Things Go Awry

About a month after the Yard Pop opportunity, another idea rolled in, this one literally.

A relative of ours owns a bounce house rental business, and through that connection we learned about bumper car rentals for events. It sounded like the perfect addition. Fun. Interactive. Profitable.

We decided to partner up and went all in, purchasing ten bumper cars and inflatable arena.

Two events were booked right away, and we were thrilled.

Until reality arrived.

The cars didn’t work the way we expected. We troubleshot, adjusted, tested, trying to understand what was going wrong. Eventually, we pushed forward with a late-summer event determined to make it happen.

And in many ways… it did.

That event showed us something remarkable: our family of four could actually work together under pressure and pull off something big. We managed lines, handled safety, coordinated waivers, and kept the energy high.

But behind the scenes?

We were in constant crisis mode.

Cars broke down mid-event. We rotated shifts pulling vehicles out of the arena, grabbing power tools, doing emergency repairs, charging batteries, and sliding them back into rotation before guests noticed.

It was exhausting. Scrappy. Stressful.

And strangely… bonding.

Still, after multiple troubleshooting attempts, we had to face reality:

The model wasn’t sustainable.

So we did what small businesses learn to do quickly.

We pivoted.