Can I Save This Failing Theme Park in 90 Days?

0:00 bankrupt, as in zero dollars in his bank account. That's what this business owner just approached me with. That's going to happen within weeks, not months or years, weeks. And he's going to have to sink his entire life savings into it just to keep it going to the end of the year. And so, I'm going to sit down with Paul to help him fix his adventure park that he's already sunk $22 million in, which is absolutely insane. And I'm going to give you a step-by-step road map on exactly what he needs to do to fix the business.

0:22 And we're going to check back in with him 90 days from now to see, A, is he still alive? And B, did the business get fixed? But most importantly for you if you're a business owner, I've scaled 10 businesses to $10 million in revenue, $3 to $100 million plus. And I think the biggest lesson I've learned in this entire process is the tactics and principles that apply to this business apply to many businesses because businesses behave in patterns. So with that being said, let's dive into the business. What's happening everybody?

0:44 >> What's up Paul? You ready? >> Oh, I'm born ready. All right. So tell me about the business. >> Yeah. my name is Paul Fontinelli, founder of Boulder Adventure Park. We are an indoor family entertainment center in Grand Prairie, Texas. The story actually started 8 years ago. Okay. I dreamed it up. I was working in corporate America. Kind of uninspired at the time. Wanted to do something entrepreneurial. I have three young kids. Wanted to get out of that and build a business. And >> how much did you raise?

1:09 >> raised eight. total cost is 22 million. Did you put the rest in? >> I put Well, raised eight. The rest was debt. >> Got it. Who paid for the debt? >> bank. >> Oh >> Yeah. >> It's a big loan. >> It is a big loan and that's part of what we're going to talk about today. >> Yeah. No. Yeah, we will. All right. So, how does this thing >> make money? >> So, we're 4.8. We're not profitable yet.

1:31 That's one of our biggest challenges is is the profitability of it. our goal is to get to 10 million revenue over the next few years. but what's really the goal, what we need to talk about today is the next 90 days. so I'll come back to that, but that's a really big piece of kind of what we're doing today. streams of revenue. This is the money slide, literally. general admission $3246 per person with another $11 of in park spend. They add on arcade, food and beverage, merchandise, you name it. this makes up about 70% of total revenue. Then then we have a bunch of other groups in terms of church groups, social groups, etc. And then we literally just launched our summer camp campaign today. I assume one of the biggest things Alex is going to help help me work on is data and metrics. I'm not crystal clear on at the moment.

2:21 >> This is the take my medicine slide. >> Yeah. >> I own this. I don't make excuses. The numbers that your team was asking help me prepare and realize where some of our deficiencies are. >> Yeah. It's really interesting for you because from a from a business perspective. it's like you're looking at outputs, not inputs. >> Yeah. >> So these numbers are inputs that create the outputs that you're accustomed to tracking because the core economic arbitrage of the business is LTV CAC, right? like that's the that's the core arbitrage that we that we expand out and then we just do it to infinity so we actually start making a profit. Okay. So problems the bad is we are demand constrained right but the good news is we can 10x the opportunity the capacity is absolutely there as you can see peak day is running at 50% of capacity but emissions are down we've had struggles with marketing conversion rates all of that is really been one of our challenges and here's the final sandwich we are cash constraint since opening we've we've struggled and honestly the hardest day was when my CFO sends me a cash flow we're not going to make it to today. Like we were that short and it was like do I give up? And it was like no, sorry. But I went home that night and I said, man, I'm not going to make it. The cash is not there. We won't even make it to this show.

3:40 And that's when I said, "It's all in." I looked at my 401k and I was like, put it put it all in because that's it's the only way. Like everybody's telling me don't do it. But if I'm going to go out, I want to go all the way out. Like it's all in. I mean, this show is once in a lifetime opportunity to sit down with the greatest business mind of our generation in my opinion. I mean, it's it's priceless. I'm at the point now I'm putting my 401k in. which I believe in this business. I believe in the upside. I believe in this opportunity.

4:14 and so it's I'm all in. Which actually leads me to the next slide. This literally hit me yesterday, dude. And I was like, heard, you come, you fight for your life. You said it earlier. There's we have nine lives, right? Like I might be towards the end, but I'm here and I believe in it and I know we've got the upside to to make it happen. >> We've got 14 days, right? >> Yep. Exactly. >> God.

