All Episodes - Right on Target

What's The BIG Innovation?

What is Battlefield Sports' BIG Innovation? What technology helped Battlefield Sports grow from a bespoke manufacturer to a leader in the Live-Action Gaming sector?  Listen to Nicole Lander's presentation at Small Business Month for local business owners and operators.  Gain insights and useful resources to help you grow your business: How to find what your (or website) used to look like The "500 Club" in LinkedIn  The Benefits of Facebook Groups for your business Learn about Battlefield Sports' patented technology "real-time hit feedback". Learn about how Battlefield Sports was inspired by the excitement of video games and how they transformed that excitement into a live-action experience.  #battlefieldsports #innovation #patentedtechnology #smallbusiness #manufacturing  #smallbusinessmonth  Ready to arm yourself for adventure? Take the adventure quiz: https://adventure.scoreapp.com

Right on Target Podcast for Adventure Business Operators (Trailer)

How Did Commercial Outdoor Laser Tag Get Started?

Hi, my name is Nicole Lander I want to tell you a story about how I become the world's leading live-action gaming innovator. Let me tell you my backstory, real quick.  We started our business in the rainforests of tropical Australia. We had a few thousand $ & an idea -- to take a video game & experience it LIVE. Sounds idyllic.  But it wasn’t all peaches and cream.  Cairns was a small town. Back in the 1990s it had a population of around 100,000. It was an unlikely place to start an innovative export company. It was a humble start. It was a pretty tricky time in our lives.  I remember at school (I went to a religious all-girls school) and the Nuns said there are basically three or four careers a girl can aspire to: 1. Housewife 2. Nurse or Teacher 3. Nun. Now I don’t want to deride anyone of these vocations but I knew in my gut that none of them were for me. My father was a civil servant, my grandfather was a civil servant. But I said to my Dad that I wanted to go to University and study business. And he didn’t think I could do it. He said, just go get a civil service job. Somehow, I managed to get into college and I studied a Bachelor of Commerce. But after I finished my degree, I sort of fell back into what was expected and I spent 10 years working in the civil service myself. Peter, on the other hand, came from a family of master builders. So, when we were first married, we started our own business. I thought that having a traditional software development business was sensible. I wanted to buy a house, and raise our family. And for a couple of years, we did okay. I thought that software development was a safe bet, a sensible choice. But that belief was flipped on its head. We have two kids under two and we were busy due to the dot-com boom. But the dotcom crash of 2000 hit us hard. Our software business crashed. A business that we had spent years building up was kyboshed. Stone-dead, almost overnight. We felt the pressure. Massive pressure. Two kids, two and under! Our family was in real jeopardy. It felt like a heavy, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. When our ‘day-job’ business tanked we looked at each another and said: “What do we do now”? We had been playing outdoor laser tag as a hobby for a year or so. It was something we were passionate about. We played near a disused bridge on the banks of the Kamerunga river. In a recreation area that had a lot of trees. The cover was lush, after all it was rainforest! We had an original Morita Sniper Rifle, some sub-machine guns, and some pistols. The pistols were completely outgunned by the sniper rifles. No game balance back then! The first technology was really basic. But we were in our element! And starting out in a tropical town we would play in all sorts of weather. We were even crazy enough to try and play in the monsoon. Where the rain is so heavy it hurts when it hits you! I’m sure some of the locals thought we were completely crazy! But we are lovin’ it. When we started, we literally just asked our gamers a few bucks to cover the cost of the batteries. This little side-hustle with our laser tag business saved us. Over time, more and more started loving the experience too. We got featured in the local newspaper. And Nicole created a web site www.lasertag.com.au and people all over the world started emailing us. Saying: “Hey! What you are doing is cool. How can I do it too?” We decided to move from the small town of Cairns to the big city, the State capital, Brisbane. We wanted to build a business that gave our family regular, and reliable cash flow. More we wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. To give them an experience that they would never forget. One of that handful of experiences that the gamers would never forget. When we moved to a big city asked: “Will people in the city love playing laser tag?" Keep listening to find out the answer. Right on Target podcast: Episode 1 Ready to arm yourself for adventure? Take the quiz: https://adventure.scoreapp.com