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Village Oaks Phone: (408) 9776787
5690 Cottle Rd, (408) BATTLES
San Jose, CA 95123 Email: thebattleground@gmail.com
Memorandum
Date: August 11, 2015
To: Professor Ek
From: Stephanie Avina, Albert Chu, Jonathan Montenegro, Jose T Neri, Ivan Pineda
Subject: Business Plan Proposal
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Purpose:
The purpose of this memo is to provide a business proposal for a business that falls into the
“sports/games” category. Our team has debated and agreed to create a business dedicated to
hosting and providing the equipment necessary to play matches of paintball, airsoft, laser tag,
and archery tag. The paintball, airsoft, and archery tag facilities will be open for patrons twelve
years of age and up. The laser tag facility will be open for patrons ages six and up.
Introduction:
The Battleground is a stateoftheart facility geared to meet the projectile game satisfaction of
all visitors, novice or experienced. Here, people of all ages can compete in a battlefield of
different projectile games: Paintball, airsoft, laser tag, and archery tag. Whether one is using a
gun or bow, one’s skills will be tested. We are proud to offer the only place on the West Coast
that allows players to do matches of paintball, airsoft, laser tag, and archery tag all in one
facility. We offer full safety equipment to ensure that every patron’s visit is a pleasant one. The
Battleground is a place where you can strengthen your relationship with the team you're playing
with. We offer team building activities that are implemented thru competition.
Industry Analysis:
Our business belongs under the sports and recreational industry. It may also be classified as
outdoor/indoor extreme sports. There are over $132 million people that played paintball alone in
2014 (statista) and $172 million spent on airsoft and airsoftrelated purchases in the US alone.
Both of those sports are maledominated while archery is an upandcoming sport and
recreational activity that is growing in popularity for the whole family. The Battleground will
combine the best aspects of each of these separate industries into one facility that can
accommodate different players for different occasions. Archery tag is a new sport that is showing
promising growth meanwhile paintball & airsoft are businesses that focus heavily on either
paintball or airsoft, but make it difficult for those interested in both.
There are currently about five business that operate airsoft facilities and four businesses that
utilize paintball facilities in the San Jose area, which means that the competition against other
businesses is low. There are also 4 archery ranges within the area, but they are at least 15 to 20
miles apart from each other meanwhile the paintball and airsoft facilities are 5 miles away or
more from each other. Our business model would eliminate the need to go to different venues to
play different sports and in doing so, would attract more customers that would regularly attend
either a softball or paintball facility. There are also 5 laser tag locations, but they are between 5
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and 15 miles away from each other. Younger kids that do not want to play paintball with their
older siblings would enjoy playing the safer laser tag as well.
Market Analysis:
The Battleground is an extreme sports facility where people can come and and play any of the
four sports we are offering: airsoft, paintball, laser tag, and archery tag. Since our facility will
have those sports in one location, customers will find it more convenient to to go to one venue
rather than traveling locations for different sports. Battleground is a family facility where our
customers age ranges from 6+ and 12+.
Recent studies show North America laser tag is over a $375 million dollar a year industry with
2.6% annual growth. Paintball participants spend about $111/year on their gear and supplies
while $172 million are spent on airsoftrelated purchases in the US.
Laser tag is a facility that has primary demographic of ages 6 through 14, while airsoft and
paintball participants ages range from 1224 primarily. According to Paintball Sports Trade
Association(PSTA) the average household income of a paintball participant is $67,300/year.
According to creative works, it is estimated that 4.9 million experiences happen each month at
more than 880 locations. According to SGMA’s 2007 Sports & Fitness Participation Report,
there was a 26% increase in paintball participants from 2000 to 2006.
According to Nielson PopFacts, the population for the zip code 95123 is 65,142 with median
age of 37.5. The median income of individuals in San Jose is $89,400 spending $1,555 MM.
Recent studies show North America laser tag is over a $375 million dollar a year industry with
2.6% annual growth. Paintball participants spend about $111/year on their gear and supplies
while $172 million are spent on airsoftrelated purchases in the US.
Projections:
We are going to be open 49 weeks of the year and open 45 hours a week, we expect around 200(
50 per sport) people a day during weekdays and 300( 75 per sport) people a day for weekends.
