How to open a bowling lane?
Are you keen to open a bowling lane but don't know where to begin? Then you're in luck because this guide will lead you through all the steps required to check if your business idea can be profitable and, if so, turn it into a reality.
Our guide is for prospective entrepreneurs who are thinking about starting a bowling lane no matter how far they are in their journey - whether you’re just thinking about it or in the middle of market research this guide will be useful to you.
Think of this as your blueprint: we cover everything you need to know about opening a bowling lane and what key decisions you’ll need to make along the way.
Ready? Let’s get started!
Understanding how a bowling lane works
The very first step when exploring a business idea such as starting a bowling lane is to make sure you understand how the business operates and makes money (which is what we call the business model).
This will not only give you an initial idea of how profitable the business can be, but it will also enable you to make sure that this is the right business idea for you, given your skills, start-up capital and family or personal lifestyle, in particular.
The best ways to get to grips with the bowling lane's business model are to:
- Talk to bowling lane owners with experience
- Work a few months in a bowling lane already in operation
- Take a training course
Talk to bowling lane owners with experience
Experienced bowling lane owners have valuable insights and can provide practical advice based on their firsthand experiences.
They've likely encountered and overcome challenges that a newcomer might not anticipate. Learning from other’s mistakes can save you both time and money and potentially increase your venture’s chances of succeeding.
Work a few months in a bowling lane already in operation
Obtaining work experience in the industry can be a crucial factor in confirming whether you truly want to start a bowling lane, as it provides insight into the day-to-day activities.
For instance, if the working hours are longer than expected or if other business requirements don't align with your personal lifestyle or preferences, you might reconsider your entrepreneurial goals.
Even if you've decided that this business idea is a good fit for you, gaining work experience will still be valuable. It helps you better understand your target market and customer needs, which is likely to be beneficial when launching your own bowling lane.
Take a training course
Obtaining training within your chosen industry is another way to get a feel for how a bowling lane works before deciding to pursue a new venture.
Whatever approach you choose to familiarise yourself with the business, before going any further with your plans to open a bowling lane, make sure you understand:
- What skills are required to run the business (compare this with your own skills)
- What a typical week in the business is like (compare this with your personal or family life)
- What is the potential turnover of a bowling lane and the long-term growth prospects (compare this with your level of ambition)
- Your options once you decide to sell the business or retire (it's never too early to consider your exit)
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What is the ideal founding team for my bowling lane?
The next step to opening your bowling lane, is to decide whether to assemble an ideal team or venture solo.
The failure rate for business start-ups is high: almost half don't make it past the five-year mark, and setting up a bowling lane is no exception.
Starting with a group of co-founders helps reduce this risk as each of you brings complementary skills and enables the financial risk to be spread on multiple shoulders.
However, managing a business with multiple partners comes with its own set of challenges. Disagreements among co-founders are quite prevalent, and they can pose risks to the business. That's why it's essential to carefully weigh all aspects before launching a business.
To help you think things through, we recommend that you ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you need more co-founders for this venture?
- Do you share the same vision and ambition as your potential partners for this project?
- What is your plan B?
Let's look at these issues in more detail.
Do you need more co-founders for this venture?
To answer this question you will need to consider the following:
- Are there any key skills missing for which you would rather have a business partner than recruit an employee?
- Do we have enough equity? Would the company benefit from more capital at the outset?
- Will the proposed number of founders make it easy to make decisions (an odd number of partners, or a majority partner, is generally recommended to avoid deadlock)?
In simple terms, co-founders bring skills, money, or both to the table. Having more partners is beneficial when there's a lack of either of these resources.
Do you share the same vision and ambition as your potential partners for this project?
One of the main sources of conflict between co-founders comes from a lack of alignment on the long-term vision.
To avoid any risk of disagreement, it is advisable to agree on ambitions from the outset and to provide an exit mechanism for one of the partners in the event of disagreement.
What is your plan B?
We hope your bowling lane takes off and thrives, but it's smart to have a "plan B" just in case things don't go as expected.
How you tackle potential failure can vary broadly depending on the type of co-founders (close friend, spouse, ex-colleague, etc.) and the personal circumstances of each of them.
For example, launching a family business with your spouse might seem exciting, but if it fails, you risk losing all of your household income at once, which might be stressful.
Likewise, starting a business with a friend might strain the friendship if things go wrong or if tough decisions need to be made.
Before diving in, make sure to thoroughly think about your choices. This way, you'll be ready for whatever might come your way when starting up.
Conducting market research for a bowling lane
The next step in launching a bowling lane is to carry out market research. Let's take a look at what this involves.
