Shane Starr

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[0:00] It's Ian from Attraction Insights and

[0:02] I'm here with Shane. Shane, how you

[0:03] doing today?

[0:04] Hey, doing good, Ian.

[0:05] Good. See you again.

[0:05] Absolutely. Always a pleasure. How you

[0:07] have been so far?

[0:08] It's been awesome. Always. We're on our

[0:10] final day. Barely have a voice left.

[0:13] I feel that.

[0:14] Done so much talking to people. Probably

[0:15] the most networking I've ever done out

[0:18] of any.

[0:19] Well, that's great.

[0:20] We like briefly live stream some games.

[0:22] We're in the arcade industry, so I like

[0:24] to show some of our followers the new

[0:26] stuff that's coming out. Please tell us

[0:28] about yourself, about your company. And

[0:30] so my company Starcade Amusements. We

[0:32] started about 5 years ago as an arcade

[0:34] repair company. Basically left. I I used

[0:37] to work for for Chucky Round One. Left,

[0:39] started my own thing. Started just doing

[0:41] repairs for lemon and pop arcades. And

[0:43] then over the years we've grown. Now we

[0:45] service over a hundred different family

[0:47] entertainment centers. We have like

[0:49] service agreements with a lot of them

[0:50] where we come in regularly. And instead

[0:52] of them having dedicated in-house repair

[0:55] team, we travel out. We have a route,

[0:57] but instead of it being a route where we

[0:59] just collect, it's a route where we

[1:01] actually do repairs for all the owners.

[1:03] So, we're the main support team for a

[1:04] lot of those people. That's that's kind

[1:06] of the bread and butter of our business,

[1:07] that's what we did for our first three

[1:08] years. Uh, two years ago now, we opened

[1:11] our own arcade. I think that was around

[1:13] the same time I met you.

[1:14] Oh, yeah. You were just about starting

[1:15] out. And congratulations first off. Of

[1:17] course. And I think that's so cool that

[1:19] you were able to really just learn what

[1:21] it's about, talk to these people, and

[1:23] then use that knowledge in in a pretty

[1:25] great way.

[1:25] So, what's cool is, and I was I was just

[1:28] talking to one one of the meetings we

[1:29] had. What's what's cool about our

[1:30] business is that more members of our

[1:33] company are technicians than than any

[1:36] other role in the company because we

[1:37] started as a repair customer. And so,

[1:39] our stuff runs really well even though

[1:41] we have retro arcade. And we don't just

[1:43] have like when you when you picture

[1:44] retro arcade, most people think of

[1:46] Lonkey Kong and Pac-Man and the 80s, we

[1:48] have a retro more like a retro 90s,

[1:50] early 2000s arcade. So, we still have a

[1:53] lot of cool electromechanical rides.

[1:56] Well, not rides, but things that work

[1:58] the same way where it's full of pulleys

[2:00] and levers and gears and we we have to

[2:03] make sure the techs are able to work on

[2:05] that that kind of equipment. Since we

[2:07] have said a full team of technicians,

[2:09] we're able to keep that stuff running

[2:10] even though it's getting old. So people

[2:12] come in, they like they're they're like,

[2:14] "Oh man, even even Gen Z will come in

[2:15] and they like, "Oh, this is this is a

[2:17] throwback. I remember playing that at

[2:19] Chuck- E-Cheese in 2004 or something."

[2:22] So we we have a retro arcade and that a

[2:24] lot of our games are around 20 years

[2:26] old.

[2:27] It's not arcade necessarily.

[2:30] It is funny because you are the people

[2:32] who they would call it to fix your

[2:33] stuff. So just that is definitely a huge

[2:36] advantage I'm sure just be able to be

[2:38] like all these things that most people

[2:40] won't even touch anymore we we'll fix

[2:42] them.

[2:42] So a lot of people didn't even want us

[2:44] to fix. So a lot of our equipment the

[2:46] way the reason we opened an arcade we

[2:48] had a warehouse. We were just operating

[2:50] out of for repairs and a lot of our

[2:52] equipment were items that we would go

[2:54] out to these mom and pop skating rinks

[2:56] and things and they would be like don't

[2:57] even waste time fixing that. I'm just

[2:58] going to throw it away.

