Fish Story Aquarium and Rescue, Naples, FL; two 4500 gal 13'x13'x4.5'

P

phreeflow

Goliath Tigerfish
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Nov 19, 2007
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thebiggerthebetter said:
Ogertron3000 Ogertron3000 Thank you. I'd not say we get many visitors, it's been a trickle, primarily because we are afraid to advertise much and get in trouble. We need to be in full legal standing to advertise as much as we'd like / as possible. Yes, the School Board representative visited us, on our request back in 2019 when we thought we were about to open. Needless to say, until we are fully and unconditionally open, they will not bring kids to us. Moreover, if they were to come and before they considered coming, they'd ask us to create a curriculum / learning program for kids of all grades and ages and evaluate it and have it pass their requirements for such programs. I don't know if this is a fair request but it seems wrong to place it all on us. Well, maybe it is an easy thing to do but I've never looked into it because, alas, we are not fully open.
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That really in a lot of burden. Perhaps there is someone else you can talk to in the city? We had similar issues and it seemed insurmountable but later spoke to a different person who approved our plans rather painlessly.

Also, there are a ton of big name fish tubers out in Florida. Perhaps you can collaborate with them to help drive more traffic? They seem to have a pretty deep following.Would it also be any easier to become a non profit?
 
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thebiggerthebetter

thebiggerthebetter

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P phreeflow Thank you greatly, as always! The current plan is to become a bona fide fish farmer and then to have a legal leg to stand on and operate the aquarium as an agritourism attraction part of of the farm, skipping 90% of County permits. This may take a year, maybe less, maybe more. Until then, approaching the Board of Education is moot.

We have thought about big YT-ers before. Their content and angles are supremely different from ours - it's almost all entertainment, sometimes much worse than that. 99% of their audience finds our humble videos utterly boring and worthless, they'd not watch them. That is if you meant the YT traffic. If you meant foot traffic in and out of our doors, then this has been addressed above, we haven't done 99% of the advertising we could do.

We funded our business with our own 401(k) funds via funding our Corporation's Profit Sharing Retirement Plan, which mandates our business to be for profit, namely Corp C. Moreover, nonprofit is run by an independent, nonpaid board of trustees and we would become a hired, salaried workers without decision power. We don't want other people to be telling us what and how we must do, least of all on our own property where we also live.
 
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