How did I mess up?

[Verge]

Hello all,
I read one of the forums on here about planning parties and how the guy who did it made a pretty nice chunk of profit from it. I tried to do the same by hosting a party bus. I was going to pay 450 for the bus, and it could fit 50 people. Charge around 15 to 20 per person and just keep the profit. Party buses are super popular and fun in Highschool, so I figured people would be down for it. But then shit hits the fan as it tends to do, and some girl took a magical guess that I was only doing this to make a profit and proceeded to tell every living soul on the planet. I'm going to have to cancel it due to the fact that nobody wants to go on now. I don't get why everyone got a rod up their a$$ about it, but now I just want to know what to correct in the future.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[jon.a]

You're 16, there's obviously more to the story.

 

[Verge]

You're 16, there's obviously more to the story.

bits and pieces, but nothing really important

 

[jon.a]

Well, all of us here have been 16. I'll take a stab at this with what incomplete information that we have. You failed to secure and maintain the support of a strong enough influencer to make this happen. With no details about the operating environment, I really can't speculate further.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Verge]

Well, all of us here have been 16. I'll take a stab at this with what incomplete information that we have. You failed to secure and maintain the support of a strong enough influencer to make this happen. With no details about the operating environment, I really can't speculate further.

What information would you need to make it complete?

 

[Carnage]

My guess is that a bunch of teenagers are jealous that you're making money off of them.
How many of these people did you know personally?

 

[jon.a]

What information would you need to make it complete?

Where's the school
How big is the school
What influence do you have at large
What influence do you have with influencers
What influence does the girl in question have
How did you piss her off

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Verge]

Where's the school
How big is the school
What influence do you have at large
What influence do you have with influencers
What influence does the girl in question have
How did you piss her off

Fairly large school, in the city. Don't really see how influence mattered on this, one person took a guess that I was going to be making money off of it, which she was correct about. Told a couple people, who told a couple people which just made me decide it would be best to cancel it. How did I piss her off is what I don't understand. When you plan an event, usually you make money off of it, me inviting everyone, finding a bus, and collecting everyone's payment isn't charity for everyone to have a good time.

 

[jon.a]

When I was in High School (2 different ones at 2K+ students), back in the olden days. The students ran in groups or circles. The circles were controlled by influencers. If you wanted to influence a group, you had to win over the influencer.

 

[AllenCrawley]

You gave up waaaaay too easy! Screw the naysayers!!!

If you communicated that the value far outweighs the cost it doesn't seem like it would matter to people, teenagers or not, that it was a for profit venture. Where else could they go for $20 and have all the fun in a cool environment?

Why not advertise it as well to a near by school?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[mws87]

Fairly large school, in the city. Don't really see how influence mattered on this, one person took a guess that I was going to be making money off of it, which she was correct about. Told a couple people, who told a couple people which just made me decide it would be best to cancel it. How did I piss her off is what I don't understand. When you plan an event, usually you make money off of it, me inviting everyone, finding a bus, and collecting everyone's payment isn't charity for everyone to have a good time.

Did you even get confirmation all these people weren't into it? Or did you just give up because of the girl being upset that someone was making money?

Look--you have to view these people as your customers. What are you giving your customers, what value are you giving them, what kind of experience? Basically, What's in it for them? If you truly were able to verbally convey their benefit of joining your event and justify price, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to bypass her objection.

Hell, then again, some people are just difficult. I say keep it going and don't give up so easily. If there is reciprocity involved (eg: you trade them a great experience for their currency) then you shouldn't have a problem.

 

[smarty]

Well, all of us here have been 16.

No, I skipped that year.

 

[Daniel A]

A party bus is a great idea! And I don't completely understand why that girl would do that, but I believe it 100%, haha.

This is what came to mind. Set up branded social media accounts, get an online payment processor (so payment is impersonal), and promote the idea it at a neighboring school (accepting payments before the event, but prepared to make it happen). Be sure to take pictures and record videos so that you can add them (don't post what you know you shouldn't) to your social media accounts. Of course, promote those social media accounts too at your own school so that they will see what they are missing out on. Then if all goes well, set up another event and promote it to the people from your neighboring school and your own school. And of course, get them to like and share.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[iAmTrade]

Why does it matter that you'd make $ from it?

You have no job- an experience like that costs $$$. So tell her to grow up and go if she wants to have fun or shutup if shes a party-pooper.

Simple.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tycoon7]

Allen is right, you gave up too fast.
Just try - this way you will learn much faster.

