Launch Trampoline Park Receives 2018 Best of Warwick Award
Warwick Award Program Honors the Achievement
WARWICK November 30, 2018 — Launch Trampoline Park has been selected for the 2018 Best of Warwick Award in the Amusement Center category by the Warwick Award Program.
Each year, the Warwick Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Warwick area a great place to live, work and play.
Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2018 Warwick Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Warwick Award Program and data provided by third parties.
About Warwick Award Program
The Warwick Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Warwick area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.
The Warwick Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community’s contributions to the U.S. economy.
SOURCE: Warwick Award Program
CONTACT:
Warwick Award Program
Email: PublicRelations@cityrecognition.org
URL: http://www.cityrecognition.org
Ex-Patriot Ty Law and partner go beyond the bounce with trampoline-park business
With 20 locations and more on the way, they’ve brought innovation to trampoline parks.
WARWICK — You might expect the trampoline business to be an up-and-down sort of enterprise, but for former New England Patriots defensive back Ty Law’s Launch trampoline park, everything is headed skyward.
Law and business partner Rob Arnold opened their first Launch in Warwick in November 2012.
They have moved into a new Warwick location, which also houses their corporate offices, and have a manufacturing facility, where 15 employees make equipment for the chain’s other 20 locations.
They have facilities on the cusp of opening in Queens, New York, which opens this weekend, in Richmond, Virginia, opening this month, and in New Jersey, opening in January.
In all, they have contracts for 60 locations, including sites in Michigan, Mississippi, Texas, Nevada, Colorado and California.
The company has 1,300 employees nationwide and expects that number to almost double next year, to 2,400. And it takes in more than $45 million a year, according to Law and Arnold.
A high-energy environment envelops visitors when they walk into the Warwick facility at 920 Bald Hill Rd. After checking in at a kiosk just inside the doors, they pass through Krave restaurant, which fills the building with the aroma of baking pizza. Past that are the lights of an upscale video arcade. And then, lit like a television studio, are the main attractions: a ninja warrior course, a rock-climbing wall above a padded floor, a joust arena, where combatants try to knock each other from perches with giant padded bats, and trampolines. Lots and lots of trampolines.
Square trampolines are laid out side by side, with padded borders between them, to create an extensive bouncy floor that stretches from one side of the building to the other.
Some areas are dedicated to just bouncing up and down. Some are for dodgeball and basketball. One area is reserved for toddlers to bounce.
This spectrum of activities is part of Launch’s formula to separate it from some trampoline parks, which feature little more than trampolines.
When they started the business, trampoline parks were typically in industrial parks, where big spaces were available at relatively low prices.
“Before, we just covered the whole thing with trampolines,” said Law. “No food. No video games. Just trampolines. But that’s not going to cut it anymore.”
“I think they thought they were in the fitness industry,” said Arnold, “and we saw it as the family entertainment industry.”
“Our job as a franchiser is to continue to innovate,” added Arnold.
Because the company makes its own equipment at a factory on Jefferson Boulevard, it can quickly replace a feature if its popularity declines. “You’ve got to stay ahead of the curve,” said Law. “You’ve got to continue to do different things.”
That changed when Arnold, then a contractor, was doing work at Law’s home in Lincoln. Law — a two-time All-Pro, five-time Pro Bowl selection, Pro Bowl MVP and winner of three Super Bowls with the Patriots — would frequently bring beers to the construction crew at the end of the day, and he and Arnold became friendly.
At one point, Arnold and his wife, Erin, visited a trampoline park in Florida.
“We need to open one of these,” she said.
“You’re crazy,” he told her.
But three weeks later, at the end of a work day, Arnold asked Law a question without much elaboration:
“Have you ever seen a trampoline park?”
“That was the furthest thing from my mind,” said Law, even though he could never get his kids off their backyard trampoline. So he took his son to a trampoline park in Boston.
“As we were leaving, it was just buses of kids coming in,” he said. “The place was obviously making lots of money.”
And, he remembered thinking, “This could be so much better.”
Law set to scouting trampoline parks. In Florida and in New York. In Texas and in California.
Arnold and Law decided to go into business together, originally as franchisees of another brand, but ultimately running their own place — and now places, which have grown in number to the point where they keep the owners and their customers jumping.
Ty Law explains how he ‘launched’ a successful post-NFL career
By ETHAN HARTLEY
Some people can make a career out of playing a game. For others, they make careers out of enjoyable, fulfilling endeavors that don’t really feel like work. Three-time Super Bowl champion and New England Patriots Hall of Fame defensive back Ty Law has done both – and he’s as hungry as ever to continue growing a successful life based on having fun.
