09/11/2026
It would take too long to quantify everything that has brought Puffling Play to this moment. It has been a journey I (Dani) am incredibly proud of.
I'm proud of the aesthetic we kept improving until it looked how I imagined it.
I'm proud we never had to cancel a single party out of nearly 500.
I'm proud we never had an injury.
I'm proud we strived to always put the customer experience first and when we fell short, we made it right.
I stepped back from major operations over the winter and the longer I was away from the stress and hustle, the more I felt in my bones that I was done with this chapter.
I never intended to grow to be a multi-state operation with six warehouse locations all over Virginia and the DMV area with team members serving all of those locations.
This was just going to be a side gig with a few themed sets for my little area in Central Virginia. The need grew and so did the company.
Not many people know this, but Puffling Play made it to call back auditions two years in a row for Shark Tank. The casting producers LOVED it.
This thing was big.
I've had some really amazing team members and staff. Cristina has been with us since summer 2023. She set up nearly 100 parties in the DMV area in the past three years. She will always be MVP among party specialists.
Heidi started with me in spring of 2023. I didn't know what I needed, but things were getting busy and I knew I needed support of some kind. We met at Starbucks and that night she sent me a party tracker to help keep track of everything we had happening. That was a good call because that fall we had 50 bookings on the calendar at once, 30 in October alone. The system never would have worked without Heidi by my side as Operations Manager. There were more than a few times I answered the phone and they asked to speak to Heidi because she definitely seemed like the one in charge to clients 🤣.
I have learned so much about business, about myself and about the world as I've grown this in the past nearly five years. There are lessons I will carry forward into whatever comes next.
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