In October 2014, at the age of 18 I (Aaron Grant) had the opportunity to purchase a slushie machine after a family friend decided to sell his. I intended to use this machine for personal use. This did not last long though, once family and friends saw my machine they bombarded me with messages about hiring or borrowing the machine from me. Not long afterwards, the opportunity to purchase two more machines presented itself. It was at this time that I sat down and had a chat with my Father Dale about potentially creating a business out of this, and that’s what I did.
In January 2015, the business was officially born and was originally named “Frosty Treats”. Not long later I was to make one of the biggest purchases of my life! 33 Slushie Machines… This was a huge risk, it could have been ‘the make or break’ of my business financially. This purchase came after a lot of consideration, and many hours talking to my Mother Sonia & Father Dale & close friend Sam. Mum was the one to suffer the most; her car was booted from the garage to make way for all the machines!! After a few months, I decided that hiring out 36 machines was quite time consuming and a little frustrating with all the cleaning and servicing so I decided to sell 27 of the machines (making a profit of course!).
During 2014, 2015 and 2016 I continued to hire out machines and established great working relationships with local schools & businesses as well as hiring to new clients for one off events. It was during 2016 that I started to get ‘itchy feet’ and felt that I needed to extend and diversify the company. After much research and discussion with clients and family, I decided to purchase a Photo Booth business. I would like to thank Lorna for her assistance and guidance throughout this purchase.
I can’t seem to stop with one of anything!!! Shortly afterwards I purchased another photo booth. Over the next several years, I constantly upgraded my photo booths to ensure I was giving my customers great value for money and to keep on top of technological advances.
Our current machine, allows us to custom build strips to suit our customer’s event. Our Photo Booth also has an 18 Megapixel Camera, which is built in to the booth delivering the highest quality images.
The business continued to boom during 2018, recording our busiest year yet. It was during this time that I began to rethink the business name. “Frosty Treats” didn’t reflect the diversity of the business and some customers were surprised to know that I had a photo booth as well. After much reflection, I decided to change our business name to “Capture The Moment Photo Booth & Slushie Machine Hire”. Since this change the business has been seen by well over 500,000 people, with a successful 5,000 Facebook Likes & over 100 Page Recommendations, something I try to encourage all customers into doing to help build my business.
On a personal note, in late 2018 I lost my Father to cancer, and because of him I am a much stronger person, willing to take risks in life to hope to better myself & my business.
While this happened I also purchased my first home, and moved out with my partner Jess. I now run the business fulltime from this premises allowing us to keep our overheads to a minimum.
We live in an ever changing and developing world and I feel that it is important to set myself business goals, which I hope to work towards and achieve this year. My goals for 2019 are:
· To continue to grow our customer data base including private events and ongoing contracts with small and large businesses.
· Throughout the year, I am looking to purchase a trailer or van to be able to attend events such as fetes and markets and sell a range of cold drinks including slushies, milkshakes and frappes.
· To further diversify the business by purchasing a Karaoke/ Jukebox Machine
Aaron Grant - Owner/Founder of Capture The Moment
