The Questions That Keep Me Up at Night

Over the last eight weeks, we've been doing a little traveling. North Carolina, Florida, Connecticut and New Hampshire just to name a few. We've visited family and friends, explored new places, gone on adventures, eaten good food, laughed a lot and made some memories along the way.

And every single time we travel somewhere new, I have the same thought: Backyard Bash Co. could work here.

Not tomorrow. Not next month. Not even necessarily next year. But someday.

Because the more places we visit, the more I realize that what we're building could be bigger than just our little corner of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

And honestly? That thought is exciting. But it also brings up approximately a million questions.

How do you grow something small?

How do we expand beyond our current service area?

How do we convince someone who has never heard of us to choose us for their wedding, birthday, backyard party, corporate event or family gathering?

And maybe the biggest question of all:

How do we show people why choosing a legitimate, local rental company matters?

Because the reality is, there are a LOT of rental options out there. You can scroll through Facebook Marketplace and find someone renting a game, a tent, a table, a cooler or just about anything else.

Sometimes those rentals probably work out perfectly.

But sometimes...you just don't know what you're getting.

That's where I think we have something important to say.

Why does being licensed and insured matter?

We're licensed.

We're insured.

We care about the condition of our equipment.

We care about showing up when we say we're going to show up.

We care about communication.

We care about making sure the games are clean, safe, complete, and ready for your guests.

And we care about what happens after you book with us.

Because Backyard Bash Co. isn't some faceless company. It's two teachers. Two people with families, full-time jobs, busy schedules and a genuine love for what we're creating.

We started this because we thought it would be fun. We wanted to create something that brought people together. And yes, of course, we want the business to make money. We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't. But we also want people to have a great experience.

We want you to tell your friends about us. We want you to come back. We want you to look at your wedding photos years from now and remember the ridiculous competition that happened over a game of Giant Jenga. We want your backyard party to be the one everyone talks about afterward.

That matters to us.

And I think that's one of the things I need to get better at communicating. The marketing part is hard.

I'll be honest.

Marketing is probably one of the areas of running a small business that I struggle with most. How do you stand out? How do you compete with companies with bigger budgets? How do you get your name in front of the right people at exactly the right time?

And how do you do all of that when you're trying yo run the actual business, work a full time job, have a family and occasionally remember to put dinner on the table?

That's where I've been using AI. And I'm sure I'm not the only small business owner doing it. I have mixed feelings about it. There are an incredibly talented graphic designers ( I know because we hired one to design our logo), photographers, marketers, copywriters and branding experts out there. I have so much respect for what they do and I'm sure hiring the right people would help us grow faster.

But we're a small business. We don't have an enormous marketing budget. We're still building.

So for now, I'm trying to find inexpensive ways to get the word out, learn as I go, create better content and put ourselves in front of more people.

It might not be perfect. It might not always looked professionally produced. But it's ours.

So how do we spread the word? That's the question I keep coming back to. How do we get from being "that little local yard game rental company" to becoming a name people recognize when they start planning an event? How do we expand thoughtfully? How do we build trust? How do we communicate the difference between renting from someone who happens to have a few games sitting in their garage and renting from a licensed, insured business that genuinely cares about the experience? How do we make people understand that sometimes, you get what you pay for?

And how do we do all of that without losing the personal, local feeling that made us want to start Backyard Bash Co. in the first place?

I don't have all the answers.

Actually, this blog post has more questions than answers. But maybe that's okay.

Because this is what running a small business really looks like sometimes.

It's dreaming.

It's questioning.

It's trying something.

It's wondering if it worked.

It's celebrating the little wins.

It's worrying about the things that didn't work.

And then it's getting up the next morning and trying again.

Our recent travels have reminded me that there is a BIG world out there. And someday, I'd love to see Backyard Bash Co. become a bigger part of it.

For now, we're going to keep building. Keep learning. Keep creating. Keep asking questions. And as I figure out the answers, I'll share some of them here.

But until then... stick with us.

We have some new and exciting packages coming this fall, and I have a feeling the next chapter of Backyard Bash Co. is going to be a fun one!

Good games.

Good times.

Good people.

That's still what it's all about.

With coffee, chaos & big dreams,

Julie & Maria