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Selling an Experience: Growth Strategies for Facilities
75 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we are joined by Matt Baysinger from Swell Spark, the mother company of Blade and Timber, Sinkers Lounge, and Breakout escape rooms. Matt is very open about the challenges he has faced, the strategies he has used to grow, the failures he has experienced, and how he used that knowledge to continuously improve the customer experience. This one is full of valuable industry knowledge that you won't want to miss.
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https://facilityally.com/
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Learn more about Sinkers Lounge:
https://www.sinkerslounge.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Matt and SwellSpark
00:00:00
Speaker
This week on the Facility Playbook, I got to sit down with Matt from SwellSpark. Previously known for creating breakout rooms and axe throwing bars, he is now with us today talking about Sinker's Lounge, a high-end mini indoor golf putt-putt experience in downtown Kansas City. Not something you normally hear when you think about golf or putt-putt.
00:00:19
Speaker
We're going to learn from Matt how he got into the downtown Kansas City market, what he learned along the way, what he failed on and what he's going to fix for the next one, and a lot more on how he reaches a different demographic in downtown Kansas City. Looking to learn more? Check out this episode of the Facility Playbook.
00:00:39
Speaker
What's up, everybody? Do you own or manage a facility while you are in the right place? Welcome to the Facility Playbook. I'm Luke Wade, founder and CEO of Facility Ally, and this podcast is about helping facility managers and owners learn from pioneers and veterans in the industry who have already built and managed successful sports facilities, entertainment venues, and clubs. Did you know that most of the facilities I just mentioned use between four and six different softwares to manage their reservations, lessons, memberships, and more?
00:01:06
Speaker
revolutionize your facility with Facility Ally's all-in-one system. Learn more at facilityally.com. And today, we're in an amazing
Matt's Journey to Entertainment Ventures
00:01:13
Speaker
entertainment concept with Matt Basinger, CEO of SwellSpark, who helped create Sinkers. Thanks for having us today, Matt. Thanks for being here. Tell us a little bit about your background and what you led you to SwellSpark and Sinkers. Man, it doesn't make any sense, but I was a high school guidance counselor. I had summers off and I started a soda shop in Lawrence, Kansas. We had 13 different
00:01:34
Speaker
1300 different kinds of soda from all over the country. I'm a soda nerd at heart, you know. But what I realized just really quickly within that is people love unique experiences. And so the long of the short I'll breeze through it is traveling with my wife, saw an escape room, thought it would be fun.
00:01:52
Speaker
decided to go in and build an escape room, had a lot of early success. Within that started to really understand the role of real estate, the role of, you know, media, the role of marketing, the role of B2B sales. And so as we started looking at what else was in that space, call it entertainment or small box entertainment, we then kind of stumbled into axe throwing. We found that in Toronto and brought it to Kansas City and then kind of expanded elsewhere.
00:02:17
Speaker
And then in April of 20 was when we were supposed to open Sinker's Lounge, our mini golf concept. Delayed a couple of years, but we opened here in Kansas City in April of 2022. Been operating for about a year and a half now.
00:02:29
Speaker
Well, that is a
Creating Memorable Social Experiences
00:02:30
Speaker
lot to unpack. Yeah. But I love it. And what you said is it really sounds like you're focused on experience. Correct. A fun social experience is whether it's drinking soda with a friend throwing axes or playing butt butt. Yep. No, I think a lot of people go into business to solve their own problems. Right. And what I realized is me as a social creature, like I'm not one to go to a bar and sit there.
00:02:50
Speaker
I'm like, hey, Luke, how's it going, buddy? I find when I'm at my friend's house is we end up in the backyard throwing a football while we're talking, or we end up doing something. And so for me, it's like, man, the best form of entertainment is when I'm an active participant. And so
Resurgence and Innovation in Mini-Golf
00:03:05
Speaker
my life, the last eight years, has been finding the best concepts to do that, figuring out how to do it really well, and then opening those things and reproducing them.
00:03:14
Speaker
I love it, and I'm very similar. I like to go out and play ping pong, play pickleball, whatever it may be, and have a conversation or go for a walk, so I can totally relate there. Everything else you mentioned seems pretty new. Breakout rooms didn't exist, soda bar didn't exist, axe throwing didn't exist, but sinkers, where we're at today, putt-putts been around for a long time. You know, it used to be a part of bowling alleys and a whole bunch of different things.
00:03:34
Speaker
How did that kind of get thrown in the mix after you kind of created these newer concepts? You know, you say bowling, it's kind of interesting to think about bowling as a case study because bowling's been around forever, right? And bowling at one point was the most popular sport in America. And then it died a fiery death. And then it's actually had a huge resurgence that not a lot of folks are talking about. And I think the primary reason is because
00:03:54
Speaker
great operators were finally able to take the concept of bowling and make it relevant again, not by the bowling lanes. Those really haven't changed, but by the technology that surrounds the bowling, by the food and beverage offerings, by opening new facilities that don't have 80 years of cigarette smoke smell, right? Like people updated the concept. And so I think with mini golf as well, like arguably mini golf died.
00:04:16
Speaker
It died years ago, other than some little pockets in Florida or some tourists in Branson. But for the most part, mini-golf facilities have been going out of business for decades. There's really been this mini-golf resurgence in the UK that started about 10 years ago.