The objectives of market research
The objective here is very simple: to assess the level of demand for your business and whether there is an opportunity for it to thrive in your chosen location.
The first step will be to check that the market is not saturated with competing offers and that there is room for a new player: your bowling lane.
Your market analysis will also help you identify a concept and market positioning that has every chance of being successful in your target market, thereby helping increase your business's chances of success.
Carrying out market research for your bowling lane will also enable you to better understand the expectations of your future customers and the most effective ways to communicate with them in your marketing plan.
Analyse key trends in the industry
Your market research should start with an industry analysis in order to gain a good understanding of the main players and current trends in your sector.
Once you've delved into the current state of the market, it will be time to assess what proportion of your target market can be seized by your bowling lane. To do this, you will need to consider both the demand and supply side of the market.
Assess the demand
After checking out the industry, let's shift our focus to figuring out what your potential customers want and how they like to buy.
A classic mistake made by first-time entrepreneurs is to assess demand on the global or national market instead of concentrating on their target market. Only the market share that can be captured by your company in the short term matters.
Your demand analysis should seek to find answers to the following questions:
- Who are your target customers?
- How many are there?
- What are their expectations?
- What are their buying habits?
- How much budget do they have?
- What are the different customer segments and their characteristics?
- What are the main distribution channels and means of communication for reaching each segment?
The aim of the demand analysis is to identify the customer segments that could be targeted by your bowling lane and what products and services you need to offer to meet their expectations.
Analyse the supply side
You will also have to familiarize yourself with the competing bowling lanes on the market targeted by your future business.
Amongst other things, you’ll need to ask yourself:
- Who are the main competitors?
- How many competitors are already present?
- Where are they located?
- How many people do they employ?
- What is their turnover?
- How do they set their prices?
- Are they small independent businesses or national players?
- Do they seem to be in difficulty or are they flourishing?
- What is their market positioning?
- What types of products and services do they offer?
- What do customers seem to like about them?
The aim of the competitive analysis is to identify who your competitors will be and to gather information that will help you find a differentiating commercial positioning (more on that later in this guide).
Regulations
Conducting market research is also an opportunity to look at the regulations and conditions required to do business.
You should ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you need to have a specific degree to open a bowling lane?
- Do you need specific licences or permits?
- What are the main regulations applicable to your future business?
Given that your project is at an early stage, your focus should be to clear that there are no roadblocks from a regulatory standpoint before you deep dive into the planning process.
Once your project is more advanced, you will have the opportunity to talk about regulation more in-depth with your lawyer.
Concluding your market research
By the time your market research is completed, you should have either:
- Pinpointed an untapped business opportunity
- Or arrived at the realisation that the market is saturated, prompting the search for alternative business ideas or models.
If the conclusion is that there is an opportunity in the market to cater to one or more customer segments currently overlooked by competitors, that's great!
Conversely, if you come to the conclusion that the market is already saturated, don’t panic! The good news is that you won’t spend several years working hard on a project that has little chance of success. There is no shortage of business ideas either - at The Business Plan Shop, we have identified more than 1,300 potential business ideas!
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Choosing the right concept and positioning for your bowling lane
Once your market research is completed, it's time to consider the type of bowling lane you want to open and define precisely your company's market positioning in order to capitalise on the opportunity you identified during your market research.
Market positioning refers to the place your product and service offering occupies in customers' minds and how they differ from competing products and services. Being perceived as the premium solution, for example.
There are four questions you need to consider:
- How will you compete with and differentiate yourself from competitors already on the market?
- Can you join a franchise to reduce the risk?
- Is it better to start or buy a bowling lane already in operation?
- How will you validate your concept and market positioning?
Let's look at each of these in a little more detail.
How will you compete with and differentiate yourself from competitors already on the market?
When you choose to start up a bowling lane, you are at a disadvantage compared to your rivals who have an established presence on the market.
Your competitors have a reputation, a loyal customer base and a solid team already in place, whereas you're starting from scratch...
Entering the market and taking market share from your competitors won't happen automatically, so it's important to carefully consider how you plan to establish your presence.
There are four questions to consider here:
- Can you avoid direct competition by targeting a customer segment that is currently poorly served by other players in the market?
- Can you offer something unique or complementary to what is already available on the market?
- How will you build a sustainable competitive advantage for your bowling lane?
- Do you have the resources to compete with well-established competitors on your own, or would it be wiser to explore alternative options (more on that below)?
Also, think about how your competitors will react to your arrival on their market.
Are there franchises available for you to join?
Opening a new bowling lane from the "ground up" is exciting because you'll enjoy more freedom and flexibility. However, you'll need to put in extra effort to establish a trustworthy brand and attract customers.
