LBX Collective
The LBX Collective aims to inform and educate, create opportunities to connect with industry peers, and to spur collaboration, discourse, and cross-pollination of ideas in the location-based entertainment and experience industry.
Join our online community at LBXGalaxy.com!
Proudly sponsored by Intercard!
LBX Collective
The 3rd Degree #12 - Michael Browning Jr.: From One Trampoline Park To Youth Empire
Sponsored by Intercard!
Sponsored by Alan-1!
The leap from one local adventure park to a billion-dollar youth enrichment platform didn’t hinge on luck—it grew from data, grit, and a clear promise to families. Brandon Willey sits down with Michael Browning Jr., founder and CEO of Unleashed Brands, to unpack how Urban Air sparked a movement and why a platform beats a portfolio when your customer is the chief household officer and your user is a kid with boundless potential.
Michael takes us back to the early days—mapping waiver data across Dallas–Fort Worth, surviving a chorus of “no,” and turning curiosity into multi-site momentum. He shares how franchising wasn’t a grand plan but a response to demand, and why the best operators win by mastering fundamentals, not hacks. Then we zoom out: the birth of Unleashed Brands, a shared-services backbone that standardizes enrollment, payments, check-ins, and progress tracking across beloved names like The Little Gym, Sylvan Learning, Snapology, and Premier Martial Arts. The message is simple and parent-friendly—one experience for classes, camps, parties, and leagues, many ways for kids to learn, play, and grow.
We also explore the hard parts: migrating legacy POS systems, aligning cultures, and evolving leadership from “speedboat” to “battleship” without losing agility. Michael lays out the next decade with a consumer app that becomes a family’s daily command center, informed by an advisory board of youth experts and built to reward loyalty while making choices clear on price and schedule. Along the way, we touch on the Unleashed Brands Foundation’s work in childhood cancer research and inclusion, and the metrics that matter most—customer acquisition cost, retention, and funnel conversion. If you care about scaling impact, building resilient franchise systems, or simply making parenting logistics easier, this conversation delivers both strategy and heart.
Subscribe and visit LBX Collective for more!
Where stories come alive and leaders take the fight. This is the third degree, where we delve deep into the minds of LBX Pros, brought to you by the LBX Collective, your community to connect, engage, and inspire. Hold tight and get ready for an exhilarating journey.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Well, welcome everybody to another third degree. I'm excited about this one. So we have uh Michael Browning Jr. joining. And uh, you know, he and I go back. We've on the Family Entertainment Center committee with IAPA before uh together. And you know, he is an entrepreneur, speaker, business leader, and is ultimately the founder and CEO of Unleashed Brands. It's a$1 billion youth enrichment platform and the parent company of multiple childhood development brands. So this includes Urban Air, Adventure Park, A Little Gym, Sylvan Learning, Snapology, Premier Martial Arts, Class 101, XP League, and Water Wings Swim School. And under his leadership, the company's become the largest youth enrichment program in or platform in the world. And so currently serving over 20 million families annually across 1,400, actually more than that, more than 1,400 locations. Like it just keeps going, right? Uh so Browning launched his journey in 2011 and when he first opened up Urban Air Adventure Park, the first location, and you know, quickly became one of the fastest growing family entertainment center concepts in the US. And then in 2021, he expanded his vision with the creation of unleashed brands. And that basically had the goal of uniting a really fragmented industry into a scalable platform really targeted to help kids learn, play, and grow. So he's also an adjuvant professor and executive in residence at Texas Christian University and is committed to philanthropy through their Unleashed Brands Foundation, which has pledged millions to support children facing adversity from funding childhood cancer research to hosting enriching experiences for foster and at-risk youth. So after the break, we will welcome Michael to the stage. And if you are already part of our global family of customers, they hope you will become one too. All right. Well, Michael, welcome to the third degree, man. Hey, buddy, it's good to see you again. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Love your uh love your space. It's uh super calming, actually.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, hey, we appreciate it. Yeah, it's uh it's awesome to be able to be building something with with purpose that you you see true impact every day.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So, you know, maybe we'll just go back to the start. So when you first opened Urban Air in 2011, uh what problem, I mean, maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn't, but like maybe you're just trying to do something cool. Like what problem were you trying to solve for your guests or for yourself or you know, for the industry? Because the whole trampoline park industry was really young uh at that stage.