00:04:34
Speaker
And they took this decades old concept and they said, hey, remember the nostalgia? Like, what if we couple that with great food and beverage and we make it a place that 20 somethings and 30 somethings and 40 somethings actually want to go to? And so they started doing that in the UK and they started having a lot of success. And then we found it, you know, and so.
00:04:55
Speaker
Minigolf, traditionally and historically, is done on multiple acres on the outskirts of town where land is affordable, right? We had to ask and answer the question, how do you take minigolf and how do you put it in 5500 square feet instead of 42,000 or 80,000 square feet outside?
00:05:14
Speaker
And so that's where we get this really, I think, good, nice, clean, contemporary version of mini golf where, yes, mini golf matters and that is the primary thing that you're doing here, but most folks are walking around and there's tables for your food and beverage options as well to make it a fun night out, not just a morning out.
00:05:32
Speaker
I love that.
Introducing Tabletop Golf
00:05:33
Speaker
And for everyone who's not here, we're in the middle of downtown Kansas City, home of the Kansas City Chiefs. And we're literally surrounded by sky, you know, sky rises, all kinds of apartments, everything around us. So to your point, we're in the middle of the city with this amazing putt putt, and I love that. There's also something unique here that's not just putt putt. You guys have, is tabletop a create? Tell us a little bit about the other game that's available. Yeah, so I have to preface by saying, you know, a lot of people are like, Matt, you're so creative.
00:05:59
Speaker
And there's probably some truth to that statement, right? But everything I've done, it's when you go see a version of something and you're like, I think we can do that better, right? And so escape rooms initially came from Southeast Asia. Axroy initially came from Canada. Mini golf originally came from the UK. But there's little, there are places or facilities that have created mini golf on tables or these extra mini golf type games.
00:06:25
Speaker
And so we saw a concept that we're like, man, that's pretty neat, but we think we could do it a lot better. And having to ask and answer the question of, again, how do you do mini golf in 5,500 square feet? You don't. You can't. You can't do 18 holes in mini golf. And so we fabricated, created, drew up this idea called tabletop golf.
00:06:46
Speaker
And tabletop golf is, you know, these four foot by eight foot tables where you're actually playing a mini golf type game, but on essentially a pool table with a modified pool cue, we call it a sinker, right? And so it's a combination of, I mean, you know, billiards and shuffleboard and mini golf all kind of merged into one.
00:07:07
Speaker
But what's really neat about it is each hole is very, very different. And a little bit different from mini golf is they're all replayable. And so most people, if they spend 45 minutes to an hour playing mini golf, they might spend an hour or two hours playing tabletop because you're trying to figure out how to get a hole in one on every hole. We're super proud of it because it's something that we designed, created in-house with our fabrication team. And the response to it has been amazing, right? If you look on the Google reviews or if you talk to your friends, they're like, hey, the mini golf was good.
00:07:35
Speaker
Have you played tabletop yet? Like that thing was incredible. Totally. We actually came down here with a bunch of my employees in the companies and came and played butt and played that and everybody was just raving about how awesome that was. So kudos to you guys. You did it. Cool. So maybe I think I skipped over a little bit. Tell us what Sinkers is.
00:07:53
Speaker
I mean sinkers lounge right that's that's the name of this place and so we're trying to think of hey what golf buzzwords are there what's not used and so a sinker is a really good putter right that someone is singing the putt but sinkers lounges are upscale indoor mini-golf cocktail bar and we're we try to cater to your date night but we also try to cater to B2B and corporate audiences and
00:08:15
Speaker
Hopes to come out and have a great time. But what's really fun about this place is the malleability is if you come, you know, at Saturday at noon, you're going to see a lot of families. That's great. We welcome that. We want them to come. You come Saturday at 9 p.m. and it's almost like a club. You know, the music's a lot louder. People are dressed to the nines and they're getting ready to have, you know, it's part of their experience in downtown Kansas City.
00:08:38
Speaker
I love that.
Challenges of Sinker's Lounge Downtown
00:08:39
Speaker
So what are some of the biggest challenges that you had? Let's talk about from opening the facility to managing it. Yeah, this concept in many ways was our biggest risk that we've ever taken, right? If you take a step back and think about how we have started things.
00:08:54
Speaker
breakout KC, we did this elbow grease build in the river market area of Kansas City, which now is a great, really cool space. But river market eight years ago, nine years ago, was not what it is today. The phone calls we were getting is like, hey, is this place safe? And so that was a very elbow grease type build. I think our total investment to start that thing was like $75,000 in the initial thing.
00:09:24
Speaker
Cheap right and it was amazing, but it was inexpensive and then you look at our initial rendition of blatant timber, right? we were in the West Bottoms like and And we were in a warehouse and we stood up some lanes that we threw out and it was a minimum by a product to see like hey are people gonna come and so our initial investment there was I don't know $30,000 on a very friendly lease because we're like and if this doesn't work like
00:09:47
Speaker
No problem. We're in power and light. We're in arguably the most expensive district in Kansas City. We're made in Maine. To sign a 10-year commitment to open a concept that we hadn't actually tried yet was terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.
00:10:08
Speaker
But we felt confident. We felt confident that it was going to be a good fit and that downtown, knowing, I mean, we have Blading Timber next door, literally. And so we knew the audience. We knew the type of customers who are coming here and we just thought it would be a great fit. So the initial like day one was really scary. I'm just like, OK, we built this beautiful thing.
00:10:26
Speaker
Are people going to show up? And fortunately it did. So you talked a little bit about the demographics. You have families during the day on the weekends and then kind of the club atmosphere at night. What do you target? Is there anybody specifically you're targeting for your demographics?