On the other hand, joining a franchise might limit your personal flexibility, but you'll be operating under an established brand name. This is likely to bring significant benefits in terms of operational processes, supplier relationships, recruitment, and more.
Of course, joining a franchise is not free: you will have to pay an entry fee and an annual royalty (generally as a percentage of sales).
And franchising opportunities vary from country to country and region to region, so there's no guarantee that you will be able to find a franchise to join.
Nevertheless, where possible, joining a franchise is generally a good way of reducing the risk associated with setting up a bowling lane, and is well worth considering.
Is it better to start or buy a bowling lane already in operation?
Another alternative to opening a new business is to take over a bowling lane already trading.
Purchasing an existing bowling lane means you get a loyal customer base and an efficient team. It also avoids disrupting the equilibrium in the market by introducing a new player.
A takeover hugely reduces the risk of the business failing compared to starting a new business, whilst giving you the freedom to change the market positioning of the business taken over if you wish.
This makes buying an existing bowling lane a solid alternative to opening your own or operating under a franchise.
However, here again, buying a business requires more capital compared to starting a bowling lane from scratch, as you will need to purchase the business from its current owner.
How will you validate your concept and market positioning?
Regardless of how you choose to establish your business, it's crucial to make sure that the way you position your company aligns with the expectations of your target market.
To achieve this, you'll have to meet with your potential customers to showcase your products or services and get their feedback.
Deciding where to base your bowling lane
The next step to opening a bowling lane is deciding where you want to set up your business.
Choosing the right location for your business is like finding the perfect stage for a play. Without it, your business may lack the spotlight it deserves.
Whilst there is no “perfect” location for your bowling lane, one that meets as many of the following factors as possible could be ideal:
- Visibility and foot traffic - A bowling lane needs high visibility and foot traffic to attract customers and make a profit.
- Parking space, road and public transport accessibility - Customers need to have easy access to the bowling alley, whether they are driving or using public transportation.
- Proximity to target customers - A bowling lane should be located near residential areas or areas with a high concentration of potential customers, such as colleges or shopping centers.
- Competitor presence - It's important to consider the number of existing bowling alleys in the area to avoid oversaturation and competition.
This list is obviously not exhaustive and will have to be adapted to the particularities of your project.
Once you’ve considered the factors above, it’s important to think about the budget that your startup has at its disposal. You’ll need to find a location that meets your business requirements but is affordable enough, especially short-term.
If you opt for renting instead of buying your premises, make sure to take into account the terms of the lease, including aspects such as the duration, rent increase, renewal, and so on.
The lease contractual terms vary greatly from country to country, so be sure to check the terms applicable to your situation and have your lease reviewed by your lawyer before signing.
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What legal form should I choose for my bowling lane?
The next step to start a bowling lane is to choose the legal form of your business.
The legal form of a business simply means the legal structure it operates under. This structure outlines how the business is set up and defines its legal obligations and responsibilities.
Why is your bowling lane's legal form important?
Choosing the right legal form for your bowling lane is important because this will affect:
- Taxation: your tax obligations depend on the legal structure you choose, and this principle applies to both personal income tax and business taxes.
- Risk exposure: some legal structures have a legal personality (also known as corporate personality) and limited liability, which separates them from the owners running the business. This means that the business would be liable rather than the owners if things were to go wrong (lawsuit, debt owed in case of bankruptcy, etc.).
- Decision-making and governance: how you make key decisions varies based on the legal form of your business. In some cases you might need to have a board of directors and organise general assemblies to enable shareholders to influence major decisions with their voting rights.
- Financing: securing funding from investors requires you to have a company and they will expect limited liability and corporate personality to protect them legally.
- Paperwork and legal formalities: the legal structure you select determines whether certain obligations are necessary, such as producing annual accounts, or getting your books audited.
Popular business legal forms
The specific names of legal structures vary from country to country, but they usually fall within the two main categories below:
- Individual businesses
- Companies
Individual businesses
Individual businesses, like sole traders or sole proprietorships, are made for self-employed entrepreneurs and freelancers rather than businesses which employ staff.
They benefit from straightforward administrative requirements, minimal paperwork to start, simpler tax calculations, and streamlined accounting procedures.
However, the downside is that there's typically no legal distinction between the business and the person responsible for day-to-day operations. This means the owner's personal assets are at risk if the business faces problems or goes bankrupt.
There is also no share capital in such a structure, meaning that individual businesses cannot raise equity from investors which seriously limits funding options.