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I think that for me it was more opportunity recognition necessarily than problem solving. I would say when I started Unleash, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, that was definitely problem solving. But for Urban Air, it was really opportunity recognition. You know, I had started a data and analytics company in college, and I had actually sold that to a family office out of uh Santa Barbara, California. And I was traveling around the world doing different projects with them, and and I stumbled upon one of the first trampoline parks. So when I opened Urban Air in 2011, I think we were like the sixth trampoline park in the country. So I don't I don't take credit for necessarily inventing that category or necessarily inventing that concept. But so, so I it when I saw the first trampoline park, um it took me back to something I loved as a kid, Discovery Zone. And I was like, it just disappeared, you know, and it had so many birthday parties there and just so many fond memories. And it just it had this kind of sense of a Discovery Zone feel. And um, but what what I then did was started to run it through my data and analytics platform to see that, okay, I think this is a scalable concept, meaning it'll appeal to a mass number of customers. It's also very innovative in the sense that it is it's different than anything that's out there um in the space currently. And um and so I said, you know, I think this would be a great thing to bring back to my local community. And and so we opened that one in 2011, um, but not without its challenges. You know, every landlord told me, no, you're crazy, like this is gonna fail. Every bank was like, we won't give you any money. And so um my family and I invested everything that we had in that first location. We literally built it by hand using some of my dad's home building crews and and then opened our doors not knowing what the heck we were doing. Like there was there was no playbook. And and that's where we came across each other in the early days, just trying to figure these things out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. It's so crazy. Uh especially, you know, maybe talk about what it was like to work through some of the uh I want to say disbelief, but like, you know, people not believing in you, really wanting to like in and not supporting you, right? Like, especially on the bank side, like what was that like to just push through and say, like, no, I believe that this is a good idea, um, but uh yeah, having to deal with a lot of that rejection early on.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think one of one of the things I always tell people about uh core value of of myself personally in our company is grit. Um and and and and being courageous. And so look, the pioneers take all the arrows. Um, if if the people around the world who were called crazy stopped with the idea they originally had, we'd still be riding horses. We would we wouldn't have self-driving cars, we wouldn't have Uber, we wouldn't be streaming music, we wouldn't be streaming videos. And so I I think um you just have to be okay with building a vision no one else can see. Um, and now everybody, what I always tell people is the masses won't see it, but in your life, you've got to find a mentor who believes in you. You need to have what I call the affirmer in your corner, someone who says, like, look, man, I believe in you. You have what it takes, you can go and do this. And so if you have those people around you in the early days, you can accomplish a lot. Um, and what I what I always kept telling myself is I've got to find a way over it, under it, around it, or through it. But I got to get there to accomplish this vision. So it was, it was tough. You know, people thought I was crazy, right? And and it's just a few good breaks here and there where um, like I would have never gotten the building that we opened our first location in if it wasn't for my dad having a relationship with that guy for 25 years. That was that building my dad went to to buy his flooring and his tile from. That guy was blessed and needed a new building. And so my dad said, Hey, my son, I know it sounds crazy, has this idea. Can we can he rent your space from you when you move out? And he said, I don't think it's gonna work, but because you've been a loyal customer, you've operated with integrity, I'll give your son a shot. And, you know, so you need a few of those breaks. It's not always about being the smartest guy in the room.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, totally, totally. So, I mean, maybe you know, you opened the first part, and when did you start to think about expanding and really think, okay, this is more than just a single park. This is really something much larger. And and you know, maybe walk us, walk us through that that path that you went through from going with one park to ultimately, you know, being a large franchise.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a great question. So I've always gone back to data, using data to either validate my gut or um to to to understand what the next step is, the next opportunity. And so when I had that first location, uh, we were able to capture a lot of of consumer data through the waivers and I started mapping them um on an old school platform called Mappoint. It was like a mild map, I don't even think it exists anymore. And I would just I mapped all these dots in the DFW Metroplex, and I noticed that these people were coming from all over, right? And we were, we were always sold out. And um, and so I looked at it and I said, I I think that based on the data where customers are coming from, I could go to Frisco, Texas, I could go to Mansfield. I ran those two communities through our data and analytics platform. It was, it was high growth young families, you know, businesses were moving in there. And and I went to my family and I said, Hey, we've paid back our capital in 10 months. Um, let's open two more. And they literally looked at me like, why? Why would we want to do that? You know, they're like, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the sleepless nights, like everything we've been through. Why would you want to do that again? And again, I think this is kind of this distorted reality that some entrepreneurs live in. Because I just looked at it in reverse. I said, wouldn't it be a shame to have experienced all those things? And yeah, we had success in the first one, but it's like having more than one kid. Like your first one is really scary. And then your second one, you you recognize that cough, you recognize that bump, that bruise, and you don't go to the emergency room every time. Well, as an entrepreneur, every business you open is like having another kid. And I said, I just think that the next one won't be easy, but it will be easier because we will have experienced a lot of the challenges from the first one. And let's use those learnings, that wisdom to go open the other ones. And I convinced them, and that's what we did. We went and opened in Frisco, Texas and Mansfield, Texas for our second and third locations.
