Bolder Business with Paul Fontanelli

Ep 009: From $15/Hour to Leading at 20 — The Mindset Behind His Rise

• Paul Fontanelli • Episode 9

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 45:18

In this episode of Bolder Business Podcast, Paul sits down with one of Bolder’s rising stars, 20-year-old manager Gustavo Escobar — known for his electric energy and relentless positivity.

From earning $15 an hour at Walgreens to stepping into leadership at Bolder Adventure Park, Gustavo shares how a move from New Jersey to Texas reshaped his mindset, how a life-altering car accident tested his resilience, and how choosing positivity helped accelerate his growth.

Paul pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to build and sustain a business; from the five-year journey of launching Bolder, to navigating financial challenges, to leveraging partnerships with creators like Unspeakable to drive awareness.

Together, they talk about standing out in the workplace, handling difficult customers, building strong networks, and why doing just a little more than what’s expected can separate you from everyone else.

This episode is about resilience, leadership, and building something bigger than yourself, in business and in life.

Meet Gustavo And The Mission

SPEAKER_01

Welcome back to Boulder Business. Awesome. Today we got special guest Gustavo Escobar. Or as he likes to be called Mr. Escobar. Mr. Escobar. That's exactly right. In all seriousness, thank you for joining. Of course. All right. So I'm Paul Fontanelli. I'm the CEO and founder of Boulder Adventure Park. And the point of this podcast is to just talk business, whether it's different businesses, Boulder's business, whatever it may be. Today we're specifically going to talk a lot about Boulder's business because Gustavo is a rising star at Boulder. He's doing phenomenal. And what I'll tell about Gustavo, just to kick this off, the reason he's on this podcast is a number of reasons. But one is Gustavo's energy is electric. When Gustavo walks into the office, the park, whatever it is, you know Gustavo's there. His energy brings everybody up, his energy brings the mood up, the excitement. Like that's one of the things. I love a lot of things about you working at Boulder, but that's one of the things I love the most, is just you bring great positive energy.

SPEAKER_02

Which is amazing. I mean, working at Boulder gives me that, to be honest. I love going in and it's just the energy is just amazing every time.

SPEAKER_01

Nah, you're just feeding you're just feeding me the good stuff.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, but it's just amazing stuff. It is.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you. Well, good. So uh your energy is awesome. Let's start this off with we want to get to know you a little bit. Okay. Tell us about yourself.

From New Jersey To Texas

SPEAKER_02

So pretty much uh uh Gustavo, obviously. Uh I'm 20 years old. I was uh born and raised in New Jersey. Okay. Uh yeah, in Hackensack, actually. I was raised in Clifton for a little bit, roughly like two or three years ago in 2023. I moved over in Texas. Okay. Started working at Walgreens for maybe$15 an hour as a lead. Yeah. There, it was kind of depressing, I'm not gonna lie. Really? Yeah, so a lot of workers there were really old, so I was just there. Yeah, it was to speak to anybody. You felt a little out of your element. Exactly. Yeah. So one day actually with my cousin, he flew over here to Texas. We went to Boulder. Yeah. First time, it was a great experience. So you went as a guest first. Yes, exactly. I didn't know that. I actually met one of the leads, and I'm like, hey, like, how do you like working here? Her name was Sarah. Oh yeah. I was like, hey, how do you work? How do you like working here? She was like, it's amazing. I love it. People here are great. So I was like, okay, let me give this a try. Looks like everybody's around my age. I'm like, this is amazing. Yeah. I'm looking for, right? So yeah, so I started working at Bowl. I applied around November. I got hired in December, and since then it's just it's been there.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, right on. Perfect. Because you your start date was when? Give or take? December 14th, I believe it was. Of 2022. Were we only open a couple of months? Yeah, you're you're one of the OGs. Very, very early OGs. Okay, right on, right on. Perfect. So that's a big life change. Go from New Jersey to Texas, and you were in high school at the time, right?

SPEAKER_00

Correct, yes.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. As it relates to moving from New Jersey to Texas, how did that kind of just shape your perspective on things? Because that Texas and New Jersey, two totally different places. 100%. And the move, I'm assuming you were a sophomore junior in high school. Yep. It's a big move.

SPEAKER_02

It is, yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_01

Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, so in New Jersey, everything is really fast-paced. Okay. Oh, there everybody's just everywhere. You know, it's rushed everywhere. I would say the moving and the living is different. Uh here a lot of people are a lot nicer. Oh, within Jersey, a lot like more rude. Okay. So here a lot a lot of people are a lot more nicer and stuff like that. So I feel like it made me be a better person as well. Because I feel in Jersey I was a little rude as well, I guess. But here it made me learn, like, yes, I could. This is interesting.