How long in a advance you have prepay the bus?
Tell everybody that you throwing the party and try to see how many people will go, try to make them pay upfront. You can do $15 now, or $25 on day of event or smng. Basically idea is to get funding so to speak. As soon as you get money to cover the cost of bus - prepay the bus.

Also Jon is right about influencers - try to get them involved. There should be kind of "main/most popular guy/girl" - get them interested somehow. Either give $5 per each person under them, or cut from all amount, or special VIP table, maybe smng else to show there status - what they want?

 

[1step]

Hey way to get out there and do something, thats very commendable!

You could break even on the first one and then make money in the future after everyone loves the first one.

What if girls could get on free, what would you need to do to make this model work? Or first 10 girls to show up are free? I feel like if you can get the girls you'll get the guys

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Verge]

You gave up waaaaay too easy! Screw the naysayers!!!

If you communicated that the value far outweighs the cost it doesn't seem like it would matter to people, teenagers or not, that it was a for profit venture. Where else could they go for $20 and have all the fun in a cool environment?

Why not advertise it as well to a near by school?

I had about 17 girls already invited, all very very pretty girls who I knew would be down to party with some guys. After the first one started saying I was making money, my phone Blew up! I was getting texts asking why I was making money, when I tried to explain that I have to do all of the planning and I had to negotiate with the bus driver for an hour on the phone for the price, most of those girls started just getting more pissed off, and one of them said "You're not supposed to make money off of this you ******* a**hole" Apparently some girl did the same thing I did a couple years back and she had the whole school hating on her, so bad that she switched schools. To be honest guys, this made no sense to me! But I guess their reasoning can be explained by the fact that they're girls in highschool and are on the way to the slow lane. Thank you everyone for the replies wish I could reply indvidually but this answers them all.
-Verge

 

[AllenCrawley]

I had about 17 girls already invited, all very very pretty girls who I knew would be down to party with some guys. After the first one started saying I was making money, my phone Blew up! I was getting texts asking why I was making money, when I tried to explain that I have to do all of the planning and I had to negotiate with the bus driver for an hour on the phone for the price, most of those girls started just getting more pissed off, and one of them said "You're not supposed to make money off of this you ******* a**hole" Apparently some girl did the same thing I did a couple years back and she had the whole school hating on her, so bad that she switched schools. To be honest guys, this made no sense to me! But I guess their reasoning can be explained by the fact that they're girls in highschool and are on the way to the slow lane. Thank you everyone for the replies wish I could reply indvidually but this answers them all.
-Verge

Okaaay...

So what do YOU think you did wrong or could have done better?

Are you giving up on this idea?

Did anyone here provide some ideas that you'll act on?

 

[Donovon]

I think there's an important point that has been hinted at but not explicitly brought up. These are high school students, and I'd imagine Verge probably knows at least some of the girls he invited decently well. To someone in high school, friendship means you should be doing things at cost. They don't understand things go on behind the scenes and the work involved in setting up an event, they just know you're their friend and they have to pay you $20 for something that costs you $10. Thanks a lot for taking advantage of our friendship you dick!

If I were you I'd try to distance myself personally from any future events so you seem more like a business than an individual or host them at another school where people aren't going to factor 'friendship' in as a cost reducer. Good work at giving something a shot though, keep trying.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[AllenCrawley]

I think there's an important point that has been hinted at but not explicitly brought up. These are high school students, and I'd imagine Verge probably knows at least some of the girls he invited decently well. To someone in high school, friendship means you should be doing things at cost. They don't understand things go on behind the scenes and the work involved in setting up an event, they just know you're their friend and they have to pay you $20 for something that costs you $10. Thanks a lot for taking advantage of our friendship you dick!

If I were you I'd try to distance myself personally from any future events so you seem more like a business than an individual or host them at another school where people aren't going to factor 'friendship' in as a cost reducer. Good work at giving something a shot though, keep trying.

Good point. I find this is not just limited to high schoolers, lol.

 

[IGP]

You should have given it to the hot girls for free and charged the guys.

 

[eliquid]

Thing is, you don't know if these people would have paid or not anyways.

Just like in business, you get an idea and everyone around you says it's awesome and fabulous and will change the world and they will support you and buy it. Then the product comes out after all your work and those same people are no where to be found when it's time for money to exchange hands.

Very simply, this could be what happened to you with the talk about making a profit just coincidence.

