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going to appeal to a larger group–
something I'm going to be able to market,
that is going to have some sustainability."
Plex Indoor Sports opened in Sandhills,
a suburb of Columbia, in 2004. On the
other side of town in Irmo, about 38
miles away, was an ice skating rink that
had gone out of business once and was
struggling a second time. Mike had
already identified a need for indoor soccer
in that part of town as well, so he targeted
that building. "When it went out of business
again, I bought the building out of bankruptcy,"
says Mike. "My intention at the time was to
put in an indoor soccer field where the ice
skating rink was. I understand indoor soccer;
I didn't know a thing about ice skating. I got
approached by some other investors, and they
partnered with me. Part of the deal was that
we would keep the ice."
They expanded the building and put in a soccer
field. "You think it's hard to make money with
indoor soccer; it's even harder with an ice rink.
Maintenance is expensive." The advantage
was that Mike had bought the building out
of bankruptcy. "I had 20% of the money the
prior guys had in it; my overhead was much,
much less." Still, the ice barely broke even.
Since the trampoline park at Sandhills was so
successful, they took out the soccer field at
the Irmo facility and put in a trampoline park.
When programming is diverse and customers
come in for an activity–a soccer game, a
birthday party–they are exposed to everything
the facility has to offer. HiWire brought in
large volumes of people who then did other
things. As a businessman, this fascinated
Mike. "When we first opened the trampoline
park, concessions increased 300%. I thought
concessions would go up maybe 20 or 30%.
Roller skating went up 300%.
People want places to go and don't necessarily
need to know what they want to do right away.
The beauty of having a multi-faceted offering of
top-quality programs is families will come and
basically hang out, spend time, and when they
come, everything increases. We've become
a destination for families Saturdays and
Sundays."
A business that attracts many families with
good, disposable income is attractive to
investors. Recently, Mike was approached by
an expert in arcades. As a result, brand new
