(hip hop music)
- Hey good morning everybody, and welcome to the vlog.
Hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
I think I'm gonna do something a little bit different today
and talk about the fact that I am obviously an animal lover.
You know, my whole life I've spent just pouring into animals
and being around animals.
But I'm also a businessman,
I'm a student of business, right?
So I've always thought, if you can combine
your love of something and then make it
into your living, and maybe even a successful living.
That's an amazing thing, right?
I mean that's the dream of everyone.
Is to do what you love,
and hopefully become very successful at it.
Sometimes the problem with that,
when you're working with animals,
is that people can get a little bit
confused because your trying to make financial
decisions that are gonna be successful.
And yet your supposed to be an animal lover
and sometimes is a little bit harder
than let's say if you ran a trucking company.
And your like, I'm really into trucks
and I made a million dollars on hauling
this thing across the town.
You know what I mean?
So I get it, I totally get it.
But the truth is that
although I see myself as a businessman,
a lot of my decisions quite frankly,
aren't very smart when it comes to business.
And I know that.
It's what I call passion projects.
And "The Reptarium" was one of those.
So I'm going to be totally honest with you guys,
when we opened up "The Reptarium"
I didn't even know if we'd break even on the expenses
let alone make our money back that we put into it.
Turns out the first year was really really successful.
And now I've decided to take all the fruits of that labor
and just pour it right into another expansion.
Ya know sometimes talking to you guys
about my plans is almost therapeutic in a way, right?
Because I've got all this stuff going on in my mind
and being able to share it with you guys
kinda helps me.
And sometimes you guys give me great advice
down in the comments.
So please comment down below about this.
I wanna take you through what it's gonna actually
cost to do next door.
Just this wall alone, just opening up this wall
so that you can walk through it,
is gonna probably be like 10 thousand dollars.
(cash register chime)
And this place, oh my god, I mean look at this
this alone right here.
Just the flooring alone to be able to strip this off
grind it down, and probably stain it or epoxy,
so its really cool.
Again, another probably five to seven thousand dollars,
to put into it.
And the reason I'm telling you these numbers
is just because, I want you guys to understand that
it's not all about the money for me
as far as like trying to get rich, right.
It's because I have this vision, right,
and I always say a vision is an opportunity, right?
And that opportunity is up to you to take it.
So if you have a vision for something, it's your choice
whether you want to follow through
or you don't wanna follow through.
In my case I love to follow through with things.
So, my vision is to one day have even a bigger zoo.
Lots of other experiences.
And that's why I'm taking you through this process.
Obviously, the demolition in here,
tearing out all these walls.
And then rebuilding the walls for the snake massage.
As well as the birthday party room.
You know that's gonna cost probably another
10 to $12,000. (bell dings)
Then you tack on top it the electrical, which is gonna
have to replace the service to run all the stuff
'cause we wanna do it really safe.
That's gonna probably be another
seven to $10,000. (bell dings)
And we haven't even started,
working on the cages yet, right?
You know, this is just the demolition
and stuff like that.
You've got plumbing, you've got permits,
you've got all kinds of things that go into this.
So in the end, I'm gonna invest probably
40 or $50,000, (bell dings)
before we even start talking about adding an animal.
(soft piano music)
(hip hop music)
I've mentioned that I wanna do a centerpiece
ya know kinda like (mumbles) right
but for an anaconda.
Something really cool, like rainforesty type thing.
Ya know, Bollinger's enclosure alone is like $12,000
(bell dings)
I mean this stuff isn't cheap.
And again, I'm not complaining, I'm just telling you
that you know, sometimes, even if I'm a businessman
I'm doing silly things, like spending tons of money.
I mean Lucy's cage over here, is a huge cage.
I mean, I think we ended up paying about
10 to $12,000 for this. (bell dings)
And actually, I was told by a zookeeper
that this cage would have costs like 40 to $50,000
if a zoo was buying it.
So it's really wild right.
You gotta remember we're doing a lot of different things
at the new expansion like, you know these cages
are actually back loaded or something like that.
You get behind em'
well the fact that we only have one center aisle,
we're doing back to back glass cages.
So you can see right through em'.
More glass equals more work.
So we're actually heading down to Universal Rocks
probably in about two maybe three weeks
something like that.
And starting bill, I have no idea
how much this is gonna cost.
But I know it's not gonna be cheap,
because we're doing that big display.
