How to open a paragliding club?
Are you keen to open a paragliding club 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 paragliding club 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 paragliding club and what key decisions you’ll need to make along the way.
Ready? Let’s get started!
Understanding how a paragliding club works
The very first step when exploring a business idea such as starting a paragliding club 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 paragliding club's business model are to:
- Talk to paragliding club owners with experience
- Work a few months in a paragliding club already in operation
- Take a training course
Talk to paragliding club owners with experience
Experienced paragliding club 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 paragliding club already in operation
Obtaining work experience in the industry can be a crucial factor in confirming whether you truly want to start a paragliding club, 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 paragliding club.
Take a training course
Obtaining training within your chosen industry is another way to get a feel for how a paragliding club 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 paragliding club, 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 paragliding club 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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Assembling your paragliding club's founding team
The next step to opening your paragliding club is to think about the ideal founding team, or to decide to go in alone.
Starting and growing a successful business doesn't have to be a solo journey and setting up a paragliding club with several co-founders is generally easier. The business benefits from a management team with a wider skillset, decisions are made together, and the financial risk is shared among the partners, making the journey more collaborative and less daunting.
But, running a business with several partners brings its own challenges. Disagreements between co-founders are quite common, and these can pose risks to the business. That's why it's crucial to consider all aspects before starting your own business.
We won't go into too much detail here, as this is a complex topic that deserves its own guide, but we do recommend that you ask yourself the following questions:
- What is the ideal number of co-founders for this venture?
- Are you on the same wavelength as your potential partners in terms of vision and ambition?
- How will you deal with potential failure?
Let's look at each of these questions in more detail.
What is the ideal number of co-founders for this venture?
To answer this question you will need to consider the following:
- What skills do you need to run the business? Are you lacking any?
- How much startup capital do you need? How much do you have?
- How are key decisions going to be made? - It is usually advisable to have an odd number of partners (or a majority shareholder) to help break the tie.
Put simply, your co-founders contribute skills, capital, or both. Increasing the number of partners becomes advantageous when there is a deficiency in either of these resources.
Are you on the same wavelength as your potential partners in terms of vision and ambition?
Your business partners should share the same short and long-term vision, be it business expansion or social responsibility, to avoid future frustrations and simplify decision-making. Different views are natural, but alignment is ideal.
In any case, you should think of having an exit mechanism in place in case one of the partners wants to move on.
How will you deal with potential failure?
We wish you nothing but success when starting up and growing your paragliding club, but it's always wise to have a backup in case things don't go as planned.
How you deal with a potential failure can vary significantly based on the relationship you have with your business partner (close friend, spouse, ex-colleague, etc.) and the personal circumstances of each of you.
For instance, starting a business with your spouse might seem appealing, but if it doesn't succeed, you risk losing 100% of the household income at once, which could be stressful.
Similarly, going into a partnership with a friend can put pressure on the friendship in the event of failure or when you need to make difficult decisions.
There is no wrong answer, but it is essential to carefully evaluate your options before starting up to ensure you're well-prepared for any potential outcomes.
Undertake market research for a paragliding club
The next step to start your paragliding club is to use market research to check that there is indeed an opportunity to be seized. Let's take a look at what this involves.
The objectives of market research
In a nutshell, doing market research enables you to verify that there is a business opportunity for your company to seize, and to size the opportunity precisely.
First of all, market research enables you to assess whether the market you're targeting is large enough to withstand the arrival of a new competitor: your paragliding club.
The market analysis will also help you define the product and service offering of your paragliding club, and transcribe it into a market positioning and concept that will strike a chord with your target customers.
Finally, your market research will provide you with the data you need to draw up your sales and marketing plan and estimate the revenue potential of your paragliding club.
Analyse key trends in the industry
Market research for a paragliding club must always begin with a thorough investigation of consumer habits and current industry trends.
Normally, paragliding club market research begins with a sectorial analysis which will provide you with a better understanding of how the industry is organized, who the major players are, and what are the current market trends.