SPEAKER_02:So you open the three locations. These are corporate owned, right? Singles, you know, you're you're you're the overarching thing that owns those locations, your overarching company. When did you begin to think about franchising? And what was the decision or the reason, the decision framework to franchise versus expand on your own under, you know, under a corporate banner?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's very funny story. So to say that I had a long-term plan or vision to franchise would would be a lie. What was happening was is that people were coming into Dallas Fort Worth for Christmas, Thanksgiving, spring break, summer to visit friends and family. And then when they would come into town, people would go that lived here would say, We got to take you to this place called Urban Air. It's insane. You got to check this out. We'll have so much fun. And so people were going. And then, lo and behold, like the week after Thanksgiving and all these holidays, I'd start getting phone calls from people saying, Hey, will you open one in Worcestraw, Kansas? And I was like, I don't even know where that is. Like, I know we're we're fine, right? And I kept getting all these phone calls, and I just kind of ignored her, right? I honestly, I think I was being a little lazy, a little complacent. I I wasn't I wasn't hearing what the world was telling me. And um, I went to my grandfather's house uh on a Sunday afternoon after church, and he was sitting by the smoker, smoking a brisket, and he was a big entrepreneur, just like my father. And he said, Well, how's business? And I was telling him, Hey, we called him grandman. Grandman, business is great, you know. And and he said, Well, what's next? And I and I said, I don't know, but like I keep getting these phone calls from people, you know, and and I got this phone call from this guy in Wichita, Kansas, who said, Will you franchise it to me? And I said, you know, I've done some research and and it seems like a lot of work. And and um, I don't know, I don't know if it's the right thing to do. And he said, Son, I highly suggest that you put a little more effort into learning about franchising. You don't want to look back 10, 15 years from now and wish you would have done it. And so I took that. One of the things I will say is I I pride myself in being coachable, taking feedback, being teachable. And I went on this quick journey to learn franchising. I got a crash course from the uh a company called Fuzzies Tacos here that was also uh founded by a TCU grad and learned about franchising. And I was just called back John Becker from Wichita, Kansas, and I said, John, you you can be my first franchisee. Um, we'll do this thing together. And you know, after that, we were off to the races.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Wow, that's awesome. I mean, and yeah, truly off to the races. Uh when you went to shift and when you made the shift to unleashed brands, um, you know, I remember a little bit of that process when you moved yourself out of the CEO role of Urban Air and into, you know, you created the Unleashed Brands concept and began to really think of this as a platform. How many locations were you up to at Urban Air? Um, and you know, when you when you made that shift, and then like I guess what what was, I mean, I and I know some of the people you had placed around you at the time, you're really, really great, solid leaders. Um, but how how did you feel in making that transition from like, okay, CEO of a single franchise brand to now CEO of what will eventually be multiple brands and a platform?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I I think um first, you know, unleashed to go back a second, like unleashed brands was born out of a problem I had as a parent coming out of COVID. You know, when we all came out of COVID, it was like a a hard reset, right? It was like we gotta, I have three kids. And so it was like we gotta figure out where we're gonna put our kids. And so my wife and I divided and conquered on Googling, essentially, like to put our kids in things. And most families, if you have multiple kids, they're all different. And so, you know, it was during this process, I just kind of said to my wife, I go, This is wild. Like, nobody's created the Marriott Bonvoy of like youth enrichment. Like, there's no like one-stop shop for like all things kids and making it easier on parents. Like, this is way too difficult to like put your kids in stuff, like to enroll them and like to sign up and to to track their progress, to know where these things are located. And she saw in my eyes and she was just like, oh no. And I was like, I gotta look into this. And I kept saying, where there's fragmentation, there's the opportunity for consolidation. And um, so I put this these this thesis together that I was going to acquire the world's best brands that would help kids learn the basics of science, technology, engineering, and math, identify and grow in their skills and hobbies, and then escape the world through play, active play. And um, and so I pitched it to my private equity partners and they loved it. They're like, let's go do it. And um, and and then I had to put that strategy together, going like, okay, how am I going to have multiple brands, have this parent company that's a platform, have leaders, and that's when I realized in order to do that, I was going to have to trust in the team that I had built at Urban Air to run Urban Air without me there. And, you know, there's there's that saying, I forget who says it, but you can have control or growth, but you can't have both. And that's really what it came down to. Like I wanted to grow myself, the organization. And in order to do that, I had to release some control over Urban Air. And it was scary, it was exciting, it was like all of the kind of emotions you could think of. Um, but I did in the early days, as I was building Urban Air, build a phenomenal team. I mean, I had hired Jay Thomas from Six Flags, and I had hired Jennifer Castro from Top Golf. And I, I mean, I'm just amazing people that were around me that that I had all I always felt like at Urban Air, if I'd gotten hit by a bus, Urban Air was gonna do amazing things without me. I had set a vision, I had set created a culture, and it was gonna outlive me, which is, I think, you know, from a legacy perspective, what any entrepreneur wants to do. Um, and so we set out on that journey. Yeah, I stepped out of the role of CEO of Unleashed Brands, I handed that baton over to Jay Thomas, or excuse me, of Urban Air, I handed that baton over to Jay Thomas. I stepped into the role of CEO of Unleashed Brands and we were off to the races.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. What was one of the, I mean, and I know we, you know, when you're growing a brand, you're growing a company, any company of any size, there's always going to be bumps along the way. But what do you feel like was one of the biggest hurdles you had to overcome in growing urban air to the size that it was to the point where you were ready to then you know go to the next thing? What was one of the bigger hurdles that, yeah, and lessons you had to learn um in in order to move forward?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so at every stage of the business, right? So there's a great book that I love called Blitz Scaling. And you know, it talks about you know, you start out as a family. You got it back there? I think it's more just on the left down there. I was like looking for it right down there. