You have 60 minutes to complete the puzzle, solve the mystery, and escape the room … go! There’s something about searching for clues that will ultimately decide your fate that gives you a rush of adrenaline. Because of this, an escape room is intense, exciting, and a whole lot of fun!
The best thing about escape rooms is that people get to experience them with multiple friends and family members. And with the escape room business booming, this is a great time for you to find your own place in the industry.
Do you have what it takes to solve the puzzle of starting your own escape room business? Keep reading to find out.
Love for the Game
The first quality that you must possess before deciding if the Escape Room business is right for you is love for the game. You should be someone who loves doing puzzles, finding clues, and solving mysteries.
Why?
Because this is the type of person your business is going to attract. It’s what your business is all about, and people know when an owner’s heart is actually in the business or not. When you’re excited about something, your employees become excited about it, and then your customers become excited as well.
The Brains for Business
Although a love for the game is a definite must, you also need the brains for business in a general way. Sure, escape rooms are fun and seem more like play than work. However, it’s a business nonetheless.
The first thing you’ll want to do is sit down and create a business plan.
That is, write a full description of your company and how you plan on managing it, financing it, building it, marketing it, and more. Ensure that the plan for your escape room business is detailed and clearly written because it’s what will get you your financing.
Do an enormous amount of research, as this will show in your plans. Additionally, it will raise the bar for competitors when you’re looking for someone to help finance your vision.
Knowledge About Legal Entities
Before the business can actually operate, you’ll need to form a business entity. This is what will set your escape room up as an actual business. You can choose to operate as a sole proprietor, a corporation, an LLC, a partnership, and more.
Your business type determines your tax requirements and different liabilities. And depending on where your business is located, keep in mind that you’ll have to work around different zoning ordinances, parking requirements, ADA and OSHA requirements, fire codes, and more. Once you hire employees, there will be even more requirements to follow.
It’s best to speak with an accountant and an attorney about what type of business is best for you and about how to ensure you meet all of the requirements.
Financing and a Budget for Your Escape Room Business
Because your business is just starting out, you’ll need to come up with a start-up budget and a financial plan. Some things to plan for include tax obligations and all business expenses.
This is something you’ll probably need to handle yourself while your business is just starting out. As time passes and your profit becomes steady, then you should consider hiring an accountant to plan your budget and finances for you.
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The Courage to Persuade
When starting up a business, any business, you need the courage to persuade. Therefore, if you’re someone who’s shy, you need to take that into consideration before you try starting an escape room business. This is because you’ll need to persuade people who could help you that your escape room business is going to make money. For instance, you’ll need to talk with investors, loan officers, and lots of other people.
If you can’t convince these people that your business will be successful, then they aren’t going to hand over any money to you.
You’ll also be in charge of making important phone calls to your landlord, government officials, contractors, and others when you need to get things done.
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The Dedication to Do the Dirty Work
Your business is your baby, and you’ll want to keep it clean and happy. Do you have the dedication it takes to maintain a public building? That requires much more work than maintaining your home.
For example, your business will have heavy traffic, with lots of people going in and out. Therefore, it will take a lot of work to keep the place looking nice. Scuff marks, broken handles, small holes in the walls, and other little things will need to be fixed as soon as they happen.
While you might look past such things in your home, you don’t want your customers walking into a dingy-looking business.
The Ability to Manage
Are you good with working with people and managing them? You’ll need to be phenomenal at these things to run your own escape room business.
You’ll also need the ability to create a solid team to run your business the way you’d like. Get ready to be in charge of advertising job openings, reviewing applications, interviewing potential hires, training employees, making work schedules, supervising, and much more.
Also, keep in mind that hiring employees brings with it a good amount of legal paperwork.
The Creativity to Market Your Escape Room Business
Unless you already have a solid marketing team behind you, you’ll need the creativity it takes to market your business. You’ll want to ensure that a certain number of escape rooms are booked each day and that people want to come back. Think of all the different and creative ways that you can market your business to ensure this happens.
Social media platforms, promotional events, and articles in the newspaper are some ways to advertise. But there are more ways than those. Start here and then see what else you can come up with.
The Patience for an Escape Room Business
It takes a lot of patience to build an escape room business. You’ll need a bit of knowledge about the business field and a lot of love for the game.
But if you keep this guide in mind when starting your own endeavor, you’ll quickly be on your way to success. And for even more business ideas, browse our Business Ideas section daily.