00:10:42
Speaker
It's interesting, and you talked in your introduction about the technologies that people have and the technologies that people use. Having done this now for nine years, our target market changes. When you think of when you first opened something,
00:11:00
Speaker
a lot of times don't even need to advertise because you're getting your like think in your head like that mental picture of the people who used to wait in line for iPhones right like that's who showed up the people who like they're the they're the early adopters among their friends group they want to be the first to have something they want to be the person to be like
00:11:17
Speaker
I was here. You have to go to that thing that I've already discovered because I'm really cool. Our first group of folks was that, early adopters. Then you move on to the friends of those people. They're like, oh my gosh, Luke told me the things, so I'm going to go. They always just do what Luke says because Luke was the early doctor.
00:11:37
Speaker
With breakout, though, having nine years of trend lines now, at one point in time, the people who are coming is like suburban moms. Now that they've had 74 people tell them that it was amazing, and now that there's 4,000 five-star Google reviews, they're like,
00:11:55
Speaker
I think I'll try it, you know? But the reality is, and you know this, right? You have two kids, I have three kids. You get to a stage in life where it's like, hey man, I have two date nights a year. It's gotta be nails, right? I got it, I gotta get it right. We can't be risky, we can't try the new thing. Let's try the thing that everyone says is awesome.
00:12:16
Speaker
And so, you know, it's been really fun and interesting. We have 10 stores across the country is to figure out, okay, what stage are we at with our customer base? Who are we supposed to be marketing to? You know, how do we make sure we're not leaving these folks behind, but capturing these new clients? And it's just, it's a fun and sometimes makes you want to pull your hair out, but it's a fun challenge to solve for.
00:12:38
Speaker
Sure. And I think in this in this environment, like an entertainment concept, in my opinion, everybody, a lot of the younger people want to try it immediately. Everybody's rushing to a bar, you know, next door and bar like this is so cool. But it's your job once they come here to do an awesome job of creating this amazing experience. So they continue to come back and do tell everybody and leave those great reviews. So
00:12:58
Speaker
I think what you've done is amazing and a testament to that because anybody can open a space really. But to be able to create an experience that people love, refer, leave reviews, tell everybody is really the power to not have to market anymore, right? It is organic. And so kudos
Enhancing Experience with Food and Beverage
00:13:13
Speaker
to you guys for able to do that on three different concepts. Yeah, I'd say one. So that's really awesome. And I think a big piece of that is your food and beverage. So obviously, your blade and timber, you've got food and beverage, you've got food and beverage at most your locations. Let's talk about sinkers lounge specifically.
00:13:27
Speaker
What was the idea? You mentioned already kind of the golf idea. So what was kind of the idea around your food and beverage for that? You know, what's been so interesting about sinkers is again, like there's already a pretty captive audience of golfers and golfers are passionate people, you know, and I mean, I don't know how many golf courses in Kansas City that there's dozens and dozens of golf courses just in this metro. So those folks are willing to spend money. But there's also this expectation of what goes along with golf, right? Like
00:13:54
Speaker
I don't have the data, but I would guess that the vast majority of folks who go to a golf course to play golf are also spending money at that facility in some other way. And so I think one of the reasons that mini golf didn't last is they didn't provide that. And I'm talking like the old version of mini golf, right?
00:14:15
Speaker
The only thing that they had going for him was the experience itself. There was no add-on. So if this experience is $20, right? Like the big question is like, Hey, how can we get 25? How can we get like, they're already coming. How can we get a couple extra dollars both for the sake of wanting to make money? But also we know that generally speaking, those extra dollars spent are also going to add to the experience.
00:14:38
Speaker
And so for us, I mean, when you look at Blade and Timber, the first version didn't have a bar. We very quickly realized, man, this needs a bar. That's why we moved from the west bottom, it's a powered light, largely. With here, it was like, maybe we're gonna open with a bar, we're also gonna make it a focus of what we're doing. And so really, our bartenders are incredible. And in a lot of ways, they are the ones who make this what it is. Because there's an expectation, if you're gonna go out at powered light, you're not just gonna get
00:15:05
Speaker
you know, vodka and Coke or whatever. Like you want, you want something. If you're gonna dedicate this as the thing that you're gonna do with a Saturday, better be awesome. So yeah, so having, I think a good food program and a good beverage program is, I mean, it's entertainment, right? Yep, exactly. That is the addition that has made it special. So what's, one of the cocktails you made here, you're right. So I'm assuming you have fun names, things like that. Like, can you tell us about one of the cocktails? You know, it's funny,
00:15:33
Speaker
I really focus on the entertainment portion, and I think that is my sweet spot. And so one of the things that I've had to learn to do is realize what's mine and what's not. We were talking about this a little bit off the show. Luke, I don't drink alcohol, you know? And so I never have, not to say that I never will, but it was really important for us to hire and work alongside, you know, folks who know what they're doing. And I think especially in the early stages, what Eatsy still is
00:15:59
Speaker
You know, our bartenders are coming up oftentimes with the ideas and the cocktails of the day into this or that. Um, cause this is a, it's a bar program that needs to be malleable and adjust in real time in response to what's going on in the world in the first place. Right. And so when the chiefs beat the tar out of the lions on Thursday, you know, maybe we have a deadline on Friday or so. I don't know. Like.