Companies
Companies are versatile structures suited to projects of all sizes in terms of number of founders, number of employees and amount of capital.
They are a bit more complex to operate than individual businesses with more formalities, stringent accounting requirements, more complex tax implications, etc.
In return, they offer stronger protections to their shareholders. They usually benefit from having their own legal identity and limited liability, meaning co-founders and investors can only ever lose the amount of money they have put into the company.
For instance, if things were to go south (the company files for bankruptcy or there is a legal issue), the company would take the hit, safeguarding the personal assets of the founders and investors.
How should I choose my bowling lane's legal structure?
Deciding on a legal form is easy once you've estimated your sales, decided whether or not you need employees and figured out the number of co-founders joining you.
It's essential to remember that a solid business idea will succeed no matter which legal structure you pick. Tax laws change regularly, so you can't rely on specific tax advantages tied to a particular structure when starting a business.
A proven approach is to look at what legal structures your top competitors are using, and go with the most common option as a working assumption. Once your idea is mature enough, and you're getting closer to officially registering your business, you can get advice from a lawyer and an accountant to confirm your choice.
Can I switch my bowling lane's legal structure if I get it wrong?
Yes, changing your legal structure later is possible, though it may involve selling the old entity to a new entity in some cases, which adds further expenses. If you want to save on such costs, it makes sense to pick the correct legal form for your business the first time around.
Can your business idea be profitable?
Just enter your data and let The Business Plan Shop crunch the numbers. We will tell if your business idea can generate profits and cash flows, and how much you need to get started.
Assess the startup costs for a bowling lane
The next step in creating a bowling lane involves thinking about the equipment and staff needed for the business to operate.
After figuring out what you need for your business, your financial plan will reveal how much money you'll need to start and how much you might make (check below for more details).
Because every venture is distinctive, providing a reliable one-size-fits-all budget for launching a bowling lane without knowing the specifics of your project is not feasible.
Each project has its own particularities (size, concept, location), and only a forecast can show the exact amount required for the initial investment.
The first thing you'll need to consider is the equipment and investments you'll need to get your business up and running.
Startup costs and investments to launch your bowling lane
For a bowling lane, the initial working capital requirements (WCR) and investments could include the following elements:
- Bowling Lane Equipment: This includes items such as bowling balls, pins, shoes, and other necessary equipment for running a bowling lane. These items are essential for the operation of the lane and need to be regularly maintained and replaced.
- Lane Maintenance and Repair: As with any other equipment, bowling lanes require regular maintenance and occasional repairs. This may include resurfacing the lanes, fixing damaged gutters or pin decks, and replacing worn out parts. It's important to budget for these expenses to ensure the lanes are in good condition for customers.
- Scoring System: A modern bowling lane typically comes with a scoring system that keeps track of players' scores and displays them on screens. This system requires significant upfront investment but can greatly enhance the customer experience and attract more players.
- Furniture and Fixtures: This includes items such as seating, tables, and lighting for the bowling lane area. These items not only provide comfort for customers but also contribute to the overall atmosphere and aesthetic of the lane.
- Computer Systems: In addition to the scoring system, you may also need to invest in computer systems for managing reservations, tracking inventory, and processing payments. These systems are essential for running the business efficiently and should be factored into your expenditure forecast.
Of course, you will need to adapt this list to your business specificities.
Staffing plan of a bowling lane
In addition to equipment, you'll also need to consider the human resources required to run the bowling lane on a day-to-day basis.
The number of recruitments you need to plan will depend mainly on the size of your company.
Once again, this list is only indicative and will need to be adjusted according to the specifics of your bowling lane.
Other operating expenses for a bowling lane
While you're thinking about the resources you'll need, it's also a good time to start listing the operating costs you'll need to anticipate for your business.
The main operating costs for a bowling lane may include:
- Staff Costs: This includes salaries, wages, and benefits for all employees working at the bowling lane, including front desk staff, maintenance workers, and instructors.
- Accountancy Fees: You may need to hire an accountant to help manage your financial records and taxes.
- Insurance Costs: It is important to have insurance coverage for your bowling lane to protect against any accidents or liabilities.
- Software Licenses: You may need to purchase licenses for software used to manage reservations, track inventory, or process payments.
- Banking Fees: Your bank may charge fees for services such as processing credit card payments or cash deposits.
- Rent/Mortgage: If you do not own the building that houses your bowling lane, you will need to pay rent or a mortgage.
- Utilities: This includes expenses for electricity, water, and gas used to operate the bowling lanes, as well as heating and cooling costs for the building.
- Maintenance and Repairs: Bowling lanes require regular maintenance and occasional repairs to keep them in good working condition.