Assess the demand
A demand analysis enables you to accurately assess the expectations of your paragliding club's future customers.
Your analysis will focus on the following questions:
- How many potential customers are present in the geographical areas served by your company?
- What are their expectations and purchasing behaviors?
- How much are they willing to spend?
- Are there different customer segments with distinct characteristics?
- How to communicate and where to promote your business to reach your target market?
The main goal of your demand analysis is to identify potential customer segments that your paragliding club could target and what products or services would meet these customers' expectations.
Supply side
Supply-side analysis looks at the products and services offered by your competitors on the market.
You should focus here on the following questions:
- Who will your competitors be?
- Are they any good?
- Where are they located?
- Who do they target?
- What range of products and services do they offer?
- Are they small independent players?
- What prices do they charge?
- How do they sell their products and services?
- Do their concepts appeal to customers?
One of the aims of your supply-side analysis will be to gather the elements that will enable you to define a market positioning that will set you apart from what is already being done on the market, so as to avoid direct confrontation with competitors already established (more on that below).
Regulations
Market research is also an opportunity to look at the regulations and conditions required to do business.
You should ask yourself the following questions:
- Does it take a specific degree to open a paragliding club?
- Do you need specific licences or business permits?
- What are the main regulations applicable to your future business?
Given that your project is still in its early stages, your analysis of the regulation can be carried out at a high level for the time being. You just want to identify the main laws applicable and check that you meet the conditions for running this type of business before going any further.
Once your project is more advanced, you can come back to the regulation in greater detail with your lawyer.
Concluding your market research
Your market research should lead you to draw a clear conclusion about your chances of commercial success of your business idea:
- Either the market is saturated, and you'd better look into another business idea.
- Or there's an opportunity to be seized in the geographical area you're considering, and you can go ahead with your project to open a paragliding club.
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How should I position my paragliding club on the market?
The next step to start your paragliding club is to define precisely the market positioning your company will adopt in order to capitalise on the opportunity 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 the competition. Being perceived as a low-cost solution, for example.
To find a concept and a market positioning that will resonate with your customers, you need to address the following issues:
- How can you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
- Is it better to start or buy a paragliding club already in operation?
- How will you validate your concept and market positioning before investing in the business?
Let's look at these aspects in more detail.
How can you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
Opening a paragliding club means starting with a major disadvantage compared with competitors already active on the market.
While you will have to create everything from scratch, your competitors already have everything in place.
Your competitors' teams know the business well, whereas yours has only just been recruited, their customers are loyal and they benefit from word of mouth that you don't yet have.
So you're going to need a solid plan to succeed in taking market share from your competitors and making your mark.
There are a number of aspects to consider in order to try to avoid direct confrontation if possible:
- Can you target a different customer base than your competitors?
- Can you offer products or services that are different from or complementary to what your competitors already sell?
- How will your competitors react to your paragliding club entering their market?
- Can you build a sustainable competitive advantage that will enable you to compete with your current and future competitors?
Is it better to start or buy a paragliding club already in operation?
The alternative to setting up a new independent business is to buy out and take over a paragliding club already in operation.
A takeover is a good way of reducing the risk of your project compared with a pure start-up.
Taking over a business has two enormous advantages over setting up a new one: you start out on an equal footing with your competitors since you take over the team and the customer base, and you don't increase the supply on the market enabling you to maintain the existing balance on the market where the business operates.
However, the capital requirements for a takeover are higher because the business will have to be bought from its previous owners.
How will you validate your concept and market positioning before investing in the business?
However you decide to set up your business, you will need to ensure that there is a good fit between what you sell and what customers are looking to buy.
To do this, you'll need to meet your target customers to present your products or services and check that they meet their expectations.
Deciding where to base your paragliding club
The next step to opening a paragliding club 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 paragliding club, one that meets as many of the following factors as possible could be ideal:
- Visibility and foot traffic - A paragliding club relies on attracting customers and having high visibility and foot traffic can help with this. It also allows for potential customers to see the club in action and generate interest.