Next time, collect money upfront. If no one pays then you know it was a bad idea and you won't get people backing out and finding reasons to hate on it so they can get out of paying for it.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Verge]

I think there's an important point that has been hinted at but not explicitly brought up. These are high school students, and I'd imagine Verge probably knows at least some of the girls he invited decently well. To someone in high school, friendship means you should be doing things at cost. They don't understand things go on behind the scenes and the work involved in setting up an event, they just know you're their friend and they have to pay you $20 for something that costs you $10. Thanks a lot for taking advantage of our friendship you dick!

If I were you I'd try to distance myself personally from any future events so you seem more like a business than an individual or host them at another school where people aren't going to factor 'friendship' in as a cost reducer. Good work at giving something a shot though, keep trying.

Yes! This is very true, and I very much so appreciate the feedback.

 

[Verge]

Thing is, you don't know if these people would have paid or not anyways.

Just like in business, you get an idea and everyone around you says it's awesome and fabulous and will change the world and they will support you and buy it. Then the product comes out after all your work and those same people are no where to be found when it's time for money to exchange hands.

Very simply, this could be what happened to you with the talk about making a profit just coincidence.

Next time, collect money upfront. If no one pays then you know it was a bad idea and you won't get people backing out and finding reasons to hate on it so they can get out of paying for it.

You don't pay, you don't get on the bus. That's how they all are. Everyone wants to go to these things because 1) They know they'll have girls all over them if they just party a bit and don't look like Shrek. 2) Party busses are really fun.
I'm actually glad I didn't collect the money before, because when everyone found out I was making profit on it, I would have had to give them their money back, let me rephrase that, their parents money back.

 

[Verge]

You should have given it to the hot girls for free and charged the guys.

Bus is $450
Max occupancy is 50
25 girls and 25 guys
$18 bucks per guy would be breaking even
$20 would only be $50 profit which I would more than likely have to use to tip the bus driver for dealing with high school girl and guy BS.
But no one ever pays more than $20 for these things because most of these kids are flat out broke and spend all their money on weed.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Knugs]

You cant blame yourself for this but you have to learn from the situation. I know how school/university environments look like (especially when you make money out of it). I assume a lot of these people are your friends. Just imagine how you would feel when a friend would make your group go to a party just to find out that he is making money out of it ( and that his motivation to invite you was to make money. aka not because he/she likes you). You wouldnt feel great about it. Its also very hard to justify that. +lets make the assumption she is a drama girl and loves stirring shit up.

In the optimal situation you would make them feel valued. If I was you I would give the hottest girls a free ride and boys pay the full price. Even though you would only break even, it will put you very high in that stupid society + you might have the chance to hook up with a hot girl. In addition, everyone would find out in the school and see the nice pictures you have taken (with the hot girls) would make the other people wanna go to the next one. Everyone would talk about it for weeks(lets assume it was fun) and remember it for a life time.
Hopefully this would make people go up to you and ask when the next party bus is on. Hopefully it spreads to other schools and the demand increases exponentially so that you can ask more people to pay the full price. (But always have a few hot girls for free)

Now you have digged yourself a little bit into a situation that might be difficult to come out from. I dont know how much you have said and what people are saying around you. You could deny the whole profit thing. Could make the cost higher than it seems. Could say that you wanted to use the money for a special surprise. Wanted to cover some beverages etc./tipping bus driver/snacks. Nobody needs to know how much you really had left or how much you deserved a profit. After the party nobody would care anymore (assuming it was awesome). Maybe you can still fix the situation. What do you think?

respect for trying! I wish I had the guts to do this when I was 16/17. Can you imagine the social situation/your perception at school/ bf with everyone. Girls go for that image thing.


PS;Your position in this little society matters greatly (as stupid as this sound). Someone above mentioned "influencers" and thats something you could think about.

 

[Verge]

You cant blame yourself for this but you have to learn from the situation. I know how school/university environments look like (especially when you make money out of it). I assume a lot of these people are your friends. Just imagine how you would feel when a friend would make your group go to a party just to find out that he is making money out of it ( and that his motivation to invite you was to make money. aka not because he/she likes you). You wouldnt feel great about it. Its also very hard to justify that. +lets make the assumption she is a drama girl and loves stirring shit up.

