going to have a side hustle. So we started the photo booth business. The first couple of months were great. We were posting ads on Craigslist. And back then there was no Facebook marketplace or very limited options back then. So you just had to hustle, print out flyers, go meet people, talk to people. So I went to work one day and they came in and said, hey, we're moving this entire department overseas. you can either take an entry-level position or you can take a severance package.

2:48So I took that as a sign. I said, Hey, there was ever a time in my life, you know, I didn't have kids at the time and it was a good moment. I was like, Hey, let me just try this. Let me just, if it doesn't work out, I can always go find another job. So I went full-time with it. And the first year we ended up doing over six figures and, you know, we doubled every year since then and became one of the biggest photo booth rental companies in Dallas. What advice can you offer for someone who is maybe sitting in a nine to five right now and considering making the pivot to being a full-time business owner?

3:16I would say definitely take a step back and evaluate. Are you happy there? A lot of people stay at jobs because of benefits. Nowadays, a lot of people get to work from home, you know, 10 years ago, this wasn't a thing. A lot of our customers, you know, they have a job where they can work from home. They have a lot of flexibility and maybe, Hey, maybe it's, it's a good thing to keep your job, but at some point you're going to want to decide like, Hey, I want to go full-time with this thing. And it does, it is going to require a different version of yourself. You're going to have to learn business.

3:41You're going to have to learn accounting, taxes. These are things that you need to know in order to run a successful company. And you're to see what outcome you want your life to have. But don't just stay there because of benefits and stuff like that. Make sure that you're happy and you're doing what you want. You can spend time with your family and you have the freedom that you want. And what were some of those startup costs? If someone listening to this is saying, okay, maybe I want to get into this photo booth rental side hustle here. What are some of those kind of main expenses that they should be planning for?

4:09Yeah, definitely. So here at Photo Booth International, we recommend starting off with the$5 ,000 photo booth. It's our Chloe Photo Booth that we have. It comes with the photo booth itself and you can upgrade for another$1 ,000 extra to include a printer. So about$6 ,000 for the photo booth and the printer. And then I would say another$1 ,000 or so to get your website, your logo, your LLC set up. Once you have that set up, it's simply just getting on social media, running some Facebook ads and Instagram ads, which are super easy. You can literally do it in a matter of 10 clicks on Instagram by boosting it in your local area.

4:41So you can be up and running fairly quickly. Now, can you compare that to us for the revenue expectations that somebody should be having? How much revenue were you looking at in those first few months operating as a side hustle? As a side hustle, I'll tell you anywhere between like$3 ,000 to$5 ,000. We were aggressive with it. I mean, we weren't happy at our jobs. And our goal was to leave our jobs, go full time. And so we were going after it. We were attending the trade shows, the expos. We were calling the venues. We were partnering with venues and we're putting our best foot forward, if you will.

5:10So it really just depends on how much time people want to dedicate to it. Some people are happy just doing one event every weekend, keeping their full-time job. But I would say$3 ,000 to$5 ,000 a month. If you're going full-time,$10 ,000 to$20 ,000 a month is easy to do full-time. I'm sure that like most new business owners, when you were first starting, you made some mistakes along the way. What would you describe as kind of the biggest mistake and what did you end up learning from it? That's the thing that keeps me going to help people. We made a ton of mistakes. We were paving the path. You know, 10 years ago, there was nobody like myself on YouTube or anyone that was actually teaching about the photo booth business.

5:44So we had to figure it out on our own. We were taking advice from the wrong people. So I would say some of the biggest mistakes for me was definitely accounting. We came into the business like, I just want to do the fun part of business and I don't want to do the boring part. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, may have that kind of mindset, but not knowing accounting, like your profit and loss statements, your balance sheets, your business credit. I think that you can easily go online, take a quick course and get familiar with that. So you understand if you go in it with a mindset like, Hey, my accountant handles that, or he's paying my taxes, or I don't need to collect sales tax.

6:17It's very dangerous, especially when you go down the road as your business is growing. Most of the time, if you don't face those things head on early, you have to deal with them again down the line. Listeners, there are a ton of great side hustles out there. If you're looking for more, check out the Upflip blog post, 44 Best Side Hustle Ideas to find the best one for your life, skills, and interests. The link is in the show notes. Josh, you mentioned that one of the things that kind of led you towards the photo booth business was your time as a DJ and kind of seeing these photo booths start to appear.