First Visit To Boulder To First Job

SPEAKER_01

So southern hospitality is a real thing, is what you're saying. 100%. Yeah. Okay, well. If you're any, if you're in New Jersey and you're listening, we still love you. Yes. You're not the rude ones. It's just I I get what he's saying. That's awesome. Okay. Yes. So the reason I want to have you on, number of reasons. One, your energy is phenomenal. But as a CEO of the business, I operate at a slightly different level, right? I mean, I have to see things from the big picture. I'm not in the weeds as much uh day to day. You're one of our managers in guest services. So you see everything in terms of the employees, the guests, so on and so forth. So that's why I think it's important as a CEO to take time and meet with the team members so I can get more insights than what I can observe on my own. And so candidly, this is obviously a little bit of a selfish interview, but I think it'll be interesting for listeners to think about like, okay, how am I looking at my business? Or from your perspective, how are you moving up within the business? So I think there's gonna be a lot of benefit to our listeners to today's conversation. One more question for you, which is a big one about you personally. You had a big accident roughly a year, year and a half ago.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, uh, it was actually November 2023. Yep. Yep, unfortunately, I got in a car accident. Yeah, got taken to the hospital. Yeah, uh, got told that my lumbar got broke, which is my spine, lower spine. Yeah, yeah, it shattered. Uh was hospitalized for two weeks. Thank God, came back walking amazingly. I mean, you remember I was in zone four beforehand, you know. Correct. So zone four and boulder is pretty much everything in the aerial, you know, zip lining and stuff like that. Yes. Uh so unfortunately, because of my accident, I had to go to a different zone, which is now I'm in customer service. Yep. Oh, yeah, pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So that accident, I mean, I remember when it happened because you've always been a standout at Boulder. I mean, like I said, your energy, and that and that's some advice I'll give to anyone listening is that like, how do you stand out at a company? In my opinion, it's it's two primary things. It's one, bring positive energy. If you are working at a company anywhere, and this isn't just working, it's just life advice. Like, bring positive energy, even if you don't necessarily want to be there. Because not everyone wants to go to work every day. I get that. But if you can bring positive energy, you're gonna stand out amongst probably 80% of the people. So you've done that from the beginning. Always a positive. The second piece of advice I'd give is always do just a little bit more than what's asked of you. And you're always gonna stand out because most people do only what's asked of them or a little bit less. And if someone just brings positive energy and they just go a little bit further, right? You're gonna stand out. And it's amazing how many people don't do either of those, or they do one but not the other. And it's like just do both of those, and you're gonna be in the top five percent of anything you do, and it's really not that hard. So that's a little bit of advice for people, and you've done that to a T.

SPEAKER_02

Uh I mean it's true if you think about it, like it really is. If you bring positive energy to a workplace, you're gonna love it. You know, you're gonna just like I love going to work because it's there, you know.

The Accident And Career Pivot

SPEAKER_01

And the people around you become positive because they match your energy. 100%. I mean, you said it with your New Jersey to Texas example. You match the energy of New Jersey. You came to Texas, you matched the energy here. And so if you can bring that positive energy, people around you are gonna be more positive. And so that's just a little bit of quick advice. So you've already answered one of my questions, which is how you came to Boulder. So you were a guest and you wanted to come work here. You've moved up fast, you're doing a great job. I gotta give you a little bit of hard time. You know this. I still give you a hard time back. Yeah, every time. There's this is a funny story, is why I want to tell it. Oh man. So, as Gustavo mentioned, he works at our front um guest services, and he's now our manager in that area. And I walk in one day, and Gustavo's got his backwards hat on, as you can see. He's always got the backwards hat. Always wear a hat, always backwards hat. And I walk up and I'm like, what hat are you wearing, Gustavo? He's like, What do you mean? And for the listeners, it was a Playboy hat. I totally forgot that the reason we're laughing about it is we are a family-friendly uh place. Good thing is he took it off immediately, replaced it with a boulder hat. We were good, but still to this day, I'll I'll raz him a little bit, which you gotta have fun with stuff like that. It's you know, it was an honest mistake, but it was it's funny to laugh about after the fact.

SPEAKER_02

And then yeah, on my side, just imagine me like I'm over here just working, I see my CEO just like, hey, what's up with that hat? I'm like, oh my the embarrassment. I was like, oh my god, yeah, but it was funny, definitely in my We laugh about it now.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. Okay, cool. So, but in all seriousness, you've moved up very fast, you're doing an amazing job. Like, what do you credit? I mean, I've told you what I've seen, but what do you credit some of your success with and and kind of how you've shaped your career thus far?

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Since I started working, which I was 16, I always think customer service, like I said, Walgreens. I kind of know how to speak to guests, you know. Yes. So I obviously during the years, you learn a lot of experience and stuff. I will also say, because of my accident, I feel like a lot of people has been more positive with me at work, especially. I feel like when I come into work, people are like, hey, if you need anything, let me know. Like you got this. They always keep me very motivated. That's awesome, and I love it, you know. So I feel like it that gets me really, really motivated. Also seeing the guests, like even when I sometimes we talk about like our life or something when we're checking them out, and they just give me great advice. Like, I love it, like it's just it's just amazing, you know. So I feel like that's that always makes me want to come to work because I feel like the any, like you said, energy is always there, positivity is always there. That just keeps me focused 100% all the time.

SPEAKER_01

Good. Let's talk about areas of opportunity because as the as a CEO, I need to kind of always be thinking about what we could do better. Okay. In your perspective, the great thing about your perspective is you are at the front. Yes. Like in the front is where people go when they have questions or concerns and so forth. So as you think about, let's start with our team members. Okay. What is one thing that we can do better at Boulder to create a better employee experience than what we have now? And I know there's room for improvement.

SPEAKER_02

100%. I think well, this new policy that we just ran out, too, with uh no cell phones. Yep, I think that's gonna be really good. I mean, since I joined, we've been having problems with devices like AirPods, all this teenagers, you know how it is.