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you start as a family and then you become a tribe and then a village and then a city and then a nation, and right. And and at each one of those stages, you've got to, you've got to change how you operate, whether it's communications, the systems, the processes, you might even have to change your team. You know, on the team side, I always like to use the metaphor analogy of the English Premier League. Um, when you think about the English soccer system, like you can get relegated and promoted up and down. And when you get when a team gets promoted, not every player gets to go and play at that next level because the speed of the game is faster and um things that it's harder. And what they may have been great at the level below, but they couldn't play at the level above. They just couldn't adjust. And so one of the things I had to learn early on is when there were either people or systems or vendors or technologies that couldn't go to that next stage with us, having to have the courage with also the integrity to make that move is very important. And to start hiring people and using systems based on where we were going to be, not where we're currently at, so that we could grow into it. Um, those are those are some hard conversations, those are some tough decisions, but you have to do it. And I think that's why another book I love called The Hard Thing About Hard Things helps with some of those conversations and it's just it is what it is, you know? And so there's that. And then I also had to change my leadership style. As you get bigger and people get further away from the nucleus of the founder or the entrepreneur, um, you've got to change how you communicate to make sure that phone tag uh or the game of yeah, phone doesn't, the message doesn't get changed. People hear what you're saying, they understand what they're marching towards, they understand the vision and the goals. And so as I started to build the bigger organization, I became my philosophy became I am firm in my vision, but flexible in how we get there. And hiring leaders and trusting them to help us get there. Maybe not the way I would always do it, but as long as we get there and we hit our KPIs, we're good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. Uh for anybody who is looking to scale very rapidly any type of organization. Um, you know, historically mine has been on the software technology side. Um, but yeah, hard thing about hard thanks is great. Ben Horowitz is uh, you know, he kind of pulls back the curtain a little bit on that. And uh yeah, and it's it's I think it's one that any entrepreneur who's looking to grow or scale a business should read. It is uh because it'll it'll you'll either decide to be an entrepreneur because of it, or you'll just say, uh, you know, maybe I shouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, it's not for everybody, right? And and that's good though, because because you can't have a team full of me. We won't get there, right? Like, and so it's it is also empowering for people to understand you know how they're wired, what they love, what they don't love, what they're good at, what they're bad at. It's why we we're big believers in the working genius by Patrick Lincioni. Um, just helping people understand what their geniuses are, their competencies and their frustrations, and then building a team with uh where everyone on the team has different geniuses so that the full stack of geniuses um is accounted for. And then, like people know, don't invite me to a meeting where we're gonna create action plans and lists because my geniuses or innovation and discernment. And I'll come in there and I'll blow up the meeting because I'm gonna be like, well, have we thought about this? Have we thought about what about this? And they're like, hey, hey, we already decided what we're doing. We're now creating a battle plan. So I'm like, well, don't invite me to the meeting, right? Or you know, I don't invite people to meetings that want to want to create tactical plans when it's time for us to ideate. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So it's all about just building that team.
SPEAKER_02:So the team that you've got at Unleashed Brands, obviously you know, different than the team at you know, each one of these. How have you thought about like making sure that every single one of your individual brands has a solid leadership core, as well as then like the the overarching parent company? And how involved are you? Especially, you know, especially because of the acquisitions, like in the process that you're acquiring a team along with you know, when whenever you bring acquire all these locations in these franchisees, you're also acquiring the franchise or and typically in a lot of the team. So, how do you think about really fine-tuning each of those teams and how involved do you get?
SPEAKER_01:So, first, uh the the way we build the platform is a combination of what we called we call shared services and then dedicated brand services. So each of the brands have dedicated teams, and and those teams are franchisee-facing, relational teams. Um, they're teams that um are a part of the what makes that brand special, the secret sauce. So it could be curriculum, innovation, attractions, those types of things. Um, so when you then think about what all brands share, we really at Unleashed Brands, we sell classes, camps, one-time events, celebrations, and leagues. That's what we do. We offer those to our user, which is a kid, and our customer, who is the chief household officer. So a little gym may offer classes, they offer camps, they also offer one-time events. An Urban Air offers um one-time events, offers camps, offers birthday parties. And so from a shared services perspective, we have technology that we built in-house that is modules for classes, modules for camps, modules for birthday parties, modules for leagues. Then we know how to market to our customer, the chief household officer, about a birthday party, a class, a one-time event, or a league. We have one way to check in kids, one way to do a makeup class, one way to track progress. Um, you know, everybody needs accounting, right? And gap is gap, no matter if you're TLG or your Urban Air, right? Everybody needs HR and how you pay people, right? The laws around that and how you do it are the same. So when you find all of the commonalities across all the brands and they share a common customer, then you can gain a lot of operating leverage through shared services, which then allows you to invest more in the brands, dedicated teams around their secret sauce. And that's how we're able to build a very efficient platform with high EBITDA margins, um, and and be and able to um to acquire these brands um and then layer in our shared services in secret sauce and improve them.
SPEAKER_02:When you think about uh acquisition targets, right? So you've you've made you know you've obviously made a number of them now, and I think that it seems it feels like it's the process is accelerating. And you know, at first it was like, okay, little gym, and then like it just kind of then outside, I didn't even know you had so uh a number of these brands under the unleashed brands uh uh banner. But when you're looking at these, like what is the common thread or the common DNA that like falls under the quote unquote youth enrichment uh you know category? Like what is it that makes somebody an ideal target versus just like, hey, these guys look like they have good margins and they're doing business well and we want to bring them in?
SPEAKER_01:It's a great question. And that's that's the difference between being a platform company and a portfolio company. If you just look at margins and synergies you can take and back office SGNA stuff, you're really you're really a portfolio company that is just opt-in optimizing a P L. A platform company um has tremendous commonalities. So they for us, they've got to serve uh the the same user, which is the kid. Now, now that can be a kid anywhere from birth until 18, um, but but it need that they got to serve that kid. They they need to, uh the customer needs to be the chief household officer. Um, they need to help kids learn, play, or grow. So science, technology, engineering, arts, math, and learn, uh, grow is skills and hobbies, right? And and that can be a lot of things from martial arts, theater, dance, swimming, um, and then play is is anything that um allows our allows our kids to just get off a screen and and escape, right? The world. And and we like active play. So if we can check world-class brand, serves our customer, serves our user, and is in learn, play, and grow, um, then we start to dive in. And then from there, it starts to become, yeah, where what how are they running their business? How can we tweak it, help them optimize it, maybe bring them resources that they they don't have. Or many times we find amazing, amazing team members, amazing processes, amazing technologies that we can, when we acquire, we actually bring into the platform and and put those across all of our other brands. Um, and so there, but but that's the the basic framework, and and the total addressable market of the youth enrichment safes is is large. There's a lot of great companies out there, both in franchising and in what we would call corporately owned, that we're we're in discussions with to bring into the platform.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, it's great.
