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...

You may have noticed that I’ve been covering some HEAVY topics on the Profitable Play Podcast lately.

We’ve talked about regulating our nervous systems to prevent a lot of the health issues brought about by chronic stress which is unfortunately not uncommon for indoor playground owners. 

We’ve talked about handling conflict with customers and within our own teams, and most recently we’ve talked about navigating divorce as a business owner. So, like I said,...

Right now in New York, we are on week 2 of being snowed in, and something that’s been on the top of mind for everyone the last few days it seems is this:

If an indoor playground or play cafe business needs to close early or close for the day unexpectedly for whatever reason, whether it be weather-related or a staff call off or a personal emergency– how can we let our customers know in an effective way?

And if you’re reading this as one of my currently open indoor playground...

As an indoor playground or play cafe business owner, you may find yourself overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities that consume a significant amount of your time and energy. 

Coupled with the difficulty to hire and retain retail employees right now– creating a delegation system to lessen your workload can often seem impossible.

However, there is a lesser-known option you have that can allow you to maximize your productivity and focus on the essential tasks only YOU can do in...

I often hear from prospective indoor playground and play cafe business owners that pricing is one of the most difficult aspects of launching their play spaces.

This is especially true when it comes to the services they’re providing that don’t necessarily have a direct cost associated with them– making it impossible to utilize a simple profit margin calculation. For example, if you were a PRODUCT based business, if your COST was $2 and you wanted to ensure an 80% profit...

It was recently estimated by the CDC that over 5.4 MILLION adults in the United States  (2.21% of American adults) have ASD.  The states with the greatest estimated number of adults living with ASD included California (701,669), Texas (449,631), New York (342,280), and Florida (329,131). And similarly, the nationally representative survey suggests that about 1.5 million U.S. kids have autism, or about 1 in 40.

To put it in perspective, most indoor playgrounds serve between 25 and...

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...

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...

As you likely know if you’ve been following me for a while, we focus on birthday parties at our indoor playground locations.

We rely on having a booked-out party calendar every single weekend to be able to be successful. I love being able to look at the month ahead and know with certainty that not only will all of our bills and team members be paid, but also that I can pay myself consistently as the business owner.

Even if you do NOT plan on making parties your main focus, relying on...