Special Feature Jump Arena INVESTMENT LEVEL: FROM £300,000 Margaret and Vaughan Moriondo
Before opening their Jump Arena franchise in Luton, Margaret and her husband worked in several European capitals as IT consultants
Why did you choose to go into franchising with Jump Arena? My husband and I had been looking for several months at buying a business. I had been a stay-at-home mum for nine years and was looking to work again but I did not want to return to IT consultancy, and my husband was looking to move away from this. We wanted to work for ourselves and have a different work-life balance.
Why did you choose Jump Arena? There were no local businesses that we were interested in, so we decided to visit The National Franchise Exhibition to get a better understanding of the industry. We were very impressed with the team on the Jump Arena stand. They were professional, welcoming and organised, and clearly had a deep knowledge of the leisure industry. We liked the market that the business was geared towards and that it put smiles on people’s faces – a distinct difference from working in financial services. We opened in summer half term and
were immediately faced with an avalanche of people ready to have fun. In some ways, this was an ideal time to open as we all had to just throw ourselves into the launch.
Has the business been successful? We have only been open two weeks to date so returns are minimal. However, that is not an accurate picture – the park has been
so popular that our return on investment will now increase month on month and we anticipate a high yield. We also have various plans for developing the business, which will boost our projections.
How did you secure funding? The venture was funded partly by us and partly by an asset company that already has a strong relationship with the franchisor. The funding was agreed relatively easily but took a lot longer to get in pace than anticipated – no one reason for this other than any piece of work that involves a number of agencies, like solicitors, can take a lot of time. We had a large stake to put into this development, which made funding accessible to us; this may not be the case if your initial investment is lower.
What kind of training and support have you received?
The franchisor has a dedicated team of professionals, consisting of marketing, sales and operations experts, who took us through the whole process once a premise had been leased. They provided a framework for launching the park and for training all the staff from the general manager down. As well as coordinating all the various contractors and firms involved in the project, they could answer any question that we put to them; we certainly had confidence in their capabilities. My husband
Margaret Moriondo
and I had training on the IT systems and how the park operates, although with this kind of business, there is no better training than being on the job.
Has franchising changed your life? We both feel rejuvenated and are very determined to make this a huge success – so much so that we envisage taking on more parks in the future. It has given us the ability to run our own business and work together. We would have struggled to do this on our own but the help provided has given us the expertise to open our first park.
Have you encountered any problems so far?
Deliveries not running to schedule can be annoying but the main one for us was the funding process, which dragged along until it was successfully resolved. All along the way, though, the team at head office have been excellent at supporting us and finding solutions to any issues.
What are your plans for the future? We intend to expand from this park. We see that there is a lot of room for corporate client development, as well as encouraging special interest groups to bounce with us.
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BusinessFranchise.com | July/August 2017
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