Keep Your Head on a Swivel: Interview with Entrepreneur and Party Shack Founder, Bobby Bowers
This week’s interview is with Bobby Bowers, the founder and CEO of Party Shack, a manufacturer of portable hospitality solutions for sporting and entertainment venues.
Bobby is the kind of person that’s always had the entrepreneurial bug. Prior to starting Party Shack, while in college he started a wakeboarding summer camp for kids, created a new fitness and golf protocol for the PGA tour, and developed innovative gear for surf travel. He got the idea for Party Shack when he realized that the storage containers being used at his dad’s moving and storage business could be repurposed for premium tailgate experiences. Nearly 8 years later, he’s still at it, having brought the Party Shack concept to venues ranging from NFL stadiums, motorsporting tracks, concerts and festivals.
Bobby is a keen observer of the world around him and someone, as he told me, who always has his head on a swivel looking for voids that can be filled with improved products and services. I wanted to know: What mentality has kept him open to new ideas and made him so unafraid to put himself out there? How has he learned to manage his relationship with uncertainty over the course of building several different businesses? What helps him stay true to carving out a unique path and building his businesses in a way that works for him?
The interview is broken down into two parts:
Part I covers Bobby’s story and the entrepreneurial experiences he had prior to developing the Party Shack concept
Part 2 dives into what he’s learned over the years. We talked about:
Making your first sales as a new business and overcoming the fear of rejection
Setting the expectation that there will always be uncertainty
Ignoring the advice: “You have to act now!”
The benefits of simplifying and how complexity hurts efficiency
Why he needs silence and alone time to recharge
Note: The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length. While every effort has been made to preserve the integrity of the conversation, please be aware that the quotes may not be verbatim but reflect the essence of the dialogue.
Part I
How would you describe your occupation?
I am a designer and a builder. I would describe what I do as observing an industry, recognizing a void within that industry where I feel I can manufacture a product and provide a service, and successfully be able to fill that void. Generally, I keep my head on a swivel, and I consider myself to be very observant.
The void that I’ve invested the most time into is within the sport and entertainment world. I noticed that there were ways the spectator side could be improved. In this modern era where we’re attending events in 2 billion dollar stadiums and a arenas, I thought there was an opportunity to offer a better pregame experience on a more premium scale. My idea was to do it in a way where the organization was actually making a profit, versus doing something at breakeven or even at a financial loss while trying to bring more VIP fans into the stadiums. That was the impetus for the Party Shack concept.
Party Shack is not your first business. What entrepreneurial experiences ultimately led to the founding of the business?
Business #1: Wakeboarding camps
I figured out early after my first job that I would be better off being my own boss. I operate best in making my own decisions so I was always thinking about how to create a path for myself where I could do that. I played college golf in Orlando, which is the wakeboarding capital of the world. Pretty much every weekend I would go wakeboarding and got good enough where I maintained a position on the pro circuit. I realized I could teach wakeboarding and make money doing something I loved so I convinced my sponsor, Mastercraft, to lend me a boat for the summer to teach wakeboarding camps for kids. I came up with a brochure for a wakeboard camp, gave it to the boat dealership in Jacksonville, Florida that was sponsoring me, and they passed it out to their customers. I also went to a few local high schools and had them put me in their summer camp options. The next thing I knew, I’d fully booked out a summer camp at 5 different locations with a brand new boat for an entire summer. The next summer Mastercraft gave me two boats because they’d seen how many parents bought boats after their kids attended my camps the prior summer. I ended up on the Jacksonville news, and the college of business at the University of North Florida provided me with two of their interns. I never did it to make money. I just wanted access to a free boat for wakeboarding. That said, I turned it into a profitable business. By year three, I felt like I was growing out of wakeboarding, and I sold the concept to a local business.
At that point, I was twenty-one years old and I needed a sustainable income, so I started consulting with the PGA tour developing a physical focused regimen for golf traditional lessons. I recognized that when anyone would go and get a golf lesson at any PGA tour affiliated country club, they had a specific program they’d teach you that was developed primarily based on Tiger Woods. Obviously, Tiger is the best golfer in the world, but that’s not super relatable for most people. Let’s say you’re 60 years old and you can’t rotate two feet to the left, then you’re not going to be able to replicate Tiger’s swing. To help your average person become a better golfer, it’s more about doing work in the gym rather than on the driving range. You have to work with where the client is at physically and develop muscle memory techniques that will help them become a better golfer. I developed a regimen that would take someone through different movements and then help them develop a swing that fitted their body type. My thinking was that giving someone a better first experience with golf would help the tour improve their turnover and rebooking numbers. The PGA Tour was an incredible experience that even ventured me to China to teach the China Golf Association (CGA) affiliated programs how to implement the new PGA Tour regimen we’d developed into their regimens.
Broken surf board lead to Nautilus Travel Gear
Once I returned back to the states from China after 35 days, I was on the west coast at a PGA Tour event where my job was to stretch my clients, who were the professional golfers, primarily in the morning and sometimes in the evening. Typically, I had the middle of the day to do whatever I wanted so I’d brought my surfboards with me. Upon my return home to the airport in Florida following the Tour event, I discovered my surfboards were broken. Talk about frustrating! This made me start to think that there must be a better way to protect your surfboards while traveling. I quickly drew out my idea on the closest available writing surface, which was a napkin out of my backpack. The next day I approached my good friend who had a lot of experience in product development, and he confirmed that a hard case for surfboards would be a profitable investment to create for the industry. A few weeks later the world’s first hard case for surf travel was designed and manufactured. You could run the case over with a car and the surfboards would remain protected. We shipped cases to customers all over the world, including Australia and Europe. It was crazy to think that just a few months prior to distributing cases I was the health and wellness specialist representing a major organization. After a couple successful years growing the business, I had the opportunity to sell the company to my first ever customer out of NSW.
