Today on the Manaverse Podcast we're talking to Laura Schneider. Laura's the co-owner of Meeples Games and she's going to walk us through how she built her awesome game store /cafe/thunderdome.

We go over how Laura spent an entire year planning and preparing before she opened her doors for the first time and why that was critical to her current success. She used the lead up time well, since Laura's operating a game cafe rather than a run of the mill LGS, she had to build a kitchen as well as a retail space and kitchen equipment isn't cheap. In addition to planning everything out before hand she also purchased much of her equipment at a discount over the year. 

There are a lot of advantages to taking your time when it comes to building a business. We really explore what it takes to make the game cafe model work, even if you don't have any experience running a food business, just like Laura did. 

Meeples Games truly is an excellent LGS and Laura has built a great game store. I'm sure her customers would agree.

Over the course of this episode we also talk about:

• Business plans and how to prepare before the business opens
• Finding and hiring the right employees
• A deep look into the game cafe model
• How scratching your own itch can lead to success
• Finding the right partners
• Cooperation versus competition
• A clever strategy for keeping your store clean while also scoring a few sales

Check out Meeples Games on Facebook, Twitter, and the web and tell them you found them on the Manaverse Podcast.