hockey

have cooled on photo booths. still love it, and the demand is certainly strong. but have spoken with enough operators to get a gauge of who is out there working the field, and found a somewhat-central network for distributing leads to regional photo booth owners. i’m not going into the rental business, so trying to change the industry with a newcomer’s “do it my way” approach may not be the best path to change. I have no doubt there is a better way to deliver the information customers are in search of. Turn the burner down to simmer and develop this over the coming months. Meantime….

Fast Air Hockey has launched.

Bubble hockey is one of those childhood experiences which brought a smile absolutely every time I could play. Thrilled anticipation filled each step as my fingers rubbed the quarters on my way to the machine. The rubbery smell of the hockey rink lounge area, the sticky floor and bits of popcorn covering the game center slash snack bar. Thanks for waking and driving me to a 7:00 a.m. hockey practice, Mom and Dad, but why won’t you give me fifty more cents and wait ten minutes for me to play another round against the next willing competitor. The wicked flip-clip-smack of the puck banging off the plastic bubble when your defender with the extra long stick whips a shot that circles the entire rink twice. The electronic oohs and ahhs, cheers for the Americans and boos for the CCCP. The jump-up-and-down joy of scoring in sudden death overtime - the sinking heart of the opponent scoring on you. It was true childhood bliss.

idea sketch

I can’t do it. It’s too hard. Let’s give up.

Here’s what we’re trying to do: the market wants a photo booth rental headquarters. People call us every day, while we’re advertising to sell photo booths, in search of rental for their wedding or their daughter’s bat mitzvah. Customers are standing in line to rent! We know photo booth operators, and sure, they want leads. But they do not want them that badly. Most leads are no good, people just looking into it or hoping to rent a photo booth for $300. Leads don’t want to pay for photo booths - and photo booth operators don’t want to pay for leads. Remind me why this is a good idea???

hot! just got a call for a wedding in July, and it’s in the region of the one operator who appears aggressive, who looks like a business of young entrepreneurs who will break a sweat to get new business. Here I was aiming to write a post full of the frustration from a day of silent phones and no new sales, then bust out of the office to go watch basketball. But the market says “stay on it - we want to spend money - just give the information that no one else will!”

make something happen

not very much action on Monday and that had us down. plus my friend had food poisoning from frozen beef, gross.not too sure always how to straddle the line between business and personal. in business you keep it together and at all times convey the vision that you are knowledgeable and in control. amongst friends you relax and open up, admitting when you feel rotten, sad, or don’t know what to do. the coming millions who will get a job or run companies from an entirely different perspective may cause this to change. imagine a business world without a sense of proprietariness, protectionisticosity, or even fear of making up new words. seems counter to much of the dog-eat-dog that has long been part of reality. but what will we do, those who have facebook and have never felt our personal information was kept that private anyway? embrace the openness, it appears, but only the decades ahead will tell us how that transfers to other aspects of life. we will just do the best we can and share the status with everyone else. admit that we have not met nor are ourselves a super-human. place trust at the center of our relationship with the market. open up even if it sometimes means revealing too much - the harm that comes from admitting you are regular is less than the advantage of admitting you are faulty to other faulty people.

so with that, below is a bit of free-writing I was doing at the end of the day.

How can we win with photobooths if we cant win with foos tables Where can we find the money Where can we give people what they want How to set up a national photobooth rental system How to get programming help in this respect How much will this cost Where do we get it How do we trust them Foosball Bubble hockey air hockey table game accessories Things people want for their game room your ultimate rec room Delivering America’s Fun. Where can we go next What are our best opportunities What products sell now Photo booth registrations! Listen to the market What do they want? Photo booths at their weddings, high school reunions, they’ve seen Amelie, award ceremonies gatherings of diverse types. sometimes they want 25 cent replacement thingees for foosball tables or whatever it is they outfit their gameroom with. Breathe fresh energy into the industry in order to get more business done. Fly overnight shipping service with a smile invent new styles Connect to the customer. Be 100% honest. Be 100% open. Forget the competition. God’s in charge.

rockin

just like that Monday’s gone and here we go ready to rock. photo booths are so popular - started the morning with a dozen rental requests. yesterday was full of obstacles : coding difficulties & silent phones, like our road was headed into a wallheard back from a professional videographer who is too busy to want work. heard back from an amateur who is all about it. I have two requirements in people that I work with: skills, then motivation. of course demand attentive, experienced, quality work. but beyond that, I don’t care what you can do, only what you do do. I don’t need to pay extra for your experience if you still get nothing done because you’re lazy.

woot - just answered a call about photo booths. every photo booth operator in the country right now is booked and needs to hire more staff. this cultural fascination with photo booths is pushing demand up a serious spike. note to the world - yes it would be awesome to have a photo booth at your party (wedding, bar mitzvah, sweet sixteen, quinceanera, & prom seem to be the market drivers), no it is not cheap. $1200+ for a real photo booth, the kind people get in and love. you can spend $400-800, but it will be for a janky rigged-up photo deal which you may enjoy, but be fairly warned.