Two Rules For Standing Out At Work

SPEAKER_01

Yep. And not just teenagers, by the way. Like I'm guilty. Like we're we're all hooked on our devices. Yep. Okay, so for perspective, we've had different policies with cell phone usage, and we've called it a zero policy before, but you know, team members still had it in their pockets and they just can't resist pulling it out, and it just became more and more of a challenge, and we finally came out with you can't even have it on you. Yep. And so it's definitely gonna help some of the distractions. Yep. So that's a good answer, but I don't know that our team members are seeing that as a big win, right? Like, oh yay! So correct. They're like, oh, but I think the good thing is once they're in the job, they're gonna be working more, and time will go by quicker when you're working hard. Let me spin the question back to you. Yeah, what can we do better for our team members that would make them like excited? Like, okay, can you you probably heard different hey, I wish we would do this, or I wish we'd I mean, even yeah, I'm I'm I'm even gonna go back to.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, with no cell phones, I feel like people are talking to each other more. Great, yeah. What I'm saying, like you're on your phone, everybody's just doing their thing, not really focusing on other people, life, you know. Totally. So now I see a lot more coming uh communication with people, conversations.

SPEAKER_01

It's just you know, okay, okay, good, good. What about for our guest? What's something we could do better for the people that attend the park?

SPEAKER_02

I would say, because we're we're different. We have parties, we have events, and we have like normal guests. Yeah, um, I would say for events and parties, but maybe a little bit better communication with them. Maybe like, hey, uh, before you come to the park, make sure you have the waivers done because we, as you know, waivers take them all the time, you know. Yep. Uh I would probably say that. And then for normal guests, maybe more signage. Like, hey, this is you know, a little bit more like, hey, this is what you're pumping. Exactly. Yeah. Uh maybe like a little bourgeois or something that shows them about the park and stuff. But yeah, I think that's it.

SPEAKER_01

Well, that's good advice because one of the questions we get a lot is Boulder is different. Yeah. It's it's got a lot of different attractions. Some of them are one of a kind, and it's hard to understand. And we have three different packages. So I think what you're telling me is like, how do we better communicate that to guests in advance to make when they get to the park less stressful?

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. Yeah, because once they get here, like or to the park, yeah, we have to start explaining everything. And for them, it's like, damn, this is taking a long time. Well, that's exactly right.

The Backwards Hat Story

SPEAKER_01

So we're trying to speed up the process a little bit, and I feel like that will help a lot with consuming and because if we we always want to put ourselves in the guest perspective. If they walk in and it takes more time, that's frustrating. Of course. If they don't understand all the options and it's overwhelming because you walk in, it's 60, yeah, 60-foot rock. You're like, whoa, the kids are bouncing off the wall. They don't want to hear about the info, they want to hear the water. So, what you're saying is how do we better communicate that in advance? Yep. So, one of the things we're looking at, which is exactly in line with your feedback, is how do we use technology to automate that type of we'll call it preparation, right? So we're looking at ways to, if a guest buys a ticket, we can email them or text them like a day or two before, and it's like, here's what you need to know before you arrive. Yep. Here's a map of the park, here's the different passes, here's how this is gonna work. Or for a birthday party, here's exactly how this is gonna go, which we do call people for birthday parties, but I think in writing and with pictures, for those that want that information, it's gonna be more helpful. For those that don't, they just obviously ignore the email. But that's definitely something that we're working on. And I think your feedback just further puts it up the priority of that. Yes, right, because there's so many things we can work on. Of course, it's how do we prioritize? Okay, awesome. All right, here's the big one. All right, you personally, okay. I love your positivity, but I know at the same point it's a job. Okay, and I'm sure there's something about working at Boulder that does frustrate you at times or you roll your eyes at her. Uh, what's one or two things that frustrate you about you personally about working at Boulder?

SPEAKER_02

And don't hold back. I'll say the guest. Like I said, unfortunately, some people don't know a lot of information, so they do come at Boulder very triggered already, or very like, hey, this is a you know, yeah. So I'll probably say that. That's probably the most, and that's frustrating. A difficult guess.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes, yes, because you're the manager in our guest services, so and managers are the ones that take the challenging situations.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. And you come in, you're like, yeah, yeah, like you're excited, and guest kind of like ruins this. Uh, but fair. You still gotta bring up your joy. That's guest services.

SPEAKER_01

That's exactly right. And you know, I think your advice of how do we better inform the guests and make things better for the guests will reduce the challenging moments for guests, yeah, which hopefully will reduce the number of we'll call them escalations or kind of difficult situations. Because yeah, and I'm with you. I mean, sometimes guests can be challenging, but it's usually triggered by something we've done or could have done better, of course, I should say, right? And so that's where we want to continue to get better and better. Awesome. So you've given me lots of great insights. That's what I'm looking for as the CEO is I want to hear your perspective because you truly are on the front lines. So that was awesome. Let's flip the script a little bit. What questions do you want to ask me about Boulder, if any?

SPEAKER_02

I I got I got a couple. I got a couple weeks. I've been interested for the past two years to answer these questions.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, this is like our first really I mean we talk all the time, but to sit down and like and speak about it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, let's do it. So uh the first question I got is how did you get the business started? Like, what inspired to start this business? Like Yeah, I can't imagine what went through your head and stuff doing all this.