- Parking space, road and public transport accessibility - A paragliding club requires a large open space for launching and landing, as well as ample parking for customers. It is important for the location to have easy road access and nearby public transport options for convenience.
- Proximity to target customers - A paragliding club would benefit from being located near areas with a high concentration of adventurous and outdoor enthusiasts, as they are more likely to be interested in the club's services.
- Competitor presence - It is important to consider the presence of existing paragliding clubs in the area as it could impact the demand for services and competition for customers.
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 paragliding club?
The next step to start a paragliding club 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 paragliding club's legal form important?
Choosing the right legal form for your paragliding club 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 paragliding club'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 paragliding club'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.
How much money do I need to start a paragliding club?
To answer this key question, we first need to look at the resources you'll need to launch your paragliding club and keep it running on a daily basis. Let's take a look at what that entails.
Since each venture is distinct, providing an average budget for starting a paragliding club is impossible.
We strongly advise careful consideration when reading estimates on the web. It’s best to ask yourself the following questions:
- Is my project similar (location, concept, planned size, etc.)?
- Can I trust where this information is coming from?
- Is the data fresh or stale?
Your thinking behind the investments and human resources required to launch and operate the business will then enable you to cost each item and include them in your financial forecast (which we'll look at later in this guide).
Once complete, the forecast will give you a precise idea of the initial investment required and profitability potential for your business idea.
Startup costs and investments to start a paragliding club
Let's start with the investments. To set up a paragliding club, initial working capital and investments can include the following items:
- Paragliders: These are the main equipment used in paragliding and are essential for the club to provide to its members. They can range in cost depending on the type and brand, but they are a necessary investment in order for the club to operate.
- Towing Equipment: In order to launch a paraglider, a tow line is needed to provide the necessary lift. This equipment needs to be regularly maintained and replaced if damaged, making it an important capital expenditure for the club.
- Safety Gear: Paragliding can be a risky sport, so it is important for the club to have proper safety gear for its members. This can include helmets, harnesses, and reserve parachutes, which all need to be periodically replaced.
- Clubhouse and Storage Facilities: A paragliding club may need a physical location for meetings, trainings, and storage of equipment. Building or renting a clubhouse and storage facilities can be a significant capital expenditure for the club.
- Transportation: In order to transport equipment to different flying sites, a paragliding club may need to invest in a vehicle or trailer. This can be a necessary expense for the club's operations.
Of course, you will need to adapt this list to your company's specific needs.
Staffing requirements to operate a paragliding club
You'll also need to think about the staff required to run the business on a day-to-day basis.
The human resources required will vary according to the size of your company.
Once again, this list is only indicative and will need to be adjusted according to the specifics of your paragliding club.
Operating expenses of a paragliding club
The final point to consider when analyzing the resources required is the question of operating costs.
Operating expenses for a paragliding club may include:
- Staff Costs: Salaries, wages, and benefits for the pilots, instructors, ground crew, and administrative staff.
- Accountancy Fees: Fees for professional accounting services to manage the club's financial records and tax preparation.
- Insurance Costs: Liability insurance to cover the club, its equipment, and its members in case of accidents or damage.
- Software Licences: Annual fees for software used for booking flights, managing memberships, and tracking finances.
- Banking Fees: Charges for maintaining the club's bank account and processing transactions.
- Fuel Costs: Expenses for fuel used in the club's vehicles and equipment, such as the tow winch and motorized paragliders.
- Maintenance and Repair Costs: Costs for regular maintenance and unexpected repairs on the club's equipment, such as paragliders, harnesses, and helmets.
- Rent/Lease Expenses: Rent or lease payments for the club's office, hangar, and training facilities.
- Marketing and Advertising Costs: Expenses for promoting the club through various channels, such as social media, print ads, and sponsorships.
- Training Costs: Fees for training materials, certification courses, and workshops for instructors and members.
- Utility Expenses: Monthly bills for electricity, water, and other utilities used in the club's facilities.
- Office Supplies: Costs for office essentials such as paper, ink, and stationery.
