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This adventure appears in the December 2017 affair of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
Jon Charlton ability be a hatchet-throwing prodigy. On the helicopter pilot’s second-ever throw, the hatchet swings one absolute rotation, handle over blade and sinks into a ambition 12 anxiety away. On his third throw, he hits the bull’s-eye. Thunk! The complete is acutely satisfying.
His wife, JoyAnn Charlton, is a altered story. Her hatchets animation off the ambition at capricious angles and ballyhoo to the accurate floor. She gives up quickly. No matter. She and Jon didn’t absolutely appear to Stumpy’s Hatchet Abode to bandy hatchets. They came here, to this contrarily asleep automated allotment of Eatontown, N.J., because they’re in the bazaar for a turnkey business that will accomplish them money while acceptance them the chargeless time they charge to accession two kids. And they accept a hatchet-throwing authorization may be aloof the thing.
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“Jon and I accept been exploring the authorization route,” says JoyAnn, who additionally happens to be a franchising attorney. “We alive all the way out in Bucks County, Penn., and we had two accompany on two abstracted occasions allocution about accepting a accumulation calm to accomplish a cruise here.” The fizz affronted their interest, so they came to accommodated the owners on a “discovery day.”
This is an abnormal referral. But Stumpy’s is an abnormal business, to say the least. Its barter appearance up in groups -- altogether and available parties are best common, but the business hosts aggregation retreats, babyish showers and alike annulment parties. Anniversary accumulation rents a arrest lined with animate fencing, and everybody takes turns casting hatchets at targets. It’s not clashing darts, or alike bowling, except that about everybody who shows up is a abstinent to the sport. Barter are acceptable to accompany their own aliment and beer -- about everybody drinks during play. Stumpy’s profits appear primarily from renting out the pits and affairs T-shirts in the lobby.
The business began as a second-act career move for the two founding couples: Trish and Mark Oliphant, and Kelly and Stuart Josberger. Previously, Trish formed in commodity sales for Ralph Lauren, and Mark was a abutment carpenter; Kelly had been an elementary academy principal, and Stuart an IT ambassador in the aforementioned academy district. The two couples docked their boats -- alleged Nauty and Nice -- at the aforementioned yacht club. Through sailing and drinking, they artificial a bond.
One summer night in 2015, afterwards a somewhat boozy barbecue affair at the Josbergers’ house, Mark and Stuart started throwing a hatchet at a butt in the backyard. It looked like fun, so the ladies joined. Again the neighbors did, too. It was good, bashed aerial jinks, but annihilation that seemed abnormally activity changing.
A ages later, while bubbler a cranberry beer at a bounded brewery, Trish angry to Mark. “We should accessible a microbrewery,” she said. Mark laughed. “I alone apperceive how to alcohol beer,” he said.
Trish anticipation for a moment. “Well, why don’t we do the affair with the hatchets, but do it inside?”
Bull’s-eye. Mark and Trish scribbled a abecedarian business plan on a cocktail napkin and ran it beeline to the Josbergers’ house. “What do yous think?” asked Trish, in her blubbery Jersey accent. They anticipation it articulate great.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Stumpy's Hatchet House
Things confused apprenticed afterwards that. The founding four alleged the new aggregation afterwards their aboriginal target: the butt in the Josbergers’ backyard. They absitively they’d accumulate the hire low by award an automated barn amplitude off the baffled aisle -- a claiming that accepted tricky. The ally looked at eight locations afore award a appropriately zoned, 4,880-square-foot above action flat with a freeholder who was acquiescent to an base alliance of booze and aerial weapons. They talked to him for two hours afore he was assertive that the abstraction was accepted and, added important, that it was beneath alarming than boxing.
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Then came the hatchets. They activated about 12 afore award one they loved. Trish acclimated her business acquaintance to architecture apparel, while Mark loaded the bed of his F-150 with barge and set to architecture an ambiance that captured the aspect of a tree-lined backyard. He afraid New Jersey cedar on the walls and replaced aperture handles with old axes. He erected throwing pits and ancient a raw-edge blooming countertop in the lobby. In the meantime, Kelly and Trish pitched the abstraction to servers and bartenders aloof to barometer their reactions. “Picture this: a abode breadth you can go and bandy hatchets,” they’d say. Bodies admired it.
In April 2016, Stumpy’s Hatchet Abode opened. Six months afterwards that, it was hosting 400 to 500 barter a week. Accession year later, actuality they are, allure authorization partners. Which is an exceptionally adventurous action for any startup, abundant beneath one that started off as a bit of a lark. But they’re committed. “We anticipate this is activity to be the abutting beachcomber in calm recreation,” says Trish. That ability able-bodied be true. But like any franchisor with a buzzy idea, they’re activity to accept to move fast. Because no amount the concept, antagonism is never far behind.
After Jon and JoyAnn’s clandestine ability tour, they achieve about a 12-foot-long table that Mark congenital to fit the appointment room. Out in the pits, the din of success and abortion grows louder. For every hatchet that sinks into wood, accession crashes to the ground. There are action cries and taunts, acclaim and balked expletives.
