Youth enrichment (arts, music, dance, sports)

searcher profile

June 01, 2024

by a searcher from University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Does anybody have experience owning, doing diligence on, or working for a business in the youth enrichment space? Specifically focused on extracurricular education in arts, music, dance, sports (youth fitness, swim schools, martial arts, etc.). There are some big PE-backed players like Unleashed Brands and Youth Enrichment Brands -- although they're franchisors.

Especially curious to get perspectives on the following:

1) Recession resilience / cyclicality

2) Unit economics. How much does it cost to build one of these centers? Understand that swim schools in particular can be pretty expensive to build out. What do margins look like in this space?

3) Which areas within the space are considered most attractive to investors? Would suspect that music is an extremely popular extracurricular for students, but anecdotally seems like a lot of music education is done in the classroom (for free). Unsure of market size for dance / arts.

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commentor profile
Reply by an intermediary
from Vanderbilt University in Dallas, TX, USA
Re #2 You can mine the franchisors for unit economics. Google “wisconsin Fdd search” and type in any similar concept to find their Fdd. You’ll see exactly-ish how much it costs to open one and the item 19 should give some good intel. I did this when doing my search in 2012 and ended up finding a janitorial franchise I liked and ultimately bought.
commentor profile
Reply by a lender
from Eastern Illinois University in 900 E Diehl Rd, Naperville, IL 60563, USA
We have provided financing to numerous businesses in this space. If we can be of any assistance from that perspective, happy to share what we know. You can reach me here or directly at redacted Good luck.
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