private members' club for families

[pippiLS]

So do you think £10 per week for access to a stylish child-friendly club (with tasteful soft play areas etc) is a big ask?

DH thinks it's too much and no none would pay it whereas I think £520 for annual membership of a place where people with babies/toddlers go and meet other mums/dads/nannies, have a decent coffee (maybe even a tasty, healthy lunch), relax in comfort and attend classes with their little ones is an OK price to pay.

Am I being unreasonable to be considering opening such a place as a business venture?

What do you do for a living OP?

raven I'm sorry to hear about your lovely seaside dream going sour. Friends of ours have had a similar experience trying to run a pub locally - I'm mindful of their experience.

For premises I want to invest in something that can potentially be a residential property should things go badly wrong. I'm sticking to a town centre location that should appreciate with time.

Find out more about what parents near you need or want and struggle to find. For example, I work from home and the demand for my service varies hugely so I'd love to find something that combines M&R with a serviced office set up where I could pay to put in a few hours at a time on short notice with my kids nearby and be able to spend time with them/feed the baby/take them to classes in the same afternoon. That would mean providing a quiet space for phone calls, printers and scanners etc and maybe optional secretarial services like document formatting.

Membership =/= daily footfall!

You really can't extrapolate 1/4 of the membership of your model = you need 1/4 the space.

Seriously, 100 members is barely a viable monthly disco for a heavily subsidised University archery soc! It's never going to keep any sort of business premises going...

Your local Costa will serve considerably more people than that in a day, in a smaller area, & only attempt to provide them with coffee.

I wouldn't say a quarter of the space for a quarter of the clients is a good rational though, part of the appeal is variety. They have two big outdoor spaces and a large soft play, cafe bit. The nursery isn't accessible to members and that takes up a whole floor.

x-post - the thing is, ours wasn't a dream. It was a thoroughly researched venture by two people with extensive industry experience & a pretty hard nosed business plan.

& still we came a cropper.

You need to be quite a bit less wafty about this.

I work in education. Have been a HoD in a secondary school.

My business experience is virtually non-existent apart from one brief foray - I held make-up parties at the age of 17 selling Naturally Yours cosmetics. Held parties at my friend's houses and got commission on what they bought until one of them had a huge allergic reaction to the foundation. Ah well at least I'd covered the cost of my kit by then and had about 20 different colours of eye-shadows .

I have project managed the building of our house extension and managed to bring it in under budget. I'm also on the finance committee of a school. I've done quite a bit of writing online, oh and I planned a fab. wedding on a limited budget (yes, it was my dream wedding with a horse and carriage, string quartet, stunning vocalist, fully catered wedding breakfast in an exclusive venue, evening barbecue canapés and champagne and all for about 5K including the dress (OK, it was some time ago now). Have also bought and sold property wisely and added substantial value to our current home. And last but not least I have 3 of the most delightful children known to man .

OP, this is sounding madder by the minute. The start-up costs for a venture like this (of any size) are huge. You can't simply divide your running costs by four because you are only going to have 1/4 of the membership of the M&R venue.

For starters, you will need a minimum level of staffing which will not be one-fourth of a larger facility and many of your costs - advertising, payroll etc will have a minimum base beyond which they will not fall regardless of the size of your business. As a small example, your website will cost the same amount to develop and host regardless of your membership. Your logo and corporate identity will cost the same to design. Five hundred business cards will cost about 3/4 of the cost of 1,500. The plumber will charge the same amount to fix your leaky toilet whether 100 or 400 people are using it.

If you are hoping for a membership of 100 at £10 per week, that's £1,000 each week with which to pay rent, rates, staff, utilities and pay back the massive loan which you will need in order to kit out the place in the first instance. You are probably going to say that you will have extra income from classes, the cafe, birthday parties etc but your membership simply isn't large enough at that level to make much of a difference. Even if you only run one class a day, you are depending on 1/10 of your members attending a class every day - how likely is that? How much are those classes going to contribute to the bottom line if you have to run at least a couple per day with different themes (music, yoga, gym) in order to provide the choice your members will expect?

I may be being a bit dim but I am not sure what is being offered here: a kiddy friendly groucho club? A sure start centre with a lick of farrow and ball to keep the riff raff out? A cafe with a ballpool and a brio trainset? Or a cooperative which helps women back to work? A nursery run with unqualified, untrained staff?

It seems like an unfocused grab bag of ideas not a business idea. If you don't know or can't describe it, banks won't lend you the money and people won't come.

It just all seems to have 'money pit' written all over it.

OMG, I have just read your last two posts and I literally put my head into my hands. I'm going to bed now and hoping that you have just been overcome by too much Easter chocolate and a few too many glasses of wine!

