Community Highlights: Meet Dennis Danger Cejvanovic of Axe Champs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dennis Danger Cejvanovic.

Hi Dennis, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I was in Denver, Colorado in the summer of 2017 when I first walked into an axe throwing venue. My friend and I were at a brewery downtown and asked the bartender about the noise upstairs. He told us that it’s an axe throwing place. We were interested, but we just ordered our drinks. Then he said the magic words – you can take your beers with you to go throw axes and he pointed us to the elevator.

We had so much fun! It was set up by two retired Marines, who just had some log slices on the wall and a random collection of sharp things to throw. It looked like their wives made them clean up their garages, so they decided to open a business. My friend and I were pretty good at it, I figured it’s because we are both used to axes, being from third world countries. I was born in Bosnia, and he’s from Texas.

A couple of months after that, the company I was working for transferred me to Lexington Kentucky. I found out that an axe throwing place had just opened up there and I applied for a part-time job. Figured it’s a great way to make beer money and meet girls.

A few weeks in and my co-worker asks me to take over his reservation, there are 15 people and I have more experience axe throwing than he does. Actually, with one visit to an axe throwing place before, I had more experience than anyone in town. The 15 people group turns out to be the Kentucky Youth Special Olympics Team.

I welcomed them, we went over the safety rules and had them come up 2 by 2, for basic axe throwing instructions. As they get their axe to stick, we get the next 2, until we are ready to play team games. Just like any other group. As we were ready to start the first game I notice in the back of a group, sitting in a wheelchair. I called him up to throw, but he said he can’t, he’ll just watch. I inquired if he can’t throw because of a spine injury or something like that, and said he can’t throw because of the wheelchair. “Oh, that’s no problem, watch!”

I got him his wheelchair to the throwing line, grabbed a chair myself, sat down next to him, and demonstrated the two-handed throw. This is the first time I did it from a chair, but it worked, my axe completed a full rotation and stuck. His was tossed gently on the ground, right in front of his feet. We had a few more throws and as he relaxed, and his confidence went up with every throw, he finally got one to get all the way to the board, and it hit the center of the bullseye. I jumped out of my chair, cheered, and gave him a big high five!

As I went to grab our axes, I started thinking about how much time we have left, what games we can play with that time, and the size of the group. But as I came back I noticed that he was still sitting there, tears running down his face. I ran up to him right away, squatting down next to him asking if he hurt himself.

“No,” he said, “it’s just that, just for a moment, I forgot about the wheelchair and I felt normal.”

I ugly cried in front of those kids. This silly little part-time job, which I took to make beer money and meet girls, I was helping people feel better about themselves!

I went to my “real job” the next day and put in my two weeks notice. I brought a large cookie cake to my District Manager’s office that said “I’m sorry for your loss – I quit”. And I’ve never looked back.

A few months later my mom calls me from Jacksonville, my dad had suffered a stroke and my brother drove him to the hospital. The doctors at the Mayo Clinic said he’s lucky he got there on time. I had realized that the biggest reason I still have my father is that my brother had lived close by.

I packed up everything and moved back to Jacksonville the next day. I lived in a loft, so I was able to fit almost everything in my pickup truck. One thing that didn’t come with me was my 100th-anniversary edition Harley-Davidson motorcycle. My friend that was still in Kentucky sold it for me, and I bought a 20ft trailer with that money. I took it to another friend’s house here in town, and we welded a 13ft tall cage on it. We put in some axe throwing targets in it and drove it around for over a year to festivals, church events, biker group get-togethers, and Girl Scouts meetings. Everyone had a blast!

Finally, a mutual friend introduced me to Eric Ryan Yi, a commercial real estate agent who found a property owner in Murray Hill that was brave enough to let me lease his place. Nobody else wanted to get involved with a self-funded start-up that wanted to let people throw sharp things and drink beer.

And the rest is axe throwing, charity events, leagues, tournaments, and team builders. We have had a wonderful reaction from everyone who lives in this area, and everyone who has stepped through our doors. We have some wonderful restaurants on our block that are happy to bring your food over. We work with other small businesses in our town to get all our supplies, target boards, and everything else. We sponsor the Icemen Hockey, Jumbo Shrimp Baseball, and Sharks Arena Football. We love attending networking events and have hosted so many company team builders.

In the future, we are planning to take part in more charity events and host a lot of tournaments that will attract local and out-of-state competitors.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
If your entrepreneurial efforts are going smooth, check what’s wrong.

