Playport Udon Thani
Jeab
She was originally from Buri Ram, later on, moved to Khon Kaen, and finally started her business Playport in Udon Thani. Her name is Jeab Prasertthawonsiri.
She got her agriculture-related bachelor degree from Khon Kaen University (KKU). Upon university graduation, she worked as a secretary with Thai Regional Environmental Office. Afterwards, she was recommended by her Office Director to become an Assistant to Dr. Wanpen Wirojanagud, then-Chairperson of Environmental Engineering Department, Khon Kaen University. For 7 years, there she worked with Dr. Wanpen, a mentor and incubator to her current business.
Oftentimes Dr. Wanpen would mention to her the importance of family time in such a busy society. Bearing such a core value in Jeab’s mind, she has kind of realized Dr. Wanpen’s thought by running a business like Playport, where family members may enjoy their family time together the whole day in there.
But, in fact, there’s still a long way to get to her current situation, mentally and financially.
Starting her business
Gardening
Jeab first began her business with gardening and landscaping. According to Dr. Wanpen, she was quite good at decoration design when she’s in KKU. In addition, everyone liked her and loved to work with her at that time. More important, she was capable of implementing what she had planned, not just talking it but completing it. In Dr. Wanpen’s eye, she is very trustworthy and responsible. And these are important personal character to run all business.
Swimming pool
After some time, Jeab made her attempt to shift her gardening work a little bit to swimming pool business based on her initial market survey. In Thailand, it’s quite true that most area is with hot weather, and there’s quite a long summertime. In addition, the foreign group seems to be in a significant population in Udon Thani area, and they are used to a lifestyle of swimming and playing with kids. Furthermore, in view of cost-effectiveness, the business revenue of swimming pool (plus landscaping) in each case may triple that of gardening and landscaping. So this explains the reason behind a transition of her business.
In the beginning, she targeted her sale to foreign residents. After gaining and knowing more market information, she tried to revise and propose her business model by selling to local residents who have their own business. Jeab's business promoting point is to help them make profit out of swimming pool installation, directly or indirectly. For example, when running a kindergarten or a private children school, facility of swimming pool can become an important measure to increase kids enrollment.
Playport
In swimming pool business, kids who can be reached are quite limited because it involves only those in private learning schools. To further reach out a general public, kids and their families, water park in a larger scale appears to be a promising business.
So the layout of Playport was proposed and constructed at a location next to a major transportation trunk. It took about 1 year to finish all construction work. This Playport was then given a test run in August 2013. Approximately, there’re 1000 persons every day coming to this water park. The number of person further increased to 2000 on October 23, 2013. As was scheduled, the grand opening of Playport will be set in April 2014.
When running this Playport, Jeab was proposing an idea connected to government’s children education policy. Instead of just giving away tablets to school children without any education software in them, why not offering a certain budget in physical exercise such as swimming activity? This can benefit kids more in a sense of outdoor activities rather than indoor game playing. In other words, parents may request free service of swimming activity from any public schools, and the pool providers can provide services out of government budget. In a long run, this can be a win-win business.
To run a water park like Playport, the required capital is huge to a business starter like Jeab. For example, if the land area needed is 2 hectare, this can cost 250 million Baht in the region of Udon Thani. As for the business operation, overall this may require 40 millions. In the initial phase, 5 million Baht should be prepared beforehand. If bank loan is available, the issue of capital and operation expenses can be mitigated. However, it appears that there’s no way to get a bank loan because a business plan like Playport was both innovation and initiation. Fortunately, Jeab had a partner who owns the land of the current location and provides its share in this regard. The other initial cash she needed was all from her family and friends. Indeed, this was quite a hard part for Jeab to start Playport and its operation.
Thinking of the poor
Over the conversation, Dr. Wanpen was especially touched when Jeab had the kids from poor families in mind. In general, Issan kids belong to the poor group in their society. Usually, those kids would swim in some dirty rivers or pools, and they may get drowned because of lack of safety measures. To the kids in rural area, it’s just too luxurious to enjoy swimming in a pool with high quality water and lifeguards. She thought she could also provide special services to those kids in need from time to time. Such an activity was planned and organized on Children's Day, Jan. 11, 2014.
Future prospect
As observed from the current customers, most of them fall in the kids or teens group. In the future, Playport will install spa and hydrothermal therapy pools to provide services for adults and senior residents, according to Jeab. This is to say that as a whole Playport is to provide services for groups of various age levels.
It is anticipated that Playport will become a Family Club for the cities in Udon Thani area. Such idea will be further disseminated to some other provinces such as Nong Khai, Buri Ram and Yasotoin. On the other hand, to deepen this business, the business mode of Playport will be repeated in different districts of a province.
"Not just a fun water park, Playport is a park of lifestyle, healthy and sustainable," said Jeab.
Concluding remark
It appears to Jeab that she ran into her business mentor Dr. Wanpen by destiny. They met and worked together in the past, starting a special relationship like mother and daughter. Jeab was most grateful to Dr. Wanpen for her financial support and guidance whenever she was in hard times and in need. I am sure that such a true relation will continue to bless Jeab’s business in years to come.
