THE NEGATIVE REACTION

It was a good idea to start with

After playing so much hockey recently, I was looking for way to improve my game, even at 40. I started looking on the internet and came across this little diddy:

Then I started to find out where in Minneapolis it would be possible to get some time on one of these machines. I quickly realized there wasn't anywhere in Minneapolis who actually had one of these machines. Then I started working out from there. Then I actually found two places who had the machines:

Acceleration North they have several locations, but the Rapid Shot is only in certain locations. The other is on Rochester at a Play-it-Again Sports shop in Rochester. To be honest, I don't get down to Rochester too much.

I was pretty shocked. The "State of Hockey" could only muster two locations where I could use this cutting edge hockey technology? I couldn't believe it. Then I started thinking what the possibilities would be of having a place where players could come and use the machines and not have to buy some $500 hockey training program to use the machines? Then I started getting stars in my eyes and thought about opening my own place with several Rapid Sot machines. Maybe a small front end retail space? I needed more information, so I called Rapid Shot to inquire about cost of the machines and the full lot of questions I had in order to get a better idea of how possible this might be. I also had a call in to a friend who does commercial real estate to see how viable a two or three lease would be and how much space I would need to house the business I was thinking of.

Discovery

Now it was time to get some numbers and run some numbers. Then I needed to put together a business plan, think of marketing plan, etc, etc. I took a while, but I got the numbers from Rapid Shot. It was a bit overwhelming, but I had to see the bigger picture. Here are those numbers:

Cost of machines with delivery and set-up: approx. 50K. Essentially it's a package deal. They sell the machines, install and set up the PC's which record the information. They send out a crew to set up the machines. They also include the cards that the players use to keep track of their information. As soon as they buy their card and get registered, they can go online and see how they measure up to the rest of the country. It's pretty cool.

When I first came up with the idea, I was thinking 3 machines and then a few "analog" slots with pucks and a tarp so if there's people waiting, they can get warmed up first. The cost for those would be minimal and I'd keep the cost less than the Rapid Shot machines.

Verdict

At 100K+ for the machines, with a 3 year commercial lease, and the cost of the rest of the details (employees, hockey sticks, point of sale equipment) I was looking at a 5+ year run before I would start to see a profit. It would be manageable, but I'd really be all in, every single day I got up. I'd have to promote the hell out of it (easy), market the hell out of it (slightly easier, I'm a web developer!) and then there's the money and employees and all the other hassles of running the business.

The Deal Breaker

Time. Time it would take to get it up and running. Time to market and promote. Worst of all? time away from my family. Doing this business would most likely cost me a lot of the next five years watching my daughter grow up. As much as I think this would be insanely successful, the last thing I want to miss is watching my daughter grow up. One of the stories which always haunts me is when I heard Joe Gibbs (the famous football coach) talking about how he was so obsessed with making his team better, he would sleep at the stadium and send audio tapes home to his wife so they could keep in contact. He said he knew it was time to give up coaching when he went into his son's bedroom one night and his 10 year old son was now an 18 year old 6'5" 230lb lineman. He had missed his son growing up and was very, very regretful. I've already got plenty of regret in my life, I don't need anymore with my daughter.