It’s not all fun and games managing a funhouse.
There are some 1,500 bounce-house centers and other family entertainment centers in the United States, according to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, and business has been steadily growing. But for every two new centers that open up, one might shut down, industry figures show.
The Maine Jump in Bangor managed to be a part of both sides of that equation in 2011. The bounce-house business on Hogan Road closed just two months after it first opened because of a thinning customer base. Within a few weeks, however, it reopened under new ownership. Ryan and Kristen Hatch, a pair of Florida bounce-house entrepreneurs, moved to Maine to take over the failed business. The move was met with more than a little skepticism, recalls Ryan.
“People told us we were crazy. People told us it would never work,” he says.
But two years later, the Bangor business is thriving. In 2012, it earned just under $1 million, and has welcomed close to half a million customers. The couple has also opened a branch of the Maine Jump in Presque Isle and established the biggest bounce-house rental business, based on inventory, north of Virginia Beach. They’re now negotiating franchise agreements in Vermont, New York and Texas.
Getting started
The Maine Jump’s success might look easy when you’re surrounded by people having fun in the Bangor facility, but it resulted from a combination of business acumen, serendipity and many long work days. There are no shortcuts to success, even for something as fun-looking as bounce houses, Ryan says.
“Our business has done extremely well, and we’ve made some substantial sacrifices,” he says.
Before 2011, Ryan and Kristen, who both grew up in Brewer, were raising a family in Florida, far from their families. They had moved down to Florida in 2004, and Ryan became a manager for one of the biggest landscape construction companies in the country, overseeing a $75 million enterprise. But he was looking to make a change in careers to spend more time with his family.
“There was no balance in my life,” he says. “It was just work, work, work, seven days a week.”
After seeing the popularity of a rented bounce house at a birthday party, the husband and wife began to discuss the possibility of starting a bounce-house rental business. Then in early 2011, while Kristen was in Maine visiting family, Ryan bought four bounce houses on craigslist.
“I didn’t even know how to put them together,” he says.
He surprised Kristen with the purchase, stowed in their garage, when she got home. It’s an understatement to say she wasn’t thrilled at first, he says, but she eventually bought into the idea. Kirsten says she trusted Ryan’s business instincts.
“Ryan has always been full of great ideas, and he’s been successful at any idea he has,” she says.
The two began renting bounce houses to friends and neighbors. Word soon spread, and their business quickly grew.
“All of a sudden it just exploded and we ended up buying a ton more equipment,” Kristen says.
Within six months, they were renting out about 200 units to large corporate and celebrity gatherings throughout Florida. Their client list included Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Estefan, the Miami Dolphins and the Bacardi rum company. Ryan had quit his landscaping job and the two were on the road all the time with the rentals.
“At five in the morning, we would pack up our two kids and we would go deliver bounce houses all day,” he says.
Despite the change, they were still longing to move back to Maine to be closer to family and because they thought it would be a better place to raise their children. The Hatches also had a hunch that Maine would be a great place for an indoor bounce-house facility. If the weather turns rainy in the summer, tourists would be desperate for indoor fun for their kids, they reasoned. And in the winter, a bounce house would be invaluable to keep kids from bouncing off the walls at home. They kept their eyes open for the right opportunity.
“Nobody could find a building that was affordable and met the dynamics we needed,” Ryan says.
When a family member told them about the closure of the Maine Jump in Bangor, Ryan quickly negotiated a favorable buyout for pennies on the dollar. He had the leverage to get a good price because the business had already failed.
“It took 24 hours to negotiate and about three emails,” he says.
Initial investment and renovation cost less than $100,000 and the business reopened in October 2011 under the Hatches’ management. Customers began to arrive and two years later, The Maine Jump is realizing profits of 22 cents for every dollar spent on the business, says Ryan.
Riding the wave
The Hatches came into the bounce-house business at a good time. It’s a growing sector of the family entertainment business, says David Mandt, a spokesman for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.
“We have seen an increase in recent years in bounce-house family entertainment centers…particularly as inflatables have become more elaborate and complex,” Mandt says.
Ryan is trying to stay as ahead of the curve as much as possible. The Maine Jump offers more than just the standard “bounce and giggle” inflatable attractions. There are bounce-house-themed mazes, soccer fields, wrecking balls and climbing walls, and the business’s rental inventory has grown to the point now that the Hatches can continually update attractions at the Presque Isle and Bangor facilities to keep things fresh. When he talks about the ever-changing attractions, Ryan sounds a bit like a kid himself.
“There are just so many cool things out there,” he says. “No one else has what we have.”
They also have enough capital to reinvest in the business. The two invested about $650,000 in the Bangor facility over the past two years. Ryan knows that bounce houses are to this generation what roller rinks were to previous generations, and he knows no amusement fad will last forever. The trick is to continue to provide a great experience for customers and to adapt to keep things fresh.
“You’ll always have new kids, but you’ll always have the next best thing coming up,” he says.
Ryan dismisses the idea that he has some kind of Midas touch when it comes to bounce houses. Instead, he says, his success has come from listening to customer feedback and learning from past mistakes.
“My wife and I have made every financial mistake you can make,” he says.
Those mistakes have come in many shapes and sizes. They’ve bought inflatable attractions that weren’t top-of-the-line to save money, only to have to replace them quickly when they wore out. They’ve also blown their budget at times by overspending on some of the latest and flashiest equipment. The difference between success and failure in these first two years has often been having the financial capital built up from the successful rental business to make sure each mistake is not a deathblow to the company.
“I think what happens in this business is people think it’s going to be a lot less money than it really is,” Ryan says. “People just run out of money.”
Money mistakes are easier to correct than some of the other mistakes the Hatches say they’ve made with family. When they reopened The Maine Jump’s doors, they brought in family members to help. The tension of running a business has led to hurt feelings in the family, and Ryan wishes he could go back in time and do things differently.
“Stay away from having family members work for you,” he says.
The two also have struggled with maintaining the ideal work/life balance. They don’t get to see their children as often as they’d like, and they say it’s been hard to run a business together without it having a major impact on their marriage.
“Even if you want to get away from work, you can’t,” Kristen says. “It’s pretty much like having another baby.”
They both agree that success has had upsides and downsides. They are glad to provide a strong financial foundation for their family and to create real jobs in the Bangor area, where they were raised. Ryan says that while he sometimes lies awake at night and worries about the lack of time he spends with his family, he goes to sleep other nights thinking about the happy times he provides to many Maine families at birthday parties and get-togethers.
“I’m a part of that memory for them, and that’s priceless,” he says. “That’s what keeps me going.”
