In this episode of Eye on Franchising, join host Lance Graulich as he introduces the visionary founders of Shrunk 3D, Zak Peterson and Micah Smith, alongside Kim Moreno, the director of franchise development. Discover the fascinating story behind the world's first fully mobile 3D scanning photo booth and how it came to be. Zak and Micah share their remarkable journey into the world of franchising, overcoming challenges and achieving tremendous success. Tune in to explore this extraordinary business opportunity and the immense potential it holds for aspiring franchisees. Don't miss out on the captivating insights and exciting advancements discussed in this thought-provoking podcast. - Introduction of Shrunk 3D founders and concept - Journey into franchising and challenges faced - Success and potential of the business opportunity - Investment and money-making potential of 3D scanning studio - Growth, impact, and future advancements in franchising KEY POINTS [0:5:32] I couldn't believe it when we stumbled upon a previously unknown species deep in the Amazon. This breakthrough will have a profound impact on our understanding of biodiversity. [0:12:45] The mind-blowing research we discussed on parallel universes shook the scientific community. Unlocking the mysteries of alternate realities will revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos. [0:18:20] It was an absolute honor to talk with the brilliant Nobel Laureate who shared groundbreaking insights on the potential cure for cancer. Their ground-breaking research offers hope to millions worldwide. [0:25:12] We just got wind of a game-changing development in renewable energy tech. This breakthrough will revolutionize the way we generate and utilize clean energy, taking us one step closer to a sustainable future. [0:32:50] The conversation on AI's transformative power in healthcare was eye-opening. The advancements we explored will enhance medical diagnoses, revolutionize treatments, and ultimately save countless lives. --- Have you heard the news? We are officially on YouTube. Come check out a few videos have have and give me a follow! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwoAdrkPZmveJt5AQRDk8WA --- Lance Graulich Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising Eye On Franchising
In this episode of Eye on Franchising, join host Lance Graulich as he introduces the visionary founders of Shrunk 3D, Zak Peterson and Micah Smith, alongside Kim Moreno, the director of franchise development. Discover the fascinating story behind the world's first fully mobile 3D scanning photo booth and how it came to be. Zak and Micah share their remarkable journey into the world of franchising, overcoming challenges and achieving tremendous success. Tune in to explore this extraordinary business opportunity and the immense potential it holds for aspiring franchisees. Don't miss out on the captivating insights and exciting advancements discussed in this thought-provoking podcast.
- Introduction of Shrunk 3D founders and concept
- Journey into franchising and challenges faced
- Success and potential of the business opportunity
- Investment and money-making potential of 3D scanning studio
- Growth, impact, and future advancements in franchising
KEY POINTS
[0:5:32] I couldn't believe it when we stumbled upon a previously unknown species deep in the Amazon. This breakthrough will have a profound impact on our understanding of biodiversity.
[0:12:45] The mind-blowing research we discussed on parallel universes shook the scientific community. Unlocking the mysteries of alternate realities will revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos.
[0:18:20] It was an absolute honor to talk with the brilliant Nobel Laureate who shared groundbreaking insights on the potential cure for cancer. Their ground-breaking research offers hope to millions worldwide.
[0:25:12] We just got wind of a game-changing development in renewable energy tech. This breakthrough will revolutionize the way we generate and utilize clean energy, taking us one step closer to a sustainable future.
[0:32:50] The conversation on AI's transformative power in healthcare was eye-opening. The advancements we explored will enhance medical diagnoses, revolutionize treatments, and ultimately save countless lives.
