Please help

[windroadtosuccess]

Hello, I'm 18, me and 2-3 friends want to all work together to start up a company, we are all business savy, two of us taking Commerce in university, one taking construction management, and one taking arts. Anyway, we would like an idea for an offline store to start, there is an online business park opening up nearby that still has leasing available, I live in Canada, a province with probably about 1 million people, in the area i live there are probably around 400,000 people. I live in Nova Scotia, and was hoping since it will not compete with many of your business' if any, that you could spare some great ideas, we thought about a laser tag area, there are currently NO laser tag arenas in Nova Scotia besides a little theme park in the middle of nowhere. But maybe there is a reason for that, in the past 10 years there have been 2 in the area I am in and they have both shut down. So we are looking for other ideas, if you could make some suggestions about companies to run that would do well in Nova Scotia, it would be much appreciated, we are all willing to take loans from the bank to fund the business. Thanks a lot.

[SmallBusinessOwner]

An acquaintance of mine used to own an indoor laser tag business. As I recall, he and his buddies played a lot of Laser Tag, but they never developed a customer base that would support the business and the partners. So, they folded. Then, he bought an Industrial Boring Machine for 250K and went to work laying underground fiber optic cable for the telco's for 2K a day. He seemed to do well for the year or two that I knew him, working practically non stop. Not sure what ever happened to him, we lost touch. The laser tag business, definitely seems pretty risky, with the knowledge you now have...

If you really have the resources, an indoor rock climbing facility would be something to consider. Despite looking fairly inexpensive, I would imagine the costs are pretty high (above 50K, for sure). Between rent, labor, and insurance, the ongoing expenses are also high. It is a recreation business, yes, but it is one that cannot be duplicated in a video game (unlike laser tag, and bowling). Plus, it's fairly expensive to go to them, yet people are willing to pay it (unbelievable to me, since I am not a rock climber). The memberships have got to be a money earner. It's really not even possible to buy a one day pass at most of these places. You must sign up for a monthly membership, or you go home. That's a tremendous advantage over laser tag's hourly rates.

This type of business might do well in a big city in an area of the country where there are no natural places for rock climbing, or where bad weather (cold, rain, snow) makes outdoor rock climbing in a mountainous area next to impossible. Is that Nova Scotia?

[DebtFreeMe]

In my area of the US paint ball is huge. Out here only little kids play laser tag. But, people love to play paint ball, and are willing to spend quite a bit of money to upgrade there gear, and many like to have the newest stuff all the time. There is a huge assortment of accessories for paint ball, and with people wanting to upgrade a lot you can get some really good repeat business.

If you can do both an indoor arena to play in, and a front-end store to sell paintballs, guns, accessories, and also rent all the required equipment out to people that want to play on there own, you may be able to do very well.

Be sure that your arena is easy to clean, and that it is built out of structures that you can move around every month or so. Paintballers like to have new areas to play in or they get board after a few times and will go look for a new place to play. But, if you can offer a new area to play every month or so, once again you could be looking at repeat business.

If you can find an old warehouse in your arena with a front-end office area for your store, that you can rent, you may have a low cost way to start up rather than having to build from scratch.

Good Luck

[nickhumph]

Allo windroad
First of all congrats on taking some initiative and planning starting a business.

1. One of the worst business mistakes you can make, is doing it with friends. Friendships are almost guaranteed to be demolished or negatively change by partaking in such a high risk environment. Do a Google search on "business with friends" and you'll get 45 million results. Find out the facts.

2. A laser tag business has many risks. Think first before doing.
a) Safety concerns: At 18 years of age you could be sued.
b) High start up cost for equipment, laser guns etc.
c) Why did the two others fail? Was it a funding problem? Not enough customers?
d) Do you like 12 year old kids and corporate team building exercises? As that is what usually attracts laser tag. The older people will go paint balling.
e) Will parents trust 18 year old kids to be in charge of their kids birthday party that they paid money for.

Note: Did you know that 9/10 small business' fail within the first three years. It's a fact... look it up.

3. Look at your market data!
How old are they? How much do they earn? Are there kids with families? Is the population growing? What is seriously lacking?

windroad.. if you want to seriously consider running a business be a "serial entrepreneur" open many types of business' online first. Perhaps experiment running one with your friends. Get a feel of what you like. And then if you are serious about opening a offline business.. then do it.

Cheers from Nick
blog @ nickhumph.com