A lot has been happening with Kerry’s new side business! We came up with a name, got cards designed, ordered supplies, and decided on pricing.
We decided on the name “Girlie Girl Parties” after thinking through a bunch of different options. Our second choice was “No Boys Allowed” (my idea). We thought Girlie Girl Parties clearly explained what we did a lot better, and because of the odd spelling, were able to get the domain www.girliegirlparties.com. We had Kerry’s friend design a logo for us and got some cards printed up that we’ve been passing out to people with daughters.
We decided on pricing based on two primary factors. Number 1 – How much are parents willing and expecting to pay? and Number 2 – How much does it cost us to do this? Parents expect to pay $300+ to receive a good birthday party, and that’s we needed to be around $200 for it to be profitable, so we came up with a couple different packages in those price ranges.
Oh, and of course the biggest news of all – Kerry threw her first party! The first customer is incredibly important. They have to be a bit forgiving and willing to give a ton of feedback. Luckily, we had just such a customer. It was a family friend’s daughter’s 7th birthday party and there were 14 girls there – 4 more than expected.
I tagged along as the photographer/boy to make fun of for the event. Overall, it was a great experience that we learned a lot from and the girls all seemed to love it.
The first thing that we learned is that the number of girls directly effects the number of adults necessary (duh!), and that the ratio is lower than we expected. 14 girls was way too much for Kerry to handle alone. Luckily, some moms were there & happy to help out. Going forward, we will either work with moms to plan & have the help, or have to bring an employee on.
For this first party, each girl received a bag of items (a boa, lip gloss, etc) which totalled about $9 in cost. When you consider the supplies used to do the make-up/nails for each girl, total cost per girl is a little over $10. With a party of 14 girls, that was about $150 in costs, which is way too high for a standard package.
Moving forward, the standard package cost per girl should be more like $6, with a premium package available for the better party favors. Plus, if we have a flat rate, we need to decide a level where each additional girl costs more to cover that.
The timing and flow of the events still needs to be ironed out a bit for the future. This event also helped us identify expansion possibilities, with other services we can offer.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience!
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