Ugh, I'm going to feel like I'm properly pissing on your chips now!

But after the licensing trade, I went into teaching (hey, the pub business had managed to leave me widowed, bankrupt & homeless in the course of a single weekend, so things could hardly get any worse...).

Teaching isn't by any means fabulous preparation for running your own business. Also, there's not exactly a national shortage of fleeing teachers attempting to set up fluffy little businesses atm!

You really do need to get some proper numbers together & talk to someone about finance - but - & again, in the kindest possible way - I wouldn't lend you a penny - because you really haven't a clue what you're doing.

I accept that I don't have much of a clue…yet.

lol at everyone going all Dragon's Den on your ass! I admire anyone with entrepreneurial spirit - I never get past the vague dreaming stage, and I think people are being a bit harsh.

FWIW, I initially baulked at your idea, and was surprised to hear that similar places already exist and are successful, though less surprised when I read they're in That London. So maybe it depends where you live.

I am sure that where I live, it wouldn't get off the ground. A decent soft play place in a nearby town had to close recently and they had most of the things you're offering for no membership fee. I'm not sure exactly what their problem was but it could be something as simple as the fact it was quite cold a lot of the time and I think that possibly put people off going early in the day till it warmed up - cavernous places with large soft play apparatus in must cost a fortune to heat. So when fewer people started going, fewer would go because they knew it would be quiet and they'd have to spend a lot more time entertaining their children than previously.

OP you're an idiot. "Project managing" an extension on your house and planning your own wedding are not on a par with starting and running your own business.

You've already stated that a mortgage would be £3k per month. Your membership (assuming you reached your goal of 100) £4.3k per month.

Even being massively over generous and say you have 100 visitors per day and they each spend £5 F&B, that would give you (Again being massively generous with profit) £6k.

3 classes per day with 10 per class would be £210 per day. Take off £20 instructor fee for each class and you have £4.5k.

So you've got £14.8k (assuming full membership, full class subscription, max footfall and generous spend).

Your mortage is £3k
Salaries would be approx £12k per month.

Already you're in the red. And that's without the cost of actually providing a service, paying essential costs and maintaining the building and contents.

I was a member of Maggie & rose. With 4 kids under 6 it was a godsend. I used it loads. But their classes were brilliant particularly the amazing art classes and cooking classes which I have yet to find anything that matches it. And whilst the classes weren't free they were a lot cheaper if you were a member. The playroom was tiny but a nice place to hang out. The Chiswick one is much bigger and very different from the original.

I am now a member of Heaven in Surrey which is loads cheaper with unlimited kids classes included in the price, and there is also a beauty therapist, playroom and cafe. It's not the same as the London types but still brilliant.

Is this still going?!

I've read this thread with interest and wanted to contribute my thoughts. They may be in no particular coherent order though...

-where are you getting the money for start up costs
-you need a lot more staff than you originally mentioned. 1 in the cafe will not be enough to serve/prepare/clean tables etc. you also need enough staff to cover sickness/holidays/breaks etc
-who will be in charge when you're not there? Presumably you need some kind of deputy
-it sounds like you have no experience of managing staff. I managed a team in the nhs and even with a supportive hr dept and policies for everything it can still be a nightmare. You need to have some idea about employment laws etc. also need to think about staff training/development.
-have you thought about running costs properly? Utilities/insurance etc. you will need contingency money for boiler breaking down etc etc
-does your opposed venue have parking or nearby free parking. I would not be wanting to have to pay to park and when I had 2 small dc finding parking spaces around venues and then carting a bag/baby in car seat/toddler to the venue really stressed me out. Admittedly I was in the throes of pnd but so will so of your clients
-don't be so dismissive of childrens centres. When I lived in SW London mine was invaluable-excellent play facilities with qualified staff. I felt safe and looked after there but only had to pay £1.50
-your membership of £520, who does that cover? The whole family regardless of how many dc? If I worked 3 days a week would my cm/nanny be able to use the facilities or would they need their own membership
-presumably you're aiming for the preschooler market. These kids grow up and it's likely that people wouldn't renew their membership after a year (although they maybe would for a discount). Would your reputation be good enough to encourage new members to part with their cash each year and join
-you want to offer classes. Have you checked out what other classes and for what price are available in your area.
-if you're opening at weekends will you provide facilities for school age children
-you'd presumably need to pay an accountant. Do you have any experience of book keeping/tax etc
-why do you really want to do this? You say you don't want to get rich but you are going to be working long hours. Surely you want to be able to pay yourself a decent salary

As others have said I think you need to focus on exactly what service you want to provide. At the moment all the things you want to offer aren't viable and you need to concentrate on just doing one thing well and then you can think about expanding into offering other things.