they want photo booths in europe. at parties for teenagers. at events for grown-ups. in any business that has foot traffic b/c people love hopping into one. willing to pay 3 bucks to express themselves, to gain a little piece of private reflection in the midst of a busy public world. We already have the most comprehensive site about the photo booth machine. Must now create the international headquarters for photo booth rentals.

woot - just had our first foosball table sale.
What to do your path is blocked? Divert and power through it!

change and games

Had a great conversation with a manufacturer yesterday about online sales and the amusement industry.

but first…

I began in ecommerce when cost-per-mil impressions on a banner ad was the standard payment structure, educating myself online all day in the office of our web design company in 2004. That entrepreneurial effort was doomed to fail from the outset, since the market was redefining itself weekly and we had no idea what we were doing. I graduated from the school of hard knocks while touching the pulse of an industry in creation, holding a knowledge of online traffic flow. Compared to the developers creating amazing new programs, I’m a computer-neophyte with a kindergartener’s vocabulary. Compared to most people, I’m an internet genius. Now I have found an industry that is a blast to work in and is ripe for new internet efficiencies. Keep it simple - Give the customer what they want.

So….
a 100+ year old game maker had to decide what to do as the industry was changing. Web stores would deliver the product to the customer’s door anywhere in the U.S., and slowly more consumers purchased all kinds of products online. The traditional stores, who still make up the lion’s share of the manufacturer’s profit, saw a decline in sales. These brick-and-mortar resellers, formerly necessary to get the product to the people en masse, suddenly feeling abandoned for startup virtual stores, banded together. “We will stop buying your product if you sell to the online retailers,” these resellers said. The game maker had to make a choice about company direction - and they did. A corporate decision was made to continue selling to the online stores. Not only did the sales of the web stores continue to grow, but the brick-and-mortar resellers did not stop buying. Their bluff had been called. The internet in its adolescent years has delivered more than one change to the way we shop and think. Distinguish your store with something better for the customer, or prepare to fail getting continued business.

I don’t know why the amusement machine industry is so resistant to change that happened in other industries ten years ago. The ground level of selling product throughout the nation has been necessary and making a strong profit for years. Now service is critical at the ground level, but the delivery of the product from source can be done with e-commerce ease and efficiency. Capitalism makes lower costs lead to a lower price for consumers. Fresh life is needed in the amusement game service, and the operators who are committed to improving their knowledge and customer service are the ones who will survive.

foos

FoosTables.com is live!

score

Entrepreneurs are adept at solving problems without spending a whole lot of money. You can always pay a consultant to analyze your obstacles and prioritize important considerations, and there are times you should use them, but consultants are never cheap! That’s why I would suggest to anyone starting a new business to visit SCORE. They provide free advice to fledgling companies. Walk in with a business plan or carrying only your idea, and they’ll help you lay out what steps you should be looking toward next.

What is their motivation? I don’t really know. It seems to be full of individuals who truly just enjoy helping others, who find satisfaction in sharing their ages of business experience. SCORE is a division of the federal government’s Small Business Administration. Their acronym gives a decent description of their purpose : Service Corps of Retired Executives. So one of their potential motivations…. boredom. These guys have spent their careers in business, they’ve succeeded (and probably failed a few times too) and now simply want to be involved in something new. These retired leaders miss the energy and hopefulness of young entrepreneurs which once filled their days and late nights.

I met with two SCORE representatives last Friday. Just to make sure our business plan makes sense, just to find an objective ear to provide feedback. I had to do a lot of explaining about ecommerce and the amusement machine market, but I wasn’t there for their insight about games. Does our budget make sense? Is there anything we’re forgetting? Sometimes just speaking your ideas out loud to an experienced businessperson will help you see more clearly into your own thoughts.

Take their advice, toss it aside, see them once or a once a week. Whatever works for you. With a free valuable resource at the waiting, I just suggest trying it out.

image labeler

go play image labeler. you’ll be hooked for a few minutes at least.

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler

Apparently this has been around for over a year, but I just discovered it. I have long wondered how Google was going to come up with an automated way to accurately describe images, since a robot cannot translate things we see with our eyes. (seems the human brain is still the most powerful computer in existence.) well they solved it through the use of free labor. and how do you get people to do a tiny task for no benefit? you make it a game!

say cheese

Photo booths are up and running at newphotobooth.com. We have examined just about every photo booth on the market - and picked only those with proven commercial success making money for their operators. There are some homemade versions out there, which works for some individuals. But if it’s really about generating revenue in a commercial setting, one of our photo booth machines is the way to go.

We are dealing with several manufacturers, some quicker to act than others. I just cannot understand most of the people in the amusement machine industry - territorial, resistant to change, and slow to act. The medium of the internet and the energy of the next generation means action is gonna happen in game machines. Photo booths first!

saturday

Getting the shopping cart platform mastered… well maybe I better use the word ‘understood’ for now. mastered later .

with Adwords and an 800 number, phone calls start right away. just like most of the clicks are not properly targeted, most of the phone calls are not buyers either. plus there’s the amazing number of telemarketers that hit you as soon as the phone company activates your number. Does that come from simply the listing of the number, or does AT&T make extra money by selling lists of new activations?

Here’s me playing with the built-in camera on my imac. we have great big windows, facing west, and I go blind for about 15 minutes every day at 5:43pm.