During the weekdays the pricing per sport would be $7 a day and $15 during the weekends.
$7 multiplied by 200 people/day = 1,400 per day
$1,400 multiplies by 239 days = $ 334,600
$15 multiplied by 300 people/day = $4,500 per day
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First we will put up a website of our business that is going to show our information. In this
website we will promote our application where customers will have the option to sign up for
time to use one of our facilities. You can download this application to your phone, but also your
tablet. In this modern era, sales of tablets are growing faster than phone sales, so an application
that can be downloaded in a tablet is a good idea (Gran, 2015).
The Battleground will be advertised thru social media. Social media is a very powerful tool for
advertisement. We are going to have a Facebook. Twitter, Snapchat, and Youtube. Also, we will
going set up a listing of our business in the Google search engine. This will enable any person to
find a facility where they can play, not only paintball, but also airsoft, archery tag, and laser tag
(Attard,2015 ).
Using social media will be one of the ways we are going to advertise our business. Another way
is doing it by networking, “Talk to all the vendors from whom you buy products or services.
Give them your business card, and ask if they can use your products or service, or if they know
anyone who can. If they have bulletin boards where business cards are displayed (printers often
do, and so do some supermarkets, hairdressers, etc.), ask if yours can be added to the board”
(Attard, 2015).By networking with other business we can advertise other business in our
facilities and those other businesses can advertise ours in theirs. This other businesses can
advertise The Battleground thru flyers, business cards, or just by mentioning our name so that
the customer can search us online.
To make this advertising methods more efficient our information will be minimum, but
informative. Our advertisement will catch the customer's eyes. Also, we will promote the fact
that we have four different types of sport games you can play in one place. We will promote
team building packages for companies that want to go on a retreat and want to work on their
team skills and also packages for children that want to celebrate a special event.
Management and Operational Plan:
To allow our business to run smoothly, The Battleground will need to hire employees for the
following roles:
● Custodian
● Specialized Technician
● Specialized Referee
● Front Desk Attendant
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These employees will be working on the ground, that is to say not managerially, to make sure
that the building and equipment are safe, clean, and functional. We will employ two custodians.
We have chosen to have two custodians so as to have each one in charge of two fields; these
custodians will be present during business hours and will complete the tasks listed below:
● Hosing paint off props when it accumulates
● Repairing props
● Picking up all trash
● Normal house maintenance
If their jobs are being done correctly, our patrons will be walking into a clean building and will
be playing in clean rooms with intact obstacles and cover. The paintball arena will require the
least amount of maintenance as it will be played outdoors on a grass and dirt field with
biodegradable paint.
We will employ a total of eight technicians, two for paintball, two for airsoft, two for laser tag,
and two for archery tag. These technicians will be in charge of equipment maintenance and the
renting of the equipment. We decided upon this number so that one technician can be focusing
on giving patrons their equipment while the other focuses on equipment maintenance. They may
switch roles throughout the day to keep from redundancy. Additionally, paintball technicians will
be responsible for filling the patrons’ compressed air tanks.
We will have a total of eight referees, two for each game. These referees will be specialized in
either paintball, airsoft, laser tag, or archery tag and will know and enforce the rules of the game
to assure safety and fairness. At the beginning of each round, the referees will go through safety
instructions specific to their game to prevent injury as best as possible. At the end of each round,
the referees will do an inspection of the arena to make sure there is nothing that could potentially
be a hazard, in which case they would call a custodian for assistance. Airsoft referees will also
complete a sweep of BB’s after each round and archery tag referees will pick up all arrows at the
end of each round. If their job is being done correctly, patrons will be playing on arenas with
adequate cover and obstacles by the start of each game. Indoor patrons should be playing on
slipfree floors by the start of each round. We decided upon having two referees per arena to
ensure fairness in each game.
The front desk attendant will be responsible for handling appointments, answering questions
about the building layout and operations, and general public relations. He or she will be the face
of the company patrons will most be in contact with and therefore it is important for this person
to be experience in public relations. He or she will also serve as the cashier and will, therefore,
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be in charge of transactions and giving patrons the wristbands that dictate what games they will
be playing.
On the managerial level we will have a manager, director of finance, and director of marketing.
