Hi Guys & Gals, Just like most of you, I'm addicted to badminton and has been playing every night for the past couple of months. In fact, I spent more time on it than on my own company. Currently, most badminton halls are managed by SSC, schools or by large companies (e.g. IMH, SingPost, etc). Their prices are usually affordable because these facilities are considered to be a non-essential part of their main business objectives. My idea is to start a badminton hall, occupying a high-ceiling warehouse with at least 6 courts, laying good rubber mat and standard nets, good lighting (rows of lights at the sides of court at standard 5 ft height, providing total 2,400 lux) with dark blue-color walls, showers + washrooms and a self-service cafe. It would be wind-retarded (yes, we do hate wind, don't we?) If there is enough space, probably a gym-cum-stringing shop would be nice too. Parking should be free too. The hall will be opened 24 hours and would cater for coaches and leisure. The pricing would be higher than SSC-operated halls, because the hall is specialized for badminton players (no eye-boggling lines on the floor) and if there is a demand (and extra $$$), we could install air-conditioning in it (but running cost would be high). I estimate that to start it off, I need to raise at least $0.5 million. If we can find 50 shareholders, it would be an equal $10k investment each. Certainly there is a more concrete plan in store, but all of that is a little bit confidential for the moment. If you're keen on being part of history, drop a thread or a pte msg. If you own a warehouse and thought of making your hobby a little more rewarding, why not drop me a msg too?
It's a nice idea but in all honesty, I'm not sure that it will take off. A lot of people that play just play for recreation and aren't that serious about the game. I would think that a majority of the badminton community will simply look for the cheapest courts they can play on so your centre will occupy a niche in the market. Hopefully you'll be able to find enough serious players who will appreciate playing in a quality facility, I can imagine there being a market for it, the question is just if that market is big enough or not. I must admit, I don't know how much it costs to light and cool a badminton centre in Singapore but I'm going to hazard a guess that it's quite a large amount. Running costs are going to be high especially if you're opening 24 hours a day; I mean, who decides to go and play badminton in the middle of the night or early hours of the morning? Most people would much rather be in bed. Consider shutting down for a few hours, maybe between 1:00AM and 5:00AM or something like that because I cannot imagine you'll make a profit during those hours. That is unless in Singapore people have vastly different badminton habits to here in the UK. The stringing room idea is a good one, it's nice to have a stringing service on site but perhaps not essential. It might be something to look in to once you've established yourself a bit but in order to get a workhorse machine that will crank out a thousand string jobs or more a year and look good in the shop you'll need to spend a fair bit of money. Depending on what you charge for your stringing service you might make a fair bit of profit on it after getting the cost of the machine back quickly. Good luck with getting investment and making this happen.
Hi Dan, thanks for the feedback. In Malaysia, there are a few private badminton halls and during competition period, it is utilized for training space for national squads. Badminton is extremely popular in Asia and I believe that there are a niche group of players who are willing to pay for better environment (lighting, flooring, etc). For 24 hours theory, I happen to work in a golf pro-shop that operates a driving range and that there are members who ask us to be opened on god-forbidden hours. Also, look at those snooker centres that are profit-driven by youngsters, there are usually packed at night, hence I believe there might be a niche market there again (niche of niche). Anyway, I got the blessing from the local sports authority and National Olympics Committee on this, and has some mutual agreements with a team of qualified coaches (national-level and ex-olympians) to setup classes and clinics, just like those gym or yoga places. If space is ample, we may also setup a badminton-oriented gym within so that hardcore players could work out to improve their game. But that's another $50-100k of investments.