- Cleaning Supplies: You will need to purchase cleaning supplies to keep the bowling lanes and other areas of the facility clean and sanitary.
- Marketing and Advertising: To attract customers, you may need to spend money on marketing and advertising efforts, such as creating flyers or running social media ads.
- Office Supplies: This includes items such as paper, pens, and printer ink used for administrative tasks at the bowling lane.
- Security: To ensure the safety of your customers and employees, you may need to invest in security measures, such as cameras or security personnel.
- Equipment and Supplies: This includes purchasing and replacing bowling balls, pins, shoes, and other necessary equipment and supplies for the lanes.
- Music Licensing Fees: If you play music at your bowling lane, you may need to pay licensing fees to the appropriate organizations.
- Professional Services: You may need to hire outside professionals, such as attorneys or consultants, for specific tasks or advice.
Like for the other examples included in this guide, this list will need to be tailored to your business but should be a good starting point for your budget.
Creating a sales & marketing plan for your bowling lane
The next step to start a bowling lane is to think about how you are going to attract and retain customers.
You need to ask yourself the following questions:
- What actions can be leveraged to attract as many customers as possible?
- How will you then retain customers?
- What resources do you need to allocate for each initiative (human and financial)?
- How many sales and what turnover can you expect to generate in return?
How you will attract and retain customers depends on your ambition, the size of your startup and the nature of your exact concept, but you could consider the following initiatives.
Your sales forecast may also be influenced by seasonality related to your business type, such as fluctuations during busy holiday periods, and your competitive environment.
Can your business idea be profitable?
Just enter your data and let The Business Plan Shop crunch the numbers. We will tell if your business idea can generate profits and cash flows, and how much you need to get started.
Build your bowling lane's financial forecast
The next step to start your bowling lane: putting your financial projections together.
What is the financial forecast for a bowling lane?
A forecast is a quantified decision-making document that shows the initial investment required to open a bowling lane and the company's potential profitability and cash flow generation over the next 3 to 5 years.
As you think about your bowling lane idea, the main role of financial projections will be to help you decide whether it makes sense to create the company.
Building a financial forecast helps determine the amount of initial financing required to start your bowling lane.
In fact, creating financial projections is the only way to assess the amount of initial financing you'll need to open your bowling lane, and to make sure your project makes economic and financial sense.
Keep in mind that very few business ideas are financially viable. At The Business Plan Shop, we've seen nearly a million business start-up ideas, and we estimate that less than one in four is economically viable.
Your forecast will therefore require your full attention and constant revision, as your project matures. It's also a good idea to simulate different scenarios to anticipate several possibilities (what happens if your sales take longer than expected to ramp up, for example), so you're ready for all eventualities.
When seeking financing, your forecast will be incorporated into your business plan, which is the document you will use to present your business idea to financial partners. We'll come back to the business plan in more detail later in this guide.
Creating and updating your bowling lane's forecast is an ongoing process. Indeed, having up-to-date financial projections is the only way to maintain visibility over your company's future cash flow and cash position.
Forecasting is, therefore, the financial management tool that will be with you throughout the life of your company. Once you've started trading, you'll need to regularly compare the difference between your actual accounts and your forecasts, and then adjust them to maintain visibility over your future cash flows.
What does a financial projection look like?
The following financial tables will be used to present your bowling lane's financial forecast.
The projected P&L statement
Your bowling lane's forecasted P&L statement will enable you to visualise your bowling lane's expected growth and profitability over the next three to five years.
The projected balance sheet of your bowling lane
The projected balance sheet gives an overview of your bowling lane's financial structure at the end of the financial year.
The cash flow projection
A cash flow forecast for a bowling lane shows the projected inflows and outflows of cash over a specific period, providing insights into liquidity and financial health.
What is the best financial forecasting tool for starting your bowling lane?
The simplest and easiest way to create your bowling lane's projections is to use professional online financial forecasting software such as the one we offer at The Business Plan Shop.
There are several advantages to using specialised software:
- You can easily create your financial forecast by letting the software take care of the financial calculations for you without errors
- You have access to complete financial forecast templates
- You get a complete financial forecast ready to be sent to your bank or investors
- The software helps you identify and correct any inconsistencies in your figures
- You can create scenarios to stress-test your forecast's main assumptions to stress-test the robustness of your business model
- After you start trading, you can easily track your actual financial performance against your financial forecast, and recalibrate your forecast to maintain visibility on your future cash flows
- You have a friendly support team on standby to assist you when you are stuck
If you are interested in this type of solution, you can try our forecasting software for free by signing up here.
How do I choose a name and register my bowling lane?