00:16:21
Speaker
I think so much of this form of entertainment space is the importance of staying relevant with culture. And so we built this facility to be very Instagramable, for lack of a better word, very photographic, photogenic. Part of that is when there's a trend.
00:16:40
Speaker
If there's a meme, make a drink based off that meme because people are going to want that. You're absolutely right. So we've tried to put our people in positions to be able to make those decisions and make them quickly and make them in real time.
00:16:55
Speaker
Well, I think it's really important. I'm glad you didn't make up a drink or tell me about a drink. I love that you went down that road because for a lot of facility managers, even owners out there, they try and do everything. I mean, they're taking the calls, they're doing the books, they're chasing down invoices, you know, they're making the drinks, they're doing it all. And I think it's really important for true scalability to have the team members that help support you. Like if you're not good at making drinks, you don't drink alcohol, probably shouldn't be the one designing the drink menu. So I think it's really important to touch on that with the facility managers and the owners is you can't do it all.
00:17:23
Speaker
So make sure you find the team to help support you, so I really appreciate you saying it. You know, and I
Building a Supportive and Scalable Team
00:17:27
Speaker
guess you can do it all if you have zero desire to grow, right? Like there, I think there are some decent owner operators who, and it's the one thing, and if that's what you want, that's great, right? It's really interesting being in these, you know, Facebook communities or whatever of other axe throwing venue operators or other mini golf operators.
00:17:47
Speaker
and folks who just, they can't get out of their old way, you know, and people who are talking about like, yeah, I've, you know, 90 hour weeks and I can't trust anyone to leave the store or do this. So I'm just like, dude, like, I was there the first week and I'm out. Like, cause we ain't gotta let your people do their thing.
00:18:05
Speaker
We had a really, really big name, local Kansas City, the biggest name celebrity in Kansas City who came through recently. They're like, Matt, are you going to run a front desk? I was like, no, that's not my store. They've earned the opportunity to be in that space. I love it.
00:18:25
Speaker
And so to that vein, you know, of finding a team to run it and your point, you know, you just opened another location. And so I know that was for Blake, but talk a little bit about what a facility manager and owner should think about before they open a second location.
00:18:40
Speaker
I mean, we've come to realize real estate's everything, right? Where your address is is your greatest marketing asset there is. And so one, if you make the wrong decision of where you're going to go, you're starting at a considerable disadvantage. Going all the way back to breakout, I was there all the time. But I think becoming operationally sound and really starting to understand what is it that you are and what is it that you aren't.
00:19:03
Speaker
A lot of the folks here, whether they know or not, they're asking themselves the question of what would Matt do in this situation. It's funny to me when I go into facilities now and I don't know the staff or they don't know me. Honestly, it's been a strange mental challenge just from a communicative or hierarchical standpoint to realize that there's folks and I'm like, I'm their boss's boss's boss's boss or whatever it is.
00:19:27
Speaker
But that's not indicative of the value of the person. That's just a role that we're serving in a communication standpoint. All that being said, I think to be able to set those expectations and have folks understand what it means to work here, right?
00:19:43
Speaker
There's billions of people. There's millions and billions of jobs. Why does someone want to have this one? And at SwellSpark,
Managing Overcrowding and Expansion Lessons
00:19:51
Speaker
we really quickly, we call it Jay Sage. It's kind of cheesy corporate whenever, but it's real. So our expectations is that folks are joyful, servant-minded, action-oriented, gritty, and eager.
00:20:00
Speaker
And we talk about that in every interview. And the reality is, if a person doesn't align with that, they're probably not a good fit to work here. They're a great fit to work somewhere else. That's cool. But if they come in with that foundation, I think it's going to be really easy to fit in here.
00:20:16
Speaker
in being an entrepreneurial, still an upstart company, and still something that is changing often. I think those qualities help identify what it's going to be like to be successful now, but also later as we continue to change and hopefully grow, not just as a single facility, but as a company.
00:20:33
Speaker
Sure, I think that's you nailed it. And I think it's really important. Not everybody can be your customer, not everybody can be your employee, not everybody should or wants to be that right. So by trying to fit people into those holes makes it really difficult and I as well, I learned the hard way and spent many, many years thinking that I could fit people into holes and that they weren't shaped for.
00:20:50
Speaker
And you just realize after a while that it's probably better for them to go somewhere else anyway. They're happier than trying to force them that hole the whole time. And so I think that realization allowed me to help scale and grow all my businesses as well. We don't have the monopoly on jobs, right? And someone said, yeah, I think you should promote them to customer. And I was like, ooh.
00:21:09
Speaker
That's a little passive aggressive, but I like the idea of it. So back to Sinker's Lounge. Obviously, you have a limited space. We're in the middle of the city. So do you ever deal with overcrowding or wait lines? And how do you kind of deal with it? We do. I mean, if you come on a Friday or Saturday night, there's a line. There's a line to check in. Which? There's pros and cons, right? I love if I do a drive-by. And if you're walking by, you're like, ooh, there's a line. I think there's something mentally that's like, there's a line that it's worth it.
00:21:39
Speaker
You know, on the same note, I don't want people waiting in line. I want them playing mini golf. And so, with this being our first location, we have learned a lot about what location two should be like. And the biggest thing we've learned is that this location or that our next location should be bigger. I'm not going to say this one should be bigger because it can't, right? But our next location, what we're really missing here is we're missing a great place for large groups and large parties. You know, I'm talking 10, 20, 30 folks at a time to hang out. We don't have that here.
