School Counselor by Day, Balloon Artist by Night: She Charged $800 for a Job Worth $8,000, Then Built a 7-Location Franchise Brand in About Five Years, Projecting $3M in 2023
Jessi Porter was a school counselor in Dallas and a licensed therapist, known around her neighborhood for throwing over-the-top graduation and birthday parties for family and friends. Around 2018, while planning her own 30th birthday, she started a small party-planning business, and making her first balloon garland for her mom's birthday got her hooked. Teaching herself from YouTube, she built a 15-foot wave of blue balloons on chicken wire in her parents' living room. 'It was awful,' she says; the chicken wire scratched the wall and her hands. She posted it on Instagram, and the dating app Bumble called, asking her to decorate a retreat in Dallas. She charged $800 for a job she later realized was worth $8,000. A few months later she quit her job to build Balloon Therapy. When entrepreneur Junior Desinor approached her with the idea of franchising, she brought him on as CEO. By 2023 the brand had seven locations, made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies (No. 1,130, 523% three-year growth), and expected to reach $3 million in revenue by year-end. Since then, some franchise websites have gone offline or been renamed.
Process
To be clear up front: Balloon Therapy later grew through franchising and had seven locations by 2023, with franchises funded and run by local owners, so it's long past being one person's side hustle. It's included because of how ordinary its start was: a school counselor who, after work, made her first piece out of chicken wire and balloons in her parents' living room.
Stage 1: The Neighborhood's Party Queen
Jessi Porter was a school counselor in Dallas and a licensed therapist. Outside work, she had another reputation in her neighborhood: the graduation and birthday parties she threw for family and friends kept getting bigger.
Around 2018, while planning her own 30th birthday, she started a small party-planning business called Social Blueprints. In a 2019 interview she said: "I had helped plan so many events for friends over the years and knew that it was something I was called to do."
She began with party planning and coordination, and only later found her real niche. The turning point, she recalled, was the first balloon garland she made for her mom's birthday. In a 2020 studio tour video she told it more casually: her mom called and said, "Look at this," so she started doing it for fun, and it took off from there. She admitted she had no formal balloon training, and that people online mocked the way she did things.
Stage 2: A First Big Piece That Was "Awful"
Learning from YouTube videos, she ordered balloons and chicken wire and built a 15-foot wave of blue balloons intertwined with palm fronds in her parents' living room.
In Inc.'s telling, her verdict was blunt: "It was awful." The chicken wire scratched up a wall, and her hands too.
She posted a photo on Instagram anyway. Then the dating app Bumble called: it was planning a retreat for employees in Dallas, had seen her Instagram, and asked whether she could do the decorations.
One caveat: Inc.'s 2023 article says she started teaching herself balloons after a 2019 trip to Los Angeles to see building-size installations by Geronimo Balloons. But in a March 2019 interview, she already called the Bumble job her "first big break." The two timelines don't quite line up; the most reasonable reading is that the Los Angeles trip leveled up her work rather than marking the start.
Stage 3: An $800 Lesson
To pull off the Bumble job, she spent nights researching balloon manufacturers and recruited students to help during free periods; her firefighter husband inflated balloons at the station.
The event was a hit. But she later realized she'd gotten the math wrong: "I charged $800 instead of the $8,000 it should have been."
That job taught her two things: corporate clients will pay real money for big balloon installations, and her prices were far too low.
In March 2019, she described herself this way: "I am a school counselor by day and balloon artist/event designer by night!" As a licensed therapist, she said, she continuously sees sadness and suffering in the world, and balloons let her "bring joy to others — even if in a very small way."
According to Inc., a few months after the Bumble job, she quit her job to build Balloon Therapy full time.
Stage 4: The Bigger the Better
Her goal for each piece was simple: "I want these balloon backdrops to be the talking point of the party, and not just an afterthought." And: "We're in Texas, so the bigger the better, baby."
Every installation was custom-built for the event, from 10 feet up to as big as the customer could imagine, with shapes like flowers, stars, skulls, rabbits, unicorns, margaritas and hot dogs.
