franchisor in depth: Launch Franchising
Everything You Need to Know
About Rob Arnold CEO of Launch Franchising
Launch Franchising, an all-inclusive family entertainment business with 25 parks in 13 states, envisions immense growth and international expansion. Tell Us How It All Started: Back in 2011, my wife Erin and I traveled to Orlando, Florida, with our two small children. It was our first Disney trip as a family, and one of the days, it started to rain. Instead of being one of “those” families in the Disney ponchos, we decided to look for other fun activities, and my wife saw what was called a “trampoline arena,” and it looked so awesome, we just had to go.
Was It Love at First Sight? For my wife, yes! We had only been jumping a few minutes when she said, ‘we need to open one of these in Rhode Island.’ My first reaction
currently have “25Wefranchised parks open, but we’re growing exponentially, with more than 40 Launch Entertainment locations in the pipeline.
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was, ‘you’re crazy,’ but five minutes later, I said, ‘actually, you might be onto something.’ This is just more evidence that my wife is always one step ahead of me.
What Did You Do Before This? Before Launch, I owned a construction company. I led about 15 different guys, and we’d do light commercial work and highend residential work. My wife owned a gift shop in Wakefield, Rhode Island. We started entrepreneurship right out of college, and it’s just evolved into family entertainment. An interesting note is that Launch was the first investment we chose just because of how cool it was. We didn’t look into financing first, we just said, this is it, and that choice changed our lives for the better.
How Did You Successfully Lift This Business Off the Ground? Interestingly enough, when we first started researching how to get into this business, my wife and I were looking at how to become franchisees since we already had our own businesses to take care of. But looking at it from just an investment point of view wasn’t working because we didn’t align with any of the CEOs. What was already established was completely different from our own vision. All they had to offer was a warehouse model, no video games or food, just a simple space for birthday parties, a trampoline, and a concrete floor. It also took some time for us to establish where we fit. In the early days, trampoline parks seemed to center towards fitness, not necessarily family fun.
When Did Franchising Come Into Play? I was honestly interested in franchising before our first unit ever opened. I went to a conference and started taking classes. I sat in this two-day seminar, totally intimidated, as I was sitting next to people who had five or seven successful units. But I believed in our business and knew we’d be successful. To ensure our success, we opened two corporate units and started franchising to friends and family. So, my dad was actually our first franchisee.
How Long Have You Been in Operation? We opened our first location one year after we first visited the 14 Franchising MAGAZINE USA
