We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kimmy Leighton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kimmy below.

Hi Kimmy, thanks for joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

What began as a side business, turned into our full time jobs within 3 years. I was a teacher for a short time before getting pregnant with our first child and wanting to be at home with him at least part of the time. I was pregnant and working a few part time jobs while my husband, Matt, was a marketing director at a financial firm when we decided to give a side hustle a go with a new, creative photo booth type activation. While taking walks at night discussing our business plan and making frequent visits to Barnes and Noble for branding ideas, we created a business that we believed would consume a few hours a week of our time. Excited and hopeful in 2008, we opened our business with one flip book station. In the second month of business, we received a request from HBO for two flip book stations. We tend to be yes-people, so we quickly pulled together another station. In 2009, this trend continued. We gradually added more stations as well as more offerings. We added a Slow Motion photo booth and a GIFBooth. By 2014, we had 18 flip book stations, 2 Slow Motion photo booths and 2 GIFBooths around the country. Never in our wildest dreams would we have imagined this journey. It was a huge learning curve and came with bumps and bruises but we have been blown away by how amazing it has been.

Matt and I started out by asking our family for help working these live events with us. Our first event was my sister’s wedding in San Diego. We revealed to our family and friends what we had been working on. We only had a few naysayers about our new venture but overall our family was very supportive and ready to jump on board. First one of my sisters, then Matt’s parents, then cousins and friends, more siblings and my parents. After the first year and a half, we had grown so much we knew we needed to branch out beyond our circle, especially because we began traveling all over the country. Job posts at various colleges in Southern California helped us expand even further. We grew to have branches and teams in San Diego, Los Angeles, Northern California, Chicago and New York. It was enough for Matt to quit his full time job in 2011 to focus solely on A Little Scene. More pinch yourself moments for sure.

Growing, of course, does not come without obstacles. Hiring people that were not the right fit, equipment and supply issues, travel issues, scheduling conflicts, stress and exhaustion were all part of that process. We have some wild stories from 13 years of being in business but have gained so much. Knowledge, strength, experience, and perspective are words that come to mind when thinking about this ride.

Raising two kids (our daughter came in 2012) and running a blossoming business has been surreal. A whirlwind, with highs and lows and many lessons learned. We, like many, took a huge hit – or shall we say complete halt – during the pandemic, We lost 90% of our team, including branch managers around the country, had to close down warehouses storing our equipment, sold equipment, have had to turn down business due to being short staffed, and have run into major supply chain and travel issues, but we began rebuilding with our existing team members and family and our growth has been wonderful to watch. We’ve done it once so know the steps to rebuilding but are also more strategic and purposeful in our decisions doing so.

Kimmy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

For 13 years we have provided flip book stations and photo booths at wedding, bar/bat mitzvahs, corporate events, birthdays, graduations, small gatherings, music festivals, tradeshows, and lead generation and other marketing events. We are based in Southern California but service all states. Our activations serve as entertainment as well as party favors or marketing pieces. Whether it’s for a few hours or over multiple days we love to bring smiles to events.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Our first event in Los Angeles was a Bat Mitzvah. That quickly led to more mitzvahs. Our first two-station event was HBO. That led to other networks and corporations taking interest. Each event led to another event. Each event is our marketing. This trickle effect lead to our expansion. With that expansion came trust. We have always been strict about working hard at fulfilling our job of creating great experiences and products at each event. We bled into the world of celebrities and the elite and gained their trust by keeping their events confidential. We have signed many NDAs and know how to abide by protocol given to us by clients. Being reliable and, due to our large number of stations/offering, being available have helped elevate us. By providing quality service and products, we gained a wonderful reputation and are so thankful for that.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

I still remember where we were when we received the call to provide our flip book service for Richard Branson’s 60th birthday party at Necker Island, his private island. We were over the moon and in disbelief. It was a four day adventure. Figuring out logistics of getting equipment to the British Virgin Islands was not a small feat. We took a small plane to the neighboring island before boating over to another island where we were staying (across from Necker Island). We were smiling from ear to ear as we passed the small plane unloading our luggage. As we watched, we saw one of the attendants throw our printer and saw it land hard. Talk about our stomachs dropping. As soon as we arrived to our resort, we unpacked everything to make sure it all worked. Low and behold our printer took a hit and wasn’t working. Trying to find a Staples or something of the sort from a small island posed a challenge. After much research and a panic attack or two thinking about having to refund Richard Branson who had flown us out to his island for his special celebration, we managed to pull it off. And it was a blast! For sure, our career highlight. And a close call that we made it out of.

Contact Info:

• Website: alittlescene.com
• Instagram: @alittlescene
• Facebook: A Little Scene
• Linkedin: Kimmy Leighton
• Yelp: A Little Scene

Image Credits
Katherine Beth Photography – image of me