From Stay-at-Home Mom to CEO: What No One Tells You About Starting a Business

The path to entrepreneurship for Amanda Ford starting Bounce Around Knox didn’t start with a business plan—it started with a birthday party.

What began as a simple desire to find a beautiful bounce house for her son’s celebration quickly turned into a fast-growing rental business in Knoxville, Tennessee. Along the way, Amanda found herself navigating the unexpected realities of starting a product-based business: funding inventory, figuring out pricing, and juggling a full-time role as a mom. From late-night setups to learning the ins and outs of social media marketing, Amanda’s first year in business was anything but easy—but it was full of growth, grit, and grace.

This isn’t just a story about bounce houses—it’s about building a business from scratch, trusting your instincts, and redefining what success looks like in the middle of motherhood. The lessons, the numbers, the heart behind it all—it’s in today’s show.

 

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Amanda Ford and an Unlikely Path to Entrepreneurship

I guess as far as, without going way too far back, I used to work for a retail store called the Lizard Thick Boutique, and I started working for them back in Peachtree City, Georgia. Must’ve been like maybe 2012. And I very quickly worked my way up there, and when the owner of that franchise wanted to open up more franchises, she had kind of used me to find her manager replacement in the Peachtree City store and then moved me to Knoxville, Tennessee to open up this store here in Turkey Creek.

So that was Lizard Thick—it was like my first baby. I was single, I was looking for a place in the world, and that just really gave me my boost and kind of showed me what I wanted to do, which was customer service, managing people. So while working in the Turkey Creek store, she had gone on to open up a store in Greenville, South Carolina. So again, I found a manager to take my spot to go to Greenville, South Carolina. But at the time I had met my husband Michael, and he was here in Knoxville.

And so that was the first shift of like, okay, I think I’m actually going to plant roots here in Knoxville. And so we sent that manager to Greenville and long story short, after Michael and I had gotten married and wanted to start a family, he and I both were working jobs that were nights, weekends, holidays. Michael specifically, he would leave town for work for weeks at a time. And so we knew we cannot have a baby working these schedules. And so I got a Monday through Friday, 8-5 banking job.

Which is not my personality, but I wanted to be a mom. And Michael’s career was absolutely thriving at the time and he was working in pyrotechnics—so 4th of July, the fireworks at the football games—that was all his company, so he was climbing the ladder there. So that was really important. When we had our son, it was December of 2019. It was always my plan to go back to work. I knew banking wasn’t for me, but all we’ve ever done was work. So there just wasn’t another thought, another option.

 

Shifting During the Pandemic After Having a Baby

I never pictured myself as a stay-at-home mom. I just work, work, work, work, work. That’s what I do. And then I have this baby and he goes to daycare and I come home and repeat, right? So anyways, he was born in December of 2019, and then when my maternity leave was up in February of 2020, we all know what happened back then. And the daycare that he was supposed to go to was like, I’m so sorry. We don’t know what’s happening with the world and we just aren’t taking new kids. We don’t have a spot. World shifted.

 

Putting Her Energy Into Being a Mom

I put my entire energy, life, focus into being mom and it was the very best thing that has ever happened to me—was not having the choice to go back to work, but to have to stay home. And I would never have had it any other way.

 

Making ends meet during a pivot

Michael, not long before, but right out of high school, had actually started a lawn care company. He mowed yards. He did not want to go to school. And so he started a business and he mowed yards. He had some John Deere mowers, all that. Long story short, he did end up obviously going to school and he graduated from UT and got his job. So he picked up mowing on the side to kind of make ends meet. We canceled cable, everything that we could, we just lived low. We also had then decided in those months, okay, we know that we want to have more kids, let’s have them quickly and you’re going to be home. We’re going to figure it out and you’ll go back to work when the kids go to kindergarten. And so we kind of had this five-year plan.

 

Deciding to be a stay-at-home mom instead of going back to a corporate job

It was more so a period not of, I want to go back, because while the banking job was great and the hours were great for what we had thought that we wanted for our lives, I knew that banking wasn’t for me. It wasn’t fueling a passion, couldn’t really climb the ladder into anything that was intriguing to me. And so it was more so I felt like I needed to find work because income felt scary. But we had probably about three months, I would say, when our son was about three months old and I was doing all my research at night and I felt such a—that was my job, was to figure out how I can support this baby and play with him.