- Vehicle Expenses: Costs for maintaining and insuring the club's vehicles used for transportation and towing.
- Uniforms and Gear: Expenses for purchasing and maintaining uniforms and safety gear for club members.
- Professional Memberships: Fees for joining professional organizations and associations related to paragliding.
Here also, this list will need to be tailored to the specifics of your paragliding club but should be a good starting point for your budget.
How will I promote my paragliding club's?
The next step to starting a paragliding club is to think about strategies that will help you attract and retain clients.
Consider the following questions:
- How will you attract as many customers as possible?
- How will you build customer loyalty?
- Who will be responsible for advertising and promotion? What budget can be allocated to these activities?
- How many sales and how much revenue can that generate?
Once again, the resources required will depend on your ambitions and the size of your company. But you could potentially action the initiatives below.
Your paragliding club's sales plan will also be affected by variations in consumer demand, like changes in activity during peak holiday seasons, and the dynamics within 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 paragliding club's financial forecast
The next step to start your paragliding club: putting your financial projections together.
What is the financial forecast for a paragliding club?
A forecast is a quantified decision-making document that shows the initial investment required to open a paragliding club and the company's potential profitability and cash flow generation over the next 3 to 5 years.
As you think about your paragliding club 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 paragliding club.
In fact, creating financial projections is the only way to assess the amount of initial financing you'll need to open your paragliding club, 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 paragliding club'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 forecast look like?
Once ready, your paragliding club forecast will be presented using the financial tables below.
The forecasted profit & loss statement
The profit & loss forecast gives you a clear picture of your business’ expected growth over the first three to five years, and whether it’s likely to be profitable or not.
The projected balance sheet
Your paragliding club's forecasted balance sheet enables you to assess your financial structure and working capital requirements.
The projected cash flow statement
A projected cash flow statement to start a paragliding club is used to show how much cash the business is expected to generate or consume over the first three years.
What is the best financial forecasting tool for starting your paragliding club?
The simplest and easiest way to create your paragliding club'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.
Choose a name and register your paragliding club
The next phase in launching your paragliding club involves selecting a name for your company.
This stage is trickier than it seems. Finding the name itself is quite fun; the difficulty lies in finding one that is available and being the first to reserve it.
You cannot take a name that is similar to a name already used by a competitor or protected by a registered trademark without inevitably risking legal action.
So you need to find a name that is available, and be able to register it before someone else can.
In addition, you will probably want to use the same name for:
- Your company’s legal name - Example LTD
- Your business trading name - Example
- The trademark - Example ®
- Your company’s domain name - Example.com
The problem is that the procedures for registering these different names are carried out in different places, each with their own deadlines:
- Registering a domain name takes only a few minutes
- Registering a new trademark takes at least 12 weeks (if your application is accepted)
- The time taken to register a new business depends on the country, but it's generally fast
You will therefore be faced with the choice of: either registering everything at once and hoping that your name will be accepted everywhere, or proceeding step by step in order to minimise costs, but taking the risk that someone else will register one of the names you wanted in the meantime.
Our advice is to discuss strategy with your legal counsel (see further down in this guide) and prioritise your domain names and registered trademarks. You'll always have the option of using a trade name that's different from your company's legal name, and that's not a big deal.
To check that the name you want is not already in use, you should consult:
- Your country's business register
- The relevant trademark registers depending on which countries you want to register your trade mark in
- A domain name reservation company such as GoDaddy
- An Internet search engine
In this area too, your legal counsel will be able to help with the research and formalities.
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What corporate identity do I want for my paragliding club?
The following step to start a paragliding club is to define your company's visual identity.
Visual identity is part of the DNA of your paragliding club: 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 paragliding club'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 paragliding club 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 paragliding club 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.
Navigate the legal and regulatory requirements for launching your paragliding club
The next thing to do in getting a paragliding club off the ground is to handle all the legal and regulatory requirements. We recommend that you be accompanied by a law firm for all of the steps outlined below.
Intellectual property
One of your priorities will be to ensure that your company's intellectual property is adequately protected.