Now that your project of launching a bowling lane is starting to take shape, it's time to look at the name of your business.
Finding the name itself is generally fairly easy. The difficulty lies in registering it.
To prevent this guide from being too long, we won't go into all the criteria you need to take into account when choosing a striking name for your bowling lane. However, try to choose a name that is short and distinctive.
Once you have a name that you like, you need to check that it is available, because you cannot use a name that is identical or similar to that of a competitor: this type of parasitic behaviour is an act of unfair competition for which you risk being taken to court by your competitors.
To avoid any problems, you will need to check the availability of the name:
- Your country's company register
- With the trademark register
- With a domain name reservation company such as GoDaddy
- On an Internet search engine
If the desired name is available, you can start the registration process.
It is common to want to use the trading name as the name of the company, and to have a domain name and a registered trademark that also correspond to this name: Example ® (trading name protected by a registered trademark), Example LTD (legal name of the company), example.com (domain name used by the company).
The problem is that each of these names has to be registered with a different entity, and each entity has its own deadlines:
- Registering a domain name is immediate
- Registering a trademark usually takes at least 3 months (if your application is accepted)
- The time taken to register a new business depends on the country, but it's generally quite fast
How do I go about it?
Well, you have two choices:
- Complete all registrations at the same time and cross your fingers for a smooth process.
- Make sure to secure the domain names and trademarks. Once that's done, wait for confirmation of a successful trademark registration before moving on to register the company.
At The Business Plan Shop, we believe it's essential to prioritize securing your domain names and trademarks over the business name. This is because you have the flexibility to use a different trading name than your legal business name if needed.
Regardless, we suggest discussing this matter with your lawyer (see below in this guide) before making any decisions.
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What corporate identity do I want for my bowling lane?
The following step to start a bowling lane is to define your company's visual identity.
Visual identity is part of the DNA of your bowling lane: it makes you recognizable and recognized by your customers, and helps you stand out from the competition. It also helps convey your values, notably through the choice of colors that identify the company.
Creating your business's visual identity yourself is entirely possible: there are several online tools that let you generate color palettes, choose typography and even generate logos.
However, we advise you to delegate this task to a designer or a communications agency for a professional result.
Your corporate identity will include the following elements:
- Your business logo
- Your brand guidelines
- Your business cards
- Design and theme of your website
Logo
Your bowling lane's logo serves as a quick identifier for your company. It will be featured on all your communication platforms (website, social networks, business cards, etc.) and official documents (invoices, contracts, etc.).
Beyond its appearance, your logo should be easy to use on any type of support and background (white, black, gray, colored, etc.). Ideally, it should be easy to use in a variety of colors.
Brand guidelines
One of the challenges when starting a bowling lane is to ensure a consistent brand image wherever your company is visible.
This is the role of your company's brand guidelines, which defines the typography and colors used by your brand and thus acts as the protector of your brand image.
Typography refers to the fonts used (family and size). For example, Trebuchet in size 22 for your titles and Times New Roman in size 13 for your texts.
The colors chosen to represent your brand should typically be limited to five (or fewer):
- The main colour,
- A secondary colour (the accent),
- A dark background colour (blue or black),
- A grey background colour (to vary from white),
- Possibly another secondary colour.
Business cards
Classic but a must-have, your business cards will be at your side to help you easily communicate your contact details to your founders, customers, suppliers, recruitment candidates, etc.
In essence, they should feature your logo and adhere to the brand guidelines mentioned earlier.
Website theme
Likewise, the theme of your bowling lane website will integrate your logo and follow the brand guidelines we talked about earlier.
This will also define the look and feel of all your site's graphic elements:
- Buttons
- Menus
- Forms
- Banners
- Etc.
Understanding the legal and regulatory steps involved in opening a bowling lane
The next step in opening a bowling lane is to take the necessary legal and regulatory steps.
We recommend that you be accompanied by a law firm for all of the steps outlined below.
Registering a trademark and protecting the intellectual property of your bowling lane
The first step is to protect your company's intellectual property.
As mentioned earlier in this guide, you have the option to register a trademark. Your lawyer can assist you with a thorough search to ensure your chosen trademark is unique and doesn't conflict with existing ones and help select the classes (economic activities) and jurisdictions in which to register your trademark.
Your lawyer will also be able to advise you on other steps you could take to protect your company's other intellectual property assets.
Drafting the contractual documents for your bowling lane
Your bowling lane will rely on a set of contracts and legal documents for day-to-day operations.
Once again, we strongly recommend that you have these documents drawn up by a lawyer.
