The Escape Room Challenge

Note: This blogpost is intended to serve as a discussion area for my students to evaluate a new business model. 

From NPR's "All Things Considered," October 20, 2015

"A new form of themed entertainment popping up across the country involves players willingly getting trapped in a room. To get out, they must solve a series of puzzles. They have just 60 minutes to escape. 

"They are called escape rooms, and they're pioneered by entrepreneurs who've created a growing business with an unusual business model. The rooms are a little like video games come to life. They're filled with gadgets and puzzles that teams — usually of two to six people — have to solve in order to win. In the castle room, the puzzles and clues lead to a pair of keys that open a lock on a massive set of wooden doors. The phenomenon started in Japan and was brought over to Europe before arriving on American shores. Escape Rooms are great ways to reinvent and revive old warehouses and strip malls, so the startup costs aren't as much a barrier as, say, creating another version of Disney's Haunted Mansion. 

"Tickets run around $30 a person at most places, or teams can buy out the room. But there's a catch: Once a team beats a room, there's no more fun to be had."

Discussion Questions

1. What are the merits of this business model? (think in terms of startup costs, novelty, new use of space, likely customer segments, value proposition to those segments, what is unique about the offering, etc.)
2. What factors about this opportunity might hinder or prevent this business model from being durable? How and when would these factors become a material problem?
3. The founders of an Escape Room business in Tuscaloosa approach you for advice on how to make it a success? What advice do you give them? Think about your answer in terms of the value proposition canvas and lean startup practices.
4. What kind of "analog" of this business would you create for the unique customer segments of Tuscaloosa? In other words, copy the business model, but change the value proposition (they like football, they are college students, etc.)
5. What facts or conditions would have to be true to compel you to open up this type of business?

Further reading

"The Unbelievably Lucrative Business of Escape Rooms," MarketWatch.com, 7/21/15

See also

EscapeRoomDirectory

Image source: Marketwatch.com