The clients kept coming. A 2021 press release said the brand had 108,000 Instagram followers and had worked for Bumble, Lululemon, Post Malone's Posty Fest, and Catherine and Sean Lowe of The Bachelor, with prices starting as low as $75. Clients shown on its website today also include the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Wings, AT&T, Kendra Scott and Raising Cane's.
Stage 5: Teaching Others, Then Franchising
More and more people wanted her, and customers and students began asking for balloons in cities outside Dallas.
First she turned her know-how into teaching. From 2020, Balloon Therapy ran Balloon Con, an in-person conference; the second edition in 2021 was held at the Pittman Hotel in Dallas's Deep Ellum. One attendee said the techniques would have taken "months to try and figure out on my own, or years." Online courses, one-on-one consulting and conference recordings followed, with the recorded edition selling for $750 a seat.
The other path was franchising. According to Inc., entrepreneur Junior Desinor approached her with the idea to franchise the business, and she brought him on as CEO. "We're both hardworking alpha personalities, so we clicked instantly," she said.
In July 2021, one of the first franchises opened in Nashville, owned by local Chandler Ashcraft. The brand's official YouTube channel then posted launch videos for Tulsa, OKC, Cincinnati, Charleston and Las Vegas, among others. According to its website, franchisees typically get an exclusive territory of about a 50-mile radius from a city center.
Stage 6: The Inc. 5000, and What Came After
In 2023, Balloon Therapy made the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies at No. 1,130, with 523% three-year revenue growth. Inc. reported seven locations and revenue expected to hit $3 million by the end of 2023.
She was 36 that year, and her ambitions had grown: she wanted to see her creations on the biggest stages, from Formula 1 to the Super Bowl. "I want to hustle because this is what I'm good at."
No revenue figures have been published since 2023. Public signs suggest the franchise network has shrunk somewhat: the "Locations" link in the website footer no longer works, the Cincinnati and Nashville franchise sites are offline, the Charleston site has been renamed, and the Tulsa, OKC and Las Vegas sites are still up. No reporting explains these changes, and this article doesn't speculate. The Dallas headquarters is still operating, was hiring installers in 2025, and now also sells DIY balloon arch kits.
Thinking
1. A side hustle often starts with something you already do for free. Before starting a business, Jessi was already throwing over-the-top parties for family and friends. She turned something she was good at, and that others recognized, into a paid service.
2. Visual products are made for social media. Big balloon installations photograph well, and one picture says it all. Her first big client found her through that "awful" balloon wave on Instagram.
3. Your first price can cost you 90% of the money. $800 versus $8,000 is a tenfold gap. Newcomers often don't know corporate budgets and are afraid to charge high prices. Finding out what peers charge beats regretting it afterward.
4. Validate first, then quit. In March 2019 she was still a school counselor, doing balloons at night and on weekends. She quit only once the business was clearly making money, which kept the risk far lower.
5. A service business has to replicate itself to grow. Balloon installations are built on site, so one person can only serve one city. She used courses to teach the craft and franchising to copy the model to other cities, and brought in someone better at expansion as CEO.
6. Franchising can expand fast, and contract fast. Franchising lets a brand enter new cities quickly, but each location depends on its local owner. Public signs suggest some franchises later went offline or were renamed, a reminder of the model's risks.
Action
1. Find what you already do for others for free. What do people around you keep asking you to help with? Hosting events, photography, decorating, cooking? Any of these could become a paid service.
2. Post your work on social media. If your work looks good, keep posting it on Instagram or similar platforms. Even imperfect early work can reach the right client.
3. Check market prices before taking a job. Before taking on corporate clients, ask peers and look up quotes, and work out your costs for materials, labor and time so you don't underprice.
4. Keep your day job and test on nights and weekends. Take on a few jobs in your spare time first, and confirm there's steady demand and profit before you quit.
5. Turn your experience into teaching. Once you've built up enough experience, teach others through courses, workshops or in-person events, for extra income and more brand awareness.
6. Think through the model before you expand. If you plan to open more locations or franchise, work out in advance how to train franchisees, maintain quality and help them make money, rather than chasing store counts.