00:22:07
Speaker
We have a room for like 10, but our next facility will have a much better B2B private space program that will also allow us to do overflow on a super crowded day or whenever it is.
00:22:23
Speaker
And you could go back and I could beat myself up for not having thought about this beforehand. But it's like the reality is you just you don't know what you don't know, you know. And for us, we did not fully understand how many people would want to use this for those large parties. And we know that now. And so now we'll figure out what to do with it and how to maneuver and how to adapt to larger groups wanting to do full facility buyouts. It's a great problem to try to solve for, you know. Sure.
00:22:51
Speaker
But I also think just a general, all of our concepts have required an education of our consumers, an education of our customers, right? With breakout, it's like, what is it? You know, with axe throwing, is this safe? You know, and so we have to educate, hey, here's what an estate broom is, and here's what it is. Axe throwing, here's all the things that we're doing to keep you safe, you know, and we have alcohol, and it's still going to be an amazing experience. Here, if you're coming in thinking that this is going to be
00:23:18
Speaker
Orlando, outdoor, four acre mini golf, you're going to be disappointed. And so we have to do a good job of making sure our customers know what this is, right? Like, is
Operational Strategies and Pandemic Impact
00:23:29
Speaker
this a mini golf facility? Yes, it is.
00:23:32
Speaker
But it's a mini-golf cocktail bar, right? And like, that's a different thing than a mini-golf facility. We don't have a big, you know, like, dinosaur. D-Rex, that's exactly what I was thinking. The dinosaur that was eating your golf ball. Ball's not coming out of the clown's mouth. Because there's not room for it. So we had to focus on what are the most important aspects of mini-golf? What can we use and how can we do that in a space that's also a cocktail bar?
00:23:57
Speaker
I love it. And so, and that's probably why, but I'm still going to ask, why did you decide to only open, you know, afternoons and evenings during the week? Yeah, I think that's a great question. That's actually one that we're asking right now is like, should we be open earlier? You know, what's been interesting post pandemic is
00:24:13
Speaker
Downtown Kansas City in the middle of the day still is not what it was even three or four years ago, right? But I think we're moving more and I think if someone listened to this in early 2024, they'll see that we've had expanded hours since then. We're about to launch kids birthday parties, right? We're about to launch programs and make it easier for folks to come during the untraditional hours.
00:24:34
Speaker
Part of that too is for someone to have a great time here, it requires a kitchen staff, it requires a bartender, it requires someone to set you off a minute. It's not like we can just open the doors and like have a 17 year old kid just be like, have fun, you know? Like we have an expectation of service that you're gonna get whether you show up early or late. And there's just some realities as far as labor and numbers of is it worth it to have a bartender and a kitchen staff in front desk at 11 o'clock in the morning?
00:25:03
Speaker
And if the answer is no, then maybe we shouldn't be open then because we're just not, we're giving them a less than experience. Sure. I think it makes sense. And a lot of the, a lot of the entertainment concepts I talked to actually close Monday and Tuesday and push all of their private events and rentals and corporate buyouts to those two days. Have you thought about any of that sort of moving and changing as a part of what you're doing now? What's been so fascinating is you go back to pre pandemic and corporate rentals accounted for about 30% of our total revenue. And right now it's like 14%.
00:25:31
Speaker
And those numbers have ebbs and flowed, and again, that number is very different in Kansas City than it is in Seattle than it is in Honolulu. We're having to deal not just with, hey, what's the consumer base look like, but what's it look like in these different cities as well?
00:25:44
Speaker
And I think one of the challenging places about my business and the stage that I'm in is we're not a small business, we're also not a big business, right? And so from a marketing standpoint, if we're gonna say, hey, we're only open on, or we're closed on Monday and Tuesday for private groups, but like, what if we're not in Hawaii? Cause it's tourism driven. How do you get that message out appropriately to say this facility operates different than this facility?
00:26:10
Speaker
Because we want to have room to be able to do that, but that creates challenges from a marketing standpoint, from an operation standpoint. There's stuff you have to think about, especially when one of the core principles is how do we build something scalable and repeatable. And then if the first thing you go to is like, oh, well, let's not repeat this part of it. It's just like, okay. Yeah, but what a waybook for every single indication. Which again, that's not bad in and of itself.
00:26:38
Speaker
But it can be if you don't do it thoughtfully. Very challenging. For sure. Like you said, the training of it to me is like, oh, we don't do that here. You got to train differently here. And just to keep track of all that and train and follow up seems really, really challenging. Yeah, I think what's
Expansion into Smaller Markets
00:26:50
Speaker
going to be fascinating, and we're opening Manhattan, Kansas next month, right? So we're going from Kansas City, 2.4 million people in the metro to Manhattan, Kansas, 50,000 people. And it dies in the summer because students are in session, right? And a lot of people are like, that?
00:27:04
Speaker
What are you doing, bro? But I think what's going to be fun, one, we're the largest entertainment destination in Manhattan. We're the only place in all of Manhattan, Kansas that can handle a group of more than 20 people to do anything other than a bar, right? Or a distillery brew, whatever. We are the destination entertainment provider in Manhattan, which is cool.
00:27:25
Speaker
But what Manhattan is hopefully going to force us to think about is if we can find a measure of success in a town of 50,000, there are a lot more 50,000-person towns than Kansas City. So it opens up questions like, hey, do we franchise? Do we license? Where do we go? Where do we grow? Do we take on funding? Do we take on debt?