SPEAKER_02:You know, we've got over 1,400 locations now. So uh and you're bringing more locations in. What was one of the decisions maybe you made or technology you put in place that like franchisees or the operators like hated when you first put it in? Like because you know, they don't like change, right? So um, but you knew that it was going to be critical for either long-term value or a better guest experience.
SPEAKER_01:So it it was it's typically when you change out things like their point of sale system. Um and because they're just so used to doing that every day. Um, but for us, that that's fundamental. Like it's table stakes because our rules of engagement are when the customer wins, which the customer is the chief household officer. When the chief household officer wins, our franchisees win. And when our franchisees win, we win. And so we're always out there trying to reduce friction for the chief household officer in the following areas: in identifying what's around them for their kids, making it easy to sign up, easy to track their kids' progress, easy to know what's next when their kid graduates or wants to try something new, easy to sign up for that next thing, and then also feel rewarded as a as a customer of Unleashed Brands. Um, and and also our customers want transparency on price and schedule. The last thing our chief household officers want, moms want, is to uh go and try an intro class, go and try something, only to find out they can't afford it or it doesn't fit into their busy schedule. And so, in order to achieve the rules of engagement, we we needed to put everybody on the same point of sale system. And because if you have three kids, the chief household officer doesn't want to have to have eight different apps for all of our brands, their credit card across eight different billing systems, one place. And so um, you know, that's hard. But because as you know from the tech world, like when technology is always under development, it's never done. There's bugs, there's things. Um, the way brands used to do things for 45 years at Sylvan or the Little Gym, for example, we may not do it the same way in our system because every brand has to interact with the customer the same way. One way to check in a kid, one way to sign up, one way for a makeup class. So to try to get everybody on the same page can be difficult. But um the results are when we've done it, have been phenomenal. I mean, the little gym, for example, when we migrated them off of a system called Oasis and on to Command Center, which is our in-house point of sale technology, um, their same store sales growth had been in the the mid 20% range uh since we bought it, Hager. And so just phenomenal results. So um that that's that's absolutely difficult. We've also learned how to be better, right, at change management, casting envisioning, galvanizing the franchisees and rolling things out in a smoother way. Not we we we didn't do it perfectly and we're always getting better. We we say we're on the constant pursuit of perfection to which we'll never achieve. Like, and so we we just got to keep getting better. But that's something that we've had friction with, we continue to have friction with as we migrate brands on, and I foresee that continuing to have friction in the future around that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. You know, with some of your and maybe this is different for your different brands, uh, but obviously like the the brands live and die on franchisee execution. So um, what separates your top five percent or top 10% operators from the middle of the pack, you know, besides obviously location.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it it's um there's a there's a great um speech, I think it was Coach Saban did about like how everybody wants to be winners, but what separates Winners and losers, right? Is like is the execution of the basic fundamentals, like the stuff that's not sexy. And it's very similar in franchising. Like franchisees are coming into a business who that has been proven multi-site across decades. Um and there's a basic recipe for success. And it's been proven over and over again that when you follow that, you have the highest probability for success. It's when you change the variables and that you and the recipe that you franchisees start having more problems. So first and foremost, um, franchisees who are engaged in their business are always the most successful. And then when you couple that with following the playbook, it makes it makes franchisees extremely successful. Um, then when you layer in that they help get on the innovation programs of the various brands and help the brand get better, um, then that exponentially can help them perform. And so to do that, you know, we have franchise advisory councils, innovation committees, subcommittees where franchisees can give their input, help shape where the brand goes and try new things. And so I that's what we always tell people is like, hey, everybody wants to be the number one franchisee, everybody wants financial freedom, everybody wants you know that beach house, whatever it is they want, but but you got to execute. Like if it was, if it was just as easy as signing your franchise agreement and getting your business open and then walking away, um, everybody would be doing that. And that if that's what you want, then you just need to put your money in an index fund, right? And and then you don't have to manage it. But like you're a business owner and and you've got to be engaged and build a great team and run the play.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I think that's something that some some franchisees or or new franchisees forget uh or or don't think about, right? That they are actually building a business and there's gonna be the messiness of dealing with people and establishing a culture and hiring and firing and all of these things, and you know, managing inventory and operations and things that I think they um they get excited about, like you said, the uh the end result, right? The outcome, um, and and forget that there's all these inputs that need to go in order to get that outcome. Yeah, absolutely. When you look at scaling your culture, right, uh, you know, the what are some of the non-negotiables? Like, you know, you talk about your your core values, but like what are some of the non-negotiables that you protect, even if it may impact your growth, like slow growth down, because maybe you had to let go of a high revenue operator, you know, high high revenue franchisee or a partner or something because they didn't align with those standards or those values.