In the optimal situation you would make them feel valued. If I was you I would give the hottest girls a free ride and boys pay the full price. Even though you would only break even, it will put you very high in that stupid society + you might have the chance to hook up with a hot girl. In addition, everyone would find out in the school and see the nice pictures you have taken (with the hot girls) would make the other people wanna go to the next one. Everyone would talk about it for weeks(lets assume it was fun) and remember it for a life time.
Hopefully this would make people go up to you and ask when the next party bus is on. Hopefully it spreads to other schools and the demand increases exponentially so that you can ask more people to pay the full price. (But always have a few hot girls for free)

Now you have digged yourself a little bit into a situation that might be difficult to come out from. I dont know how much you have said and what people are saying around you. You could deny the whole profit thing. Could make the cost higher than it seems. Could say that you wanted to use the money for a special surprise. Wanted to cover some beverages etc./tipping bus driver/snacks. Nobody needs to know how much you really had left or how much you deserved a profit. After the party nobody would care anymore (assuming it was awesome). Maybe you can still fix the situation. What do you think?

respect for trying! I wish I had the guts to do this when I was 16/17. Can you imagine the social situation/your perception at school/ bf with everyone. Girls go for that image thing.


PS;Your position in this little society matters greatly (as stupid as this sound). Someone above mentioned "influencers" and thats something you could think about.

To be honest, I never disrespect someones hustle! I only learn from it. I already have a girlfriend so there wasn't an incentive to hook up with anybody I've addressed everyone who asked me about making profit, and I just ignored them. Lol. I dont really care about being high up in the highschool pyramid, mainly because most of these kids wont amount to shit. Hang out with losers, you stay a loser.

 

[Verge]

Okaaay...

So what do YOU think you did wrong or could have done better?

Are you giving up on this idea?

Did anyone here provide some ideas that you'll act on?

At this age, I'm not going to be doing these types of things, mainly because most of the kids haven't realized that in college, you'll need to pay to get to college. I go to college parties every weekend and talk to the guys who host them, they say if someone won't pay, they'll get their a$$ beat by the 2 guys he paid to watch the door. I'm going to be attending an Academy for college so I won't be able to do this but, on my breaks I'll definitely do this. On the topic of what I could've done better, one would've been giving everybody more value for their $20 so they wouldn't have had a problem with me making money.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Verge]

Hey way to get out there and do something, thats very commendable!

You could break even on the first one and then make money in the future after everyone loves the first one.

What if girls could get on free, what would you need to do to make this model work? Or first 10 girls to show up are free? I feel like if you can get the girls you'll get the guys

Thanks man, yeah but you can only throw these things once every couple months. I rememeber one weekend we had like 3 back to back and everyone was sick of them after. After about 4 months, there was another one.

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

Don't give up, man.

In high school I was already "destined" to be a great martial artists and movie star. The only problem was I was a broke kid from the hood who couldn't afford to fly around the country and the world to compete.

And there were two things that really caught my attention.

1. First was a classmate that created a substantial business selling day-old bagels from one of the shops in the city. The shop would only sell bagels they made that day and always had lots left over. He would either buy them and/or get them for free and once a week he would bring giant bags to school to sell them.

Every Wednesday he would make a killing. Several hundred dollars in profit just from selling bagels.

2. The second thing I noticed is that throughout the year, many kids would do some sort of fundraising campaign for their band trip, Spanish trip, choir trip, German trip, or whatever. They would sell candy bars wherever they could throughout the day. Most never seemed to make enough to actually make a difference but they tried.

So here's where my head was:

Every high school student is starving all day long. Not only do teenagers NEVER stop eating, they all woke up late, and none of them had breakfast (even the ones that could afford it).

So every day on my walk to school (or every other day depending on supply) I would stop by the grocery store and pick up bulk boxes of candy bars. Kit-kats, starburst, snickers, twix, etc. etc.

Basically I took candy to sell to school every single day.

On Bagel Wednesdays I didn't always sell much (hell, it was bagel Wednesday... even I bought bagels) but I practically monopolized every other day of the week.

I was doing around 1,250-2,000 profit per month in candy sales. It paid for my airfare and hotel every other weekend to fly and compete until I was picked up by a sponsor a couple years later and it was never ever a hard sell. Teachers would buy from me all the time, too.

"Hey, so what are you selling these for?"
"Me."
"Wait, so you're not doing a band trip or something?"
"Nope!"
"Oh. Okay. I'll take a twix bar."

Once in a while I would tell people about how I was using the money to fly to tournaments and compete but in reality no one cares about you. They care about what your product and/or service can do for them.

Maybe the bus was too much.

P.S. The bus thing falling through was probably a good thing... you never took in the liability issues, did you?

Underage drinking, injuries, accidents, etc. etc. You could get in a LOT of trouble for what was intended to be an innocent trip