Skateparks Don't Have To Be A Stand-Alone Business

While most people reading this blog are interested in building or operating a skatepark, thinking about the opportunities that exist out there for recreation based businesses could allow for a more diverse market.  You often don't have to look very far to see that many public and some private places offer a skatepark as part of their park or complex.  Woodward Camps in PA is one example where skateboarding and extreme sports is just one of the several camps they offer.  The YMCA and their many parks around the nation is another example that comes to mind.  Both of these well respected businesses don't look to skateparks as their only source of revenue, but rather look to offer a park as part of a larger complex and a broader market.  As you look to either add a skatepark to your existing facility or start with a skatepark and build from there, consider companion areas that might make sense for your market, town, or facility.  If you have a large warehouse and a small skateboarding market, then utilizing part of the space for another business might make sense.  Whether you operate that or rent the space it could be a better to create something that fits with your market size, than something that is mostly empty due to limited numbers.  Adding a companion place like a bounce house, trampolines, go carts, basketball courts, or other entertainment type recreation facility could help bring customers in, utilize the space better, and help with cross selling.  This could be a good space where some in the family go to one side and the others go to the skatepark.  Careful design could also eliminate doubling staff as one check in area could allow for entrance to either part.  This would also be good for concessions to centralize operations so less people could serve both areas.  So as you are looking into your business plan, think about how you can monetize your space to the maximum effect.

Use The Holidays to Celebrate

Often times we come to the end of the year and things heat up in the skatepark.  Lots of kids coming in with the bad weather, lots of vacation times, sales and park rentals.  But make sure that with all the things going on you take the time to celebrate your people.  A holiday party is a great way of letting your workers and your people whom you feel add so much value to your park know you appreciate them, their commitment, and their efforts.  It's ok to close early one day during the holidays, many stores do.  Celebrations can be at the park if you all like to skate, they can be at a restaurant, your home,  the bowling alley, or a bar.  Depending on who your workers are, you can set the event to be the type of celebration they'd enjoy.  Make sure you get some unique gifts to give out, and something for everyone like a hoodie, special order hat, or something.  There are many ways to celebrate the season and your people so take the time to show you care.  It is ok to do your celebrations after the holidays especially if people you ask can't make it.

The holidays can also be a good time to celebrate your members.  I have written often about how to make your memberships "value added".  Having a member celebration day with lots of extras, a DJ, a raffle, some special food or other offering goes a long way to making those members feel a part of something special.  While you could be monetizing the time, spending some money to make people feel like a part of something special can go a long way to making your park work financially.  If you think about what it could mean to you, each member that talks you park up positively, whether they come down regularly or not is free advertising.  Word of mouth is a "viral" loop you need to create to get people in the door and excited about springing for the extra membership cost.  So a special holiday member party is a good way of helping create and keep the positive buzz about your park.

Happy Holidays.  I hope you can make 2015 the best one yet!