SPEAKER_01:Uh there's yeah, there's core values that that we stick to. You know, some of it, some of them being gritty, frugal, fun, innovative, uh, curious, courageous, um, humble or authentic is what we call it. But um, and we hire and fire by those, right? And and um sometimes it's you get people on the team that it was a bad, it was a bad hire in the sense that you should they just you made a bad call. Like I had one that I hired in the technology side that came from a um Fortune 500 company, and and they didn't understand that how to work in a in a you know a medium-sized business. They didn't, they didn't understand how to work in a franchise business. And that that person would keep coming to me and saying, Well, it's only gonna cost franchisees a thousand bucks a month. And I'm like, a thousand bucks a month, like that's a lot of money to a franchisee, right? And when you come from a company where like money is monopoly money, right? It's just a number on paper, it doesn't, it doesn't translate. So that was on me. That was on me, right? And and I didn't, he didn't know the frugal word, our core value of frugal and how to be. And we're not we're just saying frugal, not cheap, right? And and and then you know, there's there's an element of um, you know, being a part of our culture, which I would say would be the y-axis and the x-axis is productivity, um, because productivity is not a core value for us, right? Like we believe if you're gritty and innovative and courageous and curious and all these things, um, you will be productive. But there can be people who don't hit our core values and are very productive. The problem is they leave a lot of dead bodies on their path, right? They've burned a lot of bridges with vendors and relationships and franchisees. And there's been we've had to have a couple of times where just like we may be getting the results in the short term out of that, but long term, that's not gonna work. Um, and we've so we've had to make a move there, or we have a philosophy that always do right by the customer. Um, and so you know, you saw a lot of businesses take different approaches during COVID on am I gonna keep billing customers for memberships or or whatever? And and and those decisions are very important. And so if we've we don't have people that want to always do right by the customer, um, even maybe if it's borderline, like, hey, we're probably right, but like we need to take care of this customer, we we move on from those types of people. And then like we also take a lot of pride in in having fun. And and it may seem, you know, minuscule, but we spend more time together in our office with each other than we do our families, right? And anything else that we devote our lives to. And so we talk a lot about like fun isn't necessarily ping pong and beer kegs and but what it is is is how you come to work. You like we can have fun in anything that we do in in any hard season. We can find the joy in any situation. And that having that spirit about you um is very important because it trickles to their team and franchisees um along the way. So those are some of the things that we look at and and some of the maybe the the speed bumps we've hit along the way.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you mentioned you're you're obviously a voracious reader. I think any major leader uh is uh is a is a reader, right? So uh you know love that you do that. Um, but you obviously have to put some of those things you read into practice. And so as you went from you know, this founder of a single park and then to three parks and then to franchising, you know, the fourth park and to now the CEO of a you know billion-dollar platform, what parts of your personal operating system, I guess I'll say, did you have to uninstall, reinstall, upgrade, et cetera, along the way?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. There's been quite a few different things um in how you how I've had to to lead. One, um I'm I'm a fixer, right? And and as you get bigger, sometimes you've got to let things play out, um, and let your team like work it out. Um and so that's one. Also, um just the way I've like it talks about in the hard things about hard things, how you know there's peacetime and there's war time, and how you got how you lead is different in both. I would also say there's the way you lead in different stages of your business is is very different, right? Like back in the day, it was like being on a speedboat in my in our garage in Grapevine because everybody heard your phone calls. So everybody was in the loop. Or like a staff meeting was just me looking behind my shoulder and being like, hey, we got an opening this weekend. Is the signage up? Is it whatever, you know, you're just and so now it's like it's like being the captain of a battleship. And I've got to through various forms of communication, whether it's short videos or emails or town halls, I've got to cast vision for that, make sure everyone's on the same page, and then make sure that it percolates through all the decks and the ranks and all the people. And although in a speedboat we were moving faster, on a battleship, we're we're going slower, but covering the same amount of ground. It just takes longer to turn and we're going slower. So, you know, some of the some of the things like is is how just how you do it. Like, and so it became taking everything we were just doing that was tribal knowledge and then documenting it into systems, processes, procedures. We we we said it in the early days and we say it today. Like if you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, you neither need to automate it, turn it into a checklist, systematize it. And now with AI and machine learning automation, you can have the you can do a lot of that. Um so it now for me, I focus. You uh this is what something I actually stole from you like a long time ago. You said vision capital people. Um, and and really when I now looking back when you used to say those things, it's it is really where I am today. I have to know where we're going and where we've come from. I've got to um make sure that we have the capital to get to the vision. And then I've got to make sure that we have the the the right team to get us there. Um, because I I literally cannot do it by myself. Um, I am not the smartest guy in the room. I don't know enough about every area of the business or of each individual, say, discipline, marketing, accounting, or whatever, like to be able to do it individually in it. So I've got to lead on, lean on those people and lead those people. So I get up every day, meet with my people, like, what do you need? What are your challenges? Is there any homework that you need for me? Any any roadblocks you need me to help bust through? Any fires you need me to help go light under people? Um, and and then right now in budgeting season, I'm asking people if you had no limitation on resources, time, people, money, systems, what could you achieve? Just write it down. Um, and let me see if I can make it happen, right? Too many times people are given a budgeting process and say, like, I need I need you to achieve this with this. And they're like, Well, what is there to even talk about? Right. And so uh a lot of our tremendous growth has been saying as as is been stretching people in their thinking. Um, I think it was Iger's book, Ride of a Lifetime, or something like that, where he talks about the gap between where people are and what they truly can achieve is a lot smaller often than they perceive. And it's my job as a leader to go, I don't I don't know that that's that unachievable. Like, I think we can do that, and I'm gonna support you in that. Um, so on any given day, I'm I'm I'm a cheerleader, I'm a tie or a tiebreaker, right? Or like I'm a pit yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:When you look, you know, because you are the visionary, right? So you're you've got the division component of the DCP. When you look out 10 years, 15 years maybe, um well, let's just say 10 years for now, right? So what what does the youth enrichment uh learn play grow landscape look like? And you know, what what are what are models out there that maybe don't exist that should exist? And and you know, how are you thinking about the future of this like learn play grow youth enrichment uh you know industry?