What Fuels Gustavo’s Growth

Improving Team Focus And Culture

SPEAKER_01

It was a journey, so I'll give this in two steps, right? One is what inspired me, and two, how did we actually pull it off? Inspired was I was in corporate America for my whole career, okay, and candidly I was burned out of it, which I think a lot of people can relate to. I was not inspired anymore. I didn't feel fulfilled, is the word, I just lacked fulfillment, and I was highly successful by terms of you know income and promotions. I mean, we could talk more about my background if you want, but I was by all terms successful, but I was just not satisfied. Okay. Um, I was not fulfilled anymore. And so I was looking to do something totally different. I didn't want to stay in the finance. Finance was my background. I didn't want to stay in finance anymore. I want to do something really unique and different that could be meaningful. I have three kids. I grew up in Arlington, so I grew up going to theme parks, amusement parks, yeah, you know, water parks, you name it all the time. And I've just always enjoyed them. And I'm a very active person. I enjoy being out with my kids. I enjoy going on the roller coasters with them. I mean, I had a process for how to get my kids comfortable on roller coasters. Like start on this one, then you go to this one. Like five years old, my little one is like going down the Titan. Oh my God. Yeah. She was awesome. Uh, all of my kids are awesome, obviously. But anyway, so I grew up there, and when I want to start a business, the entertainment industry just seemed like a really fun business to start. And I've known that if you can create a business that's unique and different and well run, it can be successful. And the entertainment industry is no different. So that was kind of the inspiration was want to do something entrepreneurial. My big dream has always been build a business that my kids have the option, so never be forced, have the option to grow into. Whether they do or don't, that's up to them. But I would love, that's always been the dream to build a business that they have that option. My son works there, my daughter works there a little bit during the summer, my other one's a little bit too young at the moment, but whether they grow into it in the future, we'll see. But that was always kind of a goal. That's the inspiration. How we did it, it took five years from the first idea until opening day was almost exactly five years. And I probably won't go down too much path, but basically the first phase was like, what in the world is gonna get built? Yeah, it was the idea. That was a fun phase. That was the dreamer phase. And it was I went to conferences in Orlando and I took my kids to different places all around the world, and basically it was just like if it's cool and it's fun and I enjoy it, it's gonna go in the park. And so I tried every single thing somewhere before we put it in the park, and then we obviously had to create things and dream it up. So the idea phase was kind of part one, and that's when we made the investments, the smaller investments at that point to kind of just get things going. Okay. Then it came to the point where the second phase is we gotta raise money and we had to raise a lot of money because it's a big park, and I didn't have that kind of money. Uh, my ex and I at the time did not have that kind of money, so we had to get investors, of course. And so I worked at Fidelity Investments. You cannot raise money when you work at Fidelity, so that became the point where it was like, I gotta quit my job and go all in on this with no income. I ended up going almost three years with zero income, which not expected. I think I planned for like six months. That's a whole different story. But then we had to raise money, and raising money is a whole challenging environment for a startup. And so we can talk more about that. But had to raise money, had to do all the plans, all of that, and then building it was kind of phase three, if you will. All that's the pre-opening, right? So ideas, raising money, and then construction, building it all, and that's what took five years. Uh so that's long-winded answer to your question. Obviously, we can go down tangents if needed.

SPEAKER_02

Well, let's kind of go down a little bit. I actually, yeah. So you say you have three kids. How was it? How was like doing like going full into this business, but still having three kids on the side?

SPEAKER_01

Like, oh yeah, difficult for you, or they you know, my family suffered during that time. I won't lie. I mean, you know, to be that committed to building something this big, it took a significant amount of my time. It paid a toll on things. I never missed the important things with my kids. Okay. Every game I could be at, I was at every recital, all that stuff. So I'm I'm still very active father, but I do know when I was working at Fidelity how much more time I had with my kids and and family compared to when I was building Boulder, how much time that took away. Of course. And that's hard. And I looked at as a sacrifice, you know. Like I said, I didn't miss the big stuff. I wasn't like an absentee parent by any stretch, but I definitely was gone a lot of time. Of course. And now I'm kind of getting that time back because I have a little bit better balance and things right now. But those three, four years, difficult from a balancing perspective for sure.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. Well, I appreciate you answering that. A second question I have here is what challenges are you currently facing at Boulders?

Fixing Guest Friction With Better Communication

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah. Jump ahead to today. Yeah. Right now, it's so I'll kind of lead up to today. Okay. First opened, it was operational challenges. Like we opened the park with a blank sheet of paper, right? It'd never been done before for Boulder. Whereas if you open a franchise, they give you the playbook. Here's exactly how you do everything. We were not a franchise, we were a brand new business, and so everything was new. You were there very early on. You see how different things are today than when they were there. So the first year or so of operations was or first year of opening was all about just figuring out how to effectively run the park and just working through different challenges that would always come up, right? So that's kind of year one. Year two, we're now year two and a half, just so everyone knows. Year two was all about marketing and trying to figure out how to consistently bring the number of people into the park that we need. Of course. Um, because year one, we benefited from a lot of viral content that didn't really cost us any money. You know, unspeakable posted a video, got 12 million views. He's one of our partners, investors in the park. Okay. We did a drone video, which you know that got two million views. And so, right out of the gate, we got all this organic, viral content that brought people into the park. And I think we took it for granted. And then six months, nine months, a year later, those views have worn off. Yeah, of course. We had to start really coming into a paid marketing strategy. And we've had some ups and downs with marketing. Um, in the fall last year, we had a big hiccup that cost us a lot of attendance and stuff like that. So, one of my mentors that's helping me, his name's Gary, he says, right now, our main focus is how do we get from trying to survive to sustainability? Because candidly, right now, we're still in survival mode. Yeah, like finances are not where they need to be. Not horrible, but they're definitely not where they need to be. We're still in the red a little bit. And so we're trying to get to consistent profitability and sustainability so that we can really focus on the big picture going forward. Whereas right now, a lot of our efforts on the executive team and even the management team is just still surviving day to day, week to week, month to month. And that's not how you build a long term business just trying to survive every month. You need to get to the point where it's sustainable, and then you can really scale the overused word, but really focus on the Things that are gonna set you up for three years, five years, ten years success instead of right now, we're still just you know, month to month trying to survive.

