March 22, 2023 • 30 mins
When he lost his ad agency job, he and his wife joined forces to create the world’s first fully interactive and fully immersive theme ride at American Dream. Meet Vito and Amanda Zarrillo. Creators of Blast 7D, a new ride experience that blows away your senses and brings chills and thrills for adventurers of all ages. And, one of the keys to their success? Amanda's "sexy spreadsheets." Fasten your seat belts for this podcast. You’re about to take a ride with this Couple of Entrepreneurs.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The risk takers, innovators, business owners, and their couple.
(00:14):
Welcome to A Couple of Entrepreneurs, a series about couples who start a business together
without ending their relationship.
Hear their unique stories, get tips, advice, and a secret to their success.
Did you work with your spouse?
Hosted by Micki and Tony, a couple of entrepreneurs, co-founders of Branding Shorts, scares, screams,
(00:42):
and surprises.
No, we're not talking about working together as a couple.
We're talking about a ride that's like no other.
Today we're talking with Vito and Amanda Zarillo, creators of Blast 7D, the world's first fully
interactive and fully immersive 7D ride at American Dream.
(01:06):
Welcome and thanks for being on the show.
Well, thank you for having us.
Thank you for having us.
I'm Vito Cirillo.
I am a co-creator and co-owner of Blast 7D.
And I'm Amanda Cirillo, partner to Vito in life and in business.
We started this really fun ride a couple of years ago and we're really enjoying it and
(01:27):
it's great to talk to you today.
Thank you guys.
You know, we've read about it.
We're gonna bring our son to go see it.
Talk a little bit about like, why did you guys start this?
Because you said it's the world's first.
So what made you do the world's first?
That sounds a little, a little nerve wracking, right?
Come up with something like that.
It is certainly daunting.
That is for sure.
It started a bunch of years ago.
(01:48):
You know, right now I'm 52 and at the age of 47, after a lifetime in advertising and
branding, I got laid off.
It is a, it's a very traumatic experience, especially when, you know, you really do kind
of put your blood, sweat and tears into it all.
But at the age of 47, I was looking down the barrel of mortgage and children and school
(02:12):
and all those other things.
You know, it's not an easy profession.
And in a lot of ways, it's kind of like the proverbial young man's game.
It took me a couple of weeks to kind of pull myself up from the ground.
And Amanda said to me, she's like, okay, well, what do you want to do for the second half
of your life?
I said, I didn't know.
Give me two weeks.
(02:33):
Give me two weeks and we'll have this conversation.
I'll let you know what I, what I wanted to do.
So we're a family of great faith.
There was a lot of prayers.
There was a lot of introspection.
There was a lot of self-evaluation.
I sat her down.
I said, I know what I want to do.
I want to bring fun to people's lives.
If you know Amanda, you know that she kind of speaks to me like this.
(02:53):
She's like, well, all right, dummy.
Well, how are you going to do that?
And it was lovingly.
It was lovingly.
I always kind of knew that I wanted to be in the amusement sort of business, or I should
say I had an idea that that's where I wanted to go.
We came across this technology, which was really fantastic.
It's an amazing experience and it's an amazing ride.
(03:14):
The fact that my background was branding and advertising.
I think what was interesting was creating something from scratch.
People don't go to Starbucks because of the coffee maker that Starbucks uses.
People go to Starbucks because it's the Starbucks brand.
We agreed on this technology.
Two weeks later, I said, you know, this is what we want to do.
We agreed to it.
I went into a room and about an hour and a half later, I came out and I had the foundational
(03:39):
elements to what Blast70 actually is.
The name, the logo, the look, the feel, the premise around it.
And then we went from there.
That's a really interesting story because we've heard a lot of other couples, us included,
got the push by getting laid off.
I mean, really interesting start to this business, you know, the way you guys are talking about
(04:00):
and incredible support from Amanda.
You should support me like that sometimes.
I don't know.
So I'm just kidding.
I think she does.
I just say no.
Of course she does.
You know, Tony, we know where our bread is buttered.
Yeah, exactly.
Yes.
Yes, I totally understand what you're saying.
So you said you always had an interest in this.
Why did in amusement?
What was that?
Can you talk about that?
You always had an interest in this field, right?
(04:21):
So we interact with amusements all the time.
And maybe we just don't know it.
You know, something as seemingly benign as arcades all the way to great adventures, seaside
heights on the boardwalk, Ocean City, Disney, Universal, Xbox, Dave and Busters, all kinds
of things.
(04:42):
And the through line of it all is that people are enjoying themselves.
Amanda, what did you think when you had this idea?
So similarly, I in my past life had been had been laid off.
But I also saw, you know, as you get more senior in an industry, you see a lot of more
senior people are the ones who who are getting the cut.
(05:05):
And then and I know that it's harder potentially to to replace that role at the same level
of compensation.
So over, you know, the previous couple of years, I had more and more of an appreciation
for the ability to control one's own destiny.
I was very supportive.
I knew that things were getting harder, as Vito says, for an older guy to play play a
(05:29):
young man's game with, you know, high levels of stress and long hours.
So I was, you know, I was really in.
And the thing that really helped is that, you know, I had a role that I loved, you know,
in finance and I was continuing with that role.
So that provided kind of the stability for for us to be able to explore, you know, Vito
really running this this business.
(05:51):
So now you guys work together to start it.
Why did you partner up?
What did you guys decide to work together on?
There's very few people that I've ever met in my entire life that are smarter than Amanda.
She really, really knows her stuff.
And I'm smart enough to know that I don't know that stuff.
We have complementary backgrounds and skill sets.
(06:15):
We knew that this was a large undertaking and we needed to be adult about it.
We created a business plan.
It took us forever, a long, long time, seven months, seven months to create a business
plan.
It was like 80 pages long.
Because we really had to figure out what's involved in starting and running a business
and getting financing and finding a location.
(06:38):
We are not independently wealthy.
We needed to go out and find lending.