4:38 >> Deep breath. That's how I feel. >> I know. Yeah. I feel for you. >> No, I appreciate it. >> the issues, there's so much going on. >> Absolutely. >> I promise I'm going to do my absolute best to try and help. >> I know you will. >> So, let me ask the other question, which is what's your monthly nut that you need to make to break even? >> Well, let's see. Extra. >> Yeah. we need to probably be at 550,000 a month.

5:00 >> And you're at now what? >> 400. >> Okay. So, you need 150. What is What's the debt service right now? Monthly. monthly, it's going to be probably about 180,000. >> Got it. So, I'll tell you what I like what I wrote down. So, the first thing that we probably have to do is generate cash. >> And so, what I want to do is sell basically the baddest offer that we could possibly imagine for a season pass to the list.

5:27 >> Okay. >> And that's because like if we don't do this, there won't be a season for them to come home to. So, we need to we need to generate some cash. >> may I suggest one idea to think our summer camps is a huge opportunity to drive significant cash in a very short period of time because the window that malls are booking summers is right now. >> So we're May, June, July, August. So those are kind of the four months ahead.

5:51 Key, >> right? But then it goes into the slow season. >> Slow season. Yes. >> Right. So we need to do more than just good during this time period. >> So we've got 600,000 extra that this has to make just to get us to the bad season. >> Right. >> Correct. How big is the team? Sales team. >> Sales team right now is three people. >> Okay. Cuz if we have, let's say we have this month, if we if we were to announce tomorrow basically, cuz that's that's the time zone we're in. I'm going to bet average tickets be like 1,200 bucks.

6:18 >> That's where our third offer was for $2,000. You can come any week, anytime. >> Oh, so you could do 5 days a week, the whole summer for two grand. >> Correct. That was >> so basically buy four, get 10. >> Yep. That was meant to be the grand slam offer. >> That is compelling. Okay. So, >> and that way mom or dad could just drop their kid off any day, any time. >> Yep. >> So, let's say that the average ticket is 121,200, 1300. So, if it's $1,200 is the average ticket and they can close 15 of those a day, we're looking at 126,000 a day, something like that. Y >> So, that would get us an extra >> 450 grand. That's not enough.

6:51 >> Well, the demand for summer is automatically going to boost revenue. I was optimistically shooting for about 200,000 in summer camps and that would have been a win. If you and I can dial that in and get, you know, even close to what you're saying, >> it's going to put us in a strong position. I do like the summer angle cuz I think people will spend a lot of money for their kids because if we if we decide that this is the offer, right, then we'll drive the whole email list here. I mean, honestly, you just need to hammer the list because it's now or never, right?

7:20 >> We have to hammer the list. I think we take as much of that cash as we possibly can and we drive that back into ads. >> Love it. And then again, feed it through. >> I love it. >> So, I want to get still a little bit clear on the summer camp offer cuz we have kind of one shot at getting it right. >> Yep. >> So, current is 300 for * 3. 3 days per week.

7:41 >> Exactly. 500 * 5. >> Yeah. >> 2,000 any day. >> And that's for the whole summer. >> Correct. >> I'm going to pull the the funnel up. >> This looks nice. tried to follow your >> No, it looks >> recommendations. >> It looks good. I like this. I like that. >> That's cool. My big fear as a parent would be is my kid going to fall and die? That's pretty big. >> Safety is our number one.

8:08 >> Yeah. No, I think if if we can accommodate that, this should probably drop off the page. >> This kind of header. >> Okay. >> Because it's >> not adding any value, >> right? It's the most valuable real estate on here. Okay. >> We also have like four banners. So we have this banner, we have this banner, we have this banner, and we have this banner. >> Yep. >> We want to have basically one banner. So it's like what's the most important thing? I think this is probably the most important thing.

8:35 >> Yeah, >> cuz we want to let we want to know let them know the times. I think this can >> we can get rid of this this thing. This is basically a repeating of this. >> Yeah. >> So I get rid of both of these. >> I would put this Google review stuff. So you already have it here. So, I think you probably can just nyx it. I do like this little edge. Basically, you want to put trust right next to the action.

