Community Highlights: Meet Colette Naylor of Inflate San Diego

Today we’d like to introduce you to Colette Naylor.

Hi Colette, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My fiancé Max works full-time as a paramedic. The hours, like many first responder/law enforcement positions, are kind of crazy. He works 48 hours straight, then has 4 days off. With this schedule, in that industry, it’s pretty common to have a side hustle, small business, or part-time job. He’d been talking for a few years about wanting to start something so he could do it in his free time – we just never had a “great” idea. In 2020, we watched our friends, Jack & Julie Nielsen start a hugely popular inflatable bounce house company in Phoenix, Arizona – Inflate Forty-Eight. Over the next year, we’d make little comments to each other like, “look how cool that is!”, “it looks so fun”, “We should do something similar”. In May of 2021, I made a quick remark to Julie, “you should open a location in San Diego”, to which she responded, “we’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about that…”. From that point on, Max and I, with the guidance of the Nielsen’s, dove headfirst into this modern bounce house business. We had our first rental in August, have added 7 new bounce houses since then, and are now working on hiring help to continue propelling this business forward!

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Having friends in the industry with a successful business of their own has been tremendously helpful in getting us where we are today. The biggest obstacle we’ve faced so far, and like so many other businesses are experiencing, has to be hiring help. Currently, all deliveries and pickups are being done by just Max & I. We could easily go from Chula Vista to Oceanside in a single day (and we have!). Once we have reliable employees, it will make servicing all our customers so much easier!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We specialize in modern bounce houses! This is much different than the traditional primary-colored blue, red, and yellow inflatables we all grew up seeing. Our most popular bounce houses are all white with an open front, which is great for photo ops! We also have pink, peach, baby blue, tan, & black! Solid color bounce houses are aesthetically pleasing and can match any theme! We’ve done weddings, baby showers, bridal showers, baptisms, kid birthdays, adult birthdays, and more. We are fully involved in every aspect of the business. Every follow, like, comment on Instagram, every booking and referral is celebrated by the two of us!

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
We really love what we do and I think it shows! Connecting with our clients and becoming invested in their events is so important to us. Getting photos back after each party and seeing how much joy the bounce house brought to both kids and adults is really special! We have been operating since August 2021 and are now starting to see more and more repeat renters. Booking with us once is amazing but coming back to us is truly incredible!

Image Credits
Boho Babes Photography
Jaidyn Michele Photography
Arielle Levy Photo
Carmen Lopez Photo
Casmir Joy Photography