MoneyPaintball.org Paintball Blog
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Many people looking to start a paintball field or looking to expand their paintball business are concerned about paying too much in interest rates. Part of this challenge is that we are bombarded with real estate interest rates all the time,  3.5% is all we see at the banks, hear on the radio and see on TV.  However a businesses loan is in a different solar system than a house loan.

As you may have heard, over 85% of new businesses fail in the first 3 years ( our Paintball Franchise has a 100% success rate, but that’s a different blog). The point is, loaning unsecured money to a business is a huge risk, vs. a car loan or a house loan. Simply because the house isn’t going anywhere and with cars they can get them back fairly easily. With a business loan it’s next to impossible to collect when someone goes out of business. For this reason, start up and working capital loans require a higher interest rate to off set the risk, plain and simple.

So, how much is too much?  I must point out that standard VC ( Venture Capitalist ) interest rates are 40% PER YEAR and they take ownership and control of your company. They do this to insure they get their 40%.  VC’s sound really exciting and glamorous but there is much more than meets the eye. A great book about this that is a fun roller coaster read is Ryan Blairs  Nothing to Lose and Everything to Gain.

Recently a paintball field owner called me and said he ran the numbers on his loan that he just paid off. He said, “ Evan, I just paid over $10,000 in interest, that’s too much! “ So I said, have you ever looked at how much interest your paying on your home loan?  Then I asked him what his sales for the year was, he said “approx. $500,000.” He grew from $350,000 the year before. Then I said, don’t you think $10,000 is a small price to invest to get a thriving business that does $500,000 a year?  Plus his entire payment and interest was all tax deductible.  He then replied “ Wow, I never thought of it that way, your right, I got a great deal.” You see without his start up loan, he could have never started his business.

The bottom line is this: interest vs. opportunity. I believe the opportunity of owning a thriving paintball business is worth paying a little interest for. If your looking for start up financing for your paintball field or need working capital to expand, call my direct line at 310-750-6219 or e-mail evan@moneypaintball.org

Current paintball field owners and people looking to start a paintball field pay close attention. First off paintball insurance is really low, approx $1,500 to $4,000 per year depending on your field size, UNTIL YOU HAVE A ACCIDENT CLAIM!

A recent paintball field owner shared with me that his insurance just rose 10 TIMES because he had his first claim. Oh it gets better, the claim was not his fault! Some kid took his goggles off during a game and guess what, he got hit in the eye. I’m not going to bore you with the details of the claim and the attorney vs. the insurance company battles. To be clear, this paintball field owner runs a tight ship, he does 200 to 600 players a day and this was his very first claim ever.

The bottom line is this: A kid took his goggles off.   As a paintball field owner you can have the greatest safety video, the best refs and the safest fields but you can’t stop a kid from taking his mask off, or can you?

Many paintball field owners make the mistake of using the cheapest rental masks they can find. Simply because the masks and the lenses get thrashed very quickly, so why bother paying more. I believe this is a HUGE MISTAKE and one that can save you $50,000 or even $5,000,000 in paintball insurance premiums over the life of your paintball field.

In all our rental paintball packages that we offer on emoneypaintball.net we include high end DYE rental masks THAT ARE VERY COMFORTABLE and fog resistant. If the mask is comfortable there is less of a chance that someone will want to take it off. I have tried on many a so called “rental mask”,  only to rip it off my head in a few seconds because it hurts! So if your looking to start a paintball field or if your already a successful paintball field owner, choose a more comfortable mask, it’s a small price to pay to avoid the pain of high insurance premiums.