The owners of Sky High Sports Spokane LLC, a five-year company that operates a trampoline facility here, have created a new partnership called Flying Squirrel Sports through which they hope to open trampoline parks in locations throughout Canada and Central America. 

Since Sky High opened in December of 2010, franchisee co-founders Cody and Luke Schueler have seen a lot of changes in the trampoline business and decided they wanted to create something new. 

 “We wanted to be the first to develop a more high-end, luxury trampoline park catering to kids as well as adults,” says Cody Schueler. 

Flying Squirrel’s first location opened about eight weeks ago in Calgary, Alberta, and employs 34 people. Flying Squirrel is set to open in several other locations soon, with facilities currently being built in Hamilton, Ontario, and Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Most locations so far have been international because, as Schueler explains, “The markets are becoming more saturated every year. Although we’re not opposed to opening locations in the states, our main focus is international due to current U.S. market saturation.” 

In addition to trampolines, Flying Squirrel locations feature many other attractions, including a ninja course, laser maze, rope swing, slack lines, fidget ladders, dunk hoops, courts for dodgeball and other activities, pool tables, arcade games and photo booths. They also feature a full sit-down bar and café area with 60-inch TVs throughout, known as the Drey Bar & Café. Drey is a word that refers to a squirrel’s nest of twigs in a tree. 

While the Schuelers currently operate Flying Squirrel under a limited liability company, and not as a franchise, they’re debating whether to keep the locations company owned or to move to a franchise model. Each location is its own entity, with the average start-up cost per location being about $2.4 million. Cody Schueler says in the future, should Flying Squirrel move to a franchise model, he and his brother would plan to charge each franchisee a percentage of gross income.

He says he believes this is just the beginning for Flying Squirrel. “Investor interest is extremely high. We are looking for partners to expand up to 100 locations within three years,” he says. 

 So far, facilities also are planned for Kitchener, Ontario; Waterloo, Ontario; Lethbridge, Alberta; and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Schueler says he expects facilities to be up and running in all of those markets by the end of next year.

The brothers recently launched another venture, called High Rev Applications, which offers streamlined merchant processing, point of sale, website, search engine optimization, and custom mobile applications.

 They created that business after attempting to design an app for Flying Squirrel’s trampoline parks.

 “The biggest pain in a startup is finding an adequate point of sale solution, Web development, SEO, marketing, and advertising. High Rev was created to simplify it all. We offer all of these services in one, as well as our new custom business mobile applications,” Schueler says. 

 Most of High Rev’s current apps are for other trampoline parks, although he and his brother also have reached out to others, starting on designs for businesses such as orthodontists and chiropractors. While High Rev’s main focus is app building, it also designs websites and assists with search engine optimization for small businesses. 

With an approximate startup cost of $500,000, High Rev currently employs six people. “Although we still are not cash flowing we are injecting all revenue into the business to expand as fast as we can,” Schueler says.

“We haven’t reached out for funding in this project yet. Although it seems like it will be very lucrative we eventually will be open for investment as soon as we have over 10,000 clients.”

High Rev’s Marketing director, Monte Tareski, says “High Rev is doing really well for a start-up company. We have contracts going out this week for at least 20 apps.”

Both Flying Squirrel and High Rev began coming together in the fall of 2014. So far both have office space at Sky High Sports in Spokane, although Tareski says they may soon be looking at expanding their space.

Sky High Sports currently occupies a 37,000-square-foot space at 1322 E. Front. The building was once a warehouse owned by Cascade Seed Wholesale Co.