8:58 >> So, you have this parent rating right around the button. So, that feels okay. >> Y >> I want to put something around injury. So, like do you know how many like hospital visits? I I just want to show an obvious stat which is like last year zero falls. >> I would just put that cuz that's what I want to know. Okay, that's good. I like that. day one money back if you Okay, that's really good cuz that's obviously like what if he doesn't like it?

9:20 Whatever. Yeah, exactly. >> That's good. See, this is these are the reviews. It's like I'd rather have that than the than this one. Got it. It's like it's also relevant to the specific >> Yep. >> thing. That's good. >> And we are going to be recording a VSSL. >> Yeah. I was like the only thing I think it needs is a video. >> where would you put it? >> probably right at the top. >> Okay. >> So, it' be like headline >> thing and then and then I would just cut all this >> cuz it looks like too much text. It's like >> that's the main part. Makes perfect sense. So those are the funnel tweaks that I would make on the actual page. So it's been 90 days. I think it's way more interesting to see what actually happened. So let's check back in with Paul.

9:55 >> All right. So the next thing Alex taught me was how to clean up the landing page. And what we found out by far the best thing on that page was the VSSL. There's a reason Alex talks about the VSSL. The VSSL helped a ton. We even used the VSSL to put it into ads and it was our best converting ads. Well, good. I'm glad that worked. That's how that's how that works. Give them more information and people want to buy more. Now, let's talk about like how we're going to drive traffic to that offer. So, we have the the brick and mortar. So, these are the flows and like I'm only focusing on one thing because you don't have >> the luxury of time.

10:33 >> Sure. >> And so, you basically we basically need to make one bet. The season pass was my original guess, but I think summer is going to make more sense. >> Yep. >> So, that's what we're going to run. Okay. >> Okay. So we have our email list. >> Yep. >> As our sources of traffic. Number two, we have our attach general admission attach rates. We can do that. >> What do you mean by attach rates?

11:01 >> The motion. >> Okay. >> I can say motion easier. and then we have our paid ads direct. Okay. So if this is these are kind of our four call it our four flows that are going to run >> into this beautiful right. >> Yep. >> So on the paid ads I'm going to say a unspeakable video clips.

11:31 >> Okay. >> As probably the first primary way of of the actual creative for the ads. >> Okay. B is we want to have the offer, which I would experiment with. Buy four, get 10 weeks free or get six weeks free. >> Okay. >> And that might destroy. So, >> yeah, it's good. >> yeah, buy four, get six is pretty solid. I like that a lot. That's pretty good. I would also So, 2,000 divided by 10 is 200. So, as low as 200 per week. Okay.

12:06 >> As another angle. >> Yep. >> I'm thinking about different front end. >> All right. So if we're going to the front end. All right. So we have a buy XKY free offer. Yep. >> Right. As a version of that, >> we have a this is kind of the early bird. So I would use early bird as an angle. Okay. And then just pair it. Buy four get get six also. Buy one month get whole summer.

12:49 >> That's a good way to say it. >> Right. >> These are all the things they all mean the same thing but the one clicks. Exactly. >> Yeah. So this is an ear basically add early bird to it's like why is he doing that? Because early bird. It's like we have to always answer the reason why we're making an offer. >> Got it. >> so buy four get six. by one month get whole summer buy one month get two free.

13:11 >> Yep. >> That's good if you want this to go mental. But the question is like I I'm I'm I'm only a little bit worried about your sales team's ability to >> actually like call all the leads. So this would this is probably what I would consider to be like the fundamentally sound way of approaching this. >> If you wanted to go ballistic, which we might just need ballisticness, >> I like the sound of it. Then we do do the full summer offer, right? We'll just call it $2,000 private summer camp.

13:39 >> Private summer experience, whatever camp giveaway. And so that means that one person that you pick gets the whole camp for free. This is first place. I want to have second place be like the core offer, which is $1,000 off. But the core offer is this. Okay, hold on. So we can say the value. So if we have $500 a week times 10, so it's $5,000. >> Yes. >> Right. So $5,000 and then we could make this second place is $3,000 off.