00:27:47
Speaker
questions I'm eager to get to ask, but Manhattan for us, we're still learning. This thing is only 18 months old. We're still learning what it is. If your kid is, what, two. I have a two-year-old and a two-month-old. I have to step back sometimes and realize for every time that I'm on a podcast because we've had some success or whatever and I'm like, oh, we know what we're doing. I've been doing this eight, nine years. I have no idea what I'm doing.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yep, no, I can totally relate to that. What's one of the ways, you know, with my KC crew business that run all the leagues, you know, we have a built-in feedback system on every week of the schedule, so people can lead us feedback really easily. What's one of the ways that you take feedback and, you know, make sure you're modifying or making sure you're, all right, we need to fix this or, you know, that's the 10th time I've heard. Is there a way that you manage? Yeah, feedback. One of the biggest one, we ask everyone to review us online publicly and we tell them like, hey,
00:28:36
Speaker
How did we do? It's not just like, give us a five star. Of course, do I want that five star review 100%, right? But we give folks our email address so they can respond to for direct feedback. And of course, when they're posting online, my favorite thing, that's a lie. Something that, because I can't say my favorite thing starts with a one star review, right? Like I just, that would be lying. We don't try to go in here, it's not real. But what I do enjoy is when someone gives us some feedback and we can say, hey, you know what, you're right.
00:29:06
Speaker
fixed it, come back, and then they come back and they change that one star to a five star, because they said, hey, this was bad, and now it's not. One of the funny things, I talked to my folks in the tech company or SaaS sales or whatever, they're like, hey, we have four clients, they pay us a million dollars a year each. So like, dude, I need 4,000 people to give me 20 bucks every week, right? Which means,
00:29:30
Speaker
With that review process, you also have to realize like, we're going to disappoint people sometimes. It's not even us necessarily. Some people, they just decide to be pissed off when they wake up in the morning. But to sift through that feedback and decide like, oh, hey, we're seeing a trend or hey, this store is not performing to the same like.
00:29:49
Speaker
The goal is to get better, right? Um, and so you, and you can't do that without feedback at the end of the day. What we see as the operators oftentimes is the best feedback, which means getting in the store and looking around and seeing like, oh my gosh, that or this or that. Um, but, uh, you'd have to, if unless you want to fade off.
00:30:08
Speaker
and you know drift away into oblivion just curious because i don't do a lot with google reviews in my business day today because uh i find great team members like you do but do you manage what do you is there a technology you use to manage your google reviews right yeah i mean i was when you were introing i was like how many technologies do we use right um and so our
00:30:26
Speaker
booking and waiver software automatically has the ability to send out a review ask. And we can point that to Google or to TripAdvisor or to Yelp or whatever, maybe medium we think is the most important at that point in time in order to gain more reviews or traction or whatever. Sure. But yeah, I mean, awareness is still the name of the game for us, right? Like, what's bizarre for me in Kansas City is that sometimes my head gets big and I'm like, ah, like,
00:30:53
Speaker
I'm one of the cool kids, and I'm in the entrepreneur club. And then you go out, and you're like, yeah, I'm with Breakout KC. They're like, oh, what's that? And I'm like, wait, really? I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, oh, it's an escape. I'm like, oh, the things you put in your basement for intruders? I'm like, no. And this is a real conversation that happened last week. Oh my gosh.
00:31:14
Speaker
The reviews, though, they're huge because these are these are testaments that people said, hey, I had a great time or had a terrible time and we get to respond and fix it. So,
Customer Engagement and Technology Use
00:31:22
Speaker
yeah, I mean, we're using the technology for waivers. We're using technology for booking. We're using technology for reviews like we're using technologies. Any thoughts on membership? You know, I know a lot of like pickleball places and, you know, some of these newer entertainment concepts are doing membership driven, you know, to obviously drive revenue.
00:31:39
Speaker
But also, you know, reward your fans who really want that extra touchpoint, want to have special events and want to rave about you. So have you thought about membership at all? We've thought about it. And honestly, we were we were set to launch it when we first opened and we didn't. There were a couple kinks that we wanted to work out. And I think one of the things that's
00:31:56
Speaker
really funny and frustrating about being in a position like ours is like when those things just kind of fade away. You know, memberships I think would be great here and there's no reason that we haven't done them other than that we haven't done them.
00:32:13
Speaker
And that's the end part of it is based off the software you're using a technology or how do you manage it? How does it integrate with the POS and this and that? And then sometimes
Partnerships and Business Goals
00:32:21
Speaker
when those problems, you know don't seem as big as whatever you deal with you just kind of like oh We'll get to it later. Yeah, maybe not now then later becomes 19 months. They're like
00:32:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I remember when we thought that that thing was going to spin off an additional $40,000 in revenue a year. We just haven't done it because we're lazy. Sure. Or we forgot or whatever. So mental note, Luke, I need to revisit our membership. Yeah, let's talk about a facility ally can do a lot of that stuff. So great to chat with you about that. Um, I know you've already mentioned a lot of things you would do differently, you're doing a bigger space, you're already doing it. But maybe though, what's one thing that a facility manager or owner should think about before they open their space that you've learned over all of your years of all the different concepts?
00:32:58
Speaker
I know you said real estate, that was one thing you mentioned off screen too, was like you're now getting into real estate trying to own the building. I'm stealing all your ideas, so I'll stop. Yeah, I think...