[2:59] That's so funny. just like this really

[3:01] good starting supply of basically other

[3:04] so when man's trash kind of thing seems

[3:06] like what it's about be it'd be cool

[3:08] stuff like hydro thunder I remember we

[3:10] got some hydro thunders just H2

[3:12] overdrive came out and the operator was

[3:15] like I don't need this this thing

[3:17] anymore that's that's trash get rid of

[3:18] it

[3:19] so what I would just like like to ask

[3:21] especially because I am so ignorant of

[3:23] the arcade industry as a whole how do

[3:26] you feel 2425 went and how do you feel

[3:28] we're going into 26.

[3:30] Everybody here has told me it's been

[3:34] it's been rough. I was told that a lot

[3:35] of companies they were saying down sales

[3:37] are down like 30 40%.

[3:38] Oh no.

[3:39] Oh, that's that's what I've heard. We're

[3:41] we're we're lucky in that it is our

[3:43] second year of business. Obviously,

[3:45] we've seen some growth since our first

[3:48] year. Nobody knew who we were. We're

[3:50] we're based out of Kennesaw now, our our

[3:52] main arcade. We're really close to a

[3:53] college. So, our sales are up. They're

[3:55] they're up lower than we expected, but

[3:57] they are up overall. So, at the very

[3:59] least, we've got some some growth in

[4:02] sales.

[4:04] We're inside of a shopping mall and

[4:05] malls in general are doing bad. So,

[4:08] while we've seen almost all of our

[4:10] neighbors move out, we've we've seen

[4:12] some really small growth. We used to be

[4:14] attached to or we used to be right in

[4:16] front of an anchor store below,

[4:19] moved away completely. The only foot

[4:21] traffic now we get is just people coming

[4:23] specifically for us. Luckily, we have

[4:25] good reviews that helps and word of

[4:27] mouth for the college. So, we have a lot

[4:28] of regulars that support us. But in

[4:31] general, our 2425,

[4:33] it's not where we expected it would be,

[4:36] but we are still at least up, which

[4:38] again, I've heard from some of these

[4:39] guys, they're down 30 40%. Which is I I

[4:42] can't imagine. Luckily, our service side

[4:44] keeps us afloat. So, that's that's been

[4:46] growing more than ever. the but the

[4:47] actual arcade itself has been kind of

[4:49] kind of kind of stagnant

[4:50] synerggetic business idea tried and true

[4:53] and obviously you but you can now set up

[4:55] situations where you functionally work

[4:57] for yourself but that's great that you

[4:58] also have still this constant consultant

[5:01] or technician work coming through and uh

[5:04] just super valuable insight I'm super

[5:06] I'm so glad I could catch you and safe

[5:09] travels and hope you enjoyed your so

[5:11] much

[5:11] of course hey next year we talk we're

[5:13] opening a bar so I'll let you

[5:14] oh I mean that's I'll say the last thing

[5:17] I'm mentioning.

[5:17] Go. So, we got the hot goss right at the

[5:19] end.

[5:20] We're we're opening up a retro arcade

[5:22] bar. So, I I mentioned a lot of our

[5:23] stuff 90s 2000s. We're taking a lot of

[5:25] our 80s stuff, which honestly it it

[5:28] didn't do super well because it's mostly

[5:30] college kids. They know what Pac-Man is,

[5:32] but they're not dying to play it. So,

[5:34] we're taking a lot of our older games

[5:36] that were kind of for the Gen X crowd

[5:38] and some of our pinballs, stuff like

[5:40] that, and we're going to take those.

[5:41] We're trying to open up a bar, have

[5:43] those games inside of there. So, we're

[5:45] actually doing like a bar pub arcade

[5:47] type thing.

[5:47] So, real quick, just to end us off, can

[5:49] you give can you give us the location

[5:50] and a date on that?

[5:52] Sure. It's going to be in Marietta,

[5:53] Georgia. So, just like maybe 10 minutes

[5:55] from our arcade. We're hoping to be open

[5:57] by January. So, right into 26.

[6:00] Yep. 26.

[6:00] 26. Opening. Yep. Next year.

[6:03] Oh, excellent. Oh,

[6:03] we've we've already got the unit. We've

[6:05] already started working on it.

[6:06] Oh, cool. I was I was thinking it was

[6:07] going to be 27, but I didn't know. So,

[6:08] opening soon. Go get your drink on now.

[6:11] That's awesome. Thanks, man. Absolutely.

[6:13] Cool.