As explained before, you can choose to register a trademark. Your lawyer can help you with a detailed search to make sure your chosen trademark is unique and doesn't clash with existing ones.
They'll assist in preparing the required documents and steer you in picking the right categories and locations for trademark registration.
Moreover, your lawyer can offer guidance on additional measures to protect other intellectual property assets your company may have.
Getting your paragliding club paperwork in order
For day-to-day operations, your paragliding club will need to rely on a set of contractual documents.
Your exact needs in this respect will depend on the country in which you are launching your paragliding club, the number of partners and the envisaged size of the company.
However, you will probably need at least the following documents:
- 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
Operating your business legally may require licences and business permits. The exact requirements applicable to your situation will depend on the country in which you set up your paragliding club.
The lawyers who advise you will also be able to guide you with regard to all the rules applicable to your business.
Similarly, your accountant will be able to help you 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.
Create a business plan for your paragliding club
The next step to open a paragliding club: put together your business plan.
What is a business plan?
To keep it simple, a business plan comprises two crucial components:
- Firstly, a numerical part, the financial forecast (which we mentioned earlier), which highlights the initial financing requirements and profitability potential of the paragliding club,
- And a written, well-argued section that presents your project in detail, aims to convince the reader of its chances of success, and provides the context needed to assess whether the forecast is realistic or not.
The business plan will enable you to verify the coherence of your project, and ensure that the company can be profitable before incurring further costs. It will also help you convince business and financial partners.
As you can see, your business plan must be convincing and error-free.
How to write a business plan for a paragliding club?
Nowadays, the modern and most efficient way to write a paragliding club business plan is to use startup business plan software like the one we offer at The Business Plan Shop.
Using The Business Plan Shop to create a business plan for aparagliding club 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 this type of 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 paragliding club
With your business plan in hand, you can tackle one of the final steps to open a paragliding club 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 paragliding club 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 paragliding club 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 paragliding club 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 paragliding club, 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 paragliding club
Multiple solutions are available to help you raise the initial financing you need to open your paragliding club. A minimum amount of equity will be needed to give the project credibility, and bank financing can be sought to complete the financing.
Launching your paragliding club and monitoring progress against your forecast
Once you’ve secured financing, you will finally be ready to launch your paragliding club. Congratulations!
Celebrate the launch of your business and acknowledge the hard work that brought you here, but remember, this is where the real work begins.
As you know, 50% of business start-ups do not pass the five-year mark. Your priority will be to do everything to secure your business's future.
To do this, it is key to keep an eye on your business plan to ensure that you are on track to achieve your goals.
No one can predict the future with certainty, so it’s likely that your paragliding club's financial performance will differ from what you predicted in your forecast.
This is why it is recommended to make several forecasts:
- A base case (most likely)
- An optimistic scenario
- And a pessimistic scenario to test the robustness of your financial model
If you follow this approach, your numbers will hopefully be better than your optimistic case and you can consider accelerating your expansion plans. That’s what we wish you anyway!
If, unfortunately, your figures are below your base case (or worse than your pessimistic case), you will need to quickly put in place corrective actions, or consider stopping the activity.
The key, in terms of decision-making, is to regularly compare your real accounting data to your paragliding club's forecast to:
- Measure the discrepancies and promptly identify where the variances with your base case come from
- Adjust your financial forecast as the year progresses to maintain visibility on future cash flow and cash position
There is nothing worse than waiting for your accountant to prepare your year-end accounts, which can take several months after the end of your financial year (up to nine months in the UK for example), to realise that the performance over the past year was well below the your base case and that your paragliding club will not have enough cash to keep running over the next twelve months.
This is why using a financial forecasting solution that integrates with accounting software and offers actuals vs. forecast tracking out of the box, like the financial dashboards we offer at The Business Plan Shop, greatly facilitates the task and significantly reduces the risk associated with starting a business.
Need inspiration for your business plan?
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Key takeaways
- To open a paragliding club 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 paragliding club.
- 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 paragliding club. 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