6:47Did you do any other planning or market research before you decided to start the photo booth side of the business? I felt like the planning and research was me already being at events. Not most people coming into the first time doing events, it's probably not going to be the same. So as far as planning and marketing, I mean, market research, you definitely want to look at the population of your city. You want to see how many event venues they are, how many hotels, and you can even reach out to some of them and just inquire like, hey, how many more dates do you have open for the rest of the year?

7:14Some of them may tell you, oh, we're fully booked the rest of the year. So that's always a good sign. Like, hey, it's a healthy environment. There's enough events that are going on. Photoboots have become a staple at almost any type of event. So, you know, as long as you have the venues there to host them, I think you're going to be in good shape. Is there anything that you maybe didn't plan for, but wish you had looking back? I didn't plan on, I think hiring. Hiring is always a big one. We were hiring a lot of friends and family. Friends and family, it always, you know, it gets a little dicey.

7:42So I would say as much as it feels good to hire friends and family, don't do it. You know, always take the emotion out of it because I was very strict the way I ran my business. I wanted to always over deliver to the customer and make sure they had a great experience. And when you have friends and family, it's hard to hold them accountable to those standards. Can you talk us through kind of what your work week looked like when the photo booth business was a side hustle? So you still have the nine to five, you have the photo booth company as a side hustle. What did that mean for your kind of typical work week?

8:12Yeah. So I would get to work about nine o 'clock and luckily the position that I was in when I started, I did have full internet access at my desk and I was working with business clients like cars, dealerships, and banks. And so during the day, I would have about four different Craigslist accounts and I would go on there and post across all four Craigslist accounts and sign up for any new websites that were available for my business to be promoted on. So I was doing that while I was working. Sometimes I would step out in the hallway and take a phone call. So after work, I would come home, keep working on the website, really sharpening my skills, just taking a step back and figuring out, hey, what skills do I need to grow this business?

8:54And I chose to double down on learning marketing and that's paid off. That'll stay with you the rest of your career as an entrepreneur. And how did you go about growing this business without burning yourself out? What time management tips can you offer for people trying to work nine to five and have a successful side hustle? It's definitely a challenge because we were working almost seven days a week. If you have your full-time job Monday to Friday and you got maybe a baby shower during the day on Saturday, and then you have a wedding at night. And then Sunday, you're doing a trade show because most of the wedding expos or the quince expos would happen on a Sunday.

9:27So we're pretty much gunning for seven days a week. As far as time management, to be honest, I wasn't good at it. Back then, I didn't neglect my health. I was just so focused on making the business work. But at the same time, if I were to do it again, I would have definitely prioritized getting my health, making sure that I'm spending time working out because that also does have a direct correlation with running a business. And aside from the time commitment, what is the biggest difference between running a side hustle and running a full-time business? I would say the full-time business, it's definitely everything's on you.

10:01You're burning the ships. There's no turning back. There's no consistent paycheck coming in. There were times where we couldn't take a paycheck, but we managed to pay the employees. So you definitely got to make every minute count during the day. Make sure that you're focusing on the right things. You're not spending time on social media. making sure that what you're doing is directly going towards growing your business. What advice might you give someone who's sitting there thinking about starting a side hustle, but isn't quite sure if it's the right move for them? I definitely say there's a lot of side hustles out there.

10:32For me, it's like, hey, what can I get the best return on without obviously being in the sun all day? I know some of my friends do car detailing and I'm in Texas, so it's super hot out in the summertime. I like events because it's fun. It's easy. It's inside. Everybody's in a good mood. You can do it on the night and weekends. And definitely consider all of those startup costs, the return, the competition. I wouldn't really say put too much emphasis on the competition because at the end of the day, your business is unique to who you are as a person and a business owner. And if you can deliver a better service, people are willing to pay for that.

11:07Talk to me about the target market for the photo booth business. You've mentioned that like photo booths are becoming a staple at like most types of events. So is there a specific market or audience that you focus on or how does that kind of work from a marketing and customer acquisition perspective? So initially when we started, we were doing any type of event. I mean, it could be a backyard barbecue, it could be baby shower, it could be a wedding. And that's kind of how we grew to doing over 800 events a year. After we did that massive year, we were like super burnt out and we say, hey, we're going to take a step back here, figure out, let's do less events.