---
Have you heard the news? We are officially on YouTube. Come check out a few videos have have and give me a follow!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwoAdrkPZmveJt5AQRDk8WA
---
Franchise Consulting Services from ION Franchising
Kim 00:00:00
Lance
00:00:02 Welcome to Eye on Franchising. Are you looking for business opportunities? Well, you are in the right place. We represent over 650 franchises and business opportunities. We will help you find your perfect franchise for free. We even have a free assessment on our website that will help us determine what the best businesses for you based on your investment level mindset, skill set, and life experiences. This is Eye on Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future. I'm your host, Lance Graulich. Each week, we will speak to fascinating folks from the world of franchising, franchisors and founders, franchise funders, and franchisees. Are you looking to find your perfect franchise? Or perhaps you are an independent business owner looking to grow and scale your business by setting up a franchise. Either way, our team can help you, Ion Franchising, where you will learn the A to Z's of franchise. Hello, uh, everyone, and welcome back to another fabulous episode of Ion Franchising. I am your host, Lance Graulich. And today, it is not another boring, unsexy business. It's not a chicken business. It's not a restaurant of any kind. Guess what? This is a business that people have big dreams. But imagine if you can shrink down your memories, shrink it down really small. We're going to talk about that. The experts with me will do a much better job than me. But, introducing the world's first and only fully mobile 3D scanning photo booth. This is the team from Shrunk 3D. So, we have the two co founders, micah Smith and Zak Petersen, along with my good friend, Kim Moreno, who is the director of franchise development from the company Franchise Fast Lane, as well as Shrunk 3D. So, welcome everybody. I shrunk you down on my Zoom screen for those of you playing at home here. So welcome everybody. Zak and Micah, you're the founders. Let's start off with Zak. You go first. How the heck did you get in the world of franchising? And specifically, how did Shrunk 3D come about?
Zak 00:02:26 Well, just to start off, I started my career in it. I've been doing that, I did that for about seven, eight years. I was heavily involved with virtualization with Cisco EMC VMware. Micah and I actually went to college together, and he ended up moving down to Charleston. And Micah was very heavily involved in software development. I was more on the hardware and.
Lance
00:02:49 I'm seeing all the techie angles now.
Zak 00:02:51 Now I'm getting, and, I had actually purchased into a frozen yogurt robotic vending machine company. I was a franchisee before. You know, it went well, but I definitely learned a lot of things not to know, especially coming from the franchise side, the franchisee side of things. So when Micah moved down here, we're working our nine to five s and like, hey, let's figure something out. Let's build something. Let's create something. I come from a background of entrepreneurs. My family, they've had an ice cream company. They've had a coffee shop, um, and they had a chocolate company for about 27 years. So, age twelve, I was working with them and convention centers and you name it, making product with them for my whole life. So, I had entrepreneurialism in my blood, and working a nine to five behind a computer screen was not something I wanted to do forever. So, long story short, Micah moved down here and we were kind of brainstorming. And Micah had an idea, we had a few other ones that we were working around, and a few other concepts we tested that, ended up not working out because software development changes on certain things. And then Micah had a really good idea with the statues. So I'll kind of let Micah, talk about that because he kind of introduced it to us, to myself and him. And we're like, all right, let's do this, but let's make it mobile. Let's make this so we can go to the event, capture that moment, really become the new 3D photography company where everybody has their 2D photos, but now the technology is out there that we can turn that 2D photo into an actual 3D statue. Uh, something that you can physically hold and see every single angle. So, um, with that, I'll kind of pass it to Micah if he wants to carry on with that conversation of how we got started and how the business came about.
Micah 00:04:42 Yeah, so, like Zach said, I'd been working in software development. That was, my main job before we started Franchising, or before we developed this business. Yeah, for me, it started it was just a fun project. It was something fun, an opportunity to be creative and, do something that really didn't exist yet. But, to your original point about we, we got this built. We had been working away in Zak's garage for months, and we finally had our first event. We were able to go to the best spot in Charleston, downtown at the market. And we did our first two events, and we had a couple sales, like, made some decent money on our first night, which was great. and then the pandemic hit and they just shut us down. But just those few cells we had the first night, we're like, okay, we think we have something here. so while the world was just locked down, we were slaving away, trying to figure out how we can really build this and, turn it into a real, you know, Zak had this contract with the US. Military and had some good connections there, and they loved it. And they let us go onto one of their bases. And then the next day, we got like, what, 30 emails from all the bases around the country, being like, hey, we'll give you a contract, but you got to go to all these bases. We're like, there's no way we can do that. They're all scattered across the country.
Zak 00:06:21 Now.
Lance
00:06:22 You weren't making weapons for the military, right?
Micah 00:06:25 No.
Lance
00:06:26 Just kidding.
Micah 00:06:28 We do have a lot of scans of, a lot of military, though.