Your exact needs will depend on the country in which you are launching your bowling lane and the size of the company you are planning.
However, you may wish to consider the following documents at a minimum:
- Employment contracts
- General terms and conditions of sale
- General terms and conditions of use for your website
- Privacy Policy for your website
- Cookie Policy for your website
- Invoices
- Etc.
Applying for licences and permits and registering for various taxes
The licenses and permits needed for your business will depend on the country where you are establishing it. Your lawyer can guide you on the regulations relevant to your activity.
Similarly, your chartered accountant will be able to help you register for taxes and take the necessary steps to comply with the tax authorities.
Need a convincing business plan?
The Business Plan Shop makes it easy to create a financial forecast and write a business plan to help convince investors that your business idea can be profitable.
Writing a business plan for your bowling lane
The next step in opening a bowling lane is to draw up your business plan.
What is a bowling lane's business plan?
A business plan serves as a comprehensive roadmap outlining the objectives, strategies, and key components of your venture.
There are two essential parts to a business plan:
- A numerical part, the financial forecast we mentioned earlier in this guide, which highlights the amount of initial financing needed to launch the business and its potential profitability over the next 3 to 5 years,
- A written part, which presents in detail the project of creating a bowling lane and provides the necessary context to enable the reader of the business plan to judge the relevance and coherence of the figures included in the forecast.
Your business plan helps guide decision-making by showcasing your vision and financial potential in a coherent manner.
Your business plan will also be essential when you're looking for financing, as your financial partners will ask you for it when deciding whether or not to finance your project to open a bowling lane. So it's best to produce a professional, reliable, and error-free business plan.
In essence, your business plan is the blueprint to turn your idea into a successful reality.
What tool should you use to create your bowling lane business plan?
If you want to write a convincing business plan quickly and efficiently, a good solution is to use an online business plan software for business start-ups like the one we offer at The Business Plan Shop.
Using The Business Plan Shop to create a business plan for a bowling lane has several advantages :
- You can easily create your financial forecast by letting the software take care of the financial calculations for you without errors
- You are guided through the writing process by detailed instructions and examples for each part of the plan
- You can access a library of dozens of complete startup business plan samples and templates for inspiration
- You get a professional business plan, formatted and ready to be sent to your bank or investors
- You can create scenarios to stress test your forecast's main assumptions
- You can easily track your actual financial performance against your financial forecast by importing accounting data
- You can easily update your forecast as time goes by to maintain visibility on future cash flows
- You have a friendly support team on standby to assist you when you are stuck
If you're interested in using our solution, you can try The Business Plan Shop for free by signing up here.
Need a convincing business plan?
The Business Plan Shop makes it easy to create a financial forecast and write a business plan to help convince investors that your business idea can be profitable.
Raise the financing needed to launch your bowling lane
With your business plan in hand, you can tackle one of the final steps to open a bowling lane business: the search for financing.
Raising the capital needed to launch your business will probably require a combination of equity and debt, which are the two types of financing available to companies.
Equity funding
Equity is the sum of money invested in a bowling lane by both founders and investors.
Equity is a key factor in business start-ups. Should the project fail, the sums invested in equity are likely to be lost; these sums therefore enable the founders to send a strong signal to their commercial and financial partners as to their conviction in the project's chances of success.
In terms of return on investment, equity investors can either receive dividends from the company (provided it is profitable) or realize capital gains by selling their shares (provided a buyer is interested in the company).
Equity providers are therefore in a very risky position. They can lose everything in the event of bankruptcy, and will only see a return on their investment if the company is profitable or resold. On the other hand, they can generate a very high return if the project is a success.
Given their position, equity investors look for start-up projects with sufficient growth and profitability potential to offset their risk.
From a technical standpoint, equity includes:
- Share capital and premiums: which represent the amount invested by the shareholders. This capital is considered permanent as it is non-refundable. In return for their investment, shareholders receive shares that entitle them to information, decision-making power (voting in general assembly), and the potential to receive a portion of any dividends distributed by the company.
- Director loans: these are examples of non-permanent capital advanced to the company by the shareholders. This is a more flexible way of injecting some liquidity into your company as you can repay director loans at any time.
- Reserves: these represent the share of profits set aside to strengthen the company's equity. Allocating a percentage of your profits to the reserves can be mandatory in certain cases (legal or statutory requirement depending on the legal form of your company). Once allocated in reserves, these profits can no longer be distributed as dividends.
- Investment grants: which represent any non-refundable amounts received by the company to help it invest in long-term assets.
- Other equity: which includes the equity items which don't fit in the other categories. Mostly convertible or derivative instruments. For a small business, it is likely that you won't have any other equity items.