00:33:09
Speaker
You know, one of the things, and I think there's seasons where we've learned things, and one of the things that we learned in the midst of the pandemic is that your lease really matters, you know? And we did not, in the early stages, like, have an attorney review our leases. So we thought we'd do it like, ah, it's, you know, whatever. Sign it off. I think some of those just found out foundational elements in the early stages of like, hey, know what you're getting into, know what you can do, know what you can't do.
00:33:35
Speaker
you know, what's really interesting about this facility is we can't have live music. And it makes sense, and it's because they want to drive live music to the live block, right? So that's like when we were talking about things that we've seen successful and other things, we're like, oh my gosh, they're doing this thing. It's, hey, we can't do that. Hard stop, you know? And so I think just maybe
00:34:00
Speaker
Before you press go, take maybe, hopefully you have a group of friends who have said, but just take it a step back, talking with other facility managers and just getting to ask and answer those questions, I think is really important.
00:34:12
Speaker
I think the single most important thing though is who are you going into it with? And I think what is your goal in doing so? I kind of fell into this space and I had no goal. I just wanted to do something fun, right? And then all of a sudden created a successful business. And you start to realize as we had people come approach to buy us or to invest in us and they're like, Hey, what do you want to do? And I'm like,
00:34:37
Speaker
I don't know, I'm having a good time, I guess. It's hard to assess decisions if you don't know what the end goal is in the first place. 100%. I would encourage folks to consider what that is. It can change. It is totally okay to change, but you have to have that first stake in the ground so you know what you're changing from.
00:35:03
Speaker
Someone told me a while back like hey businesses Stop in three ways either go out of business. They get passed on to someone or they get sold. That's it Those are the only three ways that a business ever ends And so even to be like, okay, which of those do I want right? Like, okay. I don't want to go out of business That's an easy one. Do I want to pass this on to my kids or my employees or do I want to sell it and I didn't know I
00:35:28
Speaker
the answer to that for the first five years that I did this, right? And now I know I'd love to sell this at some point in time, you know? Sure. So I think what I've loved over the last decade-ish is just realizing how big of a world business is, what an incredible lens it is and can be to look through life, but also just the things that it, with the ways that it's taught me, you know, about myself as well.
00:35:56
Speaker
Um, but a lot of people, I think so many of the things that get given as advice are real because the first two months of a facility are just so different than year two or year three or year four. And even if you were to give you your four advice, it just, it doesn't even compute, right? Yeah. Cause you just don't have the intake.
00:36:17
Speaker
think it's really important to because two things I don't want to forget one is you know kind of my favorite one of my favorite books is start with why then that's to your point of
Owning Property for Business Stability
00:36:24
Speaker
like if you don't have your why you want your once hard your twos harder yours threes harder if you lose your you don't have this why ever to begin with once it gets harder you just kind of want to quit right but if you have your why like I'm building this for my kids I'm building this to sell it for freedom whatever that why is
00:36:38
Speaker
then it's easier to keep moving forward as those years get harder. So I love that you said that, and I totally agree. I used to run my kickball leagues every day and leave my day job at five and go on the games every night. It was fun. It was awesome. Three years later, I got this huge business. I have no idea what I'm doing, right? So it can constantly change, right? I learned that I didn't love bumping kickball, so I wanted to help grow the business and hired some kickball reps. So totally, totally agree there. Completely separate topic, but I want to go back to it is, what is your ideal lease term?
00:37:05
Speaker
And I think that's really important for people that are looking to get into this space. Is the first one three years? Is the second one 10 years? You know, what is your kind of sweet spot there? You know, and I'm a big, I am a elbow grease entrepreneur, right? Like I've never taken on funding. I've never taken on BC. I've never like, and part of it is I don't understand the world. Part of it is because it intimidates me. Part of it is because I like control.
00:37:26
Speaker
But one of the biggest frustrations of this industry is that more often than not, these facilities are asset-based, right? So in this code, when we go to a bank and say, hey, we want some money to grow this, they say, what's your collateral? We say, the 4,000 people that we hope come through the door next week and the week after, like we have none.
00:37:45
Speaker
period, which in a banking lens makes us high risk, which is a bummer. What it's forced us to do is we've grown out of cash flow. Every store we've built has just been with the money that we already made, which is a great way to grow in some ways.
00:38:02
Speaker
If I would have had more money theoretically five years ago when the axe throwing concept was just exploding and I could have done 20 stores instead of three, that could be on a beach sipping a virgin mai tai right now.
00:38:22
Speaker
I'm not upset about that, but it's just like, oh, it's that realization. The facility that we opened last week in Lawrence, downtown Lawrence, it's a 160-year-old building on Mass Street, which is this incredible district. It's one of the coolest downtowns of any small town in America. For the first time, we own the building.
00:38:40
Speaker
So we own the building that we're leasing from, and part of that is we're building a new asset class as a company, right? So that hopefully five years from now, one, maybe we've paid a building off with the lease, and two, when we decide, hey, we want to scale whatever concept we're focused on in five years, they say, like, oh, what's here collateral? We say, how about this building right here? They're like, deal, you know? And then we can do that.
00:39:07
Speaker
But I would say for those folks that are, I'm going to call them the mowing pops, right? The young, the map base singers of the world who are not taking on BC money or this or that, like that minimum viable product. Like first you need to figure out and do people want to do the thing that you want to do in the first place. Cause your early adopters, they'll go to the west bottoms. They'll go to the, you know, what was the crossroads 15 years ago. They'll go to those right out of downtown type areas.