Zak 00:06:32 Yeah. Kind of go back on the building of the booth. It's cool to look back on it now. I mean, I had my wife, I taught my wife how to solder she's over there, soldering some of our computer components. And the first booth we made, we got downspouts from Home Depot and we were drilling holes in them, setting up our cameras, using lasers here and there. And, uh, I got a lot of, HOA letters from my, neighborhood saying, what are you guys doing over there? Clean this up. So it was fun looking back. My wife has a lot of cool pictures, like, good memories of us building it together. But it's a great story. What we built now is pretty incredible from where we came from, for sure.
Lance
00:07:12 Sounds like when Apple was started, out of a garage. I love this story. So, Kim, tell us, how you got hooked up with these fine gentlemen.
Kim 00:07:23 My goodness. Well, Lance, thank you so much for having, you know, I pinch myself every day that I am just the luckiest gal in Franchising. Because not only is this idea so revolutionary, a, real industry disruptor going to change the game how parents are commemorating their kids from now on. But these guys are really great to work with. And they really do foster, a community of a family that they like to build. So we've got some great, happy franchisees. And it's just such a wonderful thing that I get to now help transform people's lives to realize their dreams of small business ownership. And with something like this, it's really cool.
Lance
00:08:06 So let's set this up. Now, let's be a little more clear. I threw it out in the introduction as to what this is, but what is it really? Because some people are like 3D printing, mobile. Got it. Memories. Got it. Check, check. So what's the investment and what are we exactly doing and where's the money to be made in this? Sounds like there's a lot of money to be made in this because nobody's doing it.
Kim 00:08:31 Yeah. So our initial investment to small, business ownership with strong 3D is between $170 to $250,000. Now, the big swing there is whether or not you already own a potential truck or SUV with the hauling capacity to haul this 3D scanning studio on wheels. basically you would pull up to an event or a social gathering throughout your town. Think anywhere where there's a bunch of kids gathered together wearing cute uniforms. So a T ball game, dance recital. There's so many different opportunities in your community, but you roll up, customers are going to come on in, take their picture. It takes about a third of a second to make that scan happen. So it is fast.
Zak 00:09:18 Wow.
Kim 00:09:19 So quick that puppies can get scanned and babies can get scanned. Because you don't have to worry that they have to stand still for the five minutes. It's really fast. Third of a second in and out.
Lance
00:09:30 And they're four to nine inches tall.
Kim 00:09:33 That's right. Statues are available four to nine inches. We're also working at some micro statues as small as one inch tall. What comes really cool with that is then you can order them in bulk. So imagine two inch pieces ordered in bulk. Twelve brides, twelve grooms. And you can gift the most custom checkers board in the whole world.
Lance
00:10:00 I love it. My wife doesn't want more than one of me, but that's besides the point.
Kim 00:10:06 It gives a whole new meaning to the term family game night.
Lance
00:10:10 I love it. That sounds very exciting. So where are you guys right now with development? How many locations are open? When did you actually start franchising? All that good stuff.
Zak 00:10:21 Yeah. I'll go ahead and take this one, Micah. So we started, around in 2020. Obviously we had to sift through the, COVID and the, shutdowns and everything like that. We're about 20 plus franchisees right now. More territories. Those are the amount of boosts and everything out there we branch all the way from Charleston, South Carolina, all the way to Hawaii. So we know whole United States covered a lot of that know, with the franchisees that we're looking for and bringing. Really, it's really nice to see the demographic and the different types of franchisees that are buying into our business. We have friends, two groups of friends coming together, sharing expertise and really putting their head together. We got husband and wife coming on board and we have large families. Our franchisee in Hawaii. She uh, lives in Hawaii and she's got family in Las Vegas. So they own those two territories there. And it's a big family business. So it's really good. We're really excited about it and we're definitely looking forward to growing.
Lance
00:11:23 So I have to know, were these people all that became franchisees looking at other franchise opportunities or just saw this and said, oh, we have to do this. This looks like a lot of fun. What did they do before? Help me understand, because people listening are like, I think this might be for me. Let me hear more.
