Business, Marketing, and Life Advice for Play-Based Business Owners

So you want to open an indoor playground business. Or, maybe you just have a pinterest board called “play cafe inspo”, or “business ideas”. Wherever you are in your journey, I’d venture to guess that you’ve pictured what life might be like if you actually moved forward with your plan and chased your dream.

However, you’re also probably overwhelmed with the idea of getting started and you’re probably nervous about not getting the funding you need, not getting the support you want from family and...

If you are considering opening an indoor playground or if you own one already, it is your job as the visionary and the owner of the business to think about the big picture ideas and initiatives and really perfect the revenue streams in your business.

But what happens when you make a decision that doesn’t pan out?

Let’s say you had a great idea for a service offering, or a class, or an event that you were REALLY excited about. You spent tons of time creating it, promoting it, and executing it.

Indoor playgrounds are gaining popularity because they offer comfortable and secure play areas, and they give kids a chance to burn energy regardless of weather conditions.

As more play cafes begin to pop up around the country and in our own neighborhood, we want to remind you how we think Climbing Vines Cafe & Play is different from other indoor play spaces...

Climbing Vines Cafe’ & Play is a place for parents to bring their children for low-key, imaginative play while they can indulge in a...

If this is as far as you get in this post, just remember: online criticism will happen NO MATTER WHAT. And it will all be ok.

Earlier this year, a woman orchestrated a coordinated social media attack on my business and me personally. It left me gutted for hours. I could tell soon after she messaged me that she was attempting to get a rise out of me for social media attention, which was confirmed by the other reviews she had been recently leaving local businesses.

However, I was able to take (m...

Pssst... for a more recent article and a podcast episode on this topic, click here!

For a year or so after Climbing Vines opened, I could barely go one day without checking the websites and social media accounts of my local competitors. I was constantly looking over my shoulder, hoping and praying that no one would “copy” my business idea and steal all of my customers.

After two direct “copycats” opened within the first few years, it turns out that I was right about one thing: when someone fin...

At Climbing Vines Cafe & Play, we offer a variety of services from classes and camps to open-play and private events. It’s our adult and child-friendly birthday parties, though, that we have chosen as our focus.

While we, of course, put time and resources towards making each aspect of our business the best it can be, I have found that having one primary focus helps us best serve our customers. Having one top priority has also helped our indoor playground stand out against our local competiti...

SECRETS OF A OPERATING A PROFITABLE INDOOR PLAYGROUND

One of the most common questions I get from my students inside Play Cafe Academy and from prospective owners inside my inbox is: how do we make money? So, variations of this question might be, What are our revenue streams? How do they compare to one another? Is there a “right” model to make the most money when operating an indoor playground or play cafe?

And my answer, for my business, is simple. We focus on parties. That is where the ma...

IF YOU’RE CONSIDERING OPENING AN INDOOR PLAYGROUND, MARKETING IT INEXPENSIVELY IS ESSENTIAL! LEARN HOW YOU CAN MARKET YOUR INDOOR PLAYGROUND EVEN MONTHS BEFORE YOU OPEN!

Many owners feel like marketing their business online is just putting posts up on Facebook, but there is SO much more to it than that. Marketing is building an email list, it’s having a high-converting website, it’s having a word-of-mouth marketing strategy, and it’s converting your customers with IN-STORE marketing.

Here ar...