The JumpOff Owner, Alvarez Dixon, Uses Trep OnTrack to Elevate His Business

Alvarez Dixon describes himself as a lifelong entrepreneur and lover of solving problems. He owns one of Danville’s first family fun centers, The JumpOff, located in the Village Mall. The JumpOff is an interactive space where guests of all ages are encouraged to connect and engage in hands-on experiences, whether by exploring the inflatable playground, dodging darts in the battlezone, or competing for a top spot on the leaderboard at the gaming station (which is soon to be a complete esports lounge).

The JumpOff is open from Thursday to Sunday for drop-ins, shared-space parties, and private events. Adults are always admitted free with paid child admission, and even grown-ups are encouraged to join the excitement. There’s also an on-site snack shop where guests can purchase pizza, slushies, and other funtime fare to fuel them through the afternoon’s activities.

Alvarez aims to make The JumpOff an inclusive space and has tailored several features to make the venue more comfortable for guests on the autism spectrum. With several sensory enrichment areas and a chalkboard wall already in place, he plans to add new features to enhance the experience even more.

Before opening The JumpOff, Alvarez worked in youth development for over 20 years, running after-school programs and working in behavioral health intervention and youth ministry. He says he sees this business as another avenue to continue this critical work. “The educational work that I do is really in informal and experiential settings. I use playing games as tools for development work with young people,” he says. “Connections around play and playful experiences are really the ones that I think have been the most powerful for me, as well as for the young people I’ve had the opportunity to work with.”

Around the time that Alvarez launched The JumpOff, he enrolled in the 2022 sessions of the Trep OnTrack Business Bootcamp. In his eyes, the course material made him see bootstrapping–building a business from the ground up with little capital or resources–in a different light.

“What I got from The Trep School at the time was really permission to launch what I considered a major business enterprise. Lots of people start their companies by bootstrapping, but we don’t find out about those companies until long after they become successful, large corporations. They often start with someone who just had to cobble together some answers to a question or solution to a problem,” he says. “The Trep School was the place where I grew in confidence that I could compete in this market with an idea. Our business shifted during that time from being a side hustle to a legit business.”

The JumpOff wasn’t Alvarez’s first entrepreneurial venture, and he says the Trep OnTrack Bootcamp made a substantial difference in the experience of starting a new small business.

“There are a variety of programs that are aimed at helping small businesses get started. I will say of the Trep program, it is unique in that it’s the first experience that I’ve had as a minority-owned business, as an African-American-owned business, that has felt the least sort of intimidating to start up,” he states. “There’s something really intimidating about entering a Chamber of Commerce or some of the other business startup programs. There’s this sense that you have to have all your ducks in a row before they even talk to you, before they will even look at you. As a minority-owned business, that is a difficult space to be in, a vulnerable space to be in, because there’s always concern. Are they looking at me the right way? Are they going to judge my stuff the right way? Are they scrutinizing me in a way that has anything to do with where I’m coming from or my background? In The Trep School, that concern is blown right out of the window.”

He continues, “There’s no anxiety, no worry about whether or not that’s an issue. It’s easier to be open and get the advice, input, ideas, and feedback you need. I didn’t feel the same reservations about sharing like, ‘Hey, we’re still figuring this part out, and we’re still figuring that part out. We don’t have it all together yet.’ And I didn’t feel like, ‘Are they going to judge me for that?'”

Two years later, The JumpOff is a thriving business. Check out all The JumpOff offers on their website and follow along for updates on their Facebook page.