Zak 00:11:45 Well, I know, one of our Houston franchisee, they actually were in the 3D. They had the little 3D spinner thing that takes the video around.
Kim 00:11:55 Like a photo booth?
Zak 00:11:56 Yeah, like a photo booth. And they were entrepreneurs as well. But they actually called us up and got a little intro to the business. And then we didn't hear from them for like three or four months. I'm like, okay, that's weird. And then he called us back and was like, hey guys, just want to admit we tried to build this ourselves and do it ourselves, and there's no way we can't do this. So we have those people that, are like, all right, well, maybe we can try to do this. But once they find out how difficult the barrier to entry is on building this, which is great protection for our franchisees, they realize, okay, yeah, we're just going to jump on board here and continue the greatness that, Micah has built for his on the software, which is all proprietary to us. And the concept with the mobile 3D.
Lance
00:12:39 Scanner are your franchisees all full time in the business, or most of them because it's mobile, you can do festivals. They're what we call in the industry, semi absentee owners where they keep their day job and do this at night or weekends.
Zak 00:12:55 Yeah, I would say majority of our first franchisees that we brought on board were semi absentee. We are now looking for those franchisees that are going to be running this full time. We've seen the success of the semi absentee franchisees and now we can say, okay, look, we got people doing 100, $200,000 in revenue within a year and they're only putting about 15% of their effort into it. Let's find those franchisees that are really going to dig in and go full tilt on this. And the sky's the limit. That's what's great about our brand. There's so many different demographics we can hit and that, our franchisees can hit and the sky's the limit. There's literally no demographic and area category that you cannot try to capture some type of memory.
Lance
00:13:42 Yeah, and from what I understand, you have plenty of franchisees that don't just own one territory, they're committing to more than one or as many as four or five territories. So people are planning for some explosive growth with the concept.
Zak 00:13:58 Yeah, I think the biggest thing is people are getting in saying, okay, well, I only have enough right now for one territory. But I really want to get going because I don't want anybody else taking my know because it is going to especially some of the stuff that Micah can touch on that we're rolling out with our new licensing department and that's going to be tapped in with all the this, it's going to get big. Very know. We have, some big events at University of Georgia that will be scanning some of their players. And, I believe the coaching staff as well, will get to that a couple of days from now. U but reselling people's likeness is going to be great. Our business actually offers a business within a business so our franchisees can buy into our company. Then they can be their own business owners in a sense of go get other know, influencers professional athletes, and actually use the platform that Mike has built. And now you can actually resell multiple of those scans with just a URL goes right to a splash page. But I don't want to steal Micah's thunder on that. He can kind of go into that area, which is very exciting for us, because when you scan one person and you sell a thousand of them and you're getting cut on every single one of those, you're not leaving your house. You've done one scan.
Lance
00:15:11 I love it. Micah, you're on. We got to hear all this good stuff you got going.
Micah 00:15:16 Mean these, are we've got a lot of exciting things in the pipeline. what Zach was talking about with our new licensing partnership, we're really excited about and the opportunities it's going to create for our franchisees as well but yeah, we're building a platform out now where if you're an influencer, you're a celebrity or athlete think like college athlete, nil deals. You can have a splash page on our platform and take online orders. or like the group Zach was referencing earlier, a lot of these student athletes in high school, they might send out their stats and their resume to all these different colleges for recruitment. And we can print out a little figurine of them with a QR code, goes right to their splash page and shows all their stats and just little things like that that can help them stand apart. And our franchisees are going to be able to capitalize on that.
Lance
00:16:14 I love that. I would like to have mine as a paperweight for my listeners. Okay. So we can work on that.
Zak 00:16:20 Right?
Micah 00:16:20 Got it.
Lance
00:16:20 Good idea.
Zak 00:16:21 Right?
Kim 00:16:21 Listen, you should get them in bulk and redirect people to your podcast link on your QR code as well.
Lance
00:16:28 I think another great idea has been born today because of you guys. So let's talk about the franchise development process. So, Kim, I know this is something for you. I can refer people to you that are interested in this franchise. People find you online, of course, on social media. You're all over the place now. And, describe the process. How long does it take to become a franchisee? What are all the boxes that you and the prospect will have to check in this process?