We used, you know, all of our life savings, a fair amount of our children's college savings.
You know, we took a HELOC out on our house.
We got a big SBA loan.
We were in it.
And in order to validate what it was that we were looking to do, we had to create this
(07:02):
business plan.
Our backgrounds really came to bear on the creation of this, the finance, the financial
aspects, the forecasting, the assumptions.
Amanda took a huge lead in that, where we needed to show what this brand would look
like, what it would feel like, what it would sound like, where it would be, all those things.
(07:24):
That was a little bit more on my shoulders.
But we very much treated it as a team, as a partnership.
I mean, we're life partners.
But you know, being business partners is also a very challenging thing.
I mean, we're blessed in the sense that we don't literally work with one another every
single day.
(07:44):
That is another level of complexity added to relationships.
We're not that.
We're not with one another every single day.
We're communicating with one another countless times throughout the day.
But Amanda has a career that she's really dynamite at.
So actually for our audience, if you could describe a little bit what 7D Blast is so
(08:08):
they understand it.
It's the world's first fully interactive and fully immersive 7D ride.
We are at American Dream.
We're on the first floor right next to Angry Birds.
If you come by, you will see that we have a theater, and inside our theater, small little
theater, we have 12 full motion seats.
We take 3D technology, and then we add in acceleration and motion and wind.
(08:32):
And it's a competitive play game.
So you're blasting bad guys in order to get the high score in one of our five different
ride experiences.
You sit, you buckle up.
We have these special 7D glasses.
It's not like a VR.
It's not a big honking sort of headset on.
It's these very stylized glasses.
And we have five different rides, some that are totally not scary and super thrilling,
(08:57):
to some rides that are fairly terrifying and super thrilling.
But regardless of the ride, you are fully engaging with the ride.
We make you feel like you are flying and diving and jumping and falling, like you're inside
the ride, again, all while you're battling bad guys.
Now, we have a lot of families, a lot of friends that come by, and I like to tell them very
(09:19):
clearly, you may love each other and like each other a whole bunch on the outside of
Blast 7D, but as soon as you get in there, all love is lost.
Game on, every man and woman for themselves, because it is a fully competitive play game.
And it's not a passive experience.
How long was the journey, I mean, to come up with where you guys are now versus when,
(09:40):
hey, you're moving on to something new, and Amanda, you're supporting him to take this
next step.
And now you've had this amazing one of a kind adventure right outside of New York City in
this big American dream.
What were some of the challenges you guys had along the way to kind of bring it to where
you are now?
The journey was, of course, longer than expected and many more challenges than expected.
(10:04):
Once we kind of got through the business plan so that we would have something to bring to
banks for financing, etc.
And we chose the location.
The location piece took a while.
We looked at different places in New York City, Jersey City, Hoboken, and then finally
we went to American Dream and we said, this is it.
(10:26):
And we needed that business plan, not only for the banks, but for American Dream.
They needed to validate us.
The visionaries that they are, are incredible.
Right?
I mean, they really re-imagined the way that entertainment and retail coexist together
and they needed to see and validate us.
(10:49):
That was a big part of the journey as well.
Then we went to find an architect, find a construction manager, a designer.
We had some very good and amazing friends who helped us throughout the journey.
A friend who helped with design was really integral in helping us get off the ground.
(11:10):
Another friend who was our lawyer on the lease negotiations.
A lot of people you knew and trusted.
Exactly.
I was going to say that's one of the things that we found really important to the process,
particularly with us doing this for the first time, was having other people kind of validate
what we were doing and what we were thinking.
And not that everybody was in favor of it.
(11:30):
We had naysayers as well, but having those really smart people kind of poke holes in
our process was, I think, really important.
So it sounds like a lot of part of your success was really taking the time to develop a really
good solid plan.
And then another part to get a really solid team, you were saying these folks you got
on board, was to the success that you guys have had.
(11:53):
That's right.
One of the greatest challenges was once we started moving towards the construction process,
we found just how difficult it would be, both with the permitting process, all union labor
was required so that, you know, moved our costs up quite a bit.
And then COVID happened.
Yeah, throw COVID in the mix.
(12:15):
That kind of ground everything to a standstill.
One of the things that was super important was that we had a little bit of room in our
financial plan, because many things came up that kind of blew up the plan.
We had a certain budget.
And then we were convinced that we had to make everything higher end, you know, more
(12:38):
impressive by the American Dream folks.
Construction overages came out everywhere.
We would have been in a real bind if we didn't give ourselves more of a cushion and be able
to kind of survive those financial challenges in the project.
That had to be so stressful.
It was.
We, I must have said 20 times, I can't do this.
(13:02):
We can't do this.
What are we doing?
Why are we doing this?
Why are we putting ourselves through this?
It all came back to Amanda continually anchoring us in the fact that this is a really good
thing.
It will be successful, Vito.
It will be successful.
It will be successful.
We have to think that the power of positive thinking, which I am not generally that great
(13:26):
at, that really was something that continually pushed us to move forward.
I guess one of the things that we go through as a married couple that works together is
like, we don't always agree.
And so we have to make decisions to move things forward.
So it sounds like there were many, many, I mean, there were many decisions on, you know,
you needed funding, you needed a team, you needed this, you needed that.
(13:51):
How do you guys make decisions and how do you come to a resolution when you don't agree?
We, so for example, we had to come to an agreement on how we were going to price the rides and
some details around that.
We would debate, we would revamp the model, we would talk to people a lot, getting other
people's opinion who are in similar situations.
(14:13):
We talked to different businesses at American Dream to get some input there.
It felt like a lot of arbitration, you know, quite frankly.
That's something to say, because like, could you have an example where you guys didn't
agree on something and like how you resolved it, you know, as a husband and wife?
Sometimes.
Man, I defer, honestly, like, I would defer to Amanda.
I was going to say that.
(14:34):
It depends on the topic.
If it's something like how we're going to run the business on a daily basis or how we're
going to kind of set things up with our employees or with customers, I'll have my opinion.
