How to start paintball business

**EricNHorton** · 05-21-2009 04:50 PM

I am thinking of setting up a paintball business in Chicago suburbs.. it will be an outdoor place not far away from the city. Does anyone know how profitable is this? What potential problems can I expect? How much money do I need to get it going?
Thank you

**mark2685** · 05-21-2009 06:42 PM

I assume your talking about a paintball field, and not just a store?

I think the more costly expenses are going to be insurance, your employees and the cost to use the land.

**Keven** · 05-21-2009 10:13 PM

If you learn about the price of insurance please post back, I would like to know!

**Jaysun13** · 05-23-2009 04:00 PM

I might start by calling paintball fields out of state or emailing an owner. Out of state so they don't have to fear you as a competitor.

I havn't paintballed in years but this is what i remember.

In massachusetts the paintball field i went to had a storefront. Full of Guns, Apparal, Paintball accessories, equipment and so on. So not only were they making money from rentals and such they had a store. I believe the store however is optional or could be meant for a later expansion as initial inventory could costs you 100's of thousands of dollars.

The Field...Any piece of land can be turned into a paintball field (given the correct permits) I'd call local government to see how easy it is to get a paintball field approved. You may have to stand before the towns board and propose why they should allow this in their town.

Any paintball field needs rentals! You will need the capital to have i'd say atleast 20-40 rentals guns, masks, harness's , co2 tanks and so on.

I really know nothing about this business but i would think its the type of thing that could run you anywhere from 100k-1 million dollars+ to launch.

Also keep in mind paintballing is expensive. Going to the field and playing is not. THE BALLS. Cheap cases run at about 40 and expensive ones for 90.. the average player will use half a case in a day of paintballing.

From a consumer standpoint.

Field Fee $25
Rental $25
Balls $25
Food $10
Gas $2-10

You can see how easily a simple day of paintball can turn into a 100 dollar day.. in this economy...ehhh i might try something less risky at this time and approach this again i n5 years. Good luck!

**myfayt** · 05-23-2009 05:22 PM

The insurance is going to be costly, and there aren't that many paintballers out there. Now before you say I am wrong. I would estimate around 1 in every 50 people own or play paintball. So in a average size city there might be 10 - 20 paint ballers there. If they don't want to play, you are going to go broke.

I'd suggest going after a larger target group. Why not consider a shop/paint ball lessons? You can have an indoor shooting range, teach people about it (to get more into the sport) and sell them equipment. You can charge for lessons.