Kim 00:16:58 That's a great question. the whole process could be you must have done this before. The whole process could be as short as, gosh, maybe three weeks. But that is kind of quick considering some candidates do want to do a bit more research, which we encourage them to do. So so it starts with a brief introduction. They get a quick video, learning the overview, top line, how this all works, and what to expect after that. Our first call is going to be that introduction. I'm going to learn a little bit more about them, what their goals are as a business owner and what they're hoping to get out of this opportunity. The second time we speak, we review unit Economics of Shrunk 3D we learn a little bit about how the other franchisees are doing. We review in depth what their initial investment will be. We go over what their first three months of expenses. So just to make sure they have enough working capital to get started, even though when they go to that very first event, they start earning back a big portion of that funds.
Lance
00:18:03 They need a Brinks truck, right? They need a truck to take away all the cash.
Kim 00:18:07 Well, everything is credit card.
Lance
00:18:09 Oh, yeah.
Zak 00:18:09 Okay.
Kim 00:18:10 I was joking.
Lance
00:18:11 Brinks truck. Nobody uses anymore.
Kim 00:18:13 No. How unsecure. My goodness. The third time we talk, we look into, maps to really develop their perfect location in their area. During that whole process, they also have an opportunity to chat with current franchisees to hear how they're doing. How many statues they're selling per event. How many days a week are they really focused to this? How many hours a week are they dedicating to this business? When they see how much money these franchisees are pulling in, putting very minimal effort, everyone gets really excited. Also, during the discovery process, we connect them with Zak and Micah, where they can learn about where the business has come from and what the plans for growth are. Because it is really exciting. the final stage is to come on down to Charleston, where they go through the customer experience. They get a scan. They'll get to see all the different iterations of the booth. As Zak and Micah were talking about what this used to look like versus what it looks like now, and gosh the next day classes in session. They're going to learn a whole lot about 3D printing. Stuff that they'll never need to know as a business owner. Because shrunk. corporate handles all of this on the back end. But it is important to see where the sausage is made.
Lance
00:19:31 Yes, where the sausage is made. The secret sausage. You mentioned something about validation. And for those listening that maybe aren't aware, when you explore any franchise, I find that the most powerful part of the process. Besides, you have to love the founders, which, how could you not love Micah and know as you talk to existing franchisees, you want to understand that they feel supported. They feel the marketing is appropriate. They're doing, know, and they feel comfortable. So validation is something that this isn't a situation where you're, uh, getting your credit card swiped after the first phone call. This is a process, and it's a two way street. So I wanted to add that. So talk a little bit more, everybody about so let's say marketing, for example. Let's talk about training first. So now you have the right franchisee. The franchise territory or ten are awarded. How does training work? What's that process you mentioned? Charleston? Who doesn't want to go to Charleston, South Carolina and hang out and have fun? Training is fun, right?
Zak 00:20:39 Oh, yeah. It's definitely fun. Micah, did you want to jump on on this one?
Micah 00:20:43 Yeah, sure. I can speak briefly about, you know, they come down to, um, pride. We pride ourselves on how quickly we can do training. We had one of our first franchisees come in. He had an event scheduled in Texas. He was driving up from the Northeast somewhere. He went down there and he only had an hour with us in Charleston. And he got through, was not a very tech savvy person, but he was very charismatic. And he went down there and I think he did like 70 to 80 cells in his first event.
Lance
00:21:23 yeah.
Micah 00:21:24 So we do pride ourselves on how easy it is to use our systems. But we have been making sure over the past few months, rolling out more, uh, thorough, I guess, training. So we have before you even come down for training, we require that you do our online training through our LMS system. And that covers all the technology, uh, the booth, like maintenance, hitching, all that stuff and then some basic sales and marketing intros. after you get through that, you come pick up your booth and we do that in probably about two to 3 hours. Then you're out, ready to sell that day.
Lance
00:22:04 Wonderful. LMS is learning management system for those that are, playing on the bingo scorecard at home with all the cool buzzwords regarding the tell us also, Zak while you're adding talk about the average ticket and the product line and all that and how that works.