Ultimately, I defer to Vito because he's living that and he's really managing that part of
the business on a daily basis.
(14:55):
And he just knows more than I do because he's there all the time and I'm not.
When it comes to things like financials, you know, I often tell him to back off because
that's my part.
Yeah, in a nice way.
But we debate it.
We debate it and ultimately we have to make a decision.
So we do.
We have healthy debates, too, and when we go through the process, as I'm sure, you know,
(15:20):
everybody who is in this same situation, when you just go through the process of respectful
debate and thoughtful debate, you learn a lot about what it is you're trying to solve.
You learn a lot about you.
You learn a lot about your partner.
And then you really just trust that the other person has the understanding to make the decision
(15:48):
that is the best decision.
Not every decision works out.
We made a lot of bad decisions, you know, but we didn't as of yet.
We didn't make the critically wrong decisions.
That's what you want to avoid.
When you're going through it, it feels like everything is a critically wrong decision.
And we've learned a ton from all of those non critically wrong decisions.
(16:10):
You know, it makes us smarter for the next time.
Especially with a big endeavor like that, creating a ride and experience and branding
it.
So curious, you guys have a couple of kids.
Oh, I was going to ask the same thing.
So what did they say?
Are you the coolest parents in the world now that you've created this ride?
I mean, what did they say when they said, daddy's going to work with mommy and now
(16:33):
we've created this first ever experience?
It was unimaginable to them, right?
At least our younger kids, especially we have three, 17 and eight and a three year old.
And for the two younger ones, it was very unimaginable.
Like they couldn't wrap their heads around what it was.
(16:54):
And our 17 year old was very much caught up in his own life.
You know, I mean, friends school, doing lacrosse, doing sports and stuff, and he would get it
more than the younger ones.
But what I will say is now that it's open and they are able to see it, they're able
to hear, you know, other people screams of terror, screams of joy, laughing, you know,
(17:22):
shrieking.
Our son Vito, he's frankly one of our best employees.
He is so amazingly capable at engaging with and connecting with potential customers as
they walk by and getting them excited about it in a way that makes us wildly proud.
(17:44):
You're talking about a 17 year old and usually 17 year olds give you monosyllabic grunts
as responses to a myriad of questions that you have of them.
So he still does that with us.
He still does that a little bit.
He's engaging with other people.
You know, maybe we scored a couple extra, you know, cool factor parent points and stuff,
but we're still the pain in the neck parents to them that they're that they're used to.
(18:08):
But the three year old will talk about it at school and he'll come home and say, Dad,
I got to go play gigamon.
When are we going to go?
And when we when we go there, we get there with the whole family, probably every weekend
or every two weekends.
And the eight year old runs in and asks, you know, ask the staff at the POS desk, hey,
what can I get on next?
You have space on, you know, zombies.
(18:30):
I want to play zombies.
So they're they're they're they're excited about it.
They love it.
Yeah, sounds like so much fun.
I mean, you guys also have your dad living with you.
So you have like a really full personal life and you have the business life.
So how do you balance that?
When do you do you say, OK, now we're just in personal mode?
(18:52):
I think one of the one of the things that we I'm not sure.
I'm not sure we're that good at it yet.
No, we're not.
We're not.
We're like we're surviving on a daily basis as everybody has so much going on.
But one thing that we started doing and we need to make a little bit more regular is
having business dinners where Vito and I will go out and we will actually talk a lot of
(19:15):
business and strategy and so forth.
But we actually are, you know, setting that time to get away from all of the other responsibilities
and spend time with each other, which we hadn't really been doing for a long time.
So so that's been, I think, quite valuable for us as a couple and us as business owners
(19:37):
as well.
And it's a and it's a real family affair.
You know, as I said, our oldest son, Vito, comes there.
He works there on weekends.
We take our eight year old and our three year old and we try to placate them as much as
possible so that we can get some work done.
But we'll also bring my dad and we'll park him in the corner of blast 78.
(19:58):
People will and talk to him.
And you know, he's actually a really good salesman for us as well.
And when it comes to all of that sort of life work balance, if somebody's got some ideas,
we're all ears.
We're sort of in survival mode on it right now.
It's funny because one of the couples we spoke to, they were saying something similar and
(20:23):
they said for them it was work life integration.
So finding a way just to make it all blend together.
Right.
You guys have done like I said, it's an amazing thing and I can't we can't wait to take our
son to what you guys have done.
So if you had to say here's my biggest concern or fear about jumping into this business,
but here's my biggest joy.
(20:43):
Like what would you look at?
My biggest fear was going bankrupt.
You know, like just quite frankly, we put our house on the line for this.
So and we're not we're not out of it yet.
So that specter of losing our home was a ton of sleepless nights.
And I said to Vito during this time, so V, if we do go bankrupt, where do you think we
(21:09):
should live?
We could be very comfortable in Florida.
Probably we can even have a trailer home.
But you know, we have to have some knowledge that that's a possibility.
So understanding what the risks are.
Then there's the reward.
By far the biggest joy is seeing people's reaction when they are coming off of the ride.
(21:33):
And is I feel like sometimes I should be paying them because it is that much of a joy to see
them coming off the ride totally blown away.
The words, the screams that come out of their mouths as they're riding the ride.
I mean, I say this half jokingly, but people's screams of terror bring such a joy to my heart.
(21:58):
And it is true.
I've had people come off the ride where they have kissed the ground.
People feel like they're flying and diving and jumping and falling.
And the way that they react to that is amazing.
Amanda spoke a little bit before about pricing and pricing is actually something that was
very important to us because we live in an area where stuff ain't cheap.
(22:21):
It's not cheap.
You go to American Dream.
It's an amazing place, but it ain't cheap.
You can definitely drop a lot of coin there.
Our business philosophy is we wanted to bring more joy to more people than any other thing
out there.
So we are priced, you know, about 20% less than almost any other experience within American
(22:48):
Dream.