14:13 >> Yep. >> For the whole summer. >> Okay. >> That sounds sexy. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And then let's run this. >> So $5,000 value. I get that. And then what's the 3,000 off? >> Off the 5,000. >> Got it. >> So then it's the $2,000 ticket. >> Okay. Got it. >> so this is the first and second place prize. >> Okay. make sure that you say more than one person can win second place just so you're, you know, legal and compliant. By all means, I'm not an attorney. Run this bag of attorneys, blah blah blah blah. yeah, you're responsible for your own decisions. And, you know, these results may vary in financial performance, etc. Okay.

14:44 but more than one winner, but at the end of the day, honestly, this is going to be the this is going to be the humdinger if you just lead with $5,000 private summer cramp full summer experience giveaway. Y >> second place prize wins $3,000 off. We're offering a prize to give away summer camp every day this summer for your entire family up to three kids. Here's how it works. When you opt in, you're entering to win an all summer camp pass for your entire family up to three kids. That means you can drop your kids off here at Boulder any day that camp is going on whenever you choose. This is an unbelievable offer valued at over $20,000 for up to three kids in your family. All you have to do is opt in to have a chance to win. Even if you don't win, everybody that opts in to enter is going to win a scholarship summer camp offer from Boulder so your kids can have the best summer camp experience of their lives.

15:49 Enter for a chance to win. >> So you just needed to use the word free. otherwise the rest of this is all really good. It's got good visuals. He's good energy. He started with the really expensive thing so it's anchored so they know that it's going to be you know pricey if they want to buy. the only thing I would have done differently is I wouldn't say everyone is going to win a scholarship cuz that kind of removes the the excitement out of winning or getting a scholarship. So, I would have just tweaked it so you just say more than one person can win and you have your first and second place prize and you should have just said first place prize is this, second place prize is this and then during the 7-day countdown done the drawing and then that's when you contact people and say, "Hey, you got one of the second place prizes." Tiny tweak, but it makes a pretty big difference in conversion. But the actual creative itself, like the actual the the energy, the vibe, the the camera, the like how they showed everything really good.

16:39 Fundamentally sound because the thing is is we have to run this fast because they got to know if they're going to do it right. So this is going to basically be >> 7day like a 7 to 10 day campaign. >> Okay. >> After you select the winner, you then call all these leads. >> Yep. >> To then sell them using the standard offer. >> Perfect. >> Which is this. >> Yep. And then and then the stand and then basically you kick off the campaign that runs to the page that you just went to.

17:07 >> Okay. >> And then you'll call all those leads. Yep. So this will give you a flood of leads. It's going to be 7 days. We're going to cram we're going to push the email here. We're going to push the the paid the paid ads to here. Love it. >> And then phones follow up. I'm going to draw this out for you. So >> we're going to have giveaway ads >> plus page. And this is just a landing page.

17:27 >> Those are going to be great. >> All right. And you just want to have a countdown timer at the top because that's what creates the urgency around it. >> And then with this, just send an email and text of how many days left until the drawing. >> Got it? >> And then on that day, pick one person. Congratulations, you won. Great. >> And then everybody else, hey, congratulations, you won second prize. >> Y >> right. And then like but then you have to put another count for them to claim it, which is like our summer camp's filling up. So in order to make otherwise they're not going to claim it.

17:54 >> Yeah. you have 72 hours to claim your claim your second place. >> All right. So, >> and that's what I'm sending in the landing page. >> Yeah. So, 7-day countdown and then 72 hours to claim second. Then after that to we fire off the buy for get six variations that we just typed over there. and then basically you have to run this until the cows come home, but >> yeah.

18:27 >> And then on the thank you page for the giveaway, make sure this is legal in your state. So, this is not me saying this is legal. Make sure that the laws of your area allow this. On the thank you page, have an opt-in that says, "Do you want do you have any other parents who, have kids?" you can like send them this page. so just gives them a copyable link and then they can forward it to a friend and for every person that you send to opt in, you get an additional drawing in the giveaway.

18:59 >> Brilliant. Because parents love when their kids go with their friends kids. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> So, plus one referral ticket. And so, here we go. >> So, you're going to give away two of these, >> right? So, one goes to the winner. And if you're the person who referred the winner, you get it too. >> Awesome. >> That way they can. So if you just for yourself Yeah. If you just do it for you, you got a shot. If you refer a 100 friends, you have 100 more chances.