SPEAKER_02

Do you have any plans to try to, you know, get that better? Oh, absolutely. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

If you don't mind me sharing what kind of plans, yeah, so right now the main focus is top so basically in finances, you talk about top line and bottom line. Top line is how much revenue comes in the park. Okay. But it, you know, revenue is probably the biggest thing we can not control, but try to improve the business because if you can bring more revenue in, obviously that's going to help things. And so that's what marketing is all about. So our big focus right now on marketing is just how do we make more people aware of it. It's it's not surprising, but it's reality of how many people still live in Dallas Fort Worth, have never even heard of us. Yeah. Because unfortunately, we don't have like highway visibility, and everybody that drives by knows exactly where it is. So, really, we're we're leveraging social media and other marketing techniques. I mean, the podcast is meant to help with marketing, right? Of course. So, top line revenue through marketing strategies is a big focus. And like I said, we've had some hiccups where we've made some mistakes on that, but I think in the last three, four months we've really gotten better at it. So I'm feeling good about the trend of that. And then the second focus is the bottom line, which is where in our expenditures do we have fluff? Okay, things are not efficient, right? Like we're overspending here, or maybe we have this service that we don't need, so on and so forth. And we really have in the last two and a half years, we've not had the ability to really analyze our expenses the way that we need to. Okay. And so that's really, I mentioned Gary, he's one of our mentors. He's on the board for us. He's phenomenal, and he's helping me kind of look through things with more of an attention to detail because in the past we've just been surviving. I haven't been, admittedly, I have not been able to focus on the expenditures and things like that as much as I want. So we're starting to get to the point where now we can. And I think those two things will help get us over the hump to where we need to be.

CEO Playbook: From Idea To Opening

SPEAKER_02

Beautiful. Well, let's go back a little bit. I heard you said unspeakable. How did that happen? Yeah. I've I've seen Unspeakable since I was as young too, and come to bolder. I'm like, Unspeakable, he's worship. This is great. Yeah. How did that happen? You don't want me to ask you.

SPEAKER_01

It's an awesome story. So for anyone that doesn't know who unspeakable is, which most do, he's got something like 20 plus million subscribers on YouTube, right? So tell you what Gustavo knows about it, and then obviously I'll back it all the way back to how he became a partner with us. So he came to the park when we first opened and he made a video. I remember when he came in that day, because I didn't know what he was going to shoot that day. I knew he was filming. He's like, Hey, Paul, I want to make a video that says, I built an adventure park. Okay. I'm like, absolutely. Because he did, he's one of our biggest investors. He definitely played a big role in it, right? And so I'm like, all right, absolutely. And he makes this video, which now has 12 plus million views on YouTube. And I'm in the video and we talk about like how we kind of strategized about it. So he very much was a big part of it. And that just blew up. And now so many people come to Boulder and they are like, This is unspeakable's park. And I'm like, absolutely, like, I don't deny that at all. Happy to show because he just did so much to help grow our brand awareness early on, is what he's done. And he hasn't been as active recently because he just has so much going on. Of course. But how it became it's a good story. I think it's really interesting. It will hopefully guide people on being creative and overcoming challenges to get to the goal, right? So I'll back you up to I talked about building the business was the idea phase and then raising money, right? So this is back in 2020. So I had left my job at Fidelity in May of 2019. Okay. With the expectation, naively, that we would break ground in six months and I'd raise all the money in the next couple of months, and we'd break ground in six months. So I expected to break ground in like August of 2019. Okay. That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_00

Of course.

SPEAKER_01

We actually broke ground two years later in July of 2021. Now, COVID 2020 played a little bit of a role in that. It definitely slowed things down. So we're raising money and the pandemic happens. And I think I went six months without a single pitch meeting. Well, I mean, I couldn't even get in front of anyone to invest because nobody was talking about investing in an indoor family fund center to bring a lot of people together when the world is shut down. Yeah. Right. So some of the best advice I got, one of the people I was working with that helped us with our business strategy and all of that, his name's Jerry Merle, a phenomenal guy. When the pandemic first happened, we obviously did not have enough money to build the park, but we had enough money to at least keep working on architectural plans and design plans, right? And his advice to me was you can either stop right now and save that money and don't do anything and lose six months, nine months, a year. We don't know how long at the time, right? So when COVID first happened, or you can just keep going and put you in a better position for when this ends. And it was a hard decision, right? Because these are investors and trust me with money. And so we talked with the investors and it was like, yeah, you gotta just keep going. You know, we'll get through this pandemic. We don't know when or how, but keep going. And that was some really good advice because I always liken it to the analogy in there's a movie which I'm sure you've not seen. It way pre predates you. It's Tom Cruise's early, early movie called Days of Thunder. Yeah, he's a NASCAR. Check it out, it's a fun movie. But he's a NASCAR driver, and he gets in a wreck and has injury, but when he comes back, he he's a little bit nervous driving, right? And there's a wreck in front of him. Now he's recovering from a wreck, you know, a month or two before whatever, and there's a wreck in front of him, it's smoke, he can't see anything. And his cockpit, his pit crew gets in his ear and says, You gotta just drive through it. His name's Cole. You gotta drive through it, Cole. Like you can't see where you're going, but you just gotta get through it. And he gets, he just punches it right into the smoke, and everything around him is just going chaotic, but he comes out the other side and he's now leading the race and finishes it, right? Yeah, and so the analogy is when COVID happened, we didn't have enough money to finish. We didn't know what was gonna happen. But the advice that Jerry gave me is you gotta just keep going. You gotta drive in, you gotta go into that smoke and just keep going, which was phenomenal advice. And I'm getting to unspeakable, I promise. Because during that time, like I mentioned, I couldn't get a pitch meeting with anybody.