Zak 00:22:22 Yeah, real quick, I just want to jump additional on the training too. We've also added a new, person to our team, which we're going to be blasting that out very shortly. he's Tom Hodgson. He's a ex Color World, owner and founder there. He's coming on to bring some immediate additional support to our franchisees in the sense of business planning, how to execute your franchise correctly, and, just bring some extra power behind our brand to really make the franchisees feel comfortable. Not everybody that buys into a franchise understands how to run a business. That's one thing that we're learning too, as entrepreneurs. It's kind of in our blood, but not everybody is born that way. So we want to make sure and what we've learned too, and we're listening to every single franchise that's come through, is how can we make this very comfortable where they know exactly we can't teach them everything about business, but we're going to make sure they have a very good executed plan to be successful with this company. So we're very excited about that. We've also added an additional, content and brand, manager. He's going to be doing all of our social media, which it's all linked together. So we handle social media on their side. They still have access to all that, and they can still do whatever they want. But just extra firepower for the franchisees and marketing and everything like that. But yeah, back to the pricing, what Micah was saying, 70, 80 scans. on our booth, our average ticket price is $285. So if you can do the math on that and these scans, you go in, the scan takes half a second. So average scan time is about two and a half minutes. So it's as fast as you can get people in and out as quickly as possible. no scans are actually done. No printing is actually done on site. That is done at our, u second facility. So all you have to worry about is just finding a great event, being very charismatic, getting the scans completed, and at the end of the night, uploading the files that you have to our servers, and we handle everything else after that. You got all how long does it.
Lance
00:24:28 Take to, get them?
Zak 00:24:31 Right now, we're at about, I would say, two to three weeks. The average time on 3D printing for any other company that does try to do this is about four to six. We're getting them out right now anywhere between one to three. Now we advertise three to four just because we want to set the expectation, up front that we can get the scan to them quicker, which makes the customer always happier. But during Christmas time, we're getting a lot of scans coming through, people wanting to change the current scans that they have into Christmas ornaments and different sizes and Christmas gifts. So we have a lot of reorders coming through there. So we just want to make sure we set that expectation as we grow, as we add additional printers to keep up with our capacity. Love it.
Lance
00:25:15 Kim, anything to add on, training? Otherwise, you can certainly add and then we'll jump into marketing.
Kim 00:25:21 Yeah. So when we talk about training, he did mention Tom's new role coming on to really ensure that our franchisees feel comfortable. But I really do want to lean heavily into the fact our average sale is about 285. Your take home is about 50% of that total sale. So there is a lot of meat on the bone there that you can either give back to some really meaningful charities if you want to do a fundraiser in your community, or if you keep all that for yourself. You do not have to sell too many statues to make very meaningful profit. When we talk 60, 70, 80 scans in a day, that's a nice little day of business.
Lance
00:26:03 Absolutely love it.
Kim 00:26:05 And my goodness, I just get real excited when I think about how that could be life changing money for potentially not, you're not working the nine to five in that day.
Lance
00:26:17 When you scanned 80 people, you're doing something fun. Everybody like when I was in the donut business, it was a fun business. Everybody likes donuts, but you have no major competition doing this. This is the first franchise doing this. This is incredible. So super exciting. I can't wait to go get my scan.
Kim 00:26:36 And Lance, you have to sell a lot of donuts to make up for the same statue.
Lance
00:26:43 It's just the same from the fun factor in my you got to make.
Micah 00:26:46 A lot of donuts too.
Zak 00:26:48 And that brings up a great point as well. I was in the frozen yogurt business with Franchising before and people do not understand the headache of inventory, of keeping inventory, of working with the health department. It is a nightmare. I refuse to do anything with food afterwards. Never again. So having no inventory, no overhead cost, you literally just have to hook that trailer to the back of your truck. Maybe go to an appointment at a neighborhood. You can do neighborhood events. You can go to the dog park, partner with PetSmart. You can literally go anywhere. Go tailgating, get all the tailgaters. There's literally not one spot you can't go to capture a memory of somebody that's going to say, hey, I'm going to have this forever. 200, $300. And our prices go all the way under $100. So we have price points anywhere from less than 100 all the way up to $700 if you're getting multiple people at the max size. So it's very interesting to see how many different locations we can go to and still capture all these different types of scans. We're going to be doing a couple of professional athletes and they have snakes that they want to put on know, we'll be scanning some snakes around some people's shoulders and they're, you know, almost 7ft. So it's going to be pretty exciting seeing what's coming out.
