The Tribune

A children’s mobile ride rental company has received a $69,000 capital injection with help from the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC).

More Play Entertainment, owned by Alisa Sands-Hutcheson, pictured, caters to school and public fairs, festivals, birthday parties and corporate events, bringing carnival-like fun for children to enjoy.

Always involved with planning events and helping with birthday parties, Ms Sands-Hutcheson said she was inspired to start More Play Entertainment after constantly having issues over how to best entertain children.

“Planning ‘fun days’ and school fairs, we would always come to a roadblock when it came to what entertainment we can find for the kids,” she explained. “We always ended up trying to get a show or something exciting like that outside of the regular bouncing castles.

“Those experiences caused me to think that maybe I should get into providing that service for people looking for a next-level source of entertainment.”

Through research, Ms Sands-Hutcheson found examples of people offering mobile ride rentals and decided to dive into the business. Listening to the radio, she heard about the SBDC and was impressed enough to go to the website and sign-up.

“What made me really join the SBDC was that it was a personalised experience,” Ms Sands-Hutcheson said. “When I listened to the introduction of the programme and read about how it worked, that drew me into the programme. I was like: ‘OK, they are going to assign me an advisor’, so it is not just like you bring your idea and if it doesn’t work, we don’t fund you.

“It was like: ‘We are going to help you figure it out. We are going to help you get your plan together. We are going to help you be able to present it to where it needs to go’, and that’s what attracted me to the organisation. It was the commitment the programme had of helping you to develop your business; not just giving you a grant but helping you to keep on track.”

Now that More Play Entertainment has received funding, Ms Sands-Hutcheson said: “I am very excited to be funded because I was waiting for a while. You have an idea, and you can see your vision, but for someone to believe in your vision and help you to achieve the funding for your vision, it is an overwhelming experience.

“I do not think I would have been able to access the correct funding that I needed if I did not have the advisement of the SBDC. They pushed and worked the plan properly, showed me different areas and weak points that the idea may have had.

“Taking my idea to them and letting them assist me with showing me all the areas that needed to be considered, all the risk that will be taken, all the things that need to be done, I feel like without the SBDC the road would have been much longer. I have all kinds of different emotions. I am excited, I am ready to go, and I am eager to make this happen,” she continued.

“One of our immediate goals for the company is to get our name out there. Once we get the rides landed, we want to have a big event to allow persons to see and use the rides. In the meantime, we will be opening up our social media pages and begin marketing More Play Entertainment.”

Ms Sands-Hutcheson said the most valuable thing the SBDC has offered her company is the advice.

“The advisement that you get in the programme, a start-up company cannot pay for,” she added. “You can get someone to do the work for you, but the cost factor is the big thing. The experience, the work and the effort that you get from the SBDC are priceless. You can’t put a real figure on what they do because it is so well-rounded with what you need for your business.

“Another major thing for why I like, and would encourage entrepreneurs to join the programme, is the advertising and networking you get through the SBDC is also something that you can’t put a figure on. You can get your business out there, and you have a network of entrepreneurs helping each other, coming to each other for services within the organisation. That alone is advertising that you cannot pay for.”

The SBDC is the product of a tripartite arrangement between the government, through the Ministry of Finance, University of The Bahamas (UB) and the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC). The Centre works to guide the development, funding, growth, and evolution of Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (”MSMEs”) in The Bahamas.