International differences in opening float centers – DSP 49

Graham and Ashkahn talk about the differences between float centers in different countries, from regulation to utility costs and even the sizes of tanks!

FTS Product – Float Center Business Plan

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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: Today’s question is, “what info in starting a float tank center varies from country to country?”

Ashkahn: Okay.

Graham: We’ve only ever opened up Float On in one country.

Ashkahn: Yeah. We’ve talked to people in other countries, but-

Graham: And float center owners in other countries, too.

Ashkahn: Yep. That’s true. I wasn’t thinking about that. I guess we’ll take a stab at answering this, but I’m not sure.

Graham: It is our job to answer your questions.

Ashkahn: Maybe you should look more into this after you listen to us, though. Don’t just bank everything you’re hearing on this.

Graham: First of all, in a lot of places, the language is going to be different, and the currency.

Ashkahn: Yeah. The geography.

Graham: Access to different materials can differ a little bit from place to place.

Ashkahn: And even here in the US, what materials you’re allowed to use can be different, sometimes.

Graham: Yeah, very true.

Ashkahn: Here, you can’t use oil paint in California.

Graham: Because they’re afraid of fires and stuff. I don’t know why?

Ashkahn: Other states are like, “Yeah, no problem. Go ahead and use that.”

Graham: Oregon is, we’re basically one giant ball of water.

Ashkahn: Yeah. In California, people usually epoxy paint instead of oil paint.

Graham: Not international, but still relevant.

Ashkahn: We’re getting there, working our way to them. Go to Mexico from there.

Graham: Of course, just geographically, this goes for within the United States and in other countries. The whole landscape of finding property, buying property, all of that can look very different. Same for taxes and everything going into it.

Ashkahn: Getting a bank loan, all that sort of stuff, I’m sure it differs from place to place. Another big one is probably going to be health department regulations. That varies a lot, even here within the one country, the United States, or Canada’s province by province. That’s going to depend whether your country has a bigger set of uniform regulations for the whole thing, or if it’s broken up by chunk by provinces or small counties or whatever equivalent is in your area. That’s definitely some landscape that will need to be figured out.

Although for the most part, it’s not even a ton of countries that necessarily have float tank fleshed out rules in many ways. The US and Canada are figuring things out. There’s some stuff in places like Germany and Austria, and Australia has some, but once you start getting into places where float tanks are really just emerging, you’re probably not going to find anything on the books about float tank regulations.

Graham: I wouldn’t assume so, or you’re just going to be having to be the one doing the educating along the way, which is another thing, too, that I’ve heard from other centers in different countries, which is because a lot of the press coming out around float tanks and their benefits any everything like that is in English, there’s this language barrier where the growing awareness of floating doesn’t seem to be spreading as quickly to countries that don’t speak English. So, another difference again, depending on the language there. There might just need to be a lot more education and perhaps even translating some of the other articles that have been done on floating and other resources into your language to make it work.

Ashkahn: Mm-hmm. That’s true. I guess if you’re doing that, you could take credit for all of it. You’d be like, “Yeah, I invented these.” They would just go for it. No one would know.

Graham: Not legally, unless the laws in your country are different than the laws in the United States, of course, in which case you totally can, yeah.

Ashkahn: Let’s see. Health departments, access to construction materials, bank loans-

Graham: Average height of your citizens, I think changes.

Ashkahn: What? The size of tank you’re going to want. When you’re buying a float tank, there’s things like import fees and shipping and accessibility of getting USP grade salt, all that is going to change the prices for your initial set up.

Graham: Yeah. Definitely. Similarly, cultures and different areas are probably going to determine how you set up your center and what kinds of tanks you get, and what your marketing pitch is, basically.

Ashkahn: Marketing interesting. There’s interesting differences now based on the fact that certain countries, like the United States, and in Canada, have a lot more awareness, like you were saying about floating, even for consumers. People who are opening float centers now in a city where they’re the fifth float center to open up, are doing different marketing and outreach than you would be if you were the first float center in your entire country to be opening up. You got to play a slightly different game and really focus on education and things like that. So, you’re going to notice some tangible differences based off of what the general market is like in your area and whether you’re really trying to introduce people to this concept for the first time.

Graham: Yeah. For sure. What else? I guess, similar to health departments, your building department is going to have a whole different process of going through, almost certainly.

Ashkahn: Oh, yeah. There’s a lot of ADA codes and all that sort of stuff here that I’m sure can differ widely from place to place.

Graham: Yeah, absolutely. So, materials, the process of getting permits, who your customers are, what your marketing message is to them, how you talk to health departments. Those are a lot of the things I would expect to change. Things that I would expect to stay the same though, is a lot of the essentials, to be honest. A lot of stuff like how you want to do your construction, what you actually want to be building, all the philosophy behind that. All of that’s going to stay the same for soundproofing and water damage control and stuff like that. Even if materials and access to them changes slightly.

Ashkahn: Yeah, and all of your operations, the work that it goes into running the float center and your day to day life and all that sort of stuff is going to pretty similar.

Graham: Yep, and even the general supplies and costs and ongoing expenses of a float center here in the US or for Float On, I would expect to be very similar for a float center pretty much anywhere in the world. Utilities and things like that can change, but you’re going to roughly, if you’re providing earplugs and different materials like that for your clients, they’re probably going to be using about the same amounts and it’s not going to cost too much, for example. I’d almost say that there’s probably more in common with float centers country to country, and certainly that’s what I’ve seen, as well, in my own travels, going around than there are huge amounts of differences that go into them.

Ashkahn: It seems like the differences are mostly the hurdles you’ll have to jump over to get it open in the first place.

Graham: Yeah, yeah. And again that average height of your customers.

Ashkahn: That’s a big one, yeah.

Graham: Cool. Again, do your own research. We don’t live in a foreign country. We’ve only opened up a float center here in the United States, but we have visited a lot of different countries and a lot of different float centers. Again, I certainly see more similarities than differences.

Ashkahn: Cool. Well, if you guys out there have more questions that you want us to answer, hop over to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.

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