SPEAKER_00

Of course.

Family Tradeoffs And Balance

SPEAKER_01

But I had to ask myself, like, whose business is thriving right now? And my kids were all virtual school at that time, okay. Which virtual school at that time, like I'm talking spring of 2020 when the poor teachers like did not plan on being virtual teachers. Like I remember you were in school. Yeah, I wasn't school. You know it. And so my kids would go to virtual school for like an hour and a half and watch YouTube the rest of the day. Like that's just reality. That the world, that's that's what you were doing. Yeah, you can relate to that. So I remember thinking, hey, YouTubers' business is probably doing pretty good right now. And I've always known a little bit about how the content creation business works and that they can do very well for themselves. And you know, the the highest content creators make income and revenue similar to that of professional athletes. Yeah, and so I've known that. And I remember thinking, well, their business has to be going pretty good right now because everybody's staying at home watching their views are up, all this stuff, right? And so I was like, I'm gonna see if I can reach out to some YouTubers.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

Today’s Challenge: Survival To Sustainability

SPEAKER_01

And I had uh I had pitched Dude Perfect at one point very early on, like 2018, before I even left Fidelity. And I was way too early. Fortunately, I got to meet with their manager and I I pitched them, but I didn't have anything ready. I was not as prepared as I needed to be. So obviously they passed and that, but I I'd always had the vision of trying to work with creators because I understand the benefit of it. And so I remember thinking, okay, their business has got to be going pretty good right now. Like who lives around here that could could help out? And it wasn't unspeakable. I did not actually reach out to Nathan, Nathan's his name, unspeakable first. I reached out to Preston, okay, which Preston is another huge creator, and he is another investor in Boulder. He just hasn't made as many videos at Boulder as Nathan did. And he didn't quite put the I built the park like Nathan did. So people don't associate with Preston as much with Boulder, but Preston, to be honest with you, was the first one. And he was the first one I reached out to, and I still text him quite frequently. Both Nathan and Preston are awesome people. And so I reached out to Preston cold as ice. I mean, you want to talk about a cold call. Um I couldn't call him, I didn't have his number. I mean, the guy has millions and millions and millions of followers, he's highly successful. He's an awesome positive energy. Preston brings significant positive energy. So I was like, well, how do I reach him? And I printed out all of my pitch decks and I just mailed it to his office because you know they do have like if you have questions or whatever, send it here. And I just mailed it, cold mailed it, didn't hear anything back. Oh man, how else can I get up? How else can I meet him? And on YouTube it says for business, contact you know, this email. And it was like Preston at nightmedia.co.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

I'm like, okay, so I sent an email, didn't really hear a response. And then I started, well, what other YouTubers can I find? And that's when I found Nathan, and sure enough, it says contact at unspeakable at nightmedia.co. I'm like, what's nightmedia.co? Like they both have nightmedia.co. And come to find out, nightmedia is the largest management company of content creators. Uh Reed is the founder's name. I I really hope to have Reed on this podcast at some point. So it's a long story, and I apologize.

SPEAKER_00

No, no.

SPEAKER_01

Um but I reached out to Reed on LinkedIn. Okay. And my pitch to Reed was hey, we're building an entertainment business that's experiential entertainment, right? And your clients do media. And look at Disney as the example. This is my pitch to him. Look at Disney as the example. Disney was a media company that made movies that then built experiential entertainment based on that media. And people now go to Disney World, Disneyland, all over the world because the media and the experience came together. That was my pitch to him is like unspeakable, Preston, whoever, all make videos quite often at entertainment facilities that do really well because people want to watch kids want to watch that video and then go to where Nathan was or Preston was, right? And experience it. So my pitch to them was if y'all come in and you help make videos at Boulder, which will cost them nothing because we open the park to them, we give them private access. You can make these videos, which is good for your channel, but it's obviously going to be good for Boulder as well. And so they ended up investing. Preston invested, Nathan invested, and so and Night Media invested, and that created the partnership, is what I like to call it, but it all was possible because of Night Media, because Reed is the one that obviously got me in touch with Preston. And then once it felt like, okay, this has some good traction, then they introduced me to Nathan. And it took almost a year from the first meeting with Reed to them actually investing because they have to do their due diligence, all of that stuff. And the difference of when I pitched them versus do perfect was we were way further along. We'd raised a lot more money. We had a deal with the city of Grand Prairie. There was a lot of benefit, a lot of things already going our in a good direction that they felt comfortable with. And so that's it's a long story, but it really was a cold call email that just took a lot of time and nurturing. And you know, I think it'd be hard to pull that off now because I think what helped was it was the pandemic. Yeah, you know, there wasn't a lot of other things going on, they weren't traveling as much as they do because those guys travel all the time everywhere. And so I think the timing was fortunate. Wow. Yeah, that was great to hear. Yeah, they're awesome partners. I mean, uh I enjoy working with them, and like I said, I hope to have all of all of them on the podcast at some point.

