Lessons in brand building from the ups, downs and expansion of BOUNCE

In 2012, Ant Morell and Simon McNamara took $2 million in funding and founded the very first BOUNCE – an indoor adrenaline playground. More than a decade later, BOUNCE has 19 locations Australia-wide and plans to expand to at least 30 venues over the next three years. It has also achieved a predicted revenue of $65 million – almost double its $37 million earnings from 2021/2022.

In a recent interview with SmartCompany Plus, Morrell explains the secrets to BOUNCE’s success, including how to market to the masses and learn what makes your brand special.

The birth of BOUNCE

Morell and McNamara are not new entrepreneurs. Over the years, they’ve helped found iconic hospitality franchises like Boost and Grill’d, as well as Spudbar and a series of cafés. But it was a trip to the US that helped cement the idea for their most recent venture, BOUNCE – an indoor trampolining centre inspired by high-adrenaline sports like parkour.

“We went on a road trip to America to look at licencing for a centre with interconnected trampolines,” Morell explains. “We went there with many ideas around what this concept could be, and we’d already started to pre-imagine it in technicolour. By the time we saw the US concept, the BOUNCE business model and vision were more or less there. So, we decided to start incubating the idea and build it ourselves.”