Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
In the very first episode of the Daily Solutions Podcast, Graham and Ashkahn introduce themselves, lay out the concept of the project, and share how to submit your float-related questions.
Float Tank Solutions will be releasing a podcast episode every day, with each episode focusing on a question or topic related to starting, running, or growing a float center. They’re created to be easily digestible — short and to the point, and always published along with a full written transcript.
Want to dive into advanced sound-proofing tips? Need to know how to measure your serviceable available market? Curious why your tank water is a weird color (and what to do about it)?
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Get to know some of our companies
Float On – our float tank center.
Float Tank Solutions – resources for starting, running, and growing your float center
Float Conference – the largest gathering of float enthusiasts.
HelmBot – software to run your wellness business.
Coincidence Control Publishing – floatation publications.
Show Resources
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: You’re listening to the Daily Solutions podcast. This is our very first episode.
Ashkahn: Yeah, welcome, welcome. Glad to have you here starting this journey with us.
Graham: Yeah and I guess before we get started in the actual podcast, we just kind of wanted to introduce ourselves a little bit for those of you out there who may not be as familiar with us as we are.
Ashkahn: Yeah, so we are two of the owners of Float On. We have a float tank center.
Graham: Woo, we have a float tank center.
Ashkahn: We did it. We did it. So yeah, Portland, Oregon is where we reside. That’s where our float tank center is, and we opened our doors back in 2010.
Graham: Yeah, and back then we just had four tanks when first opened up.
Around 2012 we expanded to six tanks, which is what we have now.
Ashkahn: Yes, so it’s been a very exciting journey for us. 2010 was a very different place in the world of floating, and we’ve gotten to see everything kind of expand and grow and explode and all the amazing things that’s happened over the last six to seven years. It’s been really a pleasure to kind of be along on this wild ride.
Graham: Yeah and somewhere along the way as well, we started branching out beyond just running our own float tank center and kind of doing some other projects. One of the first of those was Float Tank Solutions, which this podcast is a part of. Float Tank Solutions is our consulting side of things. So once we opened up a float tank center, all of a sudden, which is unexpected, we started getting crazy amounts of emails and phone calls from people who were thinking about opening up their own float tank center and had just a bunch of questions for someone who’d kind of been through the early process so far.
Float Tank Solutions was born out of wanting to actually provide some benefit back to the float world and teach people some of the things that we’ve learned during our time running Float On. We have a lot of free resources on there. They’re definitely worth checking out, from comparison charts for the different float tanks that are on the market to whole intro guides on the basic concept of floating that you can give to your landlord or investors, or anything like that. And a really extensive blog that you can go through. It has at this point hundreds of posts. I think I counted the pages, it’s something like 700 pages at the time of recording, is in our blog.
So kind of a wealth of free info out there that you should definitely avail yourself of. We also have some paid products as well and have been helping centers open since we started Float Tank Solutions in 2012. Things like business plan template and construction plan. We do a three-day training out in Portland every month that usually has about five or six perspective float center owners that come out and learn from us what goes into a center. So a bunch of things very much centered on helping other float tank centers get open.
Ashkahn: Yeah.We’ve done a handful of other projects in the years since we’ve been open, as well. We put on the Float Conference that happens every year, which is definitely a ton of fun. We also make The Float Helm software to run your center in terms of scheduling point of sale and a lot of other kind of backend center operations.
Graham: I guess the last thing that we do is some book publishing as well. We’ve put out both some books inspired by floating and art work, and a cook book inspired by floating and also some old John Lilly books. That’s Coincidence Control Publishing, is what that one is called.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and I guess in addition to that we just do whatever sounds fun for us sometimes too. We recently went on a giant float tour where we took an RV around the United States and Canada and visited 172 float centers over the course of three months while driving around. Mostly just because it sounded like a preposterous amount of fun, and it was. It was a huge amount of fun.
Graham: The premise of this podcast is really just to continue that trend of helping out the industry and sharing what information we can. Specifically in this case, we really wanted to hear from other people who are out there either running a float tank center or thinking about getting their toes a little bit salty in the waters. So taking answers from people and actually just answering those questions in a short conversational format.
Ashkahn: We have our three-day training apprenticeship program where we get to say a lot of information in structured ways. We have our blog post, which take a lot of work to put into a form that feels like a comprehensive post on a subject. At the end of the day, when we grab beers over the float centers and we’re talking to people at the conference, or just casually hanging out with float people we end up having these really nice valuable casual conversations about all sorts of weird little topics that don’t always come up when you’re going over the grander things you need to be thinking about.
This podcast really seemed like a nice way of getting some of that information out, these bite sized attempts at talking about some of the smaller and more detail-oriented sections of open and running a float center.