SPEAKER_01:So uh unleashed brands will be a household name. Uh it will be it will be to to the Marriott Bonvoy of youth enrichment. It'll be I I envision you know, every family in America, they wake up every morning, they get their cup of coffee, they ask each other, did you sleep good? And then they they get on our app and they're seeing what their kids' schedule is for that day. And they're tracking um how their kids are progressing. Um I have a vision for helping parents better relate to their kids, understand how their kids are wired, um, better communicate with their kids. Um, I it's it's wild to me that you buy a car, you get a manual. You buy a blender, you get a manual, right? You have a kid, and the only thing you really get is a nurse that checks to see if you have a car seat, and then they just give you this wave goodbye. And we know there's a lot of ways to parent. And so we're not trying to create the way or one way, but we are trying to be a partner to families in this journey. And and we're not saying that we are gonna have all the answers, but what we are saying is that we're gonna walk with parents while they find those answers. And we're and and so I see a world where we have a medical advisory board of psychologists and youth enrichment specialists and pediatricians who are who are putting content out there through this app. Um and and and really just being that well-rounded um brand in the family's face. And um that that's the journey that we're on next year. We will be launching Unleashed Brands as a consumer-facing brand. We'll be launching that app. It's all under development right now. You'll see a little bit of it um sprinkled into the media here, uh leading into Black Friday. Um, but but that's where we'll be. I mean, we we acquire one to two companies a year. So, you know, 10, 15 years from now, we will be much bigger from a brand perspective, a footprint perspective. I um we'll have a bigger international footprint because we believe no matter a child's race, religion, origin of birth, every family wants that kid to learn, play, and grow, right? They they want the values instilled in their kids of being courageous, of of never quitting, of respecting authority, of of loving others that don't look and sound like them. I think that like that's what we're out there to do. Like, we don't sell necessarily classes, camps, one-time events, leagues. Like what we really sell is courage, confidence, discipline, right? Respecting authority, respecting others. Um, and and that's why our business is so reset recession resistant, is because um our families will they'll do anything they can to keep their kids learning, playing, and growing. And so it's it's just a great, great space to be in.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Uh when you think about giving back, right? So this is something that's been you know a part of your ethos for a long time. Um, but you know, you've got the Unleashed Brands Foundation now and it's pledging millions to kids facing adversity. But what what was the shift to from from going from like we should give back to actually structuring something, putting you know a scaled commitment in place through an actual foundation?
SPEAKER_01:So as you mentioned, like we've always done things, right? Like even in the early days, we were hosting birthday parties for foster kids, and we we were helping with um these storehouses and um that would give foster families clothes and diapers and food. And and um so we've all always had a heart for it. We've always felt like um that we've been blessed to be generous and help others. Um, it was when we started to get scale as the platform that we noticed our franchisees also had that same heart. And we were seeing like all these stories like just chopped from around the country. And I just said the same way that we're better on in a for-profit manner and a for-profit strategy together, we could be better in a not-for-profit, philanthropic way together, like power in numbers. And so uh we we created the Unleashed Brands Foundation to make it easier on our franchisees to give back. Um, because sometimes it's just hard, right? There's it's just hard. And they're so focused in building their business every day and they have these parts. It's our job to tee up great opportunities for them uh throughout the year, whether it's right now we're going into Toys for Tots, then we have socket to cancer, we have autism awareness, we have um, we have um um child the childhood cancer. So uh it it and then what we wanted to say was like, hey, to our customers, like we're in your corner. And um, no matter what you're going through, like we're in your corner. Um, and we believe that there, that every kid should have the opportunity to learn, play, and grow. No matter what they're going through, they should feel loved. And so we felt like, you know, no there like actions speak louder than words. And so putting together a program uh with the Leukemia Lymphoma Society now called Blood Cancer United, around um being one of the largest donors for childhood cancer research was a way to say we're serious about this. Um, and not only just the money, but also using our voice and our network to help educate people around the country about childhood cancer and the fact that like there there are not any dedicated childhood child treatments. All they really do is just dilute an adult treatment. And it's wild. Like you wouldn't take a mutinex tablet and break it in half and give it to your kid. You would want child mutant X. Well, they don't have that for many of the things kids face. Um, and so stepping up to say, hey, we want to help change that, or um, through Hope Kids, helping kids with other life-threatening diseases, medical issues, be able to experience our facilities in a safe safe way by closing it to the general public and and and having smaller groups come in um is is something that like it just it is it's an amazing way to give back. It's it's um it's also like you at scale, you deal with so much, and our franchisees deal with so much. Um, it helps you never forget what it's really about. Um and and I just firmly believe very few times in life will people get the opportunity to have the for-profit world intersect with a nonprofit world where you can make money and make a difference at the same time with your actual customer. Um, and so it's just so fulfilling and rewarding to do it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Uh all right, so we're gonna go do a like a bonus quick hit round. So multiple, so a couple different questions here. Um, so first of all, what's one industry practice? And now I know that you touched all different, you know, the Learn Play Grow has different aspects, but like let's just stay focused into the FEC LBE world. Like, what's one industry practice that you'd wish that the whole industry would would get rid of or retire immediately?