Identifying Market Segment for Skateparks

Often times I hear of people who say things like, there are a ton of skaters in my town so I want to start a skatepark.  I think this is a great start but are there really a ton of skaters who will use your park is a question that needs to be asked.  In traditional business plan startups, people often look at an idea, figure out how much it will cost and look at the population as a whole and go from there.  But when your money and your sanity are on the line you want to make sure that there is a sustainable market for your business before you spend money.  Ok, so going from the premise of a "ton", who are they?  Teenagers? Little Kids? At a crappy free park?  What these people show are Market Potential, it doesn't mean that these kids will come to your park.  Sitting out and counting these people, noting their age and demographics can help to give you a better idea of the dedicated skaters.  Interview the skaters/bikers you find and see who they are, what they want, and what they are will to pay for.  Similarly making friends with the local skateshop can help you better understand the market potential by providing you with stats on patrons.  This is vital information.  You have a theory, and until you go out and test your theory you'll never know for certain what is reality.  After you have gathered some data, go back to your idea and see if the market potential fits the reality.  You are trying to create a better understanding of the market by understanding your clients better. To do this you need to get out and talk with the end users.  If you have a drawing of your park, share this with your potential clients, if you have a cost structure, share this with your clients as well.  Their feedback will help you understand what you have in terms of a product, and what your market will bare in terms of price.  At some point soon you can start looking for the archetype of a typical patron.  These conversations with parents and kids can help you understand who will come to your park, how often, and at what cost.  If you have a website you can also use that to gather information.  Put a survey on the front page and try promoting it.  Another way of gathering this info would be to do a Facebook ad campaign targeting a very select group of users in a small demographic area.  You need data to make a good decision, and it won't just come to you in a dream.  So you need to go get it.  When you have a market archetype you can then figure out how to cater your park to meet their needs.  Lets just say that Junior High aged skaters and bikers were the best respondents to your survey and interviews.  These kids have a desire to come to the park 2x a month at 12$ a pop.  They expressed they skate all the time and their parents said they have very few options for entertainment.  So these end up being the core market archetype, with other groups like teens, young adults, little kids fill in your market.  Spending your time to cater your business to meet the basic needs of these skaters first is the best idea to ensure your success.

Vacation Time is GO Time

If you ever wondered why some kids only come down once a month or once a year to your park, maybe you need to wow them every time they are there.  This sounds like a lot of work, but really what I am talking about is the little things, the things that matter to a customer.  How do your people interact with the skaters and the parents?  Can they improve?  How clean is the park?  Can it be cleaner?  Fresh paint, new trash can lids, and new posters can really make a difference.  Could you spend a few hours patching things a little before the vacation holidays to make the park shine for the guests that haven't been able to come since their last school break?  Could you get your screw gun out and make a new little fun box, pull out an old rail, put in a little vert extension on the mini-ramp?  These little tweaks aren't going to put your business over the edge cost wise but they could very well be the difference in getting repeat customers.  So part of your go-plan should include tidying up for the crowds, and re-emphasizing customer service and friendliness to you staff.

As long as we are on plans for retraining your staff, a holiday membership drive could be another needed emphasis this xmas.  Every entrance should have membership details in their hands.  What sort of cheap advertising can you get them to take home?  How about a calendar of events, or a calendar of park photos, friends and associates of theirs ripping it up at your park.  Bulk orders of these bring your cost per person down, and what a great add on to that membership.  While you're at it, why not blow up some kid photos to poster size and decorate your park with them?  If you have someone on staff with a great camera, pay them to take some photos and throw the stuff together.  It is well worth the effort and the employee will really enjoy the "promotion".  With all the new people coming down with their friends from out of town, make the most of their visit to encourage them to be members, talk the park up, and come back again!  Happy Holidays.

Check out the progress of a new park!

Greetings all, thought I would key you into a park that is in the making.  All Together Skatepark is being built in Seattle Washington and is going through many of the things that you all might be interested in.  Starting up a park in a city is expensive, starting one indoors even more so.  Check out their progress here: http://www.alltogetherskatepark.com .  Many of the people that helped me get going when I owned a park are working on this new iteration.  One thing that hopefully you all are learning is that it takes a lot of help and a lot of information to get all your services and setup together.  Chris is making it happen in Seattle now.  Do you have another project to help us all look at the process of making a park or advancing a park?  Let me know (contact info on right) and I will help you promote and plan.  Don't forget that I have a good book on opening a park and obviously this blog is a good resource too.   Good luck ATS.