19:30 >> She referred you, so she wins, too. >> All right. Here's what I want you to do. You call her, put me on three-way, and then you get to tell her the good news. >> Okay. Hold on. >> One eternity later. >> I called you and didn't tell you to hold on. So, guess what? >> One, >> let's go. >> One of the fun things about giveaways is that like you actually do give something away. And so, it always feels good to just, you know, help somebody out or help a business owner out or parent out or whatever, whatever your business is.

20:09 So, it's one of like the nice feel goods and you usually typically get a lot of good I mean, just like this, you get a lot of good media out of it. So, it's like you just you can't not win with that offer. If you have the right pieces for it, it absolutely slaps. Once we run this whole play, then we have to flip the campaign to this. And this offer might have to change as the summer moves on, but I think this becomes the call it evergreen structure for the summer.

20:29 >> This becomes the launch. >> And we're the the benefit of this is that we're we're advertising the big number. And so, when it gets dropped down all the way to 300 bucks, >> I love that. >> It feels like nothing, right? And you're attracting people who want this big thing. And so you don't need to you don't need to tell you don't when they get on the phone you don't have to sell them the big package. They already said they wanted it.

20:48 >> I'm just this is a master at work. You're so good at this. >> Oh let's >> Yeah, I know. I know. Let's get it to work. >> Keep going. You're doing great. >> but I think this is the best shot you have at getting the cash that you need. >> I love it. >> but that's basically this is how do we get you through cuz it basically at the rate you're at now you have 90 days of burn. But if we make money, then all of a sudden that pushes >> and like you said, that then feeds the next business unit, >> right?

21:15 >> Yep. >> There's a lot of stuff, but >> there's only a few moves that are going to make you the amount of money that you need that's material. >> The leads were coming in good. Cost per lead was better than what we'd gotten on any other lead we'd ever had before. >> Yes. Yes. >> Things were really improving. I was getting excited. Then because of the 7-day urgency, the timer of how long the giveaway was doing, the last 48 hours were crazy. Leads just started coming in like crazy because the giveaway was >> never giveaways or launches.

21:47 Whatever you think is going to happen, you'll usually get somewhere between a third and half of your leads in the last 48 hours. So if you have like a six week long campaign, still the last 48 hours. And every time you think, oh no, it's not going to be like that. I promise you it's going to be exactly like that. So, you have to model it out because in the middle there's this kind of stretch where you feel like an absolute because nothing's working because it's just like the lead starts cost start going up. But just like you have to keep going on it, keep gassing it and then you will just hit it through the through the ceiling if that's a saying.

22:15 >> At the very end, we got 3,700 leads. >> Mind you, this is a local market, so that's a lot of leads. It's like 120 leads per day. we'll see how he converted them. But yeah, that's it. >> It's brilliant. >> Cool. >> We'll run it. >> The play >> and we will execute it. >> Alex, thank you. >> Appreciate you, man. >> No, I appreciate you're in a hard spot. >> It's okay. >> Smooth seas do not make a strong sailor or whatever the whatever there saying is. All right, let's let's look at where we're at in the scaling road map.

22:52 How many employees do you have? A thousand. >> 150. >> Yeah, this business that's so tough. How many are like not just date workers? >> Yeah, good. Probably about 10. >> Okay. So, that's that's probably more. So, you're like between these two phases between prioritize and productize. Yeah. >> basically what we did here is >> we're spending more on niche down messaging, which is the new the new offer, right? >> We made something new to sell them, which is the product.

23:19 >> Yeah. >> Sales aids and materials. That's going to be the VSSL that we're that you're going to put on the landing page. Yep. By the way, if you're curious, have you been through the scale road map before? >> I have. Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Is it good? >> Oh, it's brilliant. >> Yeah. So, >> I used it last night to prepare. >> There we go. So, it's it's free. If you're a business owner, you're like, I don't know what phase I'm in. Each of these little squares has like a huge explanation behind it to know exactly where you're at for your business and how to apply it. And again, it's all free. You can go grab it.

23:43 >> All right. So, once I finished filming with Alex and we knew the play was summer camp giveaways, I got to work immediately. I went in the hallway at ACQ's headquarter. I rolled out my piece of paper from Alex, called my marketing guy, Kai, and I'm like, "Let's get to work." We started talking about it right there, figuring out what needed to change, what needed to be updated. He flew with me to Vegas. So, I left ACQ, went back to the hotel room in Vegas, and worked all night on the changes that needed to be made, the ads that needed to be written, the technical updates that had to be done. Everything had to be done quick because in business, speed is key.