SPEAKER_02

That would be amazing.

SPEAKER_01

That'd be a pretty good broadcast.

SPEAKER_02

Are you planning on any expansion by any chance? Oh, that's the goal. Wow, yeah. So tell me a little about that. I would love to. I'm excited for that.

Revenue, Marketing, And Cost Discipline

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think everyone is. We're not there yet. Of course, as I mentioned, we're still in the, you know, we need to improve the business and get it to sustainability before we can look at expanding. But let's assume we can we can do that. We can get to sustainability and the first location of Grand Perry, start performing where we need it to be. The goal for expansion is build them one at a time, and we're not gonna like blow up and build five of these things all at the same time yet. I mean, hopefully maybe at some point. But the next one, the goal is put it somewhere in Dallas Fort Worth, you know, far enough away from the first one that we don't cannibalize visitation. Um, and so it would likely be 40, 30 miles away, right? So we're looking kind of in the northern DFW areas where we'd like to be. But it's gonna be different. You know, we learned so much from this first location of what we did well and what should have been done differently. Like we need more event space and we need a bigger food and beverage offering, you know, those kind of things to be able to tailor to because we we don't do great business after like five, six o'clock. We need to create an environment that brings people in during the day, of course, but also in the evenings as well. So there'll be a different mix of attractions. There'll still be the core. Like we'll still have the big, huge rocks, the mountain experience, the ropes course, the big slides. Like we're still gonna be bolder. Okay. Right? But it will be a much different, not much. It'll be differently designed based on what we learned that we think will set us up for better success. So I'm excited about that.

SPEAKER_02

Would you do it as a dome again? Or no, and okay.

The Unspeakable Partnership Origin

SPEAKER_01

So No, and I I love the dome, guys. Don't don't take it that way. The good thing about the dome was when you walk into the dome, it's a wow moment for the first time for sure. I mean, that's one of my favorite things to see is when guests walk in, their eyes just go up, their mouths drop, adults and kids included, right? So that's the benefit of the dome. We're in the entertainment business, so we should, you know, have those unique, fun things. However, insurance-wise, property insurance, it's not general liability, just property insurance on the dome is so expensive. Okay. I mean, two to three times more expensive than traditional building because there's not that many carriers that cover domes. So if you think about insurance, you know, any any quote that you get for insurance or anything comes down to supply and demand, right? And if there's a thousand insurance carriers that exist that cover property insurance, I'm just making up numbers, but only 20 of them actually cover domes, you've eliminated 97% of the possible quotes you can even get because they don't even deal with that type of structure because it's just not that common, right? Then you take the very few that deal with domes, and most domes only have a football field underneath them. Then you go to those carriers and say, Well, we have these really expensive assets and all this stuff, and that eliminates a lot of other carriers. So insurance was quite expensive. Luckily, we've got an amazing insurance team now, Hub International. Shout out to Dylan, that really helped us bring some of those costs down. But the bottom line is I think in the future we probably won't do the dome. We'll do more of a traditional building, which also can help us minimize the space a little bit because we can use the walls for climbing. Uh, you know, I want to like go out, I want the the mountain experience via Ferrata to like go outside and climb on the roof and do all sorts of cool stuff.

SPEAKER_02

Which is that sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_01

My favorite part is the ideas. Oh, I can I can get very creative. But but yeah, that's the goal for expansion. I mean, we've been looking at land, but we are not in a position to necessarily move forward yet.

SPEAKER_02

But for the viewers, I mean they probably don't know what a dome is.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, yeah, it's an air-supported dome. It's a bubble. It's a bubble. We call it a bubble. It is the bubble, and it's pressurized air. So it it inflated in eight minutes when in construction when it went up. Oh, I time-lapsed it and I was like, set the time-lapse for like two hours things. It's gonna be really cool. It's like roop. Oh my gosh, that took like weeks to get ready, but it went up in eight minutes. So yeah, it's inflatable, and it you have no columns, no structures holding it up. So you have this huge clear span, which is amazing. It gives us 75 foot tall ceilings, which is how our rock structures are 60 feet tall. So it definitely meets its purpose. But I think for expansion in the future, we will probably stick to a more traditional building.

SPEAKER_02

Awesome. I mean, this question is probably gonna be for me and the workers. We always ask this.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Do you think it's ever gonna pop one day?

SPEAKER_01

No, I don't. Okay. Um if it did, obviously there's ways to repair it and things like that. The good thing is it has redundancy, so you've got two different inflation units. Then if the power goes out, you've got natural gas back up. Okay. You know, if there's a hole in the dome or a tear, it doesn't bring it down. You can open the doors and it has so much ability to hold itself up. So and the cool thing is when storms come in, we can increase the pressure of the dome, which makes it more rigid, less likely to be impacted by the storm. I mean, you can never say never, but we have the right processes in place to keep it safe. And it's a rated building. It's rated for, I mean, I don't want to put a number out there because I don't know it offhand, but it's rated just like any other building for whatever storms buildings need to be rated for, right? Yeah, I'm over my skis there, but but yeah, it's definitely uh a unique structure. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_02

It is it is definitely unique. Yeah, you don't see that every day. Exactly. Uh Paul, yeah, one last question. Hit me. What advice would you give me as a 20-year-old starting a career?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, now let's transit. Yeah, so now we're transitioning a little bit away from Boulder. Yeah, because this episode is obviously heavily focused on Boulder as the business. Now let's just talk. You do great. You did great. That's a positivity, Gustavo. But okay, so what advice would I give you at this phase of your career?