SPEAKER_01:Um gosh. You know, I um that one is hard for me. I think that if in in this industry it needs to be harder to get into it. You and I have talked about this all the time. Um I I believe that it does a disservice to the industry and it does a disservice to the person making the investment to just be able to show up somewhere, buy a bunch of attractions, and go open a facility with no uh training. I think I think it's dangerous for the industry. It can be dangerous for the customer. So why I love franchising is because it gives a framework around safety and operations and compliance um to that operator versus going out on their own and just winging it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, totally agree with you there. Uh you said you and you are data focused, data obsessed at some level. Um, so what's one metric, uh, or maybe a couple, but or like a group of them, but what's one metric in general that you obsess over that a lot of founders and and leaders ignore?
SPEAKER_01:So there's two, and I don't know that people ignore them or not. I would say for me, um, what's my consumer acquisition cost and how long do I retain them? Um and those two kind of ebb and flow, right? Like um if I can retain them longer, I might not have to spend as much to acquire them. Um, or I might not have to acquire as many. Um and and so I I think those two, you know, go together. Too many times people are focused on revenue and they but they have holes in their boat, and so something's leaking out and or in or in their funnel, right? And so um I think if they focused on those two and then maybe to add one more is like too many times people, they just I need more leads, I need more leads, you know? And I'm going, well, if you look at your, let's just talk tech, if you look at, you know, each each of your pages in your your consumer journey, um, what is the abandonment rate on each of those pages? And if you optimize each and each of those pages with the same number of leads, I bet you could get more conversions, things like that. So we do a lot of A-B testing uh on the tech side and and focus on those KPIs a lot.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, just uh definitely in the software world, it's it's the you know, you mentioned customer acquisition costs. It's CAC to LTV for us, right? So lifetime value of the customer, it's measuring that. That's such a huge metric in the software, but really in anything that's going to be scaled. Um, you really need to understand that that CAC to LTV for sure. Um, all right, we've touched on a couple of books already, but what's a book or a framework from a book uh or a story that you've stolen uh shamelessly, maybe for how you lead?
SPEAKER_01:Um you know, I I there's a couple things uh so um I'm really big right now in continuing to um understand our consumer, right? Our customer. Now I'm a dad, so I'm I'm in it every day. 13-year-old, uh 10-year-old, five-year-old, so like I'm right there. But Jonathan Hates, The Anxious Generation is something that um, you know, it's it's a very science-oriented book that that I'm reading and I talk a lot about um in what our the parents are going through and why they need this partner in unleash brands. And so that's one. Um, I would say um I'm looking at my books over here, some of the more recent ones. Um, the five types of wealth is a good one. Um, and it talks about not just money, although that is one of them, but but your time, relationships, um, physical health, those are because you can have be really good in money, but if all those if you have a lot of money and all those other things are bad, like what's it, what's it for? Right. And um, so being being more intentional with time and and um that book, something I stole from it that um I I've been using at the organization is um I I break down the year into um days, working days, break down the days into hours, and then those hours into two 30-minute blocks. And then I helped help everyone in my organization understand what their hourly rate is. Um, and not just their hourly rate based on their bon base and their bonus, but their hourly rate based on their base, their bonus, and the fact that everyone in our company has ownership in the company. And when we when we transact, they're gonna get paid on that. And so maximizing those 30-minute blocks of every day, every hour, right? And to drive value and focus on the KPIs. And so on everyone's desk, they have these uh laminated sheets with these circles. And every day they mark out a circle so they know how many days are left towards big milestones and what we're working towards. Having people understand the value of time and understand what they're marching towards, um, not only is it rewarding and fulfilling for them, but it actually creates a tremendous amount of efficiency and productivity towards actually achieving what you want to achieve. And that that came out of the five uh five, it's called five types of wealth.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Uh all right, so last question here, and it's a it's a question about a question. So, what is one of the the best questions that a young founder or operator has ever asked you? And then you know, basically, how did you answer that?
SPEAKER_01:Um they a lot of times I I'll get the question of like, um, how'd you come up with the big idea? You know, and and we talked about it a little bit. Um I believe that when you're curious, um and you're just always just asking questions, seeking to understand, reading, thinking about the world around you, is when opportunities present themselves. And when you're constantly learning, striving to get better and positioning yourself to be able to capitalize on one of those opportunities is when is when the is when it happens. Um and so I tell people be a good steward with whatever season that you're in, and and and then keep taking steps, being curious, keeping your eyes open, your ears open, um, and for for those opportunities. Too many times people want to sit down with a blank piece of paper and go, I want to be an entrepreneur, I'm gonna start a business. And then there's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Well, you can go to you can you can look at franchises. That's a great way to do it, right? But like if you're really gonna start something from scratch or try to be inspired and come up with something, it's not just sitting down with a blank piece of paper, it's being out in the world and being curious and being ready uh for when something presents itself. I mean, that's what happened with unleashed brands, that's what happened with Urban Air. It's not, it isn't like, you know, I'm some scientist that is, you know, tinkering in a lab trying to build something, um, in at least in in the success that I've had. And then I always tell people, and we all know this saying, but every overnight success took 15 years to build. Like that people are only seeing the cover of the magazine today. They're not seeing all of the blood, sweat, tears, heartache, disappointment, right? Um, that it took to get there. Um, and and I I refuse to forget what it took.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh well, that's an amazing way to wrap things up here, Michael. I so appreciate you coming on and sharing your story here in the third degree. And uh looking forward to seeing you next week at IAPA.
SPEAKER_01:Likewise, Brandon. Thank you. It's great to see you. We'll see you next week.