There must be lots of places/charities that offer business set up advice so I would suggest that you talk to them and get a proper business plan together to see whether this is a viable option or not.

Good luck

I think I would go back to a place like this more than once a week if they offered cooking lessons, story telling, sing song time. If it there was a variety of things going on all week and for s variety of ages up to say 10 years old. Then I would be happy to pay more if the classes were included.

Then I would buy coffee while I waited etc

Op, please take the time to go back and read the thread, properly, and all the posts. These will be rough i can assure you, but you need to do it. Take all advice bedause right now you are picking and choosing what you want to hear.
I really dont want to sound horrible, blimey in RL I wouldnt say boo to a goose but please dont waste money. My parents have been in business for 20 years, and I have learnt a little from watching them but I am in no way prepared to open a business, even though i have run theirs at times!
I am sure if you finalise your plans better, find out exactly what you want, because atm you are all up in the air

OP, I'd forget this idea.

I was briefly a member of one of Cupcake when I lived in London and DS1 was a baby. It was a complete waste of money. I only joined because I didn't know anyone else with young children when I was pregnant and I had visions of spending my maternity leave entirely on my own.

It's a lovely idea and all very nicely presented but, in reality, it offers very little that you can't get elsewhere for a fraction of the cost, and a lot of the facilities seemed to be very lightly used. Some of the classes were popular, and the cafe was lovely, but there were very few play facilities (outside the creche) so once your baby was mobile, it had limited use.

It did occur to me that there might be scope for a less exclusive set-up which catered for children up to school age - a bigger cafe with carefully thought-out seating arrangements, and a small soft play, alongside studio space for classes and some other facilities. I got as far as looking into the costs (outside London but in an affluent area with lots of young families) and drawing up a very basic business plan.

It wouldn't work. The costs just don't work out for something of that nature. You'd either have to go small, very exclusive and eye-wateringly expensive, or big and considerably less expensive, which would mean that you couldn't offer the vast majority of facilities and would effectively just finish up with a very expensive soft play.

I looked at some other ideas, including a cafe/play/creche set up with a quiet area for parents to work, or just a large cafe with a small soft play and some group sessions and parent 'networking' facilities.

None of them added up. I still think there's scope for some well-planned facility for parents of small children, but you'd have to have some decent start-up cash, be extremely sure of your market, and be lucky enough to find affordable premises in a target-market area.

A major problem with "transferring" the M&R model out of Kensington/Chiswick is LOCATION. The sheer density of population in London is hard to replicate. That density is buttressed by London public transport (outside London, public transport seems to be pretty extortionate and infrequent to boot). A club you have to drive to doesn't have the same villagey, community appeal because it is not accessed in the same way.

Moreover, having it "all under one roof" is not village-/ community-like either. A community hub would be a park with a number of businesses, charities, library, sports courts, maybe a GP's office, etc., all contributing to and benefiting from the gravity of the whole. Otherwise, it's a gym/ spa, and if people don't feel it offers enough, they will rely instead on the patchwork many posters have mentioned, of sure start, leisure centre, National Trust, local parks, cafes, etc.

Such a limited membership, from which you are expecting to draw all takings, leaves you (and members!) vulnerable to fall-outs amongst members. After all, if you encourage friendship groups, you risk that they might turn into cliques. And if there are cliques in a population of only 100, they can't easily be swamped by sheer numbers.

Sorry the original idea is so problematic.

On another angle OP have you thought about something like Third Door in Putney (a creche for kids and workspace for adults)? Maybe integrating some of your ideas into a similar model?

Goodmorning.

It really doesn't seem like the figures will work does it? I will not be investing any of my money (don't have any) in this but I am prepared to give it a lot of my time. I will keep tweaking and thinking and brainstorming in the hope that something will come to me. Unusually for me I can actually 'see' the end result as if I could head there myself today - sort of like a vision.

QueenCadbury, parking costs is something I've been wondering about, there are a few car parks in town and they're not too expensive.

All those of you worrying about my lack of experience of running a business and the costs to consider, I have 4 years experience as a school governor on the finance committee and I'm well versed in the costs involved in running a school which is effectively a small business.

kungfupannda did you move on to another business idea then?

Raven

To a PP - we aren't going Dragon's Den on OP's ass, lots if us have various levels of experience of aspects of her model and we are trying to help.

OP, you aren't ready to take up the site that's currently available. Get some direct experience working at a sure start or Gymboree or similar - as a former teacher with budget responsibility, I think you'd have a good chance. Think about what classes you, personally, could teach. Have you looked into a Tiny Talk franchise? Much less upfront cost than a Gymboree - think you only need to hire a venue for a few hours a week. Start making links with local families and NCT teachers etc that way. Are there any franchises related to the subjects you used to teach eg Kumon, La Jolie Ronde?