24:20 >> Well, good. I'm glad he took action. What we did was we just bought him if he executes everything three more months to live. And so sometimes a lot of entrepreneurship is just buying the next the next week, the next month, the next payroll. It's tough. I mean, you got to give it to him. There's a lot of grit like just I mean, even at the end when he's like, I'll put my whole life savings into like what he saved his whole career as a you know, the financial field to doing this like I have a lot of respect for it. He may find that this offer just absolutely murders. I mean, it's the best shot I can think of of how do you generate cash ethically within this season. And so, if we can pull out of that cash forward, which is the whole purpose of the money model, and that gives them a couple different angles to hit it hit it from.

25:02 And so, like Jeff Basis talks about how if you have a 10% chance at 100 to one return, you should take that bet every time even though you're going to be wrong nine times out of 10. The only element that adds an element of realty to that is you should take that bet every time, but most entrepreneurs go in with only enough money to to play two hands. And so it's like, do you still take that bet where you actually have only a 20% chance of winning even if it's 100x return, but you only have two hands worth to play. And I think that's more realistic of like what, you know, his particular situation is. I didn't get to know him well enough to like I don't know his team. I don't know if they're they're able. I don't know of any of that stuff, but I feel pretty confident that that offer will work.

25:42 >> Paul, what's cooking, man? >> Still going, brother. >> Still going. Did you >> still going? >> Did you have to put your 401k in? >> Yeah. Whole thing. >> Oh, Jesus. >> That's the life, right? >> All right. So, what what what did you do? Did you Did you run the play? Like, what? >> Walk me through walk me through. >> Ran the play. >> We got an insane amount of leads. like so much so that it it we didn't have the manpower to deliver what we needed to deliver to close the leads.

26:10 >> Better than the alternative problem. I'm only a little bit worried about your sales team's ability. >> We got 3,700 leads and we're trying to call these leads. I mean, I got a minuscule sales team, right? So, we ran the play, don't get me wrong. >> And and we did good. We did 325% increase compared to prior year in summer camps. So that's good news. >> But it could have been so much higher if we had the proper manpower and call sequence and all of the STR >> leads, >> the true model, which is we just didn't have it in that time.

26:46 >> I mean, I do think that is still your grand slame offer. and if you have a 10 to1 play that you put every dollar you put in, you get 10 back, you should run that play a whole lot of times. >> And so I think what we can do is like >> probably just need to get scale up the sales team a little bit. and you can run the same play just for birthdays. >> Birthdays is our wheelhouse. Yeah.

27:12 >> Right. And that is >> and year round you can run it and you just don't need to spend 20. You can spend two or three and then you can scale it up. anything else that that that we talked about that you did? >> Yeah, I got to unspeakable. He gave us permission to start running ads with his videos. Yeah. Which you talked about and they're converting strong and we've we've been seeing that like our our admissions has doubled in visitation just over the last you know four to six weeks.

27:41 >> All right. So that is the plan. So, giveaways for birthdays and then you probably need to >> bring on a couple sales people to handle the volume. And I wouldn't be afraid of hiring sales people cuz as long as you have lead flow, sales people will always make you more than the price for them. So, like I would just don't be afraid of that. That's that's growth spend. >> Okay. >> Very low risk. >> Yeah. Sweet. Beautiful. Beautiful.

28:00 >> All right. Do you feel like do you feel hopeful? >> I do. the team is stronger than ever and now with these models starting to kind of find their way like there's foundation being built that's stronger than it's ever been. >> I have a lot of heart for Paul. If I had to give Paul one incredibly strong compliment is that he has a really positive attitude about everything. Many people would be really sad and depressed in this moment and he's like got a smile on his face. He's got super high energy.

28:26 you know, like if you were about to lose your business and put all your savings in, like you would probably not be making ads like this or have this kind of like overall vibe. And I think whether it's this or something else, like I can probably say that Paul will not give up. And if you look at a long enough time horizon and when he's 80 plus years old and looking back, he'll have figured it out. Is it possible for Paul to lose if he doesn't stop? Not really. He might change vehicles, but he'll just keep trying. And I think that that's probably the the biggest lesson that any new we could take from