11:42Let's charge more. Let's be more selective about which type of events we want to go after. At that time, we had a company reach out to us called Poo-Pourri and make the bathroom sprays. They had an idea to have our photo booth at one of their trade shows. So they hired us for three days in the Dallas Convention Center. It was, I think, about a$15 ,000 event. And we branded the photo booth. We were there like 12 hours a day. It pulled in a ton of traffic into their trade show space and they were able to collect thousands of email addresses. Once we saw that concept, I made a YouTube video about it and we were doing a lot of pitches.

12:15So we were actually walking around the trade show, pitching this service that we were there doing to other companies, because most of the companies who do trade shows, they do multiple trade shows across the nation. And so we were successful in getting a few more customers like that. And that became a big focus for us. So we were doing, I'd say about 40 % private events and then 60 % corporate events across the nation. So what advice do you have for making those connections and networking and acquiring those kind of corporate customers? Is it walking around the trade shows when you're there doing it and networking that way?

12:45Or is there, now that you're in it, is there kind of a, maybe a more efficient way that you're doing it? You know, for us, thankfully, Poopery reached out to us at the time. We had a good online presence. They felt like we were the right partners for them. If you're just getting started off, you definitely want to make sure your website online presence is on point. you can go onto LinkedIn and you can look for the right title of people, event manager, event coordinator for these companies and definitely add them, communicate with them. That way you can also attend the trade shows yourself, try to approach them at the trade show and offer the service.

13:18But make sure when you do that, you have an iPad or video because it is a different concept. Not everybody may understand it right away. And so you want to definitely visually communicate, hey, if you have this photo booth here, it's going to increase the amount of traffic that comes into your booth, which is going to directly correlate to an increase in leads and sales. And so make sure you're conveying that message to them. They understand, you know, just talk to them, but you do have to go out there. It's a little bit more work, but if you get one customer out of it, they're definitely going to book you for multiple trade shows, you know, across the nation.

13:49What do you do as a new photo booth rental business to kind of land those crucial early customers before you have the track record or the support materials that you're referencing to kind of like have proof of concept to the business? So I would say the first thing, and we teach a lot of this as well to our customers. We tell them, hey, make sure. So when you buy photo booths from us, we provide them with photos and videos with their package. So set up your website. You definitely got to have a website, a nice Instagram. And then once you do that, reach out to the venues and offer the venues to do a video tour.

14:23So create a YouTube channel, offer the venues to do a video tour. So introduce yourself and say, hey, my name is Josh from Josh's Photo Boots. I'd like to feature you on my YouTube channel. I'm going to come out to your venue and do a tour of the venue. So go out there, do the tour, get to know the venue person, maybe strike up a conversation, maybe take them some donuts or pizza. It's all about relationships. Because if you get one venue, they can give you five to 10 events a month. And if you spend time working on that, it's not really going to cost you too much to do that. I think that's the best strategy to get started.

14:55Even offer them a free event. Sometimes the venues do have open houses where they allow all their vendors to come in and all the people who are looking to hire the venue come in as well and they can meet the vendors. So there's a lot of opportunity there. I think that would be the most easiest, cost-effective way and provide you with a lot of leads. So this is going to bring us to a section of the show that we call our Fan Blitz Questions. These questions come from our YouTube community. You can go to youtube.com slash upflip, join the community and pose questions to future podcast guests. Josh, we've got about six questions here.

15:29We're trying to get through in about 90 seconds. Are you ready? Yes, let's go. All right. First one from Bashir. What equipment and props do you use in your photo booth? So we use a Canon for the camera and Flash. I can't remember the name of the Flash, but as far as the props go, we use Darkroom Boot software. The props, we get them from kingprops.com. Super high quality. You want to spend more on the props because people take them. Scale Labs is asking, what are the qualities you look for when hiring your staff? How did you make sure they didn't quit after the first year after they learned everything?

15:58So we were hiring a lot of college students. They have a lot of free time. They want to make some money. They want something that's a little bit easy and not too hard. They're really focused on their school and they're not out partying. So I would recommend starting at colleges. Kyle's Weird wants to know, what do you do to stand out in an oversaturated location? I would make sure that you show yourself. As I mentioned before, being a business owner, you need to be inside your videos. A lot of people are posting the same photos and same videos and stock photos. You have to be in the videos and you have to convince your customer you're the best option for them.

16:31Insaser is asking, what was your marketing strategy in the beginning up until this point in time? We've talked about it a little bit. So if you want to just give us a little quick recap, that'd be great. Yeah. In the beginning, we were using Craigslist. Nowadays, I would say Thuntac, Bark, WeddingWire, The Knot, Yelp, and then Instagram. I mean, Instagram is super easy to get on and to run an ad on there. iMatt Black wants to know, is the software user friendly or do you need somebody on standby to help press buttons for grandma? So without photo booths, we recommend having someone there the whole time because you're really monitoring the crowd.