The main sources of equity are as follows:
- Contributions made by the owners.
- Private investors: business angels, friends and family.
- Crowdfunding: raising funds by involving a group of people through campaigns where they contribute money or make donations, often getting something in return for their support.
- Start-up aid, e.g. government loans to help founders build up their start-up capital.
Debt financing
Debt is the other way of financing companies. Unlike equity, debt offers lenders a limited, contractually guaranteed return on their investment.
Your bowling lane undertakes to pay lenders' interest and repay the capital borrowed according to a pre-agreed schedule. Lenders are therefore making money whether or not your company makes a profit.
As a result, the only risk lenders take is that of your bowling lane going bankrupt, so they're extremely conservative and will want to see prudent, hands-on management of the company's finances.
From the point of view of the company and all its stakeholders (workforce, customers, suppliers, etc.), the company's contractual obligation to repay lenders increases the risk for all. As a result, there is a certain caution towards companies which are too heavily indebted.
Businesses can borrow debt in two main ways:
- Against assets: this is the most common way of borrowing. The bank funds a percentage of the price of an asset (a vehicle or a building, for example) and takes the asset as collateral. If the business cannot repay the loan, the bank takes the asset and sells it to reduce losses.
- Against cash flows: the bank looks at how much profit and cash flow the business expects to make in the future. Based on these projections, it assigns a credit risk to the business and decides how much the business can borrow and under what terms (amount, interest rate, and duration of the loan).
It's difficult to borrow against future cash flows when you're starting a bowling lane, because the business doesn't yet have historical data to reassure about the credibility of cash flow forecast.
Borrowing to finance a portion of equipment purchases is therefore often the only option available to founders. The assets that can be financed with this option must also be easy to resell, in the unfortunate event that the bank is forced to seize them, which could limit your options even further.
As far as possible sources of borrowing are concerned, the main ones here are banks and credit institutions. Bear in mind, however, that each institution is different, in terms of the risk it is prepared to accept, what it is willing to finance, and how the risk of your project will be perceived.
In some countries, it is also possible to borrow from private investors (directly or via crowdfunding platforms) or other companies, but not everywhere.
Key points about financing your bowling lane
Multiple solutions are available to help you raise the initial financing you need to open your bowling lane. A minimum amount of equity will be needed to give the project credibility, and bank financing can be sought to complete the financing.
What to do after launching my bowling lane?
Launching your bowling lane is the beginning of an exciting entrepreneurial adventure, and the culmination of your efforts to turn your idea into a reality. But this is also when the real work begins.
As you know, nearly half of all new businesses fail, so you'll need to do everything you can to make your business sustainable right from the start.
Estimating the future financial performance of a bowling lane inevitably involves a degree of uncertainty. That's why we recommend simulating several scenarios: a central case with the most likely scenario, an optimistic case, and a pessimistic case designed to test the limits of your business model.
Normally, your company's actual financial performance, observed after you start trading, should fall somewhere between your pessimistic and optimistic cases.
The important thing will be to quickly measure and compare this actual performance with the figures in your forecast to see where you stand, then update the forecast to re-estimate the future cash flows and cash position of your bowling lane.
This forward-looking financial management exercise is the only way to know where you stand and where you're going. And, when your figures fall short of expectations, to quickly implement actions to turn things around before the company runs out of cash.
There's nothing more dangerous than waiting until you have your accounts, which takes up to nine months after the end of your financial year (if you are in the UK, abroad your mileage will vary), to then realize that you're not on the right track and that your bowling lane won't have enough cash to operate over the next twelve months.
This is where using a forecasting solution that integrates actuals vs. forecast tracking, like The Business Plan Shop's financial dashboards do, can simplify the financial management of your business and help reduce the risk associated with your start-up project.
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Key takeaways
- To open a bowling lane you need to go through each of the 15 steps we have outlined in this guide.
- The financial forecast is the tool that will enable you to check that your project can be profitable and to estimate the investment and initial financing requirements.
- The business plan is the document that your financial partners will ask you to produce when seeking finance.
- Once you have started trading, it will be essential to keep your financial forecasts up to date in order to maintain visibility of the future cash flow of your bowling lane.
- Leveraging a financial planning and analysis platform that seamlessly integrates forecasts, business plans, and real-time performance monitoring — like The Business Plan Shop — simplifies the process and mitigates risks associated with launching a business.
We hope this practical guide has given you a better understanding of how to open a bowling lane. Please do not hesitate to contact our team if you have any questions or if you would like to share your experience of setting up your own business.
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Founder & CEO at The Business Plan Shop Ltd
