He heads upslope with purpose. He’s so focused that he steps over the spread out blankets and coolers, around the playing children and conversing adults without looking at them. He’s worked out an audio problem with speakers that flank a giant 100 foot wide inflatable movie screen and now he’s trudging back to the make shift projection booth with a scant twenty minutes to make sure all is in order for a screening of ‘Kung Fu Panda’.
Even while double checking connectors and dialing in the projector, he is aware of what his team is doing. It’s almost as if he has radar. Every so often he’ll stand up and use hand signals to communicate with one of his team down by the screen. Even with the occasional miscommunication, it’s pretty impressive.
Eventually the sun sets and the movie begins. About 2,000 people fill the bowl shaped park, settling in for the show. Hollywood Outdoor Movies has yet another successful program under its belt. This event, one of a series of publicity events for Bank of America, represents one several corporate events the company has done. The client list sports marquee clients any company would be proud to have: Dreamworks, Walt Disney, NASA, MGM, American Film Institute, AMC Theaters, KIA Motors and Univision to name a few. The business has broken a million dollars in top line revenue for the first time in 2011 and is seeking capital to quadruple that in 2012.
“The limiting factor is equipment,” said John James Snyder, known to his friends as JJ, “It all has to be high end and it’s all expensive.” Each projector, for example, has to be able to throw a clear image half the length of a football field in ambient light which can include light from adjacent buildings and streetlights. They can cost up to a quarter million dollars.
The business has come a long way from an internet search for a screen and a projector for his son’s birthday party. “My son wanted to have a pool party and watch movies in the pool with his friends. I went looking for a screen and a projector to rent and couldn’t find a thing,” JJ remembers. It was this experience that made him first consider inflatable screen rentals as a business.
JJ was an entrepreneur before he knew he was one. In his many jobs he was always the top: the tops sales guy, the highest earner, the one with most repeat customers. He also got bored and had a hard time focusing despite his success. We had been advising him about different business ideas for a few months when he called, shortly after his son’s birthday party.
“I just bought an inflatable movie screen,” he said breathlessly. My response was to ask if he could get his money back. After some extended discussion, he convinced me it could work. We wrote his business plan and when looking for bank funding.
All of the major banks did not catch his vision and, finally, it was a small local business bank that finally funded him. During the search, we had funding officers tell us that we were crazy, that no corporation would pay to have family film nights as a promotional tactic. Ironically, one of the banks that rejected the business idea was his first large contract. He delivered movies in the park for the bank at nearly a dozen locations earning nearly three quarters of a million dollars.
His first true set back came when he sold a large deal in the nation of Gabon. He traveled to the country, delivered a screen as well as several events. While he had a deposit, the bulk of the money was to be wired to him on delivery. It never came. With most of his working capital tied up in the deal, it nearly destroyed him. We went on a feverish funding search and found nothing. JJ dusted himself off, started booking a slew of small deals and built his war chest back up. We’d speak frequently during this time. I heard anger, anxiety and sometimes lament, but never did quitting enter the conversation.
As he climbed out of this hole he discovered his partner, his best friend and business associate from high school, was stealing from him. This crushed JJ. Untangling the relationship, making decisions about criminal and legal action were made more difficult by a long, mostly positive, past. Ultimately, JJ decided to let his friend walk with no repercussions, just to be done with it. He told me if he fought it would take energy away from recovering the business.
During this same time, the economy collapsed. A large segment of his customer base was parks and recreation departments who would rent his screens for movie nights. Their budgets instantly evaporated. He called me and for the first time I heard real fear in his voice. “The bank wants to take my house, the other bank wants to call my note,” he said soberly. Like most conversations we had during this time, I said about three words while he thrashed about for answers. No quick fixes appeared. We hung up and I know I felt bad.
We spoke a short time later and this time I could hear the excitement in his voice. Instead of asking the cities to pay for screen rental, he gathered up food vendors, merchandisers and craft businesses and put together a package where he would provide the screen for free in exchange for allowing him to set up a street fair as part of the show. He required the city to market the event. He then took a cut from all of the sales of the vendors and was able to earn about the same amount he had under his old model. Even better, the vendors did well and started looking for venues to do additional events. He had recovered nicely while adding a passionate, unpaid, sales force.
He’s moved on from these turbulent times to doing shows at Union Park in San Francisco, being part of concerts at Coachella and establishing a weekend parking lot theater at Disney’s California Adventure. He has been a part several major film festivals and numerous corporate public relations and product roll out events.
JJ has his sights on bigger exploits. He’s negotiating to be part of several concert tours for internationally known artists along with some corporate contracts that would be more steady repetitive revenue. He’s still struggling, stretching, striving. The complaints are similar but the numbers are bigger. But, he’s arrived. He’s doing it. He’s making it happen every single day. He never stops working because he loves what he does.
Check out his business at www.hollywoodoutdoormovies.com. I’m proud to have JJ as a client. I know I’ve learned as much from him as he has from me. He inspires me. He never stops. He just can’t help it.
Dispatches From The Front 