Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Float centers require a lot of upfront capital to get started up, and because of that it can feel like float centers should operate like big business, or perhaps bigger businesses than they actually are. Some centers may consider, at some point, having their employees sign non-compete clauses to prevent them from sharing trade secrets with competitors. Graham and Ashkahn have been at this for a while and express their opinions as to why this probably isn’t the most practical approach for your float center.
Show Resources
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question, “What’s your opinion on non-competes being mandatory for your employees?”
Ashkahn: Is that a thing? People at float centers or …
Graham: Well it’s a business thing. I don’t know if it’s necessarily a float center thing.
It’s the idea of non-competes is if you stop working at this float center, you can’t just go share all of their float secrets with the float center across town-
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: … when you get hired on, you know.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I guess I feel like maybe people have a bigger concern over right now, because float centers are so new in some areas.
Graham: Right, if you’re a barista at a coffee shop-
Ashkahn: Right, right.
Graham: … You don’t sign a non-compete saying you’re not gonna work at any coffee shops for a year if you get fired from this one, you know?
Ashkahn: And I guess that’s kinda how I’m thinking about it. To me it feels a little bit silly, because it feels more like the barista in the coffee shop example. Like, if you sign non-competes when you’re a high level consultant or working for some sort of real technical something or another, you know, when you could actually … You have some sort of proprietary information, that will allow you to go start … or you have a group of … a relationship with a bunch of customers or your clients or something, that you can take with you to theoretically start your own firm, whatever sort of business, right? Those are the areas are I feel like that non-competes have some significance, but non-competes just for like your employee or staff, like working in a shop feels …
Graham: A little extreme?
Ashkahn: It feels a little extreme to me, I guess.
Graham: So here’s … I’ve noticed that there’s a tendency, this is getting a little beyond the scope of this question specifically. But getting into running a business, especially something that costs as much money as a float tank center and you spend as much time setting up beforehand. I think there’s this instinct to try to act like a big business or try to do things like you’ve seen bigger businesses do and I’m not sure that’s the right way to kinda approach a lot of the decisions that have to be made at a float tank center level. So you hear about things, like non-competes or even when you’re talking to other people about your idea of setting up a float tank center, having them sign a non disclosure or something like that in order for them to kinda hear your float tank center in so-and-so city pitch. I don’t know, I don’t think that those are as necessary. Like Ashkahn was saying, these things are important for bigger businesses, because they’re trying to go public or they have investors, they actually have to take-
Ashkahn: Like bigger positions in a much more significant …
Graham: So yeah, maybe if you’re talking about a manager of your franchise. Like you have a float franchise and you’re hiring on-
Ashkahn: Kinda like your business partner you’re trying to bring on or something. That’s the scale I would start considering this is … I just feel like if you were to hire someone on off Craigslist for, you know, 12 bucks an hour and have them sign a non-compete thing, it’d be a little silly.
Graham: Also, our industry is so open in sharing anyway. It’s not like the float center across town is relying on the information from someone who worked at your float center. They can just kinda go on Float Collective and get information about a bunch of float centers open and a bunch of proprietary information. And it’s never really kinda been in the spirit of float tanks, I think to have a really tight control on that.
Ashkahn: I mean if you even consider the proprietary information that we’re talking about here. Because they’re not gonna randomly take all your customers with them to go open another float center.
Graham: Nor are they probably gonna open another float center themselves, I mean that’s a really long humongous process-
Ashkahn: That’s unlikely to begin with. So, what we’re talking about is you protecting yourself from someone opening up another float center where they already have construction knowledge and sanitation knowledge, I guess those are the most kinda technical things that they’d be taking with them. And if they were to open another float center, wouldn’t you want them to have construction knowledge and sanitation knowledge? It’s gonna be worse if another float center is next to you doing a horrible job running floats, and nothing is soundproof, and the sanitation’s all gross. So I gotta know, I don’t know, I guess I don’t know exactly what you’re protecting, other than just trying to stop someone who might be interested in opening a float center from opening one near you. But I don’t know, it just feels like such a slim situation.
Graham: Yeah, so there’s our opinion, don’t protect yourself at all, just kinda pull people on willy nilly.
Ashkahn: Yeah, that’s fine.
