Mobile Soft Play and party hire.

[Longfufu]

Hi, I'm after and would really value your input. I am a SAHM currently but used to work in Buying and Merchandising in London.

I am considering starting up a mobile soft play company, hiring out for Parties, weddings, to hotels and having Pop up Soft play stay and plays in local village halls and our city centre.

I am on a number of "mummy" Facebook pages and have been gathering interest, which seems to be high.

I've costed up the equiptment (I plan to start with a basic package and build on), trailer and public liability insurance. I'm also doing a online accountancy course. My next step is to write my business plan.

So do you have any advice for starting up a business, what do you look for in a good soft play and stay and play session?

I really appreciate any feedback you may have.

With regards to starting up, I'd be tempted (once you've got the essentials such as public liability in place) to just get stuck in. I once heard someone say that often people wait to feel 'ready' but in actual fact you'll never be ready and the steepest learning curves would be on the job.

I would recommend SageOne for a super easy accounts/bookeeping package. It's £12 per month and you don't need any training to use it.

In terms of a good soft play stay and play session I would want a confident but not overbearing welcome, and info at the end as to when the next session was. Maybe a loyalty scheme (like coffee card stamps - attend 6 sessions and get 7th free/half price) would keep people coming back. I would also expect the equipment to be clean and not sticky etc. I wouldn't have thought this would be a problem to start off with but as time goes on it's somehting to be scrupulous about.

Also, how about some background music to get everyone 'in the mood' /take away awkwardness.

Great idea. I've often considered doing this myself.

Two things

I reckon you would need an extra pair of hands for loading and unloading your equipment.

Don't forget a bubble machine!!

Good luck.

Hi we make all soft play and portable play www.eurofunltd.co

Book keeping for small businesses is not difficult. Goto the hmrc website. On the phone they are super helpful too. Tax returns on line are easy enough too.

The big thing for me with soft play is hygiene. The cleaner the better!

Toddler sense classes use a lot of soft play equipment, worth checking out, as I think they're the best toddler classes around.

Best of luck!