It’s been nothing but struggles. Just getting a commercial property owner to talk to me has been a nightmare. Some of them would literally laugh me out of their office. And that’s after weeks of going back and forth with their agent, to convince them to even let me talk to the property owner. I was getting turned down left and right. Finally, when some agents would agree to show me the property, turns out that all the place needed was a new roof, windows, plumbing, electrical, and the AC. But besides that, it was “move-in ready!” One building was literally condemned and torn down a few weeks after they showed it to me.

Nobody takes you seriously, especially old-school business people. I paid for a class with the Chamber of Commerce, an 8-week entrepreneurship workshop. Week 6 we have a marketing guru who tells me that I don’t know enough about my business, it’s for guys in their 20’s and 30’s, and that’s the target market I should focus on. I say it’s for everyone. He just heard of my business from me, five minutes ago, and he’s now telling me that I don’t understand it well. Also, this is a few months before I have literally written a 300 pg book on axe throwing (Axe Champs: How they train, think and throw)

Finally got a lease signed and… COVID-19 hit. Lumber prices tripled. Nobody was going out. I didn’t qualify for any government assistance, the company wasn’t around long enough, or I didn’t have enough employees, or wasn’t located in the area that needed help (the beauty salon across the street was).

When things were finally getting better, it was time to get all the paperwork done. Permits, certificates, approvals, licenses, confirmations, authorizations, permissions, blessings… the red tape was never-ending. At one point I was explained that this one certificate is “a very important document that we need to make sure you have because the last three businesses at that address never got one”. I called my friend and reminded her about the book “The Trial” by Franz Kafka that we read.

The main character kills himself at the end because he can’t figure out what the court summons is about, which he got at the beginning of the book. I was far from suicidal, but I shared some of his opinions about the government bureaucracy. Two weeks used to be the amount of time it takes to process an application, but now it’s how long it takes my application to get from the reception to the desk of the person who needs to look at it.

All that done, I found out that leasing a beautiful building that was built in the ’40s, you inherit the beautiful plumbing from the ’40s as well. I spent 3 out of the first 12 months being closed for all kinds of remodeling. Plumbing companies don’t even want to install a sink unless they upgrade the entire plumbing of a building from cast iron to PVC pipes.

When the bathroom was built, having a toilet as soon as you walk in, and the sink further down was ok. People had the common sense to wash their hands after using the toilet. Now that code requires me to crush the beautiful ceramic tiles that I’ve put down, cut through the concrete, dig up a 3ft hole to get to all the plumbing, rewire it so that we can have a sink on the way to the door, so people can be “reminded” of basic hygiene!

The old emergency exit swings in, and when opened you are required to take a step up to get to the ground level. People used to be smart enough to do that, but apparently, the codes and the population IQ had changed since then. Now I have two emergency exits in the front and a lot less usable space in my venue. Every time I walk by a business that has a “please use other doors” sign, I think of the tens of thousands of dollars that seem to be needlessly spent.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are an active entertainment venue, sometimes referred to as “competitive socializing”.

We take care of groups from 2 to 100. We help people build their self-esteem by teaching them a fun, new, competitive skill.
Most of our clients visit because axe throwing is an activity that’s just different enough to be memorable, but not too strange where you want to let others try it first. It takes very little physical effort to send a 1lb axe to a target that’s 12ft away from you.

We have hosted everything from a fun date night to a memorable birthday party or an exciting company event.

A lot of our visitors have decided to join a league, and come with their own axes on Tuesday nights to test their skills versus some of the best throwers in town. We refer to our league as our “axe fam” and stay very close. Everyone is so great and supportive of each other, so one of our biggest awards at the end of the season goes out for the “most sportsmanship”.

We are a very small organization and love it! We always pick up our phone and are happy to hear from our customers. We get our target boards from a small local mill, and when they are used up they always get donated to our neighbors for firewood. We get our coffee from a small local coffee roaster, and our art on the wall is painted by the local artists.

We even use cloth towels in the bathroom and wash them at the laundromat next door. We allow people to bring their own food, but encourage them to pick it up from one of the many awesome restaurants on our block.

We are proud to post #shoplocal since we do it too.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you, or support you?
Come see us, or call us and we will bring axe throwing to you.

At our venue, we have the ability to help you have a fantastic date, or we will host any large event.

You’ll see us at most of the local festivals with our mobile axe throwing set up, but we love to show up at your backyard bbq, or the block party.

Pricing:

• $30 per hour, per person, at the venue
• $250 per hour to bring mobile axe throwing to you

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.axechamps.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axechamps/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AxeChamps/

Image Credits
Throvv LLC