Niche Biz: A Giant Sandbox

The Wall Street Journal:

A few years ago, Ed Mumm bought a piece of property in this stunning ski town and rented an excavator to clear the land.

Scooping dirt by the ton, tossing boulders like pebbles, Mumm had an epiphany: This was fun. And then another: People might pay to do this.

Three years and $500,000 later, Mumm, 42 years old, spends his days draping orange vests around wealthy thrill-seekers at Dig This, which he bills as the first, and only, heavy-equipment playground in the U.S.

On a 10-acre plot of dirt, framed by distant mountains, Mumm guides his guests to a fleet of Tonka toys come to life — a skid-steer loader, a 115-horsepower excavator and Caterpillar’s D5G bulldozer, 10 tons of glinting muscle.

“I wanted to create a place where people could come and play — relive their sandbox days, but for real,” Mumm says.

Play time isn’t cheap: Hoisting, digging and razing costs $280 to $650, depending on the machine and the number of hours spent aboard. Even at those prices, Mumm doesn’t expect to turn a profit for at least another year — he’s had about 90 paying customers so far. But he feels confident that he’s tapped into an underserved corner of the American psyche.

Photo by Matt Slaby.

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