Graham: I guess so much of the knowledge base out there for float tanks is so wishy-washy. We’re still in the early stages of this industry, even though it’s really popping and growing at this fast rate. So we try to make our blog as comprehensive and thorough on different topics as we can, but so many of the topics out there, you just can’t even do that. There’s almost not enough information, and so the idea of having something that’s just a little more conversational, where we can really quickly go over how we don’t really know what’s going on, and what you can look into a little bit more, and where things might head just sounded appealing to us.
Ashkahn: I have a suspicion that you’re going to hear us say we don’t really know, probably a number of times, in many episodes to come.
Graham: So thanks for tuning in to listen. That’s the basic premise of the show. We’re planning on releasing one of these every single day, so get ready for a load of Graham and Ash content.
Ashkahn: And please send us your questions. This show will all be focused on answering questions that people have so let us know what you want us to talk about.
Graham: Yeah, and you can do that online at floattanksolutions.com/podcast. Feel free to also just shoot us an email. Our contact information is up on our website as well.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I mean if you want to send us Morse code messages we can accept those, and carrier pigeons.
Graham: I’ve heard that if you put stamps on a watermelon and actually send it through the mail, it will arrive at its destination. So if you want to send us a watermelon-based question, you’re free to do that as well.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and mail it, made with the seeds inside. I mean that sounds great. Yeah, anyway you send it to us, we’ll try to answer it.
Graham: All right, and other than that, thanks for listening. We’ll be talking to you again tomorrow.
Recent Podcast Episodes
What’s Floating Like Around the World? – DSP 290
Ashkahn and Graham break down the wild world of floating, well… worldwide. They share what they know about the industry in different countries, continent by continent, and gauging which ones are the most float centric vs. those that are the least (hint, it’s definitely Antarctica).
Replacing Filtration Parts for your Float Tank – DSP 289
When it comes to replacing a filtration system for a float tank, there’s sadly no easy answer. There isn’t a one-stop shop place to get replacement parts for float tanks (yet). Most systems are piecemealed together by manufacturers to work specifically for their systems.
In addition to all that, they also often use internal customized materials to accommodate the specific needs of float tank solution. So without some serious internal knowledge of how those systems work, it’s nearly impossible to safely and accurately just swap out one piece for another.
How to Handle Customers Wanking in Tanks? – DSP 288
Graham and Ashkahn tackle the uncomfortable issue of handling customers that may be using the float tank to do things in the tank wasn’t designed for.
They discuss the social aspects along with the sanitary aspects of dealing with ejaculate in the tanks.
Basics of Opening a Business – DSP 287
Graham and Ashkahn take creative license in this episode to talk about the basics of what everyone should know before starting a brick and mortar business.
They want to help others not make the same mistakes they did. This includes everything from getting a legal entity and hiring bookkeepers to making sure you have the correct labor law posters displayed and follow proper hiring practices.
Should People with Ear Tubes Float? – DSP 286
The format for this episode is a little different this time.
Graham and Ashkahn received an anecdote about someone who floated with ear tubes in. The float ends with extreme discomfort and pain when the floater gets epsom salt water in their ears.
The guys highlight this issue as a warning to the industry that this is something that can happen with floating.
Latest Blog Posts
Location Checklist – The Search for Your Float Center’s Home
In honor of our newly minted, fresh off the press, prize winning Construction Packet, we are releasing one of its more succinct components, the Location Checklist, as a free resource. Don’t let the fact that it’s only one page fool you – this set of questions breaks down the major site and location considerations for your center.
Financing Your Center With Bank Loans
If you are looking to open a center, at some point, you have to face the reality that you’re going to need to spend, and thus track down, a good chunk of money. There are many ways to fund a float center – personal capital, family and friends, sending travel funds to the exiled Liberian prince that you met on the internet and using the forthcoming reward money, etc. This post, however, will focus on financing using bank loans.
A Peek Into Our Construction Packet: Planning Your Space – Square Footage and Number of Float Rooms
For anyone opening a float center, one of the earliest questions they’ll have to tackle is, “How big should my space be?” This can be one of the most difficult queries to answer, because it hinges on many variables.
Will you be offering other services? What types of tanks are you getting? What other rooms will your space need? If you’re planning on installing a float tank water slide, that’ll take up extra space, too. I know it’s unreasonable, but Jake really wants someone to do it.
All of these questions aren’t even factoring in thinking about profit margins. It quickly becomes a daunting task that can feel overwhelming.
How to Launch a Successful Kickstarter Campaign
At Float Tank Solutions, our main goal is simple.
We want to provide access to floating for as many people as possible. That’s why, this week, we are opening up our blog to our friend, Shane Stott. Shane, an avid float ambassador, life coach, and founder of Zen Float Co., will walk us through the essentials of running a Kickstarter campaign, with a highlight on his current efforts to raise money through Kickstarter for a documentary on floating.