17:02Sometimes if there's alcohol or liquor, people get wild. The photos are digital and printed. So we recommend having someone there, although we do have an iPad option that can be dropped off. And one last question from iMatt Black as well. Who services or repairs the booth equipment? Should anything happen? So if you purchase from us, it's going to come with a one-year warranty, and that's going to cover anything that happens. And after that, we do have extended warranties. You can always call us, and we'll be able to assist you with that. That will do it for our FanBlitz questions. Listeners, if you're a return listener and you like the show, we only ask that you help us spread the word by rating, reviewing and sharing the podcast so we can help more entrepreneurs to start more businesses, make more money and create more success.

17:42Takes just five seconds to rate the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. So please add your rating, help other entrepreneurs discover these episodes and potentially change their lives for the better. Josh, I want to talk about some of that lead generation as well. You kind of rattled off a couple of websites that are good spots for the photo booth business to be. What are kind of those most effective lead generation strategies for you? So the most effective lead generation strategies now, this wasn't around whenever we got started, but as far as now is Facebook lead ads. So there's a specific type of ad that you can set up on Facebook.

18:16It's called a lead ad. You can simply upload a photo. You can target the location. You can target the demographic. So for those of you who are in the photo booth industry or want to get into it, you would target 20 to 30 miles around your location. The demographic would be men and women, 25 to 55. Then you would upload a picture, a nice video, nice pictures off your photo booth. And then the questions that you would want to get, name, email, phone number. Inside the ad, you want to say, hey, our photo booth packages start at, and put your starting price on there. You always want to pre-frame them so that they know ahead of time, like, hey, if your packages start off at$500 and say, hey, you know, have our photo booth at your next event, the package starts off at$500.

18:53If someone sees that ad, they can just click it. Facebook will automatically populate their name, email, phone number. And then you can use Zapier to send yourself a text message and then you call the lead right away. So we've been able to get leads between$5 to$15 across the country and super effective to get leads. And once you have those leads, how are you then converting them into sales? Can you talk us through the lead funnel and how you follow up? Yeah, sure. So when you purchase a photo booth with us, you get access to PBI CRM. It's a CRM tool that helps you manage and book events. So we recommend using some kind of CRM, putting your leads into the CRM, and then setting up a follow-up email sequence.

19:30I can do that through the CRM or you can use tools like MailChimp is free. People can set that up, create a seven day, 14 day follow-up email sequence. That's going to automatically send them an email either every other day or every day, but provide value to them. So some of the emails could look like, hey, these are the top 10 venues that are popular in Dallas, or these are the recommended caterers, or these are the most popular wedding dates. So provide value. Don't just always be asking for the sale. And then obviously phone call, text message, and then video follow-up. We love to send video follow-ups to our customers.

20:00We use an app called loom.com. Shoot a quick video, say, hey, thank you for reaching out. I'm looking forward to being at your event. I'm going to give you a link. Boom, we text that over to them. They'll get the video right away. And then it just builds a lot of rapport and shows you that you're going to be different. from all the other vendors. So$5 to$15 per lead from Facebook lead ads. Where else are you spending on advertising and kind of how much overall is your marketing budget in a typical month? For our rental side, we spend about$1 ,500 a month on the rental department. I would say the other platform to look at is going to be Google ads.

20:31You know, people actually searching like, hey, photo booth rental near me. So it's going to be a little bit higher quality lead, but it is a little bit more expensive. So I'd recommend to also take a look at Google ads. You've talked about the importance of the online presence for the photo booth business, but what is your best advice for building that presence as a new business? Nowadays, the best advice, and this is one of my biggest regrets that I didn't do, I would recommend starting a YouTube channel right away. People love to follow the journey from the beginning. And it's something that I didn't do back in the day because I didn't think it was ever going to be this big.

21:04So I would recommend start vlogging from day one. From the moment you order your photo booth, take out your phone and say, hey guys, my name is so-and-so and I'm starting this photo booth business in this city and just start documenting the journey. Once you start building that up, that trust with people, it really goes a long way. And you can use your titles and your videos like photo booth rental, you know, Dallas, we're in Dallas. YouTube is the number two search engine. I think it's underutilized. A lot of people are scared to be on camera, but that just creates a lot of opportunity for those who really want to make it big.