We're gonna do a whole bank of big cages,
we're doing that tree monitor thing.
A whole bunch of other stuff.
It's gonna be really expensive.
And probably, more than I want to spend
to be quite frankly.
But I want it to be amazing.
So I'm willing to kinda do
what I think is not a smart business decision,
because I am just excited to have it.
And speaking of monitors,
actually I am excited about the tree monitors.
But I was down at my buddy Forest's, obviously
and he told us something really amazing
about an animal that we can add to "The Reptarium,"
when the expansion is done.
But I really wanna tell Bruce and Jessica about this.
So lets go find them, and spring the news to them.
- [Man] Bruce and Jessica, I've got something
I gotta tell you.
- What up? - Okay.
- [Man] So you know I went to Forest yesterday.
- Uh-huh.
- [Man] And guess what Forest wants to do?
Take a guess.
He wants to give us a yearling Croc Monitor.
- What. - To work with
at the Reptarium.
- Oh my god.
- [Man] He said that you guys would be able to tame it.
So what do you guys think?
- I'll take it on, let's do it.
- Yes. - You ready for the challenge?
Okay, it's the yearling..
- Is it the one they wouldn't pull out for us?
- [Man] Yeah, the one they wouldn't pull out for us.
(laughing)
He said, "It is a little bit crazy," he said,
but he`s happy to give it and put it up here.
You guys wanna do it?
- Yes. - Ya lets do it.
- That's good, lets try it. - Okay, cool.
- [Man] Are you guys excited?
- Ya.
- I got chills.
(laughing)
- [Man] (mumbles) All right , cool excellent.
- If you didn't work here, and you won the lottery?
- [Man] Not enough money to survive the rest of your life.
So you won like five million.
- And you had to put it into something
to keep the money coming.
What would you put the money into?
- I'd buy a huge, huge property in Florida.
And I would probably, basically make my own version
of "The Reptarium," except its just for me.
- [Man] Yup.
- And then I would basically, sorta have some way
to make income happen through that.
Maybe through merch, or maybe even like,
I wouldn't do a YouTube channel,
but maybe hire another guy
like Bryan.
(laughing)
- [Bryan] That's perfect, I love it.
- So what you're saying is that
you would take the thing that you love
and turn it into some way to make money
so you could enjoy your life. - No doubt.
- Guys, do you see this icicle here?
Giant. - How could you not?
- [Bryan] Can you get it down?
Can you take the shovel and you try to catch it?
- You open your mouth.
- You whack, and I'll catch.
- Open your mouth and just try to catch it with your mouth.
- [Bryan] Like the sword swallowers, right?
- Yeah, that's right. - Okay, let's do it.
- [Bryan] Let's do it.
All right, you gotta hit it high enough
so that you don't mess it up.
- Watch electrical! - Get closer!
- Electrical! - Get closer!
- Gotta get close. No, I'm scared though.
- [Bryan] Gotta catch it.
Oh my gosh.
- Oh my gosh!
- Keep going, keep going.
- Oh, my god. - Harder, harder.
- [Bryan] Oh, you broke it, but that's okay.
- Be careful! - Oh, keep it going.
- It's on the electrical!
- Oh, it's gonna knock the whole thing down, dude.
- Watch, watch it!
(screams)
- [Bryan] Derek!
- I caught it!
- You were supposed to catch it!
- I caught it.
- [Bryan] Oh my gosh, what the heck, dude.
That was a crazy icicle though, right?
- That was all in one piece!
It was all in one piece.
- [Bryan] Have you guys heard that the whole,
I don't know if this is an urban legend,
but you take an icicle,
stab someone in the heart,
but then the murder weapon, - It melts.
- No I've got it.
- [Bryan] No fingerprints or anything.
- No, that's a real thing, I've done it.
- That's for real.
Because here's the murder weapon, it's gone.
Oh it's still there.
But, it'll be gone. - It's gone.
- And the evidence goes into the ground.
- Hey what about that one?
Someone's gonna come out and get freakin' killed.
- Oh my god, let's knock that down.
- I love icicles.
(yells)
- We got it. - Here's the grand finale.
- [Man] You're gonna knock the electrical off.
- Yeah!
(grunts)
- We touch the power line and,
- Here.
(laughing)
- And obviously, when I'm doing all these crazy things,
whether building BHB, or the Reptarium,
or the Tipster, whatever it is,
Lori has to actually be supportive of me, right?
