Short story of how this came about is that we started our business in January of 2011. Mid of Winter and the super slow season. ( we are in Canada so hardly any events in the winter )
We bought in to a franchise, which started out with a lot of bumps in the road, but we we managed to get it up and running, loans paid off and to get it to debt free status.
In January of 2014 we were in the process of "buying" our second franchise store on a payment plan. Meant we took it over, ran the store as if we owned it already and were tied to all the overhead. Some other events happened to the franchises here in our city which led us being offered the amazing partnership opportunity with the franchise owners. We moved 3 stores to 1 location in November 2014, including the location we were still paying off. We kept out original store where it was as the lease was still in effect and the store was growing in size.
Jump ahead to April 1, 2016, we changed out name and we also left the partnership so now we are alone out in the event rental world. We spent 1 more year at our original location and then changed our model to pretty much rentals and balloons for birthdays and decor only. We discontinued all other retail, no longer participated in Halloween costumes and decor. With the move we added 1100 square feet, small showroom for our rentals and balloons, we are still growing in this space and loving it. We are getting tight in here tho, but managing.
We have built up our offerings and revenue alike.
The pandemic was a big hit against our revenue and forced closures by our government etc. and it was a big struggle, however we have bounced back. We are around, stronger than before as we had a forced down time during the pandemic which gave us a lot of room to evaluate our future path.
Today, we are super happy to be here, serve our customers and have the ability to keep expanding.
Every business is a struggle to some extent at the beginning. Many "bad" decisions made not because of arrogance but because we had not looked at all the options as at the beginning we do not even know what they are.
Come and share your successes, and get your burning questions answered by others in the industry.