The manager will make sure everything is running smoothly on the ground level. He will make
sure patrons are having a good experience, that our facility is up to code in safety, and that
equipment is being cared for properly. The person we hire for this position will have previous
business management experience and, preferably, thrives in public relations. The director of
finance will be in charge of our budget and will make sure to distribute our income among the
four sports’ equipment we offer as evenly as possible or, if there is a pattern, more heavily
among the games with most demand. This position requires that the hired person make sure there
is always a steady income and will be in close contact with the manager and marketing director if
that ceases to be the case. Finally the director of marketing will be in charge of making our name
known to as much of an audience as possible. We will be focusing mainly on hobbyists, youth,
and business team building events. The marketing director will look to cut costs while increasing
legitimacy through partnerships with big brand names in each of the games such as Spyder, Evil,
Evike, Tippman, Tokyo Marui, and A&K.
Financial Plan:
Battlegrounds is a low cost maintenance business. Once we have our faci
ty in San Jose, most of our expenses can be split into 3 main categories: Salaries, Rent and Items
used to run the facility. Our total projected spending allot to $660,500. The majority of our
spendings go towards Administrative Salary and paying the numerous different workers here at
Battlegrounds. We will average around 68 custodians, specialized technician, specialized
referee, front desk attendant, and cashier. Many of them will have multiple jobs and we will be
hiring high school or college students at about $12 an hour. We believe that they should be paid
a moderate amount since they are the hard laborers and workers that keep the business up and
running. The cost of living in San Jose is also pretty high, about $4,300 a month after tax
(Numbeo), thus we believe that the 5 managers deserve to get paid $50,000 a year to maintain
the establishment and even possibly expanding if the first complex does well.
In order to get our name out, we plan on creating a website that allows members to schedule and
maintain a constant connection between our company and themselves. The website explains
what we do and by using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, we prepare giveaways of
equipment and membership for people who try us out. We will also be making business cards,
flyers, brochures, and other forms of advertisement to capture clients. The main capture point of
our company is the fact that it is affordable to players who have just started or are already
professionals. We have prices and memberships that cater to all needs. Instead of it costing
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$40$70 a day to paintball or airsoft (Blast Camp Paintball), it would cost a user at The
Battlefield about $20$25, if they have membership. This reduces the price by almost half, and
likewise in airsoft, archery tag, and laser tag.
Rent in San Jose is also pretty expensive. However, in order to bring everything together and
grab a wide audience, we hope to break even by our second and possibly third year. We plan on
paying all this through business bank loans. We will try to make good relations with airsoft
companies, archery companies, and insurance companies to bring us good discounts and also
sponsor our business by using their brand names.
Projected Expenses: Year 1
Category: Cost Amount:
Administrative Salaries $250,000 ($50,000/person)
Rent of Facility $100,000
Salaries of Workers $200,000
Insurance $75,000
Equipment $25,000
Website $1,000
Advertisement $5,000
Miscellaneous (Business Cards, Office
Supplies, etc. )
$2,000
Promotions/Giveaways $2,500
Total $660,500
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Annotated Bibliography
Attard, J. (n.d.). 32 LowCost Ways to Promote Your Business. Retrieved August 17, 2015.
http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/24waysto.htm
Gives thirtytwo low cost ways to promote your startup business. It mentions a wide range of
marketing options, including social media and community advertisement.
Blast Camp Paintball. (2010). What is Paintball.. How Much Does It Cost. Retrieved August
16, 2015. http://www.blastcamp.com/faq
Gran, B. (2014, November 13). 10 Trends in Local Marketing for 2015 Small Business Blog.
Retrieved August 17, 2015. https://www.kabbage.com/blog/10trendslocalmarketing2015/
Numbeo. (2009, Last updated August 2015) Cost of Living in San Jose. Retrieved August 16,
2015. http://www.numbeo.com/costofliving/city_result.
Lists ten ways to market your business in this rapidly innovated world of technology. Not only
does it back their ways with concrete data but it also gives specific ways to market your business
thru new technology.
AMERICA Indoor and Outdoor Paintball Sites, Venues, Games, Centres. (n.d.). Retrieved
August 17, 2015. http://www.ministryofpaintball.com
Offers quality insight on paintball’s development over the years with its improvement in
technology. Showcased greener ways the game is being played lately and the pros and cons
people in the paintball community have come to feel towards them.
