Thinking of starting a business here in Madison (for sale, home)

[MarvinE]

And I would love some feedback on my idea. Basically, I want to create an Internet gaming, cyber cafe. It would be a place targeted for teenagers, college students and adults!

I would offer some of these services:

1. During the day when the teenagers are in school, I would have computers available for adults to surf the web, offer coffe, and possibly food, classes on computer repair, software use, etc.

2. During the evening, I would offer pc gaming, as well as console games on big screen tv's for teenagers. I would have energy drinks for sale, as well as food.

3. On the weekends, I would have lock ins, where teens could come to particpate in either tournaments being held, or a LAN party with their closes friends who may not have computers at home that are able to handle to current games out today.

Plus this would give parents peace of mind to know their teenagers aren't out on the streets gettnig into God knows what, but are in a safe business like my own.

I would offer services on computer repair, and more ideas to come. All this would only be at cost of a monthly membership, that would be affordable for the parents of said teenagers, and adults themselves.

Let me know what you think!


Thanks.

[Wellstone]

not sure that people would commit to a monthly membership for things like that. I guess it would depend largely on the cost. If you are targeting teenage kids be prepared for some that aren't always on good behavior - although with a monthly fee maybe that is a deterrent to some of the hooligans.

maybe it would work better to offer the monthly subscription but with the option of a cover charge for a one day admission. Would probably help if the cover charge included a drink or snack or something. probably could migrate regular monthly memberships into family memberships so that for one price both adults and kids could utilize it. all these would need to be priced accordingly to provide some incentive to go to the next higher level.

it would be a bit of a challenge figuring out the number of available machines and / or time limits associated with it - I could see that becoming a problem having either too many machines not doing anything or a few super users occupying them for too long and not having one available.

all things to think about, along with the location.

[sondra_finchley]

My question with this would be how powerful are the computers compared to what some of these kids would have at home? Are you offering a significantly different gaming experience to the home environment for which they would be willing to pay for?

[pinkgonegreen]

I'd say most people here have laptops and gaming access at home...you'd have to target lower income households in southern Madison neighborhoods, and I think it could be a hit! But don't keep cash on hand, lots of places being robbed this year - kinda scary. :-/

[Nonesuch]

It's difficult to run a profitable cybercafe these days, most people prefer to bring their own laptops/netbooks and surf on the free wifi you can get at coffeeshops, at a cost of at most a cup of coffee.

Much would depend on location and local zoning.

[Dport7674]

10 years too late on this idea. The only people I know who don't have their own computers with high speed internet hooked up to their Xbox 360 are the kind of people who go to the library to check their email for free.