SPEAKER_02

Especially that you know about my past. I mean for sure. Back issues, this and that. What would you give?

Cold Outreach, Night Media, And Investment

SPEAKER_01

Yep. I gave you the advice earlier of how to succeed in any company is be positive, do a little bit more, right? So, what I would say in your early career, I'm not gonna put a number or an age on it, but early in your career, what I did, I mean, it worked, don't get me wrong. But I really made decisions based more on money and income and income potential, which works, don't get me wrong. Okay, but I don't know that that's the only thing you should make decisions on. I think what's most important when you're in your early, early career is two things. Number one is the network that you're building. Okay. Who are the people that you're meeting, who are the colleagues that you're building relationships with, who are you having opportunities to work with that will be able to either give you advice, mentorship, or help you grow your career in the future. It is, I mean, it's unfortunate, it's a cliche, it's it's all about who you know. And I don't believe that to be entirely true, but it definitely matters because if you have a very strong network, you'd be surprised the amount of opportunities that will come your way, or if you need advice, being able to reach out to network and get really good advice. So early in your career, you should really focus on getting to know as many different people as you can. Okay, and I'm not saying only get to know people that are high up in positions, okay, because people that are that you may be managing will someday be in a different position, whatever that may be. So, my point is grow your network as wide and as diverse as possible and don't base it on current success. It really is just get to know as many different people with different backgrounds and and things as possible. So network is key early in your career, and it'll always be, but now is when you can just build a very big network, right? And then the second piece of advice I'd give you is experiences. Nice. You should be getting different experiences. Like I had the opportunity to give you a project that's giving you totally different experience than what you would in your day-to-day. And my my advice is get as many different experiences as you possibly can. And I think that's what's helped me in my career is I went from being a CPA to then going to work in a publicly traded business as a business accountant. So first I did taxes for public CPA, then I did private business accounting, not private, it was public company, but business accounting, and then I did personal finance at Fidelity, right? The the job I liked the least was the business accountant. Like I did not like that job, and they worked me from time to time. I mean, it was just long hours, all that stuff. But I learned the experience I got from that job, I still use to this day because I learned how to analyze financials, I learned how to use Microsoft Excel. Like, I mean, I lived in Excel. So all the formulas and all the some ifs of eLookups, I mean all that stuff that is very technical. I learned early in my career that just I used going forward. And then at Fidelity, I had different jobs, got different experiences, learned how to build beautiful PowerPoint decks and slides that I then eventually use to build a pitch deck. Like it's just amazing how your experiences will later come back and help you propel your career forward. So take advantage of every experience you can and build as big a network as you can.

SPEAKER_02

I love that.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. All right, Paul.

SPEAKER_02

That's all the questions I have for you.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, good. I'm gonna spin it back to you a little bit. Uh let's talk about your goals, your aspirations. As you think about your future, what do you want that to look like career-wise?

SPEAKER_02

I mean, so when I was younger, I actually wanted to become a Marine. Okay. Uh, my whole family was with the T. Yes. Yeah. I was actually gonna head towards that. Uh, maybe 2024, which is last year. Yeah. Uh, but unfortunately, because of the whole situation. Sure. So now I want to become a fireman.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I want I still want to help people. Uh I feel that's just my thing. I love helping, now saving, I guess, people. Yes, you know.

SPEAKER_01

So you're so good at the because I know you're doing EMS training.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, sir. EMT, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, EMT. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02

No, so same thing, EMS, yes, services.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. Perfect. Okay. So this is a good now that I know that you know, ways that I can help you a little bit is the chief of the fire department for Grand Prairie will be at Boulder tonight.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Oh, I'll introduce you. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I'll introduce you, and you know, something may go, something may not, but I'm sure he has someone you could talk to that's like, hey, this is an aspiring fireman. Like, what advice would he give you in that moment? But then he may be like, Hey, go talk to this person who can kind of help you. You with whatever's needed to kind of get there, right? So that's kind of just comes back to like you know, networks are are very powerful. He's a great guy, chief of of fire here in Grand Prairie, Chief Fight. So I'll introduce you tonight. Okay. I've only met him once or twice myself, so it's not like I have a great connection with him, but I'm sure he'd be delighted to point you in a direction to help you out, right? Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_02

I appreciate that a lot, obviously. That means a lot. Yeah, of course. Great.

SPEAKER_01

That's what it I've learned is just meeting people, talking to them, asking for advice, be vulnerable. You know, like, hey, I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm I'm motivated. And again, that positive energy is going to take you wherever you want to go. So I have no doubt you'll you'll you'll get there.

SPEAKER_02

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01

Good. So I think we've covered a lot today.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we we did great.

SPEAKER_01

We did. I want to have you back for sure. Beautiful. Because I think you're you're so awesome to talk to, and obviously I'll keep talking with other people. Oh, you're amazing. Oh, this is great. Group hugs. All right, well, let's wrap it for our viewers. Thank you for watching. Boulder Business. Uh keep coming back. We talk about our business here at Boulder. We talk about other businesses with other entrepreneurs, and then sometimes we just talk about life. That's it. All right, Gustavo, thanks for joining us. That's it. We're out.

SPEAKER_02

Peace.