You know, I know oftentimes I make the vlog
seem like Lori is always upset,
and she's against everything I do,
and she's always mad,
because it's always fun to make her,
and she can be mean, I'm not gonna lie,
but the fact is that, really, without her,
I couldn't have done any of this, you know.
And you've been pretty supportive.
Footsie.
And you've been pretty supportive,
in particular with the Reptarium,
you've been really on it, right?
- Yes.
(laughs)
- I mean are you excited about this expansion,
or are you kind of like not sure?
- I would say I'm excited, and nervous.
- Yeah.
- Just like anything, it's a whole 'nother adventure,
so hopefully we get everything figured out right,
and it goes smooth, right?
- I know, it really is.
But I just wanna always know that it's important
to have, what do they say,
behind every great man is a better woman,
or something like that?
- Sounds good. - Something like that.
- I don't know, I just said that so I can get brownie points
so I can get that sloth, you know what I mean?
(woman laughs)
So the sloth is next right after the Reptarium?
- It's, there's a pin in that one.
- A pin in that one.
So anyways, but I do think it's important
to have someone that's there to support you
through stuff like that so,
although I may get a lot of the credit for the things,
really Lori, and really everyone that's around me,
my crew and everything,
are the one's that help me get to where I wanna be.
Now I know when you guys see me vlogging
over at the new place you see a bunch of junk
and a bunch of nastiness.
The truth is, I already see it done, right?
I already see the vision of everything being done.
Now will it change?
Of course it probably will change.
What it will actually turn out to be,
to what I see in my head now
will probably change,
but I think overall it's about the same.
But the fact is, is that once we expand,
we probably have to double our work crew,
because we're going to have more animals.
Obviously, when we're open,
we're going to need instead of four people working
we're going to need eight people working.
We're going to have to have a snake massage therapist,
we're gonna have to have someone to man the fish thing,
the gift store,
I mean there's a lot more that's going into us,
and yes I'm taking a risk,
I really am from a business standpoint.
I was doing well at the Reptarium,
and a lot of times people say, just stay where you're at,
you're doing fine,
but to me it's about pushing that envelope
and doing something that I'm really excited about.
But let's talk about the fact
that I'm gonna be doubling basically everything,
my expenses and investment,
how am I gonna make that back,
or am I just gonna make less money?
(hip hop music)
I'm trying to be as transparent as I can with you guys,
because I want to take you guys on the journey.
I feel like you guys are such a part of everything
that I do,
the Reptarium, BHB, YouTube, Social,
all the things,
without you guys I can't do this stuff,
so the truth is, is that I don't wanna double my expenses
and bring the same amount of people through the door
because it doesn't really make sense.
Could the experience be a little bit better?
Yeah, and is that worth it to some extent?
A 100%.
But I really only have four options
to actually make that revenue back up.
Not only to cover the double expenses,
but also to eventually, hopefully,
recooperate the investment I'm making.
And the four things are:
snake massage,
now again you guys might, what's snake massage?
Snake massage is basically
where you're gonna have a massage therapist type of person,
they're gonna lay down and let snakes kind of crawl on you.
First you do your body,
then maybe a little bit of your face and head,
you turn over and do your back,
its kind of a cool little gimmicky thing
that I think is just fun.
I wanna do it, I think it's really cool.
Started in Cambodia, there's some in Israel now,
I think in Japan,
and there's actually even one or two in New York now,
so we're gonna do it here.
That's an opportunity to create revenue, right?
We also have the fish spa,
you know, its gonna be like a fifteen minute experience,
maybe 20 bucks, something like that,
so if we can have a lot of people do the fish spa,
where you put your feet in,
get eaten by fish,
you know that's an opportunity to generate money, right?
We also have the fact that we can do birthday parties now,
during open hours, as well as when we're still doing a tour,
so we can double up our income on that side.
The only other thing we have that can generate income
is either gifts or extra feedings, right?
Those are the drivers that are gonna hopefully offset
the costs of the increased overhead and investment into it.
I think it's worth it, is it a good business decision?
Maybe not, but I don't care
because I think it's gonna be absolutely incredible.
Over here at the Reptarium,
this is kind of like home for me, right?
This is my comfort zone.
I remember standing in this very spot a year and a half ago,
and looking over here and envisioning
what we actually see now.