“Franchising was never our intention,” Trish says to JoyAnn, back the closing credibility out how apprenticed Stumpy’s is moving. Her aerated activity makes her a accustomed spokesperson, and indeed, she takes the advance on best conversations. “But we had so abounding bodies allurement that we thought, Maybe we should accede this.”
Still, the anticipation seemed too daunting. At atomic until Trish’s sister met a man alleged Chris Conner at a restaurant barter appearance in Houston. She was there affairs honey; he was apery his firm, Authorization Business Systems, a soup-to-nuts consultancy out of Atlanta. But the two anguish up talking about Stumpy’s. A hatchet house? What the hell is that? Conner didn’t apprehend much, but he was analytical abundant to ability out. “If I’d alleged and they’d been camp bonkers, I wouldn’t accept been surprised,” he says. “But I’ve met so abounding crazy entrepreneurs in my activity that now I try to abstain acumen until I’ve had a adventitious to attending at the business.”
A buzz alarm to Trish accustomed her sanity, and Conner appointed a flight to New Jersey. He collection out to Eatontown acquisitive to see two things: profits and replicability.
On profits, Stumpy’s was gold. The aggregation was all but press cash. Anniversary of the eight hatchet-throwing pits accommodates up to 10 customers. The fee to bandy is $20 per hour, and best bodies book two. Afterwards factoring in $20 T-shirts and $3 beer coozies, Stumpy’s letters an boilerplate absorb of $61.64 from its customers. And with no aliment or big-ticket merchandise, the company’s aerial is appreciably low. In August, afterwards 16 months in business, it hit $1 actor in gross sales.
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But can the business be replicated? That’s harder to assess, and article Conner admits to occasionally accepting wrong. His asperous criterion is this: “There should be a appealing acceptable adventitious that you could advise a approved dude off the artery how to run the business.” The best franchises crave no abstruse processes and no specialized workers, he says. “You don’t accept to be a chef to accessible a McDonald’s, nor do you accept to be a mural artist to run a U.S. Lawns franchise. [The accumulated appointment has] fabricated it easy.”
This is conceivably Stumpy’s greatest advantage. The business is annihilation if not simple. It actually started on a cocktail napkin, and the founders accept ashore to the aboriginal plan. They could accept installed a kitchen, but instead they tossed some commitment airheaded on a counter. They could accept congenital a bar, but instead they bought an ice apparatus so barter could arctic whatever beverages they came in with. The business is so accessible to run that back the founders account new hires, they don’t alike ask about appropriate skills. They absolutely don’t affliction if you can bandy a hatchet. They attending at charisma. As Trish cast to say: “You can advise accession to bandy a hatchet, but you can’t advise them to accept a personality.”
Conner admired what he saw, and the Stumpy’s founders admired him. They began a four-month action of advancing to advertise the aboriginal franchise. Under Conner’s guidance, Stumpy’s filed all the all-important paperwork and developed business plans, business material and training manuals that could be anesthetized on to new buyers. The aboriginal website, advised by Kelly, was replaced with a able able armpit that directs alpha hatchet enthusiasts to their abutting location.
Surprisingly, Stumpy’s faced no authoritative hurdles. There’s no law adjoin throwing hatchets indoors. But as they anguish their way through the process, the founders had to attending adamantine at every program, action and acceding that authentic its circadian operations. To authorization is to carbon a company, so the basal DNA charge be strong. “A baby aberration in franchising gets abstract over and over again,” says Mark Siebert, CEO of iFranchise Group. “It’s advance on steroids.”
Stumpy’s, for instance, had a botheration with its targets, which, as you would expect, consistently lose the action adjoin aerial hatchets. Anniversary ambition is fabricated from seven two-by-sixes, and anniversary week, Stumpy’s goes through 150 to 200. Aboriginal on, they were handmade. Mark was acid and painting boards afore barter came in for the day, appropriate in the average of the hatchet house, and again swapping some of them out amid reservations. Anniversary ambition was a 15-minute job that appropriate an electric assignment and austere upper-body strength. Mark, a carpenter, was about the alone one who could do it. “We’d accept bodies cat-and-mouse to throw, and I’m over actuality conduct in screws,” he says. “It was consistently a rush.”
To accomplish it as a franchise, the arrangement would charge to be faster, easier, and scalable. Stumpy’s bare targets that anyone could bandy out, aboriginal day on the job.
The band-aid came in two parts. Aboriginal Mark invented a patent-pending “quick-change ambition system.” In abode of screws, it relies on a set of clamps that pin the boards calm at the top and bottom. To audience it to Jon and JoyAnn, he unscrews the clamps with his fingers. All seven boards alleviate at once, and in beneath than 60 seconds, he’s swapped out three planks and retightened the target. “Anybody can do this,” he says. “It requires no appropriate skill, it makes no noise and it accelerates our turnaround time.”
“But breadth do you accomplish the boards?” JoyAnn asks.
“We bought a warehouse,” says Mark.
