Teen coursework: Students take a shot at business with backyard paintball venture

High school students in south Kansas City are mixing recreation with education by applying entrepreneurial concepts from the classroom to start their own paintball venture.

Lonnie Small and Jonathan Lee, Project:Paintball, The Daniel Academy

Located on the campus of The Daniel Academy, Project:Paintball began as an idea in an entrepreneurship and marketing class during the 2021-22 school year.

“We’re the Planet Fitness of paintball,” said Jonathan Lee, who taught the class where students developed the business idea. “I don’t think we’re going to be the professional sport venue for paintball; it’s more recreational.”

By summer 2022, the idea had become reality, as a team of students, teachers, and parents cleared a wooded area behind the school and transformed it into a paintball field.

In order to purchase all the necessary equipment — including markers, tanks, masks, and ammo — students raised $8,000 in funding, Lee said.

They also received a boost when Martin City Paintball, which had closed permanently, allowed the students to take as many barriers from their facility as they needed.

“We’re getting there more quickly than we thought,” Lee said. “This is gravy for us.”

‘This is gonna happen’

Despite being student-led, Project:Paintball functions and operates similarly to any other venture, with paid employees, earned revenue, and operational costs.

Students researched all the ins and outs of running a paintball business as part of their homework for the class, according to Rebekah Lee, Jonathan’s daughter and a senior at The Daniel Academy.

Rebekah Lee

“A lot of our homework was researching different aspects of paintball to get data,” she said. “We knew what paintball was, but we didn’t know much about it, so we researched prices, marketing tactics, different ways of playing — just kinda learning what it was.”

She said that the first spark for the idea could be traced back to the summer of 2021, before the entrepreneurship and marketing class had commenced.

“A couple years ago, my dad and I were walking through the back trying to figure out what to do with the land,” Rebekah Lee said. “He jokingly said, ‘Let’s just make it a paintball course and call it good.’”

Not too long after, a group of students went to a paintball course in Harrisonville for a birthday party, and enjoyed it so much that they started imagining how they could create their own course.

“We had never been before,” Rebekah Lee said. “We came back and said, ‘That was so much fun. We could actually do this, because our backyard looks just like that.’”

“So we started talking and we started the class, and then it became more of a reality,” she continued. “That’s when we were like, ‘This is gonna happen.’”

Rebekah encouraged other students and young entrepreneurs to take inspiration from the success of Project:Paintball.

“Just go for it, like, take initiative, and start what you want to see happen,” she said. “It’s not just gonna happen on its own. Be willing to put in those extra hours, that extra work — if you really want it, you’ll put in the work to make it happen.”

Project:Paintball, The Daniel Academy

Reinvestment in education

Less than a year after opening and establishing an LLC, Project:Paintball has already been successful enough to be “about operationally break even,” according to Jonathan Lee.

A big reason for that, he acknowledged, is because the venture operates under the nonprofit status of the school, still relying on The Daniel Academy for some financial support.

However, Lee and the students hope to continue growing Project:Paintball to the point where it is financially independent by the end of this school year, he said.

Profits are reinvested into education, Lee added, in order to fund scholarships for students and increase pay for teachers.

“We’re not yet profitable, but our dream is to be very, very profitable so that we can dump it all back into the school,” Lee said. “We’re here to have fun, but we’re also here to give back to education.”

In keeping with that “Planet Fitness of paintball” mindset, Lee believes that the student-run enterprise could fill a gap in Kansas City, specifically for youth and amateur paintballers.

“We love to have birthday parties here,” Lee said. “We love to take care of even little kids — we’re open to junior high and older —  but if there’s an opportunity for some younger ones who want to come out and do target practice, and walk through different action scenarios where they’re not getting shot at, no one else is really doing that.”

“We’re open to filling that niche,” he continued. “We’re kind of aiming at this different segment of the market where it’s recreational — maybe it’s your first time — and you can come here for a cheaper, more fun experience.”

Project:Paintball offers equipment rental and 18 different combinations of game play. The course is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays, in addition to hosting private parties.