Romp n' Roll is on a Roll!
Henrico County-based children’s gym company Romp n’ Roll is on a roll.
Working with partners in China, the company has opened 85 new franchise locations in the Asian nation since 2010.
It also has eight locations in the U.S., including three corporate-owned gyms and play centers in the Richmond area. Two new franchise locations are scheduled to open in Raleigh, N.C., and Orlando, Fla., by the end of the year.
“We started in the U.S. and got off to a really good start with a bunch of locations in the first year or two,” said Michael Barnett, Romp n’ Roll CEO, who co-founded the company in 2004 with his wife, Babz Barnett.
“Then China happened,” Michael Barnett said.
“We realized very quickly what was going to happen there,” he said, speaking from the company’s headquarters adjacent to its Romp n’ Roll gym and play center at 9677 W. Broad St. in the Westpark Shopping Center in western Henrico County.
“We could tell by the level of interest once we had one location open that it was going to explode. So we decided to dedicate our corporate resources to really helping them and making sure that got off on a good foot while still supporting the current locations,” he said. “We decided not to put our time into opening new ones here (in the U.S.) until we got China kind of situated.”
The Barnetts worked with Luyin Zhao and Yingying Xu, a Chinese couple who had studied in the U.S., to develop Romp n’ Roll in China.
“The way it works a lot of times with international franchising is you do what’s called a master franchise agreement,” Michael Barnett said.
“Our partner there just did an excellent job of building a system to be able to handle the demand.”
Growth was swift.
“The demand came for a couple of reasons. Our business segment has done extremely well throughout Asia and in China, specifically,” Michael Barnett said.
“But there’s also that … Chinese parents really took to sort of the unique benefits of what we’ve built at Romp n’ Roll, which is a wide variety of offerings all under one roof,” he said. “We’ve got some competitors here and there who do similar things, but they don’t do it all. I think the fact that we kind of combine a lot of different offerings — a kind of one-stop shopping — is really what has appealed to the Chinese parents especially.”
Government social policy in China designed to control population growth also was a factor, Babz Barnett said. The country only recently began phasing out a one-child-per-family policy.
“They put everything into that child,” she said. “They want to give them a well-rounded education, even at a young age, especially the music component and the arts.”
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Romp n’ Roll gyms offer such activities as arts and crafts, music, dance and other activities for children ages 3 months to 5 years.
The other Richmond area locations are at 6300 Mechanicsville Turnpike in Hanover County and at 11541 Busy St. in Chesterfield County.
The company has tweaked its membership model.
When it first started, parents would sign up for 6-week or 12-week memberships and would come to class the same day and time each week. That’s changed to allow parents to buy monthly memberships and to vary when they bring their children for classes.
“Today’s parents want flexibility,” Michael Barnett said.
That flexibility is appreciated, but some parents like seeing the same parents and children week after week.
Sara Hayes has been bringing daughter Mackenzie, 14½ months, since the toddler was 5 months old. They come about three times a week. On a recent morning, they were in a 45-minute gym time class at the Romp n’ Roll location on West Broad Street.
“For one, it was to get me out of the house, originally,” Hayes said. “It got me to meet a whole lot of other moms with kids who were in the same situation we were in — a lot of first-time moms. That was really nice.
“And I think it helped her advance,” she said of the benefits to her daughter. “She was walking at 10 months. She is really independent. She will go into her toy room and not hang out where I am. I think that’s partly because of this. She’s allowed to come in here and bounce around and do whatever she wants, and nobody is telling her to stop.”
A classic membership, which includes five classes per month and unlimited open gym visits, is $65 per month, according to the company website.
On plans that costs $80 per month, customers receive multiple classes per week, unlimited open gym visits and discounts on birthday parties and other special events. Parents are able to sign up for classes online.
Romp n’ Roll also offers camps at the Children’s Museum of Richmond location on West Broad Street near the Fan District and the one in the Short Pump Town Center. It also makes the space available for birthday parties.
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The franchises in China operate differently than in the U.S.
Families can sign up for one- or two-year contracts. The facilities also are larger — with lobbies that are sometimes as big as the gym areas, Babz Barnett said.
That is on purpose, for several reasons. In the urban areas where the Romp n’ Rolls are located, families may live in tiny apartments and welcome the chance to get out to a larger space, she explained.
Another reason: A child might be scheduled for a morning class and an afternoon class. The lobby is big enough to accommodate families who want to hang out between classes.
“On the business side, we have really improved our training and support for our franchise owners,” Michael Barnett said.
“We do about 15 days of hands-on training when a new location opens. In addition, we have an online training course, which includes full-length videos of all of our classes, assessments, a bunch of robust training items to make sure what we are doing at our existing locations can be replicated at new ones.”
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In the U.S., he estimates that there is room for about 400 to 500 Romp n’ Roll locations.
The company plans to open eight to 10 franchise locations this year, and 12 to 15 per year in future years, he said.
“We really want to be able to put a Romp n’ Roll in as many towns across the U.S. as possible. We’ve developed in China,” Babz Barnett said. “We are really focusing on the U.S. right now. We also want to educate the public about (the importance of) balance and play.”
To get a new franchise up and running requires an initial investment of $200,000 to $300,000, including a $39,500 franchise fee, Michael Barnett said.
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From the start, the Barnetts were confident they had a good idea.
The inspiration for the business came from their own experiences as parents when their children, now ages 12 and 14, were babies.
“My wife was home with the kids, and she was taking them to all of these places. Why not put them under one roof,” Michael Barnett said.
They created something they wanted for their own children, Babz Barnett said.
“We are not experts in early education, but we are parents who want the best for our kids. We developed this company from that viewpoint,” she said.
They were so confident in their plan that they went on the ABC television show “Shark Tank” in 2010 to pitch their idea to try to land partnerships or financing with big-time investors.
But then they said “no thanks” when offered a deal that would cost them control of operations.
The Barnetts were seeking $300,000 in exchange for a 10 percent equity stake in Romp n’ Roll. They were offered $300,000 for a 51 percent stake.
They turned it down and have absolutely no regrets.
The show generated some interest from potential U.S. franchise owners — and even now when the show airs in reruns they will get a spate of interested callers.
“I watch (“Shark Tank”) every week, and I’m glad I turned them down. I am very glad,” said Michael Barnett, chuckling.
“I think a lot of times on that show, they are just looking at where the business is, either at that moment, or what it has been in the past year or so,” he said.
“When we were sitting there with them five years ago, I knew that we had so much growth potential. So I knew that there was no way at that point we were going to give away 50 percent of the company. We only had a handful of locations at that point. Now we’ve got (close to) 100.”
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