Meet Mark Krokos

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mark Krokos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mark, thank you for joining us today and sharing your experiences and acquired wisdom with us. Burnout is a huge topic these days and so we’d love to kick things off by discussing your thoughts on overcoming or avoiding burnout
For my business, preventing burnout is crucial for sustained success. In my first season, roughly 3 months long, I did over 80 foam party events. Needless to say buy the end of that period I was becoming burnt out. Both physically and mentally exhausted, I learned I need to have a healthy work-life balance. This past year in my second season I did an equal amount of events but found myself happier and in a much more manageable place.

The first thing I did was to work smarter and not harder. I found an online booking firm that made managing my bookings and payments far easier. Since I run literally every aspect of my business, getting extra help with this crucial part made my life much easier. I no longer had to worry about organizing my bookings through various software programs, collecting payments, over booking, or even knowing where I was going and when. The time I saved was invaluable!

After my first season I also learned to make more time for myself and my family. I scheduled set days for vacations and day trips, as well as just taking time to relax. I also learned how to say no. If there was something I already scheduled I would either help my customer find an alternative date and time or turn them away. Afterall, one less event is better than burning out and quitting altogether!

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I have always dreamed of owning a business and finally made that dream a reality. As a dedicated school teacher deciding whether or not I wanted to start my own business was a tough decision. Ultimately, I went for it and the results have been tremendous! To start at the beginning, I always liked bubbles and my daughter and I started doing little bubble shows for fun at our house. We would make all kinds of bubbles big and small, and played music while we did it. We even performed our little bubble show for local libraries, a birthday party or two, and at my school for covid drive through graduation parades. Throughout that time, I always thought foam machines were exciting but also very expensive. During the pandemic I saw a commercial foam machine at a big box store, but it did not look very impressive for the price, so I decided to build my own. Without much to do and nowhere to go, I did some research online and was able to build my own machine to use in our neighborhood. Everyone loved it, and it was a blast to use! At my neighbors request I did a foam party for their daughter’s birthday. Someone took notice of pictures on Facebook and asked if I would make foam at their daycare locations. Sure enough it was a huge success! After going back and forth between taking on starting my own business or not, I decided that I would create an official business making foam. I made some contacts in the industry and networked with other people around the country that have foam party companies. After researching the up-and-coming foam industry and using my technological background, I then created my logo and designed a company website. I also upgraded from my DIY machine to a foam cannon, and also switched to a commercial foam solution that is hypoallergenic, pet safe, dye free, and ecofriendly. Lastly, I researched different business types and chose to set my business up as an LLC. I completed the whole process online without having to hire anyone. That Foam Party Guy was officially born! With foam season in Northeastern Pennsylvania fitting perfectly into my teaching schedule and my love of children, That Foam Party Guy has become more successful than I ever would have thought it would be with more exciting plans for the future.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Most impactful to my journey was believing in myself, remaining teachable, and defining what success is to me.

In terms of being successful you first need to decide what success is to you. Is success personal growth, happiness, money, peer recognition, or something else? Success is defined differently by every person. However, no matter how you define it, you need have strong desire and motivation. There will always be people who tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t, but you need to see your idea through for yourself. By all means listen to everyone’s advice and opinions but use your personal desire to be a success to propel you to do the necessary research and planning to make the risk you are taking as minimal as possible. Is there a chance your road to success could be bumpy or even hit a detour? Absolutely! But if you don’t take the first step in your journey you will never know what could have happened.

Once you are set on what you want to do, you need to look at your motivation. If your motivation only includes extrinsic motivators, such as money, you might be setting yourself up to lose your motivation more easily when times are tough. If your motivation contains more intrinsic motivators, like personal enjoyment, growth, or satisfaction, you will always achieve some level of success.

I consider That Foam Party Guy to be a success both personally and financially! If the whole business collapsed tomorrow, I would still consider it successful. In its current form, my business is not main source of income. To have thrown everything into That Foam Party Guy would have been a foolish business strategy and put an insane amount of pressure and stress on myself and family. I started the business small to test the market and experience what it takes to run a business. The business does have the potential for large growth, and I am currently at a crossroad of which direction I would like it to go. I have added some new services to my business such as Bubble and Snow Parties. Could I go bigger? Yes, but for the moment I am thrilled at seeing the happiness I bring to people by putting on parties and events, I enjoy the excitement of having my phone alert me when bookings comes in, and of course earning extra income for my family is wonderful. So however you define your success, I wish you nothing but the best!

I myself am still early in my journey but I would say when starting out you need to remain teachable and have the willingness to learn new things. Just as in my other career, teaching, you need to always be able to modify and adjust. Things are always in motion and always changing. Listening to others and taking in what they have to say based on their experiences should always be part of your decision making process. Ultimately the final decision will be yours to make!

Also it is important to believe in yourself. Be your best cheerleader! If you have done all the foot work and calculated a reasonable risk.

Three skills that someone starting the small business journey would be entrepreneurial mindset, marketing and sales,

Entrepreneurial mindset: Cultivating a mindset that embraces risk-taking, innovation, and a willingness to learn is essential. Entrepreneurs should be adaptable, resilient, and open to new ideas, enabling them to navigate challenges and capitalize on opportunities.

Marketing and Sales: Effective marketing is essential for attracting customers and creating a market presence. Entrepreneurs need to understand their target audience, develop a compelling value proposition, and implement marketing strategies to promote their products or services. Sales skills are crucial for closing deals and generating revenue.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
One of my favorite books that I have read about becoming an entrepreneur would be Target Success by Don Dwyer. It is an older book, but it lit a fire in me to want to start a business of my own. One of the most important lessons that the book taught me, which translated into a life philosophy, was the idea of focusing on developing “targets” for yourself and not just setting a goal. The reason being is that if you set a goal for yourself, you set yourself up to be a success by reaching the goal or failure for not making it. The mindset of a target is that there are different degrees of success and no failures. If you think of an archery target you can get a bullseye or score points at each ring. Now compare that to a soccer goal, where you take a shot and you either miss or get the point. The idea of a target has a huge positive psychological impact, especially when you are venturing into starting your own business.

To translate the idea of a target into my current business, if I were to set a goal of reaching 100 foam events in my first season, and I didn’t reach it, would I be a failure? Absolutely not! If I only did 50 events that is huge success from not having ever even tried to start a business, and only dreaming of what could have been. That 50 parties translated into dollars, 50 invaluable experiences, and 50+ potential new and repeating customer contacts for the next season. Hardly a failure at all!

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