We would rather have more people come in and experience blast.
It allows families of all demographics, of all levels of affluence or non affluence to
really connect with one another at that time and experience something that they haven't
done.
You know, and hearing mom, hearing dad shriek in terror is a pretty cool thing for an eight
(23:12):
year old to seeing mom and dad like being actual, like, you know, having fun.
So that was your goal.
What you had said earlier in the conversation, right, is that what you wanted to do and I
mean, I do when you said to if you don't, what do you want to do?
I want to have to see how I can help people have fun.
And you did it.
It sounds like you guys have an amazing I mean, a lot of people say what they want to
(23:33):
do and they never do it.
I mean, that's amazing.
I mean, if there were other business owners or couples that was thinking about, you know,
working together, are there any principles that you guys have or things that you say,
okay, here's a couple of things that I would say, you know, you should think about that
help you run a business successfully.
I would say number one in terms of expectations, you guys know, starting a business is not
(23:57):
easy.
And something that really kind of blew my mind is how hard it was as first time business
owners to get financing because, you know, one of the gating questions was, have you
owned a business before?
No.
Okay, come back to us in two years after you have experience.
So how are you supposed to get the funding?
So, so, you know, obviously, there are a lot of different levels in terms of monetary commitment
(24:22):
for businesses, you know, just knowing that there's going to be a lot of challenges that
you're going to need to to get through and have the attitude and the emotions to get
through.
And I think for us, having that solid business plan that other people had vetted and pointed
out problems in was super important because even in the beginning, Vito would come to
(24:47):
me and say, Amanda, we're not making enough money.
This is this is going to be a disaster.
And I'd say, well, no, Vito, we are doing okay.
And this is going along with with our financial modeling.
And yes, Monday and Tuesday are going to be super slow, but we're going to make up for
it on on the weekend.
So, so being able to kind of look at things from that intellectual standpoint when the
(25:10):
emotions are running high, I think what has been really important for us.
And I would say trust is a huge part of it.
Trust your partner, you know, that they have your best interests in mind as you know, as
much as you have their best interest in mind and give yourself the flexibility to make
(25:32):
some bad choices.
Just don't make the really bad choices.
You know what I mean?
Don't go blowing all of your, you know, beginning profits on three boats.
I don't know, you know, whatever, whatever it is, be smart, trust in the process.
If you had a disagreement on how to handle something and your partner made the wrong
(25:53):
decision, you got to forgive each other and you got to move on and not not let those little
issues become a big factor or something that's holding the two of you back together.
These are amazing.
Great.
I want to follow up a little bit on the question or what your response about don't make the
really bad choices.
Like, how do you work together to prevent that?
(26:14):
Because it's easy like, hey, we're doing great.
Let's go buy that boat.
You know, it's like, how do you work together to prevent the over the top bad choice?
A level of frugality is really important.
People just kind of naturally want to have nicer things and making sure that the partner
is in agreement with each of those choices.
(26:34):
When we started talking, you know, well before we were operational about what are we going
to do when we start making some money?
How?
What are we going to put those funds to?
And we both agreed that well, first we have to have a liquidity buffer, right?
Because we might have some months that are great.
We might have some months that are dead or something unexpected comes up and we got to
(26:55):
pay for it.
Then we want to work on paying down debt.
And then, you know, then we'll start saving up for, you know, the next one.
Our goal is to have more than one of these.
So again, we get back to the we want to bring fun and joy to as many people as possible.
You need to save and replenish savings.
(27:17):
We're always thinking about reinvesting in the business.
I'll draw a paycheck at some point, but it's not going to be anytime soon.
It's not like we're living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but we are living as
modestly as we as we can.
We have a lot of friends here that are that are small business owners.
And one of the constant things they talk about is paying your bills.
(27:39):
Just pay your bills.
If you can just get to the next month and pay your bills, man, you're doing OK.
I love that as a small business owner, we get it.
We totally understand.
We completely identify with that.
With a kid.
When did Glass 78 first launch?
September 10th, 2022, which was over a year when we hoped to have launched.
(28:00):
Then we were saying we got to launch before the summer.
We got to launch before the summer.
We opened up the weekend after everybody went back to school.
So I mean, if you could possibly circle a worst time on the calendar, good luck.
And it's all worth it.
You know, like do it.
If you have an idea, don't sit on the sidelines.
Take small steps in order to get to where you think you want to be.
(28:25):
So, you know, so it sounds like you guys are alluding to one more principle that's important.
It's patience.
Things can take a lot longer.
You need to prepare.
I think Amanda, you were saying for a contingency plan, you may have the best business plan
in the world, but you always have to be prepared that things may not go exactly as you plan.
They're not going to go exactly as you plan.
Never does.
It's all curveballs, man.
(28:45):
What surprised each other the most about each other?
I learned that our communication styles are very different.
My first or first couple of jobs was on a trading desk where I learned communicate loudly
and as quickly as possible what you need to do.
Painting a picture and inspiring people with words is not my talent and is very much Vito's
(29:06):
talent.
So even though, you know, I wanted to tell them to stop talking because I want to get,
you know, to the next part, what the way he communicates is very important because he
he paints the full picture.
I was enamored of Amanda's ability to draw on faith, on her ability to reach out to some
(29:28):
other place to say it'll all be OK.
What about my spreadsheets?
Oh my God, her spreadsheets are sexy.
She's got sexy, sexy spreadsheets.
Yeah.
I think this is the first time I've made a spreadsheet called sexy.
I don't know.
Super impressive.
And he does that with graphics.
We're very well paired in our talents.
(29:49):
You know what?
I love this.
That is a beautiful way to end this.
You are very well paired.
I mean, it sounds like you guys work so well together.
You had this great idea.
You didn't even know you're going to be here.
You came from the advertising world and started this whole great experience and journey.
And you opened a portal into another place.
That's right.
Yeah.
Thank you guys for being on the show.
(30:10):
We're so we're so happy.
Thank you.