And so I was like, I’m so thankful to be home. And that’s when I had said to Michael one night, I was like, I want to be home. There’s nowhere for him to go. I don’t want to go back to banking. I don’t know what I want to do.

He was like, “I’m going to mow yards. It’s summertime now, and we’re going to figure it out.” We ended up having our daughter not long after, and that really solidified our five-year plan: we’d save where we could, cut costs as much as possible, and I would stay home with our babies. When they go to kindergarten, I’d go back to work—whatever that might look like.

 

Amanda Ford on Starting Bounce Around Knox

Do you ever feel like when you’re not looking for something is exactly when it shows up? Or when you’re not ready for something and it just gets placed right in front of you, like—are you going to do this or walk away?

Michael and I love to throw a party. We’re avid party hosts. If there’s a football game on, people are at our house. We love having our kids and their friends running around. We’ve always gone big for birthdays. For our son’s first birthday, we bought a Little Tikes bounce house—the kind you set up in the backyard. So we rolled it out for that party, and every year after, it became a tradition.

When our daughter’s first birthday came around, our son was almost three, and we realized pretty quickly—one- and three-year-olds don’t belong in the same little eight-by-eight bounce house. It was chaos. She wasn’t even walking yet. So for our son’s next birthday, just a few months later, we decided we were going to rent a bounce house.

Then it kind of became a thing. Easter party—we rented a bounce house. Halloween—we rented one again. For our daughter’s second birthday, I found this beautiful white bounce house and I was so excited, but when it showed up, it was gorgeous… and way smaller than the traditional ones we’d been renting.

Through all of this, Michael—being the budget guy—would always say, “I wonder how much these cost? Maybe we should just get one ourselves.” And every time we’d do a quick Amazon or Google search, we’d end up just renting again.

But after our daughter’s second birthday, we were like, “They’ve got to make bigger ones, right? In white?” That’s all we knew existed. Then, our son’s birthday was coming up—this must’ve been early October—and he wanted an obstacle course. We had already rented one. But then the rental company emailed me and said it got damaged at a church event and they had to cancel our reservation.

I forwarded the email to Michael, and he called me immediately and said, “Do not book anything else. This is it. I’m buying one.” I was like, “Okay!”

 

Deciding to Buy The Bouncy House (Without Starting a Business Yet)

And just to know Michael—he’s a go-with-the-flow guy. He doesn’t speak up often, but when he does, I listen. So when he said that, I knew he was serious.

It all happened so fast—in about two weeks. Michael’s background is in logistics and supply chain, so he found a manufacturer quickly. One night we were chatting with them, and they offered color swatches and customization. I found the most beautiful purple, and I asked, “Wait, you can make the whole thing purple?” She said, “Yes.” Then she asked if I wanted a slide added, and I was like, “You can add a slide to a bounce house?!” My mind was blown.

So we customized two units—one for our daughter, and one for our son. At the time, we were just going to keep them for ourselves.

We thought, “We throw parties. Our friends come. Surely they’d want to use these too.” And Michael said, “If we let someone else use them, we probably need insurance.” That’s when we started looking into it—insurance is expensive. So then I said, “Well maybe other people would want to rent them too.”

We weren’t even on social media at the time, but I created an account and started searching—white bounce house Knoxville, pastel bounce house Knoxville—and nothing came up. It didn’t exist. I saw companies in Arizona, California, Texas, but nothing in East Tennessee.

 

Starting Bounce Around Knox

I called Michael and told him, and he said, “You better hope people around Knox want to bounce.” And I said, “Bounce Around Knox! That’s it!” I was like, “We’ve got a business.”

So we started with two units… which turned into five, because the more you ship together from overseas, the better pricing you get. I started a website, created the social media account, and interest came flying in.

Immediately. My phone blew up. I mean, we don’t even have a huge following—probably around 600-something now—but in the first few days, it just took off.

We just celebrated a year. So we ordered five more units shortly after that first batch arrived, and now we carry ten.

 

Amanda on Marketing & Pricing in the Beginning

I wasn’t on social media before this. I was very intentional about not scrolling, being present. But the week we launched? My screen time jumped from 1 hour and 43 minutes a day to six hours a day. That’s when I realized—this is a full-time job.