Expand Your Brand

As you are able to separate yourself out from operations, expansion is always an option.  Unfortunately if you are cash strapped, expansion is going to have to be done by bringing in more investors.  While many of you are probably wary of this, there are many people out there who are looking for good investments, and having a solid product with solid sales and a solid growth plan are keys to attracting investors.  If you want to go big, you have to think big.  If you think that you want to simply run a park that is open from this hour to that, then you can expect to remain at that level.  If you have a vision whereby you want your brand to expand and grow, then this has to be your vision and you have to plan for this.  As a skatepark, how can you grow your brand?  One way is like Woodward, where your specialty is camps, and your expansion becomes events.  There are many companies out there looking for venues that are flexible enough to help them market their own events, and your place could become that venue.  Lots of work would then be focused on achieving this goal.  Similarly if you have a product and a retail presence, you can become a larger presence with that product.  Look at an area that is underserved in your market and exploit that.  Lastly you can expand like DC Shoes, Vans shoes has as well, creating more parks in more cities.  The key to what they do is to look at what their brand is, and use that as the center of the expansion.  Reinventing your brand, or creating a logical offshoot of your brand (extreme events, camps etc) can help you move into a new level of business where you are not only more successful, but also more profitable.  A good exercise would be to sit down with your management team and see if they can envision this change with you.  Bringing in people who share your vision and have a quality skill set is also a good idea.  Good luck.

Diversify your offerings

Beyond simply adding sessions or events to your day you can diversify your offerings in your space to help your business grow.  Who hasn't seen McDonald's playgrounds, or gone to an indoor soccer building with some climbing wall operation off in a corner?  These two ideas can be a way that your site could use some of it's space to help get people through the door.  Programming of events and services is always important, but having a large source of revenue is equally important.  Right now you might have your entrances, events, lessons, food, and as my last post pointed out - a party room, so where do you go from there?  I was reading an interesting article recently from wired.com about the Lumberyard indoor mountainbike park and thought that here was another offering that used many of the building and management skills you probably already have.  Take a look here: http://www.wired.com/design/2013/04/lumberyard-mountain-bike-course/  Finding revenue sources that fit with your space and your clientele is a double win.  Being able to attract people from a larger part of your area can help you make a strong and viable business.  While your heart may be in one aspect of the business like skateboarding or BMX biking, there are good reasons to consider offering more aspects of your business that are complimentary.  So say you have a really good indoor park with an outside area, perfect for a BMX racing course.  Or what about the massive ceiling hight you could put in a high ropes course over the track or a climbing wall.  Like I had said on my last post, an empty room is an opportunity, and an empty section of your park is also one.  What you will be doing is expanding your resources, taking advantage of your current systems and making the most of your existing skill sets.

How to start a skatepark with little to no money

So a lot of people are interested in starting a skatepark, but unfortunately they don't have much, if any money.  I have been asked frequently about getting parks running without a substantial investment from the business originator.  Honestly speaking, this is very hard to do.  Imagine if you will, someone who has earned a bit of money in their life, and they are interested in your plan.  When they hear that you won't be adding any funds yourself, they decide it is best to go elsewhere.  Why?  Because you have little to risk in the venture.  Sure you have your time and you have the organization, but in the end, what would keep you from simply walking away because you haven't made any money and bills are piling up at home?  What would the investor in this situation do?  Sound like a good place to put money?  When buying anything, people want assurances that they will get their money back and usually they want more than they put in.  It is the money that you put in that helps them make this decision easier.  If you are asking for no more than you are investing, or even less, then it is something people will consider.  Even banks don't want to loan money to businesses that need it, unless they have the money in the bank to "secure it".  This is why getting a morgage is easier than getting a personal loan, the property backs it up so if a person defaults on the loan, skips town so to speak, the bank still has a sellable house to recoup any loss.  It is the same with a business like a skatepark.

So what is to be done?  The only option that works is the Co-op model.  A co-op is where a group of people with similar interests or needs get together as a group to create buying power.  Here's a real world example: People in a community join together to buy power as a single entity.  When one house buys power it has little wiggle room to get a better rate.  But if a community of 100-500 houses get together, they can get a better rate.  So if your town needs a skatepark, and the town won't build one, then you as a skater/biker will have little influence on your own.  But if you all join together, you can either force the city into action (which is a typical tactic) or you can start one yourselves.

