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

Alright, KRISTI thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

Party Baby is the first and only all inclusive venue for primarily children’s parties. Unlike other businesses, like gymnastics, inflatables, art studios who offer their space for individual use, we are fully dedicated to the craft of executing perfect parties. It’s literally all we do! This means that our focus is on making each celebration special and different. Our space is beautifully decorated at all times. Table scapes are prepared according to the theme requested. Parents love that all they have to do is show up. We provide the decor, entertainment, food, cupcakes/cake, and party favors. Clients are able to customize their time with us by adding items like balloon drops, characters, magicians, balloon twisters, interactive djs and more. Whatever the dream, we can make it happen!

KRISTI, 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?

I launched my first business, Float Baby, in 2013 and became known among new moms as the baby whisperer. I am a certified Instructor of Infant Massage and brought the concept of floating infants to the U.S. Shortly after opening, I realized there was a huge gap in the infant formula market and a need for better ingredients. I began importing European baby formula and our second company, Formula 911 was born.

After an appearance on Shark Tank in 2016, Float Baby received overwhelming interest from parents seeking guidance on and relief from all things Newborn. I was inspired to develop and patent my own floatation device (The Hoverfish®), and create an organic skin care line for baby’s most common issues, such as acne.

We moved the West University area in our 8th year of business. With more room in the new space, we began receiving requests for children’s spa appointments. After overwhelming party and event requests from clients, it was clear that I needed to find the perfect space to expand.

We began hosting a myriad of kids parties in December 2023. With over 250 parties completed, I have learned what works and what doesn’t. We are always pleased to see people come back and book a second or third celebrations with us.

In the last few months we have started hosting adult events such as mahjong and small cocktail parties. I imagine this will be a larger focus for us in 2025 and I’m excited to see where it takes us!

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

Reliability and honesty are the two fundamentals that we work from. In all of our businesses we have acted as a resource for parents to receive advice and information from. Because we started with Float Baby, and added Formula 911, we have several clients that have grown with us along the way. It’s fun to see our Float Babies celebrating milestones. If we had not developed the solid reputation for quality and commitment in the beginning we would not have had such strong start and incredible book of business to draw from when we opened Party Baby.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I try to manage my team by working alongside them. Anything that we do at Party Baby is collaborative. I have a relatively young team (high schoolers!) for the most part and their ideas are fresh and trendy. I have learned to trust their opinions and factor those into the final decisions. We try to keep morale high by sharing in all the tasks and responsibilities so that no one feels like they are working harder than someone else. Additionally, while we are working, there is a lot of chatting and laughing which I think keeps things light and fun for everyone. I feel like I’m more of a “work mom” than a manager.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.partybabyusa.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/partybabyusa

Image Credits

John Huang