That was footfall two: Stumpy’s congenital a ambition branch bisected an hour away, in Toms River. With the advice of four part-time employees, a complete system and a refrigerator abounding of beer, Mark’s aggregation can agitate out targets by the truckload. “You email us to say you charge boards, and we’ll accelerate them,” he says. “They’ll appearance up at your aperture on a tractor-trailer, corrective and cut.”
They’re not free, of course. The boards will amount anniversary franchisee $5.25 each, additional shipping. But what Stumpy’s is affairs actuality is logistical ease. They’ve simplified the challenges of active the business. What started as a cocktail-napkin abstraction is starting to attending like a scalable turnkey operation -- as continued as these aboriginal partnerships pay off.
For his part, Conner is action on atomic advance in the advancing months. He says a archetypal franchisor, bold it starts with a advantageous accumulation action and a replicable model, will acceptable advertise about amid two and six franchises in its aboriginal year. Stumpy’s has already awash three -- one in New Jersey and two in Texas. At the amount it’s going, Conner estimates that it will advertise a dozen.
“This is such a new abstraction that I was afraid about expectations at first,” says Conner. “But I’ve gone from agnostic to absolutely pumped.”
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Image Credit: Courtesy of Stumpy's Hatchet House
Discovery day’s capital accident is a PowerPoint presentation that outlines the capacity of award absolute estate, training a agents and advancing to accessible a new hatchet house. The accent is on affluence of operation. Stumpy’s accumulated will accumulation the targets, signage, authoritative accoutrement like software-loaded tablets and hatchets, which the aggregation buys in aggregate at a abatement from Home Depot. (It’s still alive on a accord with Estwing, the hatchet manufacturer.) Mark will body the custom decor, and Trish is designing a attending book to accommodate a alternative of couches, rugs and artwork.
The affair progresses to the adamantine sell. “Say you adjudge to assurance a authorization acceding today and accord us a check,” says John Naylor, the authorization agent who sat agilely during the presentation. “We’re adage almost a ages to acquisition a location, and as anon as we get that building, we’re activity to book training. You guys appetite January? Let’s plan for January. Let’s plan for December.”
Jon and JoyAnn barter glances. Naylor continues: “As anon as you guys assurance up, you can lock in your territory. We accept no one attractive at [your area] appropriate now, but at the aforementioned time, we accept some things advancing up with Stumpy’s. It’s active now, but I aloof can’t brainstorm the abutting brace of months.”
It’s the day’s alone adumbration at what the founders apperceive but can’t share: that they’ve filmed an adventure of Shark Tank, which will air a few weeks afterwards (they got the money). It’s bright that the civic absorption will accord the cast a boost, but until the adventure is public, the Josbergers and Oliphants are apprenticed to blackout about it.
There’s accession acumen for Naylor’s haste. The hatchet-throwing industry is heating up. Unbeknownst to the founders back they launched Stumpy’s, hatchet throwing has already developed into article of a cottage action in Canada. The Backyard Axe Throwing Alliance (BATL) launched in Toronto in 2011, and it now boasts 11 locations. “The alpha of 2015 is back we started to see antagonism bustling up,” says Matt Wilson, architect of BATL. “And the accomplished two years accept been appealing aggressive.”
In the 18 months back Stumpy’s opened, hatchet-throwing accessories accept amorphous agriculture up all over the United States. Some of them focus on alliance play, others on parties. At atomic one company, Axe Monkeys, in Las Vegas, which takes a ancestors access by allowing accouchement and abhorrent booze, is additionally aggravating to franchise.
“With imitators bustling up, it’s about accepting to the breadth aboriginal and ambience the standard,” says Armando DiRienzo, a Stumpy’s client who wrote his acquirement analysis three weeks afterwards affair the founders aftermost summer. “Stumpy’s provides absolutely what you appetite from these kinds of places.”
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Jon and JoyAnn agree, but three weeks afterwards their analysis day, they’re still belief the numbers. It’s understandable: In accession to the $30,000 authorization fee, they’d charge almost $350,000 for the build-out, hatchets and targets, business and added costs arch up to aperture day, and for the aboriginal six months of operation. They’re attractive into small-business loans and, back Jon was a aggressive pilot, adept programs. They’re additionally cat-and-mouse on quotes from insurers and researching their bounded rental market.
What’s more, the aboriginal three franchises accept yet to defended locations. Two of them spent added than three months searching. Zoning is proving to be a afraid point. Bounded districts don’t accept bright spots for BYOB hatchet houses, so aboriginal buyers are award that they accept to address to zoning commissioners, which takes time, in an amphitheatre breadth time is of the essence.
“The kiss of afterlife for a new authorization is that you advertise to a brace of bodies and they don’t accomplish money,” says Conner. “That will bore you faster than anything, because now cipher abroad is activity to buy from you.”
For now, though, Stumpy’s is barreling ahead. Including Jon and JoyAnn, they’re allure an broker and a dozen abeyant franchisees. The Oliphants and Josbergers accept the first-mover advantage, and they’re not about to decay it. “We were the aboriginal in the space, and additionally the aboriginal to franchise,” Trish Oliphant says. “That’s huge.”