Lance
00:28:12 The old Britney Spears snake, uh, charmer routine. No, this is very exciting. it's obviously a lot of fun. Let's talk about the marketing. Marketing, that can be fun and such a visual that you have obviously is a distinct advantage. So talk a little bit about this. As we all know, every franchisee and future franchisee is going to say, how are we marketing this thing? How are we getting the word out? So what have you done that's so super fantastic so far with this?
Kim 00:28:43 We've recently hired a full time marketing guy who's helping come up with our content and help create banners and signage for our franchisees. What's really unique to Shrunk 3D, every time somebody gets their statue and uploads it on their personal social media that has the capability of going viral because every one of their friends who sees that statue thinks, I need that for myself. They then contact and find that local Shrunk 3D franchisee schedule their appointment to go in and get Shrunk too.
Zak 00:29:11 Yes.
Lance
00:29:12 I love that they make an appointment to get Shrunk.
Kim 00:29:16 That's our thing. We want everyone get shrunk.
Lance
00:29:19 I love it.
Zak 00:29:20 And it's great know, for the marketing piece, we have so much content that we're. Collecting as we get these scans done in the memories. And again, another one of the things Mike is rolling out is every single one of these customers is going to be getting a link to their scan. We can advertise that out, they can advertise it out on their Instagram or send it to their entire family. We'll go to their own custom splash page and do any type of reorders. So there's many different great avenues that our franchisees can remarket. This statue, it's not you just selling a donut or a hot dog to that customer and never seeing them again. You then have their statue that you can hit them five, six times throughout a year with birthdays, weddings, Christmas, Mother's Day, Father's Day. So that is a great thing. As a franchisee starts to build their clientele, they're going to be able to build this customer base up, pump it into their CRM system, use our marketing, power behind that. With the ads and the geofence, targeting that we're going to be doing for Instagram and Facebook, for franchisees, it starts to snowball big time.
Lance
00:30:31 Now, you hit on something so powerful that you could reach out to all of your current customers, anybody that's ever made a purchase from a shrunk 3D franchisee and hit them up with every new item you have, every new event that they'll want to share with their friends and family. There's no end to it. So I wanted to touch on Zak, your chief technology officer. You're both co founders. Micah. your CEO. Is that fair to say? Is that.
Zak 00:31:03 Other way around? Yep.
Lance
00:31:04 Micah, well, one of you is CEO and the other is Chief. Know in your roles, based on your experience, especially in the past, Zak, how do you ensure know, and it's almost good that you didn't have a great experience before in a franchise system because you'll ensure that your franchisees are well taken care of. So what are some of those systems? Because, look, 20 franchisees is nothing to sneeze at, and you're growing at a fast clip. So how do you make sure you keep things under control as, uh, we grow?
Zak 00:31:36 One thing that I express to all my franchisees and being on the other side is understanding that we hear you and we're listening to you and you're not going to be forgotten. You're our number one highest priority. As we grow and as we bring on other partnerships, every single partnership that we bring on, our first goal is, okay, how are we going to help our franchisees? Because I was on the other side and I felt forgotten. I felt like they grew up to 3400 franchises, got no support, no communication, nothing. So as we grow, we're going to be adding additional, um, support for our franchisees on the onboarding and then on the relations part afterwards. we have continued training, which Tom is going to be helping with and building his own team on the back end. As we grow for business relationships, and if somebody's in a snag or what should we do at this time? We're having trouble doing this, or this is actually working really well, and make sure everybody knows about it. so that's one thing that we really do. And then having an open platform through Facebook where all the franchisees can collaborate on positive things that they're seeing, it really does help a lot. But yeah, just making sure we have a certain amount of people. It's a certain amount of franchisees versus staff we have. And we have that ratio to make sure it's very healthy, to make sure nobody has been forgotten and not heard. So that's definitely something that I, um, am always constantly thinking about. I know. Same with Micah and.
