Room Escape Artist

Every business, no matter how big or small has something that’s holding it back from achieving its next level. No company is immune to this because your problems shift with time, scale, success, and difficulties.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and it was a recurring theme of my conversations last week at RECON Los Angeles.

The Joys of Conversation

There were a lot of wonderful moments at RECON, but the moments that end up feeling most meaningful to me tend to be one-on-one or small group conversations… and I sought out a lot of them. The RECON Team went out of their way to maximize my time to just be at RECON, and I spent nearly all of that time speaking with as many of the people in attendance as I could.

And wow did the conversations run the gamut of topics. I met new people and spoke with old friends. I learned about all sorts of things going on in people’s lives and businesses, and opened up about my own successes and struggles.

Along the way, there was a theme that a lot of the conversations leaned towards:

“What’s Holding Back Your Escape Room Business?”

The answer is different depending upon who you are, what you’re good at, and your current circumstances.

The scariest stuff tends to be things that are out of your control, like issues with your landlord and local government.

But there are escape room creators out there who are dealing with some difficult problems that land on interesting extremes. There are folks who have thriving businesses and are looking to level up their work. There are also creators who have made some killer games, but don’t ship new games often.

Both extremes can be truly insidious to deal with:

For companies that have shipped a lot of games and made a lot of money, changing process, style, team composition, and skillsets is a massive undertaking.

While companies that have shipped a small number of exceptional games frequently find themselves paralyzed by a drive for perfection, and a desire to not disappoint in light of their past success. It’s hard. Overachievement is slow and stressful… and the slowness adds to the stress. Also… empty square-footage is expensive. 💸 💸 💸

The Root of Your Most Challenging Problems

Way back at my Freshman Orientation for college, every student was given a planner. It was unremarkable except that every week had a different quote in it. Most of them were platitudes that left no impact, but there was one quote that I remembered, and I find it creeping into my mind all the time:

“What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.”

– Mignon McLaughlin

This quote has driven me, haunted me, and confounded me for a long time. I don’t categorically agree with it, but when I look at my present challenges in life and business I often have to accept that the problems that I am dealing with are absolutely the direct result of my own past actions, needs, and limitations.

This quote was one of the many “darlings” that got killed from my RECON talk, but it didn’t need to be there. The spirit of the idea of learning from your mistakes, iterating, and growing as a business person and creative permeated most of the event… which is probably why I had so many introspective conversations throughout the event.

I’ll treasure those conversations and intend to continue producing content and events to help folks get over their barriers.

Getting Over Our Own Hurdles

Room Escape Artist isn’t without its challenges. We have tons of them and are constantly chipping away at them. With RECON LA in the rearview mirror, we’re looking forward to all sorts of improvement projects… some will be visible and others will be strictly behind the scenes.

The reality of bringing a business that started as an amorphous hobby into a proper business – without losing its soul – is tons of work. We’ve been working on it for years and so much work remains. So much.

It’s the regular support of our Patrons that allows all of this to happen. I truly cannot imagine where we would be without all of these wonderful folks. If you enjoy our content and events, the very best thing that you can do to help propel it into the future is to join the ranks of our wonderful Patreon community.

Special shout out to those who joined this month: Amber, Rylee Thompson, Rosanna, Tyler Neufeld, Erik Horn, Sören, Reese Hayes, Dawson’s Escape, Junhong Shen, Molly Moran, Steven Weiss, and Incognita

To those of you reading who have the means, we hope you’ll consider joining this wonderful group of supporters.

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon or Etsy after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.

The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.