Lighting? Check.
Audio-visual? Check.
For a minute, you would think the owners of Great Play in Scarsdale were putting on a theatrical production.
But for Keith and Jyl Camhi of Stamford, Conn., these are all the basic steps in running one sensory-intense gym class.
Behind the walls onto which images are projected is the control room where fitness curriculums for kids are developed and music designed to deliver that sensory experience are downloaded.
“From the beginning, we knew this was more than a two-gym thing,” said Keith Camhi, who founded the first Great Play location in Stamford with wife, Jyl, in 2006. “We invested over $1 million in creating the infrastructure that became Great Play.”
In the fall of 2008, the couple opened the 3,000-square-foot Scarsdale location and that same year, the first franchise test was born in Seattle, Wash.
Great Play was conceived by that entrepreneurial mantra of “we can find a way to do this better,” Jyl said.
“My son had some occupational therapy needs as a young child and he loved to be active, but it was hard for him to be active,” she said. “No child should be labeled as ”˜not athlete.”™ You can give them the tools they need to be active. I think that was our driving force.”
Keith Camhi had founded FitLinxx Inc., a fitness technology provider and Jyl had a background in management and sales at Microsoft.
From a “market dynamic standpoint,” Keith thought Great Play would make for a great business.
“A typical investment is anywhere from $150,000 on the low end up to the $200,000s depending largely on your build-out costs,” he said. “It”™s designed to cash flow pretty much from the moment the door opens because there”™s an up-front investment. Parents start paying for classes on four to eight week increments.”
A four-week program is about $99.
The Camhis have garnered interest from both their clientele and franchisees as a result of the detailed curriculum Jyl designed, which combines technology and science in motor skill and sports skill development.
“We”™re doing a very methodical rollout,” Keith said of franchising locations across the country. “We”™re doing about one every quarter. We”™re being very selective about who we take in. We want them to follow the system and do a good job on it.”