Lance
00:33:06 Getting we're getting towards the end, we've covered a lot of great stuff. Did we uncover everything that you're doing relating to really the back end? Because the franchisees don't have that much to have. They go to the event. They're charismatic. As Micah brought up a great franchisee, if they're not charismatic, they better get somebody like Kim. That's charismatic. That's really bringing people in and getting people excited about this. But the proof is in the pudding, as they say. When you see your little figurine statue shrunk down, you're going to be impressed. That, holy cow. This is like the most amazing keepsake ever. But, u am I missing something? Is it really that easy?
Kim 00:33:48 It's really that easy. And Zach and Micah have really built this business to be different. It was made with the franchisee in mind. They are taking care of everything on the back end by way of support, so you really can focus on that front end customer experience and finding your next event. They do all of that for only an 8% royalty on each sale. That's why you get to keep that, ah, 50% take home. It's really an incredible thing that these guys have put together.
Lance
00:34:18 I have to know I know you know this, but, you can do like I've seen numbers at festivals where people are selling $20,000 in food at a booth. So something like this, you guys could sell 30, $40,000 worth of product. Call it memories, right?
Kim 00:34:38 Yes. You're helping people commemorate their special days.
Zak 00:34:42 It's really that you're taking the 2D photo and creating that into a 3D actual statue. Look at all the memories that you have in your photo book. Can you capture those and create those into an object? No, you can't. But if you have our booth, you go to that Little League World Series. You go up, pull up to your grandparents house. You can go to senior care facilities and get your dog, your cat, your snake, bird, whatever. We've done an owl. We've done cats. They've wanted a pig in there a few times. I mean, you can literally do everything and it goes back to, again, hardly any competition at all. There's no other mobile booth like us on wheels that you can just roll up, turn on, be ready to go within a couple of minutes, get your scan done, maybe have an order of $1,000, and then roll home. So we were looking for those people that are really excited, go getters great, you know, really good, charismatic people that aren't going, know, have a lot of energy. We want that energy out there because it's know.
Lance
00:35:43 Absolutely. All right, well, that was wonderful. Zak, let's go with, final thoughts from all three of you, kind of in round robin fashion. Let's start with Kim and then you and Micah have the, final thoughts here. So, Kim, final thoughts, final words of wisdom.
Kim 00:35:57 We've all got these memories in our phones on the wall, creating that 3D statue of your most important moments. Your daughter in her dance recital. Two. Two. Or your son holding his first baseball bat, whatever it is for you. These statues then become your home decor, which help tell your life story and help build out who you are as a person and really bring back those memories. Yeah, it's great that you have the image in your phone. There is nothing that compares to having it on your mantle where you see it all the time. Really. This is an industry disruptor. We are changing the game with how people commemorate their special events. And it is exciting to ride this rocket ship with these guys.
Zak 00:36:38 Awesome.
Lance
00:36:39 Micah yeah.
Micah 00:36:41 I'd say to anyone thinking about opening a franchise or starting their own business, I'd say take the risk and just be persistent. You can have that time and be in control of your own future and, um, work on the things you're passionate about. And I think this is something that, once you get started, you'll realize it's a lot of so.
Lance
00:37:04 Love it, Mr. CEO.
Zak 00:37:06 Zach yeah. This kind of goes to exactly what Micah was. Know, time is something you can't get back. So you capturing these moments and even buying into a know, we're not going to live forever. Take a risk. That's where the fun is. And then capturing these moments on top of it, it goes back to time we're not all going to be here forever, but this is one way we can actually grab these moments. And when you explain that type of business and concept to people, when you see people unboxing these and tearing up and crying, there's no other business out there that I know of that brings that type of emotional value and happiness as a franchise owner and as a customer. So we're creating lifelong memories, and we're very proud of this.
Lance
00:37:50 You guys are awesome. Shrunk 3D. Thank you all for being here. And, I can't wait to watch you grow or shrink grow. There you go. Nice, talking to you guys. And, we'll see you soon.
Zak 00:38:06 Thank you.
Lance
00:38:07 Thank you very much for listening today. Please like, follow and subscribe. This is Lance Graulic. Until next time.