Graham: And honestly, I just think putting it in the context of, if someone’s working another retail job, they’re working at Macy’s and are you gonna have them sign a non-compete for not working at other retail places? Or anything like that. I don’t think that at that level, when you’re the one behind the counter checking people in that a non-compete is really appropriate.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: And this comes from … We’ve had lots of employees leave our center and eventually find jobs at other float centers, sometimes nearby, either because they’re moving for school or whatever the reason. I mean, some we’ve fired and they’ve gotten jobs at other float tank centers and that’s still been fine, we’ve never seen any problems arise from it. So this is something we’ve actively been through and coming out the other side totally unscathed. I can say I’ve never felt the need for a non-compete.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I would agree with that.
Graham: So for further questions, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast and send them our way.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Funding your center through Kickstarter – DSP 119
Crowdfunding has made so many projects possible that would otherwise not exist. It seems perfect for niche ideas, concepts that would otherwise never see the light of day, and passion projects that just need to happen. This sounds perfect for float centers, but there are some caveats.
Crowdfunding is time intensive and there’s not guarantee of success. Aside from that, there are some issues with it that complicate things for float centers that other crowdfunded projects likely won’t face. Graham and Ashkahn talk about the successes of float center crowdfunding and the not-so-successes as well.
Don’t Build Your Own Float Tank! – DSP 118
For anyone considering a DIY float tank, give this episode a listen first. This isn’t a discussion on the merits of doing things one way versus another or expressing an opinion on one side and playing devil’s advocate for the other. Graham and Ashkahn know painfully well from personal experience the pitfalls of falling into the hubris trap of thinking you can build your own float tanks. They built two large open tanks in Float On and even years later they still cause headaches.
What’s more, they’ve spoken with dozens of people who’ve also gone through this themselves and heard their horror stories after they didn’t listen to the advice of not doing it.
The perception that it can be a cost-cutting measure or a more reliable way to get an operating float tank in your center by going DIY is generally pretty flawed. There’s so much to it that you just can’t consider before the fact.
Should Your Float Center have a Blog? – DSP 117
This seems like a good idea on paper. It helps with SEO stuff for Google. It gives you an outlet to write about floating and share information about the industry. And it seems to fall in line with something that other businesses do, right?
So what are the downsides? How much time and effort does a blog really take? What sort of impact does it have for a float center? Graham and Ashkahn lay out the pros and cons as well as things you may not initially consider about the responsibility of having a blog.
Thoughts on Buying Yelp Ads – DSP 116
There are lots of businesses that experience the dogged persistence of Yelp sales people calling them. Float On has done both buying Yelp ad space and living without it and Graham and Ashkahn break down exactly what that experience was like.
They also go into exactly what Yelp ads mean and how it impacts your float center (or doesn’t, as the case may be) as well as how well Yelp stacks up in comparison to other ad sources.
When is it Time to Open a Second Float Center? – DSP 115
Okay, so… Float On only has one location (not counting Float On Hong Kong) and there’s certainly a reason for that. Graham and Ashkahn have toyed with the idea of opening up another center multiple times throughout the years but something else always came up. As they’ve met more people in the industry, they’ve seen some of the pitfalls and successes from people opening additional locations, franchises and whatever else. They share their thoughts on when they think it’d be best to open and why they say to wait a little bit.
Latest Blog Posts
Much Ado About Nothing
Today, I’d like to talk to you about nothing. But first I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Ashkahn, and I’m one of the co-founders of Float On. I’ve spent the last 2 years of my life entirely devoted to these magical boxes we’ve all discovered, and...
Past & Present of Oasis & Future of Floating
My focus here/now will be on the past [portion of this 'assignment'] that set me up to be involved in floatation work... It was probably inevitable that I would end up involved with float tanks .... When your last name is Wasserman, which means 'waterman' in german*,...
Past, Present, Future
My life is focused around balance. This is the key to everything I do; A balance between cosmic vows of spirituality, family, and the business with the scales constantly being tipped back and forth on the scale.To understand why I am involved in the Flotation Industry...
The Art of Managing Expectations
When considering opening a floatation center, I came across the following story that helped me understand the process that I was going to be going through as the owner of Float Matrix. There once was a plumber who was excellent at what he did. He knew everything...
