“We're not looking for another drop-off or drop-off in the sense of parents opening the door and driving up in a caravan. We want to make sure we incorporate valuable life skills into our program. It was.”
— Steve Butts
background
• Florida-based NinjaTrix is targeting five new locations this year.
• Partnered with Central Martial Arts to manufacture NinjaTrix obstacles, reducing investment costs for franchisees.
Megan Glenn asks emerging brand leaders what makes them tick, and presents her edited responses in this column every issue. To suggest a subject, email mglenn@franchisetimes.com.
How did you come up with NinjaTrix?
It started with a martial arts school about 35 years ago. Since there were no facilities in the area, I created a gymnastics club. Looking at the trends, I noticed fewer girls participating in martial arts programs and almost no boys participating in gymnastics.
We began looking for opportunities to continually impact our community. My administrative assistant told me that ninja type programs are becoming popular. It was basically parkour, a combination of martial arts and gymnastics. We looked at it and brainstormed.
I wanted to create a bridge between our two programs. As we progressed through that thought process, we arrived at the concept of NinjaTrix. Give kids basic martial arts skills, tumbling skills, and basic parkour. We started putting together a curriculum for him in 2016. Along that path, I started teaching in 2017. We participated in industry trade shows and events. We spoke to our industry supplier and he was so excited about this that he is now a partner in the obstacles we use in schools.
What inspired the franchise program?
We have started licensing our program to martial arts schools. I got up really early. We got up to 73 licenses, two in Canada and one in Germany, so the reach was very exciting. I learned that I had to be very careful not to cross the line into franchise territory. If we didn't step into that arena, we wouldn't be able to support schools and do what we want to do at the scale we want to do.
At that time, the number of prospects for the Ninja program was increasing, making franchising much easier. It became a natural next step.
There is one location. What makes you confident that this model will be successful?
What I decided to do is start completely new and fresh, like a franchisee would do. Maybe someone doesn't have much experience or was just hired. If they come from ground zero, how quickly can you get them to understand the situation? Our aim was to make the school profitable within 12 months and we were able to achieve that.
What we needed to put together was a curriculum that we could safely and effectively teach to our children and franchisees. We rode the waves. It was a combination of opportunity and timing, and it was just starting to materialize. There are other ninja schools that follow American Ninja Warrior. There is also an obstacle course, but the main target audience is ages 3 to 12. What we drew from our experience was how to create a rewarding and effective program for our students.
We want to ensure that our franchisees have all the support they need to successfully open a store. Personally, I'd like it to be closer to home for now so I can do it easily. We want to ensure the success of these early adopters, as they later become advocates for new franchisees.
