Pivot that placed this franchise at a speed of $ 7 million

In the early 2000s, Cell Longo was an 18 -year -old student working as a weekend delivery man for a loan bounce house of a decar, who he rented as a side hustle. By the beginning of his 20s, he took over the reins and turned his small side into a successful seasonal business. But during a hard axis pandemicLongo led its company, busy bee jumpers, distributed with high-marginal-core fare-focused houses, water slides, barriers courses and tent-a technical-tang, community-operated playbook to become a prosperous professional franchise operation.

In this Q&A, Longo runs through a college-to-owned handoffs, “simplify the menu” pivot into core inventory and why franchise beats add corporate units.

Reactions have been edited for length and clarity.

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What was your original vision how the busy bee came for the first time and when you were running it as a side hustle?

My business partners again had a two -day owner. He bought a bounce home for the decare and all the parents started asking to rent it. Somebody had to deliver; It was here that I came at the age of 18. It was a great secondary business for him for many years. When I graduated from college at the age of 22, I asked, Can we concentrate a main focus on it and do something bigger than the opposite of one side? he said yes. At that time, it was 2006–2007, we were about $ 200,000 to $ 250,000 in revenue and we expanded the delivery sector and focused the real focus on it.

Did you realize the ability that was early?

I did it. At my first delivery, three young children were jumping up and down with pure enthusiasm and the parents were so happy that they tied me up. I thought, It seems different – we are making memories for families. We expanded schools, municipalities, churches and fire and police departments. Then the industry did not have much structure or technology, so I created an e-commerce site for BaxeBeejumpers.com and first year we focused it full, we increased to $ 750,000-we have increased to $ 750,000-recently half million growth-and learned a lot.

Your prominent place is growing rapidly. Which decisions enable you on a scale like this?

Kovid was a tragedy. In terms of business, it gave me a lot of clarity. At that time, I was approximately $ 3 million, but I was serving many types of customers: corporate events, ice cream trucks, mechanical rides, movie nights – attractive pieces of equipment that were not producing strong returns. They were increasing my insurance premium, finishing my task force and distributing less MarginThe real money bounce was in homes, water slides, barriers courses and tents. So I made Extra liquid. This was like simplifying the menu in a restaurant: once we focus on, we scale it very fast. We did $ 5.5 million in 2024 and we are at a speed of $ 7 million in 2025 because we doubled on high-margin pieces, which people really want to want.

So, it seems that you went back to the basics. What was the most difficult part of making that axis?

I liquid some expensive items for penis on the dollar. But since that 2020 axis, we have doubled our margin. We also applied routing technology related to product use in our operating platform. This has made us wildly efficient.

Did you have any moment on the path where you had doubt?

Honestly, I believed in this business from day one. it’s my passion. I struggle to leave the office because I like to live here – we are making memories. I have done other works in high school and college; Nothing caught me like this. And it’s not just about my family. I have formed a team of 13 managers who are with me in 10 years. I have seen that they have children and buy homes. Last month I rewarded seven of them with company vehicles, which were tied to this new franchiseing push, as our first three franchises have a ton success.

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Why franchise? You could definitely stay corporate and open more company locations.

Simplifying the inventory and procedures made us a real blueprint on the scale. My choice was to enter a lot of capital in another, third, fourth corporate place – or blueprint, coach franchisees and to take a small royalty. Franchising is more cost-effective and low capital-intensive. Once I started talking about it, my first buyer was my 15 -year -old CFO – he owns his own accounting firm – and he bought the Cape Cod. This was a great praise. The second insurance was the CEO of the company that handles our obligation, vehicles and workers of workers; He bought a franchise for his son. He saw our ‘No Los Run’ in 27 years – Super Saf, No Workers Comp’s claim – and after visiting our convenience, he saw the ability.

What is the offering of a bee busy for franchise – is this technique, opes, margin?

It is a mixture. It is a fragmented, fragmented market. The busy bee can systematic and legalize it. It is easy to scale our operating platform tied to our product line. And our marketing programs target the final user, so there is no excessive pill to swallow customer acquisition. It actually comes together for operation, training and marketing – this is what makes it unique. ,

What is the biggest challenge in moving from a major local operator to the franchise system?

Everything documents. My in-house team has a lot of intuition for years together; They can handle anything. Now the question is, how do we give the franchise to the same toolkit, so the answers are on their fingers? This is what we have learned in the first six months – and why will we not grow very fast. We want the first three hyper-failures and in the next five to win a quick win out of the gate.

What is your long-term vision-and what kind of franchise do you want to attract?

We are looking for those who fit busy bee culture: gritty, hard -working operators who are actually invested in the brand. Yes, you need to be capitalized – but we want community partners who will work with fire and police departments and entertainment teams; Those who join the local chamber go to the city meetings and become a resource. The ideal owner is not afraid to roll his sleeve and run delivery if needed. The mentality is one that sets our first three for success and this is what we are seeing as we grow.