And here I am, now it's here.
It's been an unbelievable journey,
and I realize this isn't a normal vlog, I get it.
Let me know in the comments if you like this kind of a thing
where I'm sharing my kind of journey
because I really wanna take you guys on this entire journey
to see how it ends up turning out,
and I wanna know if you guys are okay with it,
and we're not maybe showing as many animals in this vlog,
but the fact is that things have worked out way better
here at the Reptarium than I could have ever imagined.
Which has afforded me the opportunity to take the risk,
to do it again.
Now I hope I won't think its a mistake in the future,
but I don't really think that way.
I kind of think, like, its gonna be a great experience
and even if financially, from a business standpoint,
it doesn't work out the way I think it's gonna work out,
I know from a life experience standpoint,
it's gonna be absolutely incredible.
All right guys, if you won the lottery,
- Won the lottery? - Wow.
- [Bryan] Not like 100 million, like a couple million,
- A couple million. - Chump change.
- So you have a bunch of money,
but you're probably gonna need to make money,
what are you gonna do?
Are you gonna, you gotta turn it into a business.
What business would you want? - Yeah, a business.
- Got a killer idea.
Rent to own fake plants and bathtubs.
You rent to own 'em.
- That's-- - Fake plants?
- If anyone wants to go in with me,
- Fake plants and bathtubs?
- You can rent to own a bathtub.
You rent it, you'll own it, okay?
- And a fake plant?
- And fake plants, they're expensive.
Couple 100 bucks, so you come in,
ill finance you, make a small payment,
- How much are you putting down?
- 25 down.
- 25 dollars down, and you get a bathtub and a fake plant?
- Just a fake plant,
the bathtub, we'll have to talk about it.
- [Bryan] How much do you think for a bathtub?
- A hundred bucks dude.
- [Bryan] A hundred bucks?
- You will drive away for a hundred bucks,
and a bathtub.
- Wow.
- Maybe that's not a good idea.
- I don't know dude,
that's pretty crazy.
- You can't resell them. - You know what I would do?
- [Bryan] I think you two should do it together.
- Hell no. (laughs)
You can do that one on your own.
I think I would buy in on Faze Clan.
I would get part ownership of Faze Clan.
- [Bryan] That's actually a good idea.
- And I'd still
have money left. - Its like a football team,
but it's for video games.
- Yeah, pretty much.
- Is that how that works? - Yeah, pretty much.
- A rapper just bought it, right?
- Yeah, exactly.
So I'd get a little share of that, and then--
- [Bryan] That's actually a good idea.
He's sports a gig. - That's actually smart.
- He sports smart - That's pretty smart.
- And I would still have a mill, or so,
'cause I wouldn't want to put it all on that.
Just a little bit.
And then with that million,
I would just buy a bunch of fun stuff.
- [Bryan] Would you invest in the bathtub--
- No. - And plant?
- I mean I'd let you in right now
if you want. - No.
- Big business.
- I don't think, - Jacuzzi tubs.
- Okay, guys, just, you know, comment down below,
I'll give you Eric's cellphone,
you can text him. - Jacuzzi tubs.
- Number's popped up right here.
- Let's go ahead and put the number on the screen.
You can text him any day, day and night,
and he will hand deliver fake plants and bathtubs.
- Already got a jingle, already got a jingle.
♪ Come to Eric's bathtubs Emporium ♪
♪ Where bathtubs and friendship go hand in hand ♪
(clapping) (Bryan laughs)
- So whether it's over here at BHB,
or over here at the Reptarium,
you know, these are my comfort zones,
this is where my home is and where I live,
but its time to step out of our comfort zone
and get into the new project,
and I wanna take you guys along on that journey,
I truly hope that you enjoyed it,
and that we're gonna, together,
have an amazing experience.
And I think that the destruction, or construction,
starts next week.
So what do you guys think?
Let me know in the comments,
and let's hope that this is gonna be absolutely
an incredible journey with a great destination.
As for now, I'm gonna go ahead and end it,
and tell you guys to go over here
and watch some more animal videos, if you don't mind.
Over here there's an entire playlist
if you wanna just roll through some content for me.
Over here please click on that subscribe button.
While you're there,
can you please turn the post notifications on,
remember to have an absolutely wonderful day,
be kind to someone,
and I promise I'll see you guys tomorrow.