And we invite everybody to come on out to Blast 70.
Thanks for having us.
To learn more about Vito and Amanda Zurillo, visit blast 70.com.
For more episodes, visit branding shorts.com forward slash podcasts.
(30:31):
Thanks for listening.
The risk takers, innovators, business owners, and their couple.
(00:14):
Welcome to A Couple of Entrepreneurs, a series about couples who start a business together
without ending their relationship.
Hear their unique stories, get tips, advice, and a secret to their success.
Did you work with your spouse?
Hosted by Micki and Tony, a couple of entrepreneurs, co-founders of Branding Shorts, scares, screams,
(00:42):
and surprises.
No, we're not talking about working together as a couple.
We're talking about a ride that's like no other.
Today we're talking with Vito and Amanda Zarillo, creators of Blast 7D, the world's first fully
interactive and fully immersive 7D ride at American Dream.
(01:06):
Welcome and thanks for being on the show.
Well, thank you for having us.
Thank you for having us.
I'm Vito Cirillo.
I am a co-creator and co-owner of Blast 7D.
And I'm Amanda Cirillo, partner to Vito in life and in business.
We started this really fun ride a couple of years ago and we're really enjoying it and
(01:27):
it's great to talk to you today.
Thank you guys.
You know, we've read about it.
We're gonna bring our son to go see it.
Talk a little bit about like, why did you guys start this?
Because you said it's the world's first.
So what made you do the world's first?
That sounds a little, a little nerve wracking, right?
Come up with something like that.
It is certainly daunting.
That is for sure.
It started a bunch of years ago.
(01:48):
You know, right now I'm 52 and at the age of 47, after a lifetime in advertising and
branding, I got laid off.
It is a, it's a very traumatic experience, especially when, you know, you really do kind
of put your blood, sweat and tears into it all.
But at the age of 47, I was looking down the barrel of mortgage and children and school
(02:12):
and all those other things.
You know, it's not an easy profession.
And in a lot of ways, it's kind of like the proverbial young man's game.
It took me a couple of weeks to kind of pull myself up from the ground.
And Amanda said to me, she's like, okay, well, what do you want to do for the second half
of your life?
I said, I didn't know.
Give me two weeks.
(02:33):
Give me two weeks and we'll have this conversation.
I'll let you know what I, what I wanted to do.
So we're a family of great faith.
There was a lot of prayers.
There was a lot of introspection.
There was a lot of self-evaluation.
I sat her down.
I said, I know what I want to do.
I want to bring fun to people's lives.
If you know Amanda, you know that she kind of speaks to me like this.
(02:53):
She's like, well, all right, dummy.
Well, how are you going to do that?
And it was lovingly.
It was lovingly.
I always kind of knew that I wanted to be in the amusement sort of business, or I should
say I had an idea that that's where I wanted to go.
We came across this technology, which was really fantastic.
It's an amazing experience and it's an amazing ride.
(03:14):
The fact that my background was branding and advertising.
I think what was interesting was creating something from scratch.
People don't go to Starbucks because of the coffee maker that Starbucks uses.
People go to Starbucks because it's the Starbucks brand.
We agreed on this technology.
Two weeks later, I said, you know, this is what we want to do.
We agreed to it.
I went into a room and about an hour and a half later, I came out and I had the foundational
(03:39):
elements to what Blast70 actually is.
The name, the logo, the look, the feel, the premise around it.
And then we went from there.
That's a really interesting story because we've heard a lot of other couples, us included,
got the push by getting laid off.
I mean, really interesting start to this business, you know, the way you guys are talking about
(04:00):
and incredible support from Amanda.
You should support me like that sometimes.
I don't know.
So I'm just kidding.
I think she does.
I just say no.
Of course she does.
You know, Tony, we know where our bread is buttered.
Yeah, exactly.
Yes.
Yes, I totally understand what you're saying.
So you said you always had an interest in this.
Why did in amusement?
What was that?
Can you talk about that?
You always had an interest in this field, right?
(04:21):
So we interact with amusements all the time.
And maybe we just don't know it.
You know, something as seemingly benign as arcades all the way to great adventures, seaside
heights on the boardwalk, Ocean City, Disney, Universal, Xbox, Dave and Busters, all kinds
of things.
(04:42):
And the through line of it all is that people are enjoying themselves.
Amanda, what did you think when you had this idea?
So similarly, I in my past life had been had been laid off.
But I also saw, you know, as you get more senior in an industry, you see a lot of more
senior people are the ones who who are getting the cut.
(05:05):
And then and I know that it's harder potentially to to replace that role at the same level
of compensation.
So over, you know, the previous couple of years, I had more and more of an appreciation
for the ability to control one's own destiny.
I was very supportive.
I knew that things were getting harder, as Vito says, for an older guy to play play a
(05:29):
young man's game with, you know, high levels of stress and long hours.
So I was, you know, I was really in.
And the thing that really helped is that, you know, I had a role that I loved, you know,
in finance and I was continuing with that role.
So that provided kind of the stability for for us to be able to explore, you know, Vito
really running this this business.
(05:51):
So now you guys work together to start it.
Why did you partner up?
What did you guys decide to work together on?
There's very few people that I've ever met in my entire life that are smarter than Amanda.
She really, really knows her stuff.
And I'm smart enough to know that I don't know that stuff.
We have complementary backgrounds and skill sets.
(06:15):
We knew that this was a large undertaking and we needed to be adult about it.
We created a business plan.
It took us forever, a long, long time, seven months, seven months to create a business
plan.
It was like 80 pages long.
Because we really had to figure out what's involved in starting and running a business
and getting financing and finding a location.
(06:38):
We are not independently wealthy.
We needed to go out and find lending.
We used, you know, all of our life savings, a fair amount of our children's college savings.
You know, we took a HELOC out on our house.
We got a big SBA loan.
We were in it.
And in order to validate what it was that we were looking to do, we had to create this
(07:02):
business plan.