How can a skatepark be a Co-op?  First of all let's make a few assumptions, that there are over 500 skaters in the surrounding community that needs a park, and there is little to no places a person can go to skate. (I will use skater as shorthand for bikers as well, I hope this is ok.)  If each of these skaters were to scrape together $1000, and were willing to join together in a group to get their individual needs met, then a skatepark could gather $500,000 to start a park.  If the park were to be smaller, the investment could be too.  So if you know 10 skaters and they know 10 others, and they all know 5 others, you now have 500 people.  By setting up an account (so people can see their money is safe), you have now gathered enough to start a park.  Of course it will take organizing, but you have the investment, one of the hardest things to get.  Lets say you want this to happen but getting $1,000 is to hard.  What about $20 per week?  Basically if a person were to put away $20 a week, they could have the investment together within a year.  With automatic transfers, this would be easy enough for the average person.

So now that the investment end is dealt with, what would the business look like.  1. it could be totally private with only the investors/members allowed to use it or it could be part private with days of pay for skating, or, it could be all public, with the investors taking their money from the profits in the form a a dividend (when there is enough money in the bank, the extra is given back to the members.  2. It would be run by a board of directors who are voted on by the members.  Once the people agree to start the Co-op and put the money up for it, a board is established (even a temporary one would do at the start), and the board then makes decisions for the park.  3. The membership is responsible, in the end, for keeping the skatepark going, so if it is totally private, the money that the park needs for the next year is paid by the members (if say the operating costs were $100,000 then each member would need to pay $100).  4.  Members are usually required to work at the co-op in some fashion (office, desk, what ever).

Sound like a good idea?  I think it is one of the few ways today to get a park going without really deep pockets.  There are publications about co-ops on the web if you want more information on how to make one.  I'd be willing to help, let me know if you are interested.

How to start an indoor skatepark

As a guide I thought I would break down what a novice would need to do to start a skatepark from scratch.

1. Formulate a plan - how will it work, who will work it, how will you pay your bills, what business structure (tax and liability issues) will you have?

2.  Do some research - Do you even know where you could put a park?  What are the costs per month of the building? taxes? parking? how will people get there?  How many skaters are there, and how many of these will pay to skate?

3. Get your finances in order.  Do you have money?  Do you have enough to exist for 6 months without earning a cent?  How long will you be able to have expenses without making money before things will get stressful?  The longer you can last, the longer you will last. You will need build up time with lots of expenses and no income.  What happens too if people are slow to respond? Plan for the worst case scenario, and work for the best.  Can you spread your own finacial liability out with other investors?

4.  Market before you have anything going.  Start the buzz early.

5.  Plan for a media blitz for when you open, get all the free press you can.  Invite web, print, tv to your place.  Have an "event".

6.  Maximize your revenue.  Don't just rely on skateboarders to pay the bills.  Sell food, stuff, lessons, rentals, private park hours, party rooms, party events, christian events, before and after school events, camps, demos, advertisements, group lessons, what every you can.  There is no shame in making this business work by selling things, this is your business, you have to pay yourself, your taxes, lights, sewer, trash, etc.

7.  Keep it clean, think of the parents.  Parents want a safe place for their kids, they are the ones footing the cost of this place.  Make them happy with a nice place to watch, use the rest room, read whatever.  Sell them things while they are there.

8.  Network - skateshops, other parks, parks departments, community service, police, whomever can help you get people in the door.

9.  Keep good track of your expenses.  This takes time and effort.  Make sure you have a good system to record data for you, what sells, what doesn't, who comes, who doesn't.  Use your data to improve your business.

10.  Hire good people who are kind yet firm about helping you stay in business.  Free only means you paid, not them.  You aren't competing with free, free offers nothing but ramps and rails, you offer lights, food, supervision, air conditioning, heat, a phone, a pair of eyes that are ready to help if someone is hurt. This is worth money and people need to understand this.

11.  Free yourself to do business things - If you are spending all your time at the park, hire someone to help you do the things you need to do.  Spend some money.  Is your money better spent hiring someone to man the front, or design an advertisement?

12. Celebrate your members!  Make them want to belong!