Moving and storage business gives Bobby the idea for Party Shack
At that point, I had to figure out what was next for myself. My dad was in the beginning stages of starting a moving and storage business, so I would frequently visit his office to offer my help to get the business operational. After several months of learning the business I noticed that my dad’s storage containers were perfect sized structures to put into parking lots at NFL stadiums as air conditioned tailgating suites with TVs and refrigerators. It wasn’t going to be long before patrons could show up to the stadium and tailgate in a living room setting, taking their pregame experience to the next level.
A few months after I built my first prototype in China, the Jacksonville Jaguars called me and asked me if I wanted to renew my season tickets for the upcoming NFL season. The tailgate pod concept was still just an idea at that point, but I knew that I needed to create a business plan. That phone call with the Jaguars sales associate gave me an idea to get my business plan started. The Jaguars were going to be my first client. So I asked the sales associate over the phone if I could meet with him face to face prior to committing to another season of tickets. He replied with slight uncertainty, but got the clearance to visit with me the following week. Those sales guys will do anything to get a sale. I showed up next week with my prototype sitting outside of their office fully set up. The sales associate met me outside the office, examined the product and immediately went back inside to get the proper set of decision makers for something like what I was showing him. A moment of silence followed by a question from one of the executives of the team, “Have you shown this to any other teams in the NFL?” I quickly replied with, “No sir, I have not.” The executive followed up on my answer by offering me my season ticket package at no cost in exchange to work with them to develop the economics for a luxury tailgating village outside of their stadium. After a successful launch of the concept during the first season, the Jaguars signed a multi-year deal for naming rights to the tailgate village with one of their premium partners. The new village consisted of 8 tailgating suites that generated several millions in incremental revenue for their organization in F&B, premium ticketing, and sponsorships.
We’ve now worked with many different NFL sites to create these pregame experiences with naming rights deals that can last from anywhere from 1 to 10 years. It’s a highly profitable model that offers each of these organizations a bolt on product that is complementary to what their program already offers. We’ve expanded into all kinds of events ranging from The World's Largest Garlic Festival in Palm Beach, Florida to the most recent F1 race in Las Vegas.
Part II
What a story. You seem to have no fear of sales, which is arguably one of the most daunting aspects of starting a business and getting it off the ground. What mindset or habits help you power through that stage of building a business and not getting deterred by things like the fear of rejection?
First and foremost, you’ve got to firmly believe in what you’re selling. Become passionate about what you are promoting so that others have more of an incentive to buy into it.
Second is confidence. What I have learned is that less is more. Confidence is promoting directly what it is that you know you can do and nothing more. No need to always add icing on the cake or try to fluff it up. Just be direct.
Third is having no fear of rejection. You have to realize that rejection happens every day. Try not to let the rate of rejection dictate the progress of your business. Controlling your emotions or removing your emotions from making business decisions is key to staying on course.
Being an entrepreneur often means constantly living with uncertainty and encountering new problems you haven’t solved before. What helps you manage the discomfort of uncertainty? How has your relationship to uncertainty evolved the longer you’ve been in business?
To answer the second part of the question. The answer is always yes. It’s always evolving, and you’re able to learn as you go. I think that something to recognize is that you can always end up in a position you've never been in before and that could be a meeting with an NFL team or a simple phone call with an engineer that you're meeting for the first time. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in business, there's always going to be something new that will pop up. Having the expectation of uncertainty has been really good for me. If you’re expecting it, whatever it is won’t be so surprising and will be a bit easier to take in. Don't let the uncertainty take you to a point where you're all of a sudden not confident anymore about what you’ve developed.
What’s the worst business advice you’ve ever received?
The worst advice I’ve ever received is “The time is now. If you don't do it now, it's not going to happen or you will be left behind.” I have learned that not being patient can lead to a failed business. Don’t rush. Do it right from the beginning, regardless of the time that it takes. By taking the right steps and taking the right amount of time to do those steps, my company is now the leader of any related product or service in the industry. Pace yourself and let things develop naturally.
What advice have you found to be useful that seems contrary to popular wisdom (or isn’t talked about enough)?
Less is more. Peel back those layers and just have your focus be on 2 or 3 things instead of 10 to 12 things. That's where we've really excelled as a group and become the most efficient. In summary, keep things simple.
Running a business can be all consuming. What habits or practices help you stay energized and excited for the long run?
I’m definitely a go-go-go person. I’m always moving and thinking. The industry I am in is always on the go and doesn’t ever rest. But I sometimes need to be alone in a form of silence, which helps me to maintain my status in my industry. I travel to Central America a couple times each year to separate myself from the hustle of the world of sports and entertainment. These adventures help me recharge my batteries and keep me grounded for the next several months.
In addition to the occasional travels, I try not to sit and work in one place for too long. If I get up, walk around, spend time outdoors and work in increments, then I am much more efficient on a daily basis.
Many people I interview for the No Directions blog have created lives that are uniquely theirs in terms of how they live, work, and build their lives. What does the life that is uniquely yours look like today?
For me, it’s really about maximizing my experiences and my opportunities, growing my relationships with friends and family, and generally being more open to opportunities than I might have been in the past. I just relocated from Florida to California, which is one of the greatest decisions I've ever made. It’s been a great place for me to develop new friendships, grow as a person, and build community. Outside of that, I just want to keep smiling and make sure I'm not ever sitting still.