Our backgrounds really came to bear on the creation of this, the finance, the financial
aspects, the forecasting, the assumptions.
Amanda took a huge lead in that, where we needed to show what this brand would look
like, what it would feel like, what it would sound like, where it would be, all those things.
(07:24):
That was a little bit more on my shoulders.
But we very much treated it as a team, as a partnership.
I mean, we're life partners.
But you know, being business partners is also a very challenging thing.
I mean, we're blessed in the sense that we don't literally work with one another every
single day.
(07:44):
That is another level of complexity added to relationships.
We're not that.
We're not with one another every single day.
We're communicating with one another countless times throughout the day.
But Amanda has a career that she's really dynamite at.
So actually for our audience, if you could describe a little bit what 7D Blast is so
(08:08):
they understand it.
It's the world's first fully interactive and fully immersive 7D ride.
We are at American Dream.
We're on the first floor right next to Angry Birds.
If you come by, you will see that we have a theater, and inside our theater, small little
theater, we have 12 full motion seats.
We take 3D technology, and then we add in acceleration and motion and wind.
(08:32):
And it's a competitive play game.
So you're blasting bad guys in order to get the high score in one of our five different
ride experiences.
You sit, you buckle up.
We have these special 7D glasses.
It's not like a VR.
It's not a big honking sort of headset on.
It's these very stylized glasses.
And we have five different rides, some that are totally not scary and super thrilling,
(08:57):
to some rides that are fairly terrifying and super thrilling.
But regardless of the ride, you are fully engaging with the ride.
We make you feel like you are flying and diving and jumping and falling, like you're inside
the ride, again, all while you're battling bad guys.
Now, we have a lot of families, a lot of friends that come by, and I like to tell them very
(09:19):
clearly, you may love each other and like each other a whole bunch on the outside of
Blast 7D, but as soon as you get in there, all love is lost.
Game on, every man and woman for themselves, because it is a fully competitive play game.
And it's not a passive experience.
How long was the journey, I mean, to come up with where you guys are now versus when,
(09:40):
hey, you're moving on to something new, and Amanda, you're supporting him to take this
next step.
And now you've had this amazing one of a kind adventure right outside of New York City in
this big American dream.
What were some of the challenges you guys had along the way to kind of bring it to where
you are now?
The journey was, of course, longer than expected and many more challenges than expected.
(10:04):
Once we kind of got through the business plan so that we would have something to bring to
banks for financing, etc.
And we chose the location.
The location piece took a while.
We looked at different places in New York City, Jersey City, Hoboken, and then finally
we went to American Dream and we said, this is it.
(10:26):
And we needed that business plan, not only for the banks, but for American Dream.
They needed to validate us.
The visionaries that they are, are incredible.
Right?
I mean, they really re-imagined the way that entertainment and retail coexist together
and they needed to see and validate us.
(10:49):
That was a big part of the journey as well.
Then we went to find an architect, find a construction manager, a designer.
We had some very good and amazing friends who helped us throughout the journey.
A friend who helped with design was really integral in helping us get off the ground.
(11:10):
Another friend who was our lawyer on the lease negotiations.
A lot of people you knew and trusted.
Exactly.
I was going to say that's one of the things that we found really important to the process,
particularly with us doing this for the first time, was having other people kind of validate
what we were doing and what we were thinking.
And not that everybody was in favor of it.
(11:30):
We had naysayers as well, but having those really smart people kind of poke holes in
our process was, I think, really important.
So it sounds like a lot of part of your success was really taking the time to develop a really
good solid plan.
And then another part to get a really solid team, you were saying these folks you got
on board, was to the success that you guys have had.
(11:53):
That's right.
One of the greatest challenges was once we started moving towards the construction process,
we found just how difficult it would be, both with the permitting process, all union labor
was required so that, you know, moved our costs up quite a bit.
And then COVID happened.
Yeah, throw COVID in the mix.
(12:15):
That kind of ground everything to a standstill.
One of the things that was super important was that we had a little bit of room in our
financial plan, because many things came up that kind of blew up the plan.
We had a certain budget.
And then we were convinced that we had to make everything higher end, you know, more
(12:38):
impressive by the American Dream folks.
Construction overages came out everywhere.
We would have been in a real bind if we didn't give ourselves more of a cushion and be able
to kind of survive those financial challenges in the project.
That had to be so stressful.
It was.
We, I must have said 20 times, I can't do this.
(13:02):
We can't do this.
What are we doing?
Why are we doing this?
Why are we putting ourselves through this?
It all came back to Amanda continually anchoring us in the fact that this is a really good
thing.
It will be successful, Vito.
It will be successful.
It will be successful.
We have to think that the power of positive thinking, which I am not generally that great
(13:26):
at, that really was something that continually pushed us to move forward.
I guess one of the things that we go through as a married couple that works together is
like, we don't always agree.
And so we have to make decisions to move things forward.
So it sounds like there were many, many, I mean, there were many decisions on, you know,
you needed funding, you needed a team, you needed this, you needed that.
(13:51):
How do you guys make decisions and how do you come to a resolution when you don't agree?
We, so for example, we had to come to an agreement on how we were going to price the rides and
some details around that.
We would debate, we would revamp the model, we would talk to people a lot, getting other
people's opinion who are in similar situations.
(14:13):
We talked to different businesses at American Dream to get some input there.
It felt like a lot of arbitration, you know, quite frankly.
That's something to say, because like, could you have an example where you guys didn't
agree on something and like how you resolved it, you know, as a husband and wife?
Sometimes.
Man, I defer, honestly, like, I would defer to Amanda.
I was going to say that.
(14:34):
It depends on the topic.
If it's something like how we're going to run the business on a daily basis or how we're
going to kind of set things up with our employees or with customers, I'll have my opinion.
Ultimately, I defer to Vito because he's living that and he's really managing that part of
the business on a daily basis.
(14:55):
And he just knows more than I do because he's there all the time and I'm not.
