Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Waller.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Born in Atlanta, GA in 1987. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Valdosta State in 2009. After college, I moved around a few jobs in logistics and warehousing but never doing what I really wanted to do– which was working in the amusement industry. Since I was about 10 years old, I have been obsessed with roller coasters, amusement rides, and the amusement industry in general. Valdosta is a small town but happened to have the 2nd biggest theme park in Georgia, Wild Adventures. I worked the 2009-10 season at Wild Adventures doing food service. It was rather hard work for really bad pay. So, after one season, I threw in the towel and thought that my trial run into the amusement industry was over. I was rather discouraged by the whole ordeal.
Fast forward a few years, I worked my way up corporate America, mainly in logistics and quality control, in the Aerospace industry. In 2018 I started getting interested in website design and development, so I taught myself how to design a basic WordPress site. This little hobby eventually led me to create my first website, Ride-Trader.com. Ride Trader was to be a site for people or parks to list their used rides for sale and post any wanted ads. It was your basic listing site. The site struggled for the first few years until one day in 2020 I decided to look for an amusement ride manufacturer to partner with.
This search led me to Levent Lunapark, located in Ankara Turkey. I found Levent through some deep searches into different, obscure, foreign ride manufacturers. Levent seemed to tick all the boxes for me, high quality products and competitive prices. In late 2020, I was contacted by a new park in Austin TX about supplying two rides for them. One being a “Wacky Worm” roller coaster, or as Levent calls it the “Brucomela”, and the other being a mini log flume. The deal went through, and we delivered the two rides to the park in mid-2021. After the initial success of those two rides, the park ended up buying a third bigger ride, the Octopus, from us.
With an additional customer in 2022 and showing at IAAPA in the same year, Ride Trader and Levent Lunapark are more optimistic than ever that our joint venture will continue to be successful. We have plans to one day open a small operation here in the US to supply North and South American customers with spare parts and maintenance support.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The initial marketing and advertising was difficult. I had to pretty much learn on the go what worked and what didn’t. I remember spending half the money from my first sale on advertising through an industry publication. It did not bring in much if any, new leads.
Educating the US market on our products and quality can be a challenge. It has gotten better, but a lot of people were originally weary to buy products from Turkey. Levent is ISO certified and also has TUV Certification at their factory. It also helps to have an American selling their products here in the US (me).
Keeping an ultra-low overhead was also key to continued success. I am currently a stay-at-home dad and run Ride Trader out of my home office. I can’t afford to spend a lot of web hosting, office supplies, or advertising. I actually self-host the Ride Trader site on my own VPS server. This saves a ton of money! A lot of my expenses go to traveling for sales and to follow up with existing customers, that is money well spent.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Ride Trader LLC was registered in GA in 2020. I sell new and used amusement rides through Ride Trader. For used rides, I personally list the rides for sale on my site and headhunt for potential customers through my network of buyers. For new amusement rides, I represent Levent Lunapark from Turkey. I am their representative for the US and Americas. Ride Trader offers a personalized experience when buying or selling used and new amusement rides. Amusement rides are my passion, and I use my expanding network of buyers and sellers to facilitate sales.
What makes you happy?
Getting to sell amusement rides is so awesome! It’s literally a dream come true. Seeing a ride that I sold and then getting to ride it is an amazing feeling. Breaking into this industry is hard, and I have both feet in the door now.
Contact Info:
- Website: Ride-Trader.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/ridetrader
- Facebook: facebook.com/ridetradercom
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ride-trader4311
- Other: LeventLunapark.com