Michael had owned a landscaping business right out of high school, so he knew how to get a business license, check name availability, all of that. He handled the backend—licenses, official filings—while I jumped on Wix to build the website.

For pricing, we did a ton of market research. We knew we’d be considered more of a luxury brand. First, we looked at what traditional bounce houses charged, what white bounce houses cost in bigger markets, and built a pricing model that made sense. We factored in how many rentals it would take to pay off each unit, plus the cost of a trailer, cleaning supplies, dolly—so much more than you’d think.

We had about three months from placing the order to the units arriving, which gave us time to really figure out the logistics.

 

Hitting the One-Year Mark

And now that we’ve hit the one-year mark—it’s wild. Last night, Michael and I finally took a breath and were like, “Wow. We’ve been doing this for a year.” We hit the ground running and just kept going. We had no idea what we were doing, but we were hard workers, and we knew people wanted these units.

Some tough lessons came with that first year. When I launched, I hustled hard—emailed venues, planners, introduced our brand. And a lot of people wanted free stuff. We traveled far—like, hours away—delivering units, often for free, just trying to get our name out there. I don’t regret it, but we’ve learned our worth since then.

 

Learning their value

We saw firsthand how much value these bounce houses bring to events. People show up when there’s a bounce house—it’s a draw. So now we charge accordingly, and we’re careful about where we go. There’s no travel fee big enough to justify driving two hours anymore. That’s something we’re reevaluating this year—whether we license the brand, expand, or explore other options in outlying areas.

As for me, yeah—my five-year plan to stay home? That got fast-forwarded. I’m back to work earlier than expected. Balancing business and motherhood has been… a journey. Ask me again in year two!

 

From Stay-at-home Mom to Starting Bounce Around Knox

When we passed a year in business, we didn’t really celebrate, but I made a post on social media thanking all of our customers for supporting us through our first year. And I said, year two is going to be the year we find balance and come back home to our babies.

Their lives got turned a full 180. It was a hard year, personally—definitely. And I just want to be home with them on the weekends, especially with our son. This is his last year at home before he goes to kindergarten, and I’m sick to my stomach about it. He only goes two days a week to a little part-time preschool, which we love, but there’s going to be a pre-K graduation and just thinking about it makes me emotional.

I wasn’t ready to stop staying home. I’m going to cry just thinking about it because it all happened so fast. But the thing is—and you and I have talked about this on our walks—I would never choose to go work for someone else. The fact that I have the flexibility now to take my kids to school, to pick them up for lunch, go to the doctor—if I was still at the bank working Monday through Friday, I wouldn’t have that.

And even though we’ve spent the last year working every single weekend, nights, holidays—dragging our babies around in the truck, slinging bounce houses in the backyard—it wasn’t all fun. It was really, really hard. But I do think we’ve given ourselves something better in the long run. Something better than I could’ve imagined.

 

Getting Work Done as a Stay-at-Home Mom

Usually, it ends up at night after the kids are in bed. The house is a disaster, and then I still have three or four hours of desk work to do. And I’m like, okay. So the two of us—my neighbors—I’m so glad we’re neighbors. I just want to reach through the screen and hug you because I know you get it. Solidarity.

But at the same time, what a blessing. I say it to myself all the time. I love the work I do. That’s the thing—I really do love it, and I’m so grateful for it.

 

Amanda Ford on the Cost of Starting a Business

As for financials—our only income is Michael’s job. He’s not with the pyrotechnics company anymore. Back in 2020, he was furloughed that summer. Long story short, he now works in logistics and supply chain, and his job is commission-based. His salary isn’t very big—it doesn’t pay the bills. So when commissions are good, it’s great, and when they’re not, it’s tough.

That year when we unexpectedly had no daycare and I stayed home really made us disciplined. We started saving, being intentional with spending. That season definitely led us to where we are now. So with our five-year plan of me staying home, when Michael had a good month commission-wise, we’d put a certain amount away.

We had a little savings account at the time the bounce house business came along, and I really feel like it happened because it was supposed to. We had $35,000 sitting in a CD at the bank that just happened to be maturing in October last year. So we took that and bought our first round of inventory.

Of course, expenses came after that—like the trailer—so we opened a business credit card with an introductory offer of 0% interest for six or seven months. We put $29,000 on it. It was scary.