When it comes to things like financials, you know, I often tell him to back off because
that's my part.
Yeah, in a nice way.
But we debate it.
We debate it and ultimately we have to make a decision.
So we do.
We have healthy debates, too, and when we go through the process, as I'm sure, you know,
(15:20):
everybody who is in this same situation, when you just go through the process of respectful
debate and thoughtful debate, you learn a lot about what it is you're trying to solve.
You learn a lot about you.
You learn a lot about your partner.
And then you really just trust that the other person has the understanding to make the decision
(15:48):
that is the best decision.
Not every decision works out.
We made a lot of bad decisions, you know, but we didn't as of yet.
We didn't make the critically wrong decisions.
That's what you want to avoid.
When you're going through it, it feels like everything is a critically wrong decision.
And we've learned a ton from all of those non critically wrong decisions.
(16:10):
You know, it makes us smarter for the next time.
Especially with a big endeavor like that, creating a ride and experience and branding
it.
So curious, you guys have a couple of kids.
Oh, I was going to ask the same thing.
So what did they say?
Are you the coolest parents in the world now that you've created this ride?
I mean, what did they say when they said, daddy's going to work with mommy and now
(16:33):
we've created this first ever experience?
It was unimaginable to them, right?
At least our younger kids, especially we have three, 17 and eight and a three year old.
And for the two younger ones, it was very unimaginable.
Like they couldn't wrap their heads around what it was.
(16:54):
And our 17 year old was very much caught up in his own life.
You know, I mean, friends school, doing lacrosse, doing sports and stuff, and he would get it
more than the younger ones.
But what I will say is now that it's open and they are able to see it, they're able
to hear, you know, other people screams of terror, screams of joy, laughing, you know,
(17:22):
shrieking.
Our son Vito, he's frankly one of our best employees.
He is so amazingly capable at engaging with and connecting with potential customers as
they walk by and getting them excited about it in a way that makes us wildly proud.
(17:44):
You're talking about a 17 year old and usually 17 year olds give you monosyllabic grunts
as responses to a myriad of questions that you have of them.
So he still does that with us.
He still does that a little bit.
He's engaging with other people.
You know, maybe we scored a couple extra, you know, cool factor parent points and stuff,
but we're still the pain in the neck parents to them that they're that they're used to.
(18:08):
But the three year old will talk about it at school and he'll come home and say, Dad,
I got to go play gigamon.
When are we going to go?
And when we when we go there, we get there with the whole family, probably every weekend
or every two weekends.
And the eight year old runs in and asks, you know, ask the staff at the POS desk, hey,
what can I get on next?
You have space on, you know, zombies.
(18:30):
I want to play zombies.
So they're they're they're they're excited about it.
They love it.
Yeah, sounds like so much fun.
I mean, you guys also have your dad living with you.
So you have like a really full personal life and you have the business life.
So how do you balance that?
When do you do you say, OK, now we're just in personal mode?
(18:52):
I think one of the one of the things that we I'm not sure.
I'm not sure we're that good at it yet.
No, we're not.
We're not.
We're like we're surviving on a daily basis as everybody has so much going on.
But one thing that we started doing and we need to make a little bit more regular is
having business dinners where Vito and I will go out and we will actually talk a lot of
(19:15):
business and strategy and so forth.
But we actually are, you know, setting that time to get away from all of the other responsibilities
and spend time with each other, which we hadn't really been doing for a long time.
So so that's been, I think, quite valuable for us as a couple and us as business owners
(19:37):
as well.
And it's a and it's a real family affair.
You know, as I said, our oldest son, Vito, comes there.
He works there on weekends.
We take our eight year old and our three year old and we try to placate them as much as
possible so that we can get some work done.
But we'll also bring my dad and we'll park him in the corner of blast 78.
(19:58):
People will and talk to him.
And you know, he's actually a really good salesman for us as well.
And when it comes to all of that sort of life work balance, if somebody's got some ideas,
we're all ears.
We're sort of in survival mode on it right now.
It's funny because one of the couples we spoke to, they were saying something similar and
(20:23):
they said for them it was work life integration.
So finding a way just to make it all blend together.
Right.
You guys have done like I said, it's an amazing thing and I can't we can't wait to take our
son to what you guys have done.
So if you had to say here's my biggest concern or fear about jumping into this business,
but here's my biggest joy.
(20:43):
Like what would you look at?
My biggest fear was going bankrupt.
You know, like just quite frankly, we put our house on the line for this.
So and we're not we're not out of it yet.
So that specter of losing our home was a ton of sleepless nights.
And I said to Vito during this time, so V, if we do go bankrupt, where do you think we
(21:09):
should live?
We could be very comfortable in Florida.
Probably we can even have a trailer home.
But you know, we have to have some knowledge that that's a possibility.
So understanding what the risks are.
Then there's the reward.
By far the biggest joy is seeing people's reaction when they are coming off of the ride.
(21:33):
And is I feel like sometimes I should be paying them because it is that much of a joy to see
them coming off the ride totally blown away.
The words, the screams that come out of their mouths as they're riding the ride.
I mean, I say this half jokingly, but people's screams of terror bring such a joy to my heart.
(21:58):
And it is true.
I've had people come off the ride where they have kissed the ground.
People feel like they're flying and diving and jumping and falling.
And the way that they react to that is amazing.
Amanda spoke a little bit before about pricing and pricing is actually something that was
very important to us because we live in an area where stuff ain't cheap.
(22:21):
It's not cheap.
You go to American Dream.
It's an amazing place, but it ain't cheap.
You can definitely drop a lot of coin there.
Our business philosophy is we wanted to bring more joy to more people than any other thing
out there.
So we are priced, you know, about 20% less than almost any other experience within American
(22:48):
Dream.
We would rather have more people come in and experience blast.
It allows families of all demographics, of all levels of affluence or non affluence to
really connect with one another at that time and experience something that they haven't
done.
