$2 Million of Fun: Big Margins in Play Centers

I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna buy something that's fun. And I think the reason I got into entertainment industry, because I was. I always saw it as fun.

Like, I'm not really working, and I was obsessed with film and tv. And so I started thinking, you know what? Screw it. I'm gonna just focus on things that actually really, you know, you really get me pumped up.

It's been growing at 11% CAGR since COVID It's an $11 billion market here in the US and it's just something. It's a subset of the industry I hadn't touched yet. And. But I can get excited about, especially now having a.

A baby boy. So. So that's part of why. And so you saw that as kind of. I mean, what it sells is fun. So it kind of checked the fun box.

Even if it's targeted at kids, not grown ups. Of course, ultimately it is targeted at grown ups. We're the clients. Yeah, but. But, yeah, okay. And, you know, it's interesting, Daniel, so you are actually not taken with boring businesses.

When you looked at, quote, boring businesses, they bored you. It's in the name. Yeah, exactly. And. And so despite the fact that you really like the idea of buying an existing business, you were not taken with the idea of just any business. The more boring, the.

The more beautiful sort of thing. And so that, That's. That actually differentiates you a little bit.

You. You wanted to feel some interest, some passion, maybe too strong a word in whatever it was that you were going to acquire. Yeah, that was my conclusion. I gave it a shot. You know, I tried it in, like, nine months.

I tried. I was keeping very open mind. And then ultimately I just came to this conclusion that, you know what? I'm just going to focus on things I think are interesting and fun that I can get excited about, get out of bed every morning and want to go work on that business.

And then the other sector I was looking at was also a little bit inspired by Shell, was the travel sector, tour operator. Sector. I'd seen a couple sims come through that really got me excited. So I, so I decided, okay, those are going to be the two places I'm going to focus on in that category.

However, I was more open minded to nationwide search because a lot of these companies I found were can be operated remotely. Yeah. So I, so that's why I did that. Kind of helped open up the funnel a little bit as well when I, when I did that.