This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Six-Figure Side Hustle series, where people with lucrative side hustles break down the routines and habits they’ve used to make money on top of their full-time jobs. Got a story to tell? Let us know! Email us at AskMakeIt@cnbc.com.
When Tayo Lanlehin was planning her son’s first birthday party in April 2022, she bought yellow and blue signs, balloons and a cake with 3D planets. Every detail fit the “First Trip Around The Sun” theme, except the chairs.
She only found one rental seating option near her home in Oakland, California, she says: adult-sized white plastic chairs. She borrowed a picnic table with benches instead, and ruminated on the gap in the market for weeks. In May 2022, she sourced and spent roughly $2,000 on 48 kids’ chairs from a manufacturer overseas, and stored them in her basement, says Tayo.
Those chairs became Bay Area Kids Rentals, a side hustle that she runs with her husband Dolu Lanlehin. Now a full-fledged party rental business, the company has brought in over $295,000 in 2025 revenue as of Nov. 25, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Bay Area Kids Rentals has been profitable since the beginning, but the couple doesn’t take an income from the side hustle, and is instead reinvesting those funds back into the business to expand its rental line, Dolu says. It now offers ball pits, mini bumper cars and multiple colors and styles of furniture.
