Business question
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Which 3 things you need to know to start running a VR business with minor investments?

The main idea
You can be a pioneer and open a VR gaming center in your city or country. For example, a businessman buys VR game licenses and equipment. If he wants to expand or modifying his business, then the client may buy a new game and use the previous VR equipment.

The product should be applicable to a mass-market, not for geeks. The games should be suitable for the whole family (from children to grandparents), friends or for use in corporate parties.

Market analytics
The market of VR is developing. This means that now you have the opportunity to grow as the VR market grows. There are three possible options for you if you decide to open your own VR center.

The first is to do everything by yourself from the beginning, including game development and potentially even hardware development.

The second requires immense commitment to long-term and expensive projects that cost nearly 600,000 Euros ($645,000), 10-15% per month and a room of 150 m² (1600 ft²) square. This type of center would be opened for months. Also the product will likely use nonstandard equipment that is intended for a certain client. If something is destroyed it will be difficult to restore it in detail. In choosing this type of business model, you risk being in a situation 1-2 years from now in which you will have outdated and non-updateable equipment. This comes after opening your center for a long time and having invested a lot of money. You would not be able to get back your initial investment and your product has become outdated.

The third variant is to open a center using a small business model. It is important to open quickly, make use of only ready-made and available-for-a-mass-audience equipment and games, while using a small room (15-20 m²/160 ft²). Investing approximately 25,000 Euros and without paying royalties, you can start running your business in weeks and earn back your investments. And, if necessary, it’s easy to expand your list of services, purchase new products and adapt to the market.

Business planning
The key indicator in this business plan is the number of sessions per day. For instance, the optimal value will be 3 sessions per day. This figure depends largely on marketing.

It is better to use a commercial game with a 1 hour duration as it is convenient and takes into account adaptation to VR (for example, someone who has never played will have some difficulty playing more than an hour). Also, this business model is beneficial from a commercial point of view (you can get more sessions per day). You will need to determine your cost per session. You can charge per person or per team. The potential cost for a team can reach up to 120 Euro.