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

A couple weeks back I posted a video tour of a play space called The Friendship Fortress that’s not only local to me, but is also near and dear to my heart. 

And this is because one of my long-time  Play Cafe Academy and Play Maker Society members, Timea, is now the co-owner of the space.

If you’re a longtime listener, or if you watched that tour, you may remember that Timea actually opened her own space first called Tumbles Play Cafe, which I also toured and filmed...

It’s May 2020, and we are right in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis and all of the uncertainty that comes with it.

I’ve been paying attention to the conversations happening on podcasts, YouTube channels, and inside Facebook groups, and I’ve actually been quite surprised at the comments being made.

Understandably, a lot of people are feeling scared and stuck, and like their dreams are on pause.

However, the surprising part to me is that a lot of prospective business owners...

I’m writing this on March 24, 2020- while we are smack in the middle of a global health crisis. I live in New York so we have been quarantined for just over a week, and indoor playgrounds around the country have been mandated to close until further notice.

While “social distancing” seems to (so far) be “flattening the curve”, so to speak (with the main aim of “flattening the curve” being to prevent a sharp peak of cases and spread out the infection...

As I mentioned in my blog about the important trends I see emerging for indoor play spaces in 2020 and beyond, Mobile Play services are a great option for thinking outside the box and either generating an additional source of revenue for your brick and mortar indoor playground OR for raising funds to start a brick and mortar space.

SO, WHAT IS A MOBILE PLAY RENTAL SERVICE?

Specifically, what I referred to in my “Important Trends” blog are businesses that bring a mobile soft play...

This past week in our Play Maker Society group coaching program (which is an optional way for Play Cafe Academy members to really uplevel their game and accelerate their success with the program) we had a veteran (10 year!) Starbucks manager answer questions and WOW, she provided some amazing insight!

While the full 1-hour training (plus MY 1-hour training on my lessons in operating a profitable cafe) is only available for Play Maker Society members, I did want to share a few of her insights...

Before going any further, I want to note two very important things related to this article. 

1. I am NOT a lawyer and therefore cannot offer legal advice. Before opening your business, you should consult with a business lawyer to ensure you have all proper licenses and permits. I am simply speaking from my experience and research.

2. I live in the state of New York, in the United States. Depending on where you are located, the permits and licenses required to own and operate a business may...

Well FIRST I need to explain this title and this topic-- because I already know what many of you are thinking. Don’t I encourage and teach entrepreneurs exactly how to be successful in, very specifically, a brick and mortar industry? Well, the answer is YES. 

And even though I believe success and happiness are very possible in the brick-and-mortar space, this journey is NOT for everyone. 

So you can call this my “tough love” blog for all of my brick-and-mortar...

Something that we are consistently asked by customers year-round, but especially when we are in the throes of flu-season, is how we sanitize our space and keep it clean.

While I can’t speak for other facilities, I know that keeping our space sparkling clean is a top priority. After all, my own children play there daily-- so I have a personal stake in the effectiveness of our cleaning procedures as well.

So today I’d love to shed some light on how we manage to keep germs at bay...

Something that I carefully examine at the end of every year of business is how we could have saved money, been more efficient, or offered a higher level of service.

One thing that has stuck out in my mind for the past FOUR years-- yes FOUR years-- in my business is all of our different systems and software and processes and how ineffectively they all integrate together, causing a MASSIVE bottleneck in our business.

“Which systems?”, you might be wondering. After all, running a...

Something I am careful to do constantly is monitor other indoor play spaces in order to best understand what’s working and what’s not working in the indoor play industry. 

As we kick off a new year, I wanted to share 4 emerging trends that have been increasing in popularity, especially during the last 18 months or so.

For current indoor playground owners and prospective owners alike, adapting to at least 1-2 of these trends to accommodate changing customer preferences will be...