How Do I Start an Indoor Playground Business?

Indoor playground franchises are booming all over the world. With parents spending more time at work and kids becoming obese by the day, it is pertinent to find a balance.

Starting an indoor playground business appears to be both an escape for parents who want to combat their children’s obesity, as well as an income opportunity for the owners of the franchise.

If you are looking to start an indoor playground franchise, here are the simple steps you need to take:

• Decide on the reason why you want to start the business

• Create an indoor playground business plan

• Make in-depth market researches

• Find a suitable location

• Design and plan your indoor playground business

• Budget

• Get the relevant business licenses

• Acquire and install important indoor playground equipment

• Advertise what you do

• Scale your indoor playground franchise

No doubt – the points above sound thrilling. You are already fired up to start the business already.

But, we must mention this – it is a lot harder than it is. You have to spend a lot of time researching, accepting, and refuting ideas.

Indeed, starting an indoor playground business isn’t one of the easiest things to do. We understand that you are passionate about helping kids catch a lot of fun while making your money too.

However, you need to have an indoor playground business plan so that you don’t make mistakes at the onset or run into some avoidable challenges in the long run.

If you want to get started, take your time to read the entire content we put out below so you can have all the information you need.

Only a few businesses will work without a business plan. And even at that, the foundation of the business will be shaky because most of the important considerations were not factored in before launching.

Therefore, it is pertinent that you create an indoor playground business plan, detailing most of the important factors to consider before starting the franchise.

A good indoor playground business plan should among many other things, include:

• A mission statement explaining the aims and objectives of the indoor playground

• The desired location of the business, and why it was selected

• Operational techniques, such as cleaning and maintenance plans

• Marketing strategies – how to get more customers

• And most importantly – your budget so you don’t spend more than you wanted to

You have to also consider the location of the indoor playground. Like every other business, you want to make great sales from your indoor playground franchise.

And for you to hit those huge financial goals, you must locate the business in an area that has a lot of traffic.

By traffic, we mean citing your indoor playground in a location where there are a lot of people.

Examples of those places are:

• A high tourist area

• A shopping center/mall

• Residential areas (only if the parents are always busy and wouldn’t have all the time to attend to their kids).

You also have to consider the convenience and visibility of your indoor playground. For example, it would do your business a lot of good and savings on advertising costs if you can locate it in a place that has more foot traffic.

That way, parents wouldn’t have to rack their brain on how to park their cars and get their kids into the indoor playground.

Besides, the structure of the building housing your indoor playground is also important. You may be interested in building or acquiring a structure of 15 feet so that it can conveniently house a 3-story indoor playground.

Now, the financial commitment can take you by the surprise. Have you considered just how much you need to spend to set up an indoor playground franchise?

Many factors can influence the costs of the playground – and you need to have them in mind going forward.

Two major factors will help you determine the amount you will spend on your indoor playground.

They are:

6.1 Size

The size of the playground matters a lot. You are either choosing the compact size, which works best if you are expecting a few people. Or you go for the large and elaborate play center that requires more equipment, and which can contain more people.

6.2 The Number of Play Areas

How many playable activities do you want to introduce in your indoor playground? The higher the number of play areas, the more expenses to incorporate them.

6.3 What Should be in Your Budget?

Here are some of the most important costs that you should include when factoring in the costs of the playground:

• The total costs of starting the playground, including the costs of rent and insurance.

• Advertising costs

• Operating costs, including salaries and utilities

• Estimated profits you want to make after other expenses have been settled.

7. Get the Relevant Business Licenses

You will need to get the approval of your state government before you can start your indoor playground.

Have in mind that your chances of getting approved will be higher if they were already-existing laws that permitting child-care in the state.

That said – here are the important business licenses you need to get as a new indoor playground business:

7.1 General Business License

The general business license is primarily for business registration. You also need the license for tax purposes.

Depending on your location, getting the general business license can cost you between $300 and $500.

7.2 Doing Business As (DBA) License

This type of business license permits you to use a customized or branded business name for your indoor playground franchise.

It can cost up to $60 to get the Doing Business As (DBA) license.

Also, note that you may have to pay additional costs, especially if you are incorporating additional businesses into your indoor playground.

With everything now set, it is time to get the word out. There are many ways to advertise your new indoor playground, even if you are working on a budget.

Here are a few strategies on how you can advertise your new indoor playground and get more customers in the shortest time possible:

9.1 Hold a Grand Opening

Everybody does this these days – and you should too!

Schedule a grand opening for your new indoor playground. Invite family and friends and tell them to invite their loved ones too.

With many people coming for the grand opening, you can include a wide range of offers to make some sales on the first day. Some of the offers include:

• Offering a discount of up to 40% for the first 30 persons to have fun in your indoor playground during the grand opening.

• Giving out free samples to select children on the day of the grand opening.

9.2 Advertise Online and Offline

While social media adverts are awesome, you can also invest in offline adverts. The combination of both online and offline advertisements for your new indoor playground could be the magic wand.

Your major goal is to raise awareness among your target audience about the exciting products your new indoor playground has, as well as the amazing opportunities for kids who play there.

9.3 Set Up a Website

The Internet has given us a lot, and among the many benefits is establishing an online presence.

Set up a website for your business so that you can have an online platform from where you can publicize your indoor playground more.

Besides, you can use your website to showcase some of the impressive indoor playground equipment you have, as well as the fun activities that the children wouldn’t want to miss out on.

9.4 Generate Leads and Follow them Up

Not every parent that sees your adverts or learns about your indoor playground would want to patronize you immediately.

Some would want to take their time to check how your business model works and to be sure that your brand can be trusted to deliver exactly what it says.

So, consider generating more leads as you advertise. You can do that in many ways, such as:

• Embedding an email signup form on your website for people to join your email list.

• Sharing flyers to collect the telephone numbers and house addresses of parents who may be interested in bringing their kids to your indoor playground.

9.5 Get Involved in Your Community

Consider sharing your ideas about indoor playgrounds on both radio and television stations. You may also want to organize some offline events where you will educate parents and kids about the benefits of indoor playgrounds.

It wouldn’t be long before you establish trust with your target audience. And trust means more customers coming to patronize you!

9.6 Collaboration is Important

No man is an island, even though an indoor playground shuts out noise and crowd. Start collaborating with schools, daycare centers, and any other hub for children’s activities.

Depending on how strengthened your relationship is with them, you can get more kids coming from those places to place in your indoor playground.

One of the biggest challenges new businesses have is scaling or growing their businesses to the next level.

As your indoor playground business continues to boom, start looking for more business concepts to integrate so you can make more money.

Also, consider hiring more persons to help you manage the playground so you can have more time to think of other ways of driving revenue for the playground.

Do you prefer allowing your kids to visit their friends to play and possibly be influenced by a bad character?

Or would you rather have them frequenting an indoor playground where they would be improving on their cognitive skills while having fun?

Indoor lay areas are profitable, but you need professional advice from people who have been in the business for many years.

At Topkidsplay, we want to help you start and scale your indoor playground to the highest you envisage.

Our team of installation professionals will be more than excited to help you install and take care of your indoor playground. And when it is time for maintenance, we will schedule the best days to clean germs that build up in the playground. We will also be there in real-time to replace and or repair damaged lost or broken indoor playground equipment.

Above all, we would continually offer you professional advice that you can take advantage of to scale your indoor playground franchise to the next level.

Contact Dream garden today!