You know, and hearing mom, hearing dad shriek in terror is a pretty cool thing for an eight
(23:12):
year old to seeing mom and dad like being actual, like, you know, having fun.
So that was your goal.
What you had said earlier in the conversation, right, is that what you wanted to do and I
mean, I do when you said to if you don't, what do you want to do?
I want to have to see how I can help people have fun.
And you did it.
It sounds like you guys have an amazing I mean, a lot of people say what they want to
(23:33):
do and they never do it.
I mean, that's amazing.
I mean, if there were other business owners or couples that was thinking about, you know,
working together, are there any principles that you guys have or things that you say,
okay, here's a couple of things that I would say, you know, you should think about that
help you run a business successfully.
I would say number one in terms of expectations, you guys know, starting a business is not
(23:57):
easy.
And something that really kind of blew my mind is how hard it was as first time business
owners to get financing because, you know, one of the gating questions was, have you
owned a business before?
No.
Okay, come back to us in two years after you have experience.
So how are you supposed to get the funding?
So, so, you know, obviously, there are a lot of different levels in terms of monetary commitment
(24:22):
for businesses, you know, just knowing that there's going to be a lot of challenges that
you're going to need to to get through and have the attitude and the emotions to get
through.
And I think for us, having that solid business plan that other people had vetted and pointed
out problems in was super important because even in the beginning, Vito would come to
(24:47):
me and say, Amanda, we're not making enough money.
This is this is going to be a disaster.
And I'd say, well, no, Vito, we are doing okay.
And this is going along with with our financial modeling.
And yes, Monday and Tuesday are going to be super slow, but we're going to make up for
it on on the weekend.
So, so being able to kind of look at things from that intellectual standpoint when the
(25:10):
emotions are running high, I think what has been really important for us.
And I would say trust is a huge part of it.
Trust your partner, you know, that they have your best interests in mind as you know, as
much as you have their best interest in mind and give yourself the flexibility to make
(25:32):
some bad choices.
Just don't make the really bad choices.
You know what I mean?
Don't go blowing all of your, you know, beginning profits on three boats.
I don't know, you know, whatever, whatever it is, be smart, trust in the process.
If you had a disagreement on how to handle something and your partner made the wrong
(25:53):
decision, you got to forgive each other and you got to move on and not not let those little
issues become a big factor or something that's holding the two of you back together.
These are amazing.
Great.
I want to follow up a little bit on the question or what your response about don't make the
really bad choices.
Like, how do you work together to prevent that?
(26:14):
Because it's easy like, hey, we're doing great.
Let's go buy that boat.
You know, it's like, how do you work together to prevent the over the top bad choice?
A level of frugality is really important.
People just kind of naturally want to have nicer things and making sure that the partner
is in agreement with each of those choices.
(26:34):
When we started talking, you know, well before we were operational about what are we going
to do when we start making some money?
How?
What are we going to put those funds to?
And we both agreed that well, first we have to have a liquidity buffer, right?
Because we might have some months that are great.
We might have some months that are dead or something unexpected comes up and we got to
(26:55):
pay for it.
Then we want to work on paying down debt.
And then, you know, then we'll start saving up for, you know, the next one.
Our goal is to have more than one of these.
So again, we get back to the we want to bring fun and joy to as many people as possible.
You need to save and replenish savings.
(27:17):
We're always thinking about reinvesting in the business.
I'll draw a paycheck at some point, but it's not going to be anytime soon.
It's not like we're living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but we are living as
modestly as we as we can.
We have a lot of friends here that are that are small business owners.
And one of the constant things they talk about is paying your bills.
(27:39):
Just pay your bills.
If you can just get to the next month and pay your bills, man, you're doing OK.
I love that as a small business owner, we get it.
We totally understand.
We completely identify with that.
With a kid.
When did Glass 78 first launch?
September 10th, 2022, which was over a year when we hoped to have launched.
(28:00):
Then we were saying we got to launch before the summer.
We got to launch before the summer.
We opened up the weekend after everybody went back to school.
So I mean, if you could possibly circle a worst time on the calendar, good luck.
And it's all worth it.
You know, like do it.
If you have an idea, don't sit on the sidelines.
Take small steps in order to get to where you think you want to be.
(28:25):
So, you know, so it sounds like you guys are alluding to one more principle that's important.
It's patience.
Things can take a lot longer.
You need to prepare.
I think Amanda, you were saying for a contingency plan, you may have the best business plan
in the world, but you always have to be prepared that things may not go exactly as you plan.
They're not going to go exactly as you plan.
Never does.
It's all curveballs, man.
(28:45):
What surprised each other the most about each other?
I learned that our communication styles are very different.
My first or first couple of jobs was on a trading desk where I learned communicate loudly
and as quickly as possible what you need to do.
Painting a picture and inspiring people with words is not my talent and is very much Vito's
(29:06):
talent.
So even though, you know, I wanted to tell them to stop talking because I want to get,
you know, to the next part, what the way he communicates is very important because he
he paints the full picture.
I was enamored of Amanda's ability to draw on faith, on her ability to reach out to some
(29:28):
other place to say it'll all be OK.
What about my spreadsheets?
Oh my God, her spreadsheets are sexy.
She's got sexy, sexy spreadsheets.
Yeah.
I think this is the first time I've made a spreadsheet called sexy.
I don't know.
Super impressive.
And he does that with graphics.
We're very well paired in our talents.
(29:49):
You know what?
I love this.
That is a beautiful way to end this.
You are very well paired.
I mean, it sounds like you guys work so well together.
You had this great idea.
You didn't even know you're going to be here.
You came from the advertising world and started this whole great experience and journey.
And you opened a portal into another place.
That's right.
Yeah.
Thank you guys for being on the show.
(30:10):
We're so we're so happy.
Thank you.
And we invite everybody to come on out to Blast 70.
Thanks for having us.
To learn more about Vito and Amanda Zurillo, visit blast 70.com.
For more episodes, visit branding shorts.com forward slash podcasts.
(30:31):
Thanks for listening.
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