Retiring from football in 2009, Law said he always knew he’d go into business after his first career ended. Many athletes revolve back into the game, becoming coaches, assistants or analysts for sports media outlets. Entrepreneurial types often get into franchising – primarily within the hospitality industry – and Law almost went down that same path.
Then he met Rob Arnold, a North Kingstown native who owned an independent contracting firm and was hired to do some renovations on his home in Lincoln. At some point during the month-long project, Arnold brought up the left-field concept of trampoline parks, which captured Law’s interest.
“I had no idea what a trampoline park was at the time. My son wanted to go, so that’s why I went to one, and the rest is history,” Law said on Tuesday, seated in a booth of the dining area at Launch Trampoline Park, located at 920 Bald Hill Road in Warwick. “I took a chance. I was pretty far down the line on some of the other things I was going to do, as far as being a franchisee, and now I’m sitting on the other side of it as the franchisor. It’s been good.”
The new business duo decided to give the venture a shot and, self-funded, they opened their first facility, which opened in Warwick further down Route 2 on Pace Boulevard six years ago with a team consisting of just Law, Arnold and his wife. Utilizing Arnold’s contracting prowess and Law’s entrepreneurial passion and name recognition, the business gained traction.
Launch has since exploded into 21 locations spanning 13 states, over half of which have opened since the beginning of 2017. There are six new parks set to open through the end of 2018 and throughout 2019. An additional 30 new parks throughout the country have signed franchise development deals at this time as well.
Looking around the facility, it’s not difficult to see why the concept has caught on. Launch incorporates every different type of entertainment module you can think of, from large areas full of foam pits and spongy flooring with trampolines throughout, a ninja warrior obstacle course, a video game arcade, a mezzanine space turned into a laser tag arena and plans to incorporate virtual and augmented reality. A food court area hosts specialty pizza and a make your own sundae bar, among other snacks that can be regionalized based on the location of the park (gator meat in Mississippi was mentioned)
As Arnold calls it, it’s basically “Chuck E. Cheese on steroids.” The strategy is not merely to throw a random combination of toys into a building and see how it works – it’s a necessary philosophy of constant evolution to keep up with a constantly shifting industry.
“Family entertainment is really interesting. It’s probably next in line to technology as far as the speed of evolution,” said Arnold. “Technology is changing super fast, and with family entertainment you need to be right on top of things and evolve quickly in order to stay relevant and fun and cool.”
Perhaps most interesting about the Warwick location is that it is actually the smallest Launch facility they operate, hovering around 20,000 square feet. Others are more than twice as big, and a planned location in Orlando, Fla. is sizing up to be around 60,000 square feet.
“The building kind of dictates the design and what you can and can’t put in there,” Law said, adding that the Warwick location was a good example of optimizing available space with a little bit of everything that Launch seeks to offer.
The facility in Warwick is also the home to Launch corporate headquarters, where new franchisees are trained in the workings of the business. If you’re looking to start your own Launch franchise, it will cost you a franchise fee of $50,000 and you can expect to spend between $1.1 to 2.8 million in an initial investment.
Another interesting Warwick-centric wrinkle to the business lies across the city on Jefferson Boulevard, where Launch operates a metal fabrication shop that constructs everything from the ninja warrior courses to hand railings for all of their facilities nationwide.
Going from the mindset of being a player in a business-first organization like the Patriots – where he expected to be cut or traded the moment it made business sense to do so – to being a business owner himself, Law said that the game taught him valuable lessons that has helped him in being a franchisor.
“You’re always dealing with people. Even if you’re playing football, it’s still a people business,” he said. “Within the locker room, everyone comes from different backgrounds and we have to get along to go out there and play the game. We all knew what we were there for. Here, it’s the same thing. Our folks come from all different walks of life but at the same time, we’re a team.”
Launch has launched a successful post-playing career for Law – and his enthusiasm for the business is palpable. Of course, he remains a competitor at heart, and said he could still talk about football all day if given the opportunity. However, being a business owner has provided him fulfillment in a different way than making crucial plays on the gridiron.
“Nothing is ever going to replace being an athlete – being a football player and playing in front of millions of people and thousands of people out in the stands, it’s a different feeling,” he said. “But I do get a sense of satisfaction by one, not only being successful, but like Rob mentioned earlier, we’ve created jobs. We’ve created opportunities. We’re keeping kids off the streets. More so than anything, that is very important to me, and to us.”
All told, Launch employs 1,300 people across the country, which will expand to about 2,800 by the end of 2019. In Rhode Island alone, between the Warwick park, its corporate office and the fabrication shop, Launch employs 86 people.
“For us to be sitting here talking to you guys today and we’re still growing, I do feel good about that,” Law said.