So the first goal was: hustle, hustle, hustle, and pay it off before interest kicked in. October was when the interest would start, and we made our final payment in August. Huge deal. We still owe ourselves that $35,000, but it’s an expensive business to run.

 

Deciding to spend the money to do it right

We didn’t feel like we could just start with five units and toss them in the back of a pickup. We had to do it right. So, we got branded gear, a logo, paid for insurance for the year—we really committed. And right after we paid off the card, we knew we’d have to renew our insurance, website, business license—so we used rental income from that point on to cover those.

Then in November, we bought new inventory. I can’t wait to show you—I’m so excited. All our rentals are going right back into the business. We’ve got five new units we want ready for spring and summer. Hopefully by spring, we can start paying ourselves back. And by year three, maybe we’ll pocket our first dollar.

But next year, we also want to slow down a little personally. That means bringing on employees—which is financially scary, because the business is just now floating itself. But we’ve reached that point where we need help.

 

Amanda Ford on Being a Team

I’m ready. Michael and I have both managed teams for years. I love creating systems, training, building to-do lists. I love teaching. And I’m excited to find our people—make them feel like family. It can be a great job for high schoolers or college students on weekends, or a dad who needs extra income. I think if we have a team and a second truck, we can scale. Michael and I still love doing deliveries, but with help, we can do even more.

It’s definitely different from service-based businesses. We’re investing in inventory and physical assets. A lot of people I know make a profit from day one because they’re selling a service. But with our model, you reinvest everything. It takes time to build it up.

 

Amanda Ford on Understanding Business Financials for Bounce Around Knox

Definitely learning. A hundred percent. And always changing. Back in 2020, when we were like, “Holy cow, we cannot not make it,” that was huge. We were forever humbled, and we’ll always live with that mindset. I think now—well, Michael might tell you otherwise when I go to Target and come home with bags of stuff from the fall section I didn’t need, or when I swing through Chick-fil-A too often for an ice cream cone—but that year totally shifted how we think about money and saving.

Just think more about it. Plan better. Always have a backup.

The best thing I’ve learned about money? Unfortunately, you have to have it. But you don’t need everything. Social media can be really tricky with that—it makes you feel like you do. But you don’t. Just keep that emergency fund full and back things up as much as you can. It’s hard.

 

Using social media as a business owner

Instagram, social media—it has shifted things. I’m thankful it exists, especially for our industry. Social media is your main marketing tool when you’re starting out. But now that we’ve delivered to so many parties and events, we’re getting more business through word of mouth, which I love. When people see the units in real life and see that they match what’s shown online, or better—they trust us. And they pass our info along.

Personally, I would love to step away from social media. Before the business, I was on and off it for years. I don’t like being on my phone. I’m just old school. Michael’s the same way. That’s one of the reasons I love you so much—I’ve never met someone I related to more. We’re young and fun, but we don’t feel like we have to post every little thing we do.

That said, this business does lend itself to social media. It’s made for big birthday parties, styled shoots, fun, beautiful photos. And I love that my units get to be part of that. I never want that to stop. But me, personally, running our account? It’s not good for me long-term. So maybe one day, I’ll hand it off to a social media manager. Someone who’s wired for that.

Right now, I don’t scroll much. I collect pictures from the weekend, and then I just go on and post them all at once. Anyone who understands the algorithm is probably cringing—sometimes I’ll post three things at once, and one gets 96 likes and the next gets 13. That’s just how it is. And I’m okay with that.

Especially in year two, I want to focus on redelivering to our current customer base—the people who already trust us, whose kids are having another birthday. And hopefully, we keep building a good reputation and get passed along by word of mouth. I always hope my customers feel like if anyone asks for a rec, they can just give out my number. That’s how I operate.

 

More from this Episode

To hear the full story and more about Amanda Ford, press play on the player above for the full interview or click here to download the transcript.

 

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Amanda Ford

Amanda Ford is the founder of Bounce Around Knox, a family-owned business based in Knoxville Tennessee offering the area’s first and largest selection of modern, pastel bounce houses, combo units, and water slides. What started as a quest to find the perfect bounce house for her daughter’s birthday turned into a thriving business that’s been delivering fun to parties and events around Knoxville since November 2023. Amanda loves bringing people together and is grateful for the growth and support that’s made Bounce Around Knox a beloved part of Knoxville’s event scene.

 

CONNECT WITH AMANDA FORD:

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