00:39:31
Speaker
make sure they like it before you sign a 10-year, $10 million lease or whatever it is. Those are made-up numbers, but those can be real numbers, right? Sure. I think that's know what you're leveraging. One of the things that I say to folks asking for advice is like, hey, you should understand what's the worst that could happen.
00:39:54
Speaker
And we saw it in the pandemic. I was 42 days away from bankruptcy. I knew my exact runway to the day. I was like, nothing changes. That day is when we run out. Unfortunately, it didn't. But I think a lot of people
00:40:09
Speaker
I think for a lot of people, the worst case scenario feels a lot worse than it actually is. And so I think beginning with the end in mind of knowing like, hey, if this doesn't work out, what does that look like? And just knowing that that's an option on the table and being willing to ask yourself, hey, is this still worth it? And that way, whether you decide to sign that lease at the alt outside of downtown area or main and main, you at least are going into it with eyes wide open. And I think that's
00:40:34
Speaker
Having eyes wide open on your financial health is the thing that has been the most frustrating at times and probably the biggest piece of advice that I'd give right now. But again, just knowing what you're getting into. So many people don't. They don't know. I love what you said about thinking about the worst case scenario, because to your point, nobody really thinks through that in actual detail. Like, all right, what happens if we don't open to that? But like, actually happens. Yeah. Maybe 100 people didn't get to come here, right? Oh, man, we let 100 people down, which is not something you ever want to do in business.
00:41:03
Speaker
how many other people out there that you can succeed for the next step. And so I think people just, you know, they think through all worst case scenario, like someone's going to die. Well, rightfully no, that never happened, right? And most times it doesn't.
Future Expansion Plans for Sinker's Lounge
00:41:13
Speaker
And so I think if you actually think through, well, if this happens, then this happens, then this happens. Oh, I'm so okay. You know, and you're able to actually manage a little bit more as far as mental health. Yeah. Mine literally was like, Hey, my worst case is I'm moving with my parents, with my family. And I was like, you know what, like,
00:41:27
Speaker
And it sounds so silly, and I'm very fortunate to have that as my legitimate worst case, right? Like, hey, worst case, I'm squatting in my parents' basement for a year. I was like, honestly, is that that bad?
00:41:41
Speaker
No, like parents are pretty cool. The biggest part I think is perception, right? I feel like everybody's gonna judge you, everybody's gonna sell these things. Again, if you can get past that, no one's gonna even know you're in the big set. That's the thing, right? That was the hardest thing to get, that's the hardest thing I think mentally. I think you picture Chris Farley, like in the limit of being down by the river. Like you know what, like no, that's not what's gonna happen. Unless you make your parents hate you as well in the process, like the reality is,
00:42:08
Speaker
your worst case ain't that bad. It's demoralizing maybe or whatever. But again, I think, and one of the problems that we had, right, and problem is maybe not the right word, but...
00:42:21
Speaker
weighing the worst case, but also weighing the best case. And what we came to about three years into our business is we had a lot of success and the partners that I had at the time had different ideas of what we wanted to do with that success, right? I immediately went to like, let's grow, let's do it again. And one of the partners out of the list was like, no,
00:42:43
Speaker
I was like, oh, no, was not expecting that, you know? And so that became a really tough challenge to figure out how do we navigate this thing where we just want different things. And neither of them are bad, but like, we go to a restaurant and he wants spaghetti to own a burger and they have both options. It's like, you gotta eat the oil, I want spaghetti.
00:43:05
Speaker
Yeah, we're getting into some weeds. I think the weeds are fun, right? The weeds are fun. Tastes like spaghetti. Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. I think that's important
Closing Remarks and Gratitude
00:43:13
Speaker
even for, you know, if you're just a facility manager, just a facility manager, you're the one running everything every day. These are things you should be thinking about, right? Because at the end of the day, you may not own the facility, but you also need a why. You also need to know what your exit strategy is. You need to know all those things. And so I think it's, I love that we were able to dive into some of these topics today. To wrap it up, what does the next three years look like for Sinkers Lounge?
00:43:34
Speaker
I mean, Singers is going to grow. We will know in about six months if that growth is going to be focused on small markets or mid markets. There are huge players in the mid golf space who are VC backed and have hundreds of millions of dollars and they're gobbling up every NFL market there is.
00:43:54
Speaker
So we know that's probably not where we're growing. The question is, do we need to go to the Des Moineses of the world, right? The Tulsa's? Or do we need to go to the Lawrence's of the Manhattan's? And we're going to find out. And then once we find out, that's what we're going to do. I think what's going to be fun about Synchronous as well, that the folks who have come in the first year and a half is like,
00:44:15
Speaker
You know, all of these golf holes can move and change. And so Rev2 of thinkers, even here in Kansas City, we're excited to be able to continually revamp this space to bring people back, to have tournaments, to have leagues, to have memberships, to have all these things where, you know, this becomes the neighborhood hangout. And I think we can do that.
00:44:35
Speaker
I love it. Well, you're definitely going to need Facility Ally if you're going to run all those things. And make sure you check out Facility Ally if you're looking to run leagues, tournaments, memberships, reservations all in one place. And thank you again, Matt, for having us. I really appreciate it. I love what you've been doing. Been a big fan for a long time. So appreciate you having us out. And we'll see you next time on the Facility Playbook.
00:45:30
Speaker
Okay, thank you.