Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carol Brooks. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Carol, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
The biggest factor to success as an entrepreneur is the ability to pivot. I began with one Escape Room and within 7 months grew to three rooms which was as large as I could grow in the space my business leased. I continually was getting requests for groups of 30+ people, my 3 rooms could only hold 20 people at a time. I couldn’t yet afford to buy or lease a bigger space, so, I pivoted. I created an Escape Room style game that scales from 12 people to 200+ and could be held anywhere. I called it the idea, Escape Dinners. I began just hosting them in my community for those customers that were requesting large group games, then I realized other Escape Room owners were likely experiencing this same request, so, I began to sell my game design and teach other Escape Room Owners how to run these. I never had Escape Dinners in my mind or in my business plan but a challenge (read: opportunity) presented itself and I pivoted accordingly. Escape Dinners and large group entertainment has become a significant portion of my business ever since.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
This is kind of a long winded story, but it’s worth telling in it’s entirety. I worked for a start up company which was an online fundraising platform for charity, that company became a competitor. As mergers and acquisitions go, many positions were eliminated or absorbed, one of those was mine. I was 27 at the time and didn’t really understand that aspect of the business world, so I was salty that I could lose a job I had loved and worked so hard at by no fault of my own. Me, being salty, decided, “I’m going to start my own business, because then I probably won’t fire myself.” And so I set out to figure out what in the world I was going to start. I researched like crazy and eventually found out that the Escape Room industry was taking off, owners didn’t need any real requirements or prerequisites to start one and it was fairly low cost, as businesses go, to start (at the time in early 2017, this is a different story now). So, I designed an Escape Room in my dining room, tested it out on friends and family, realized I had a knack for story telling, puzzle design and game flow and I hit the ground running. I found a property to rent, negotiated a step up scale of rent and got building. I lost my job on January 17 2017, and my first customers were through my doors April 23, 2017. By December of 2017 I had out grown my space, had to design mobile games to take on location for larger groups and by June of 2018 I had purchased my first commercial building. I’m proud of not wasting a minute, I could have moped about losing a job but I went to a entrepreneur meet up that very night of losing my job and introduced myself to a group of local business owners and said “Hi, I’m Carol, I just lost my job about 5 hours ago and I’m here looking for my next thing.” I got plugged in to a supportive network of entrepreneurs and badasses that pushed me and now I’m 7 years in, on to my second commercial building and business and loving every second of the journey.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
I LOVE “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier. The lessons are short and digestible which means you can read, learn and implement immediately. The topics in this book are so relatable to small business and I would imagine to some large businesses to. Here are a few of my favorites “Ignore the Real World – people in the real world always tell you that something won’t work, don’t listen to them” “Why Grow? – embrace being small while you can, it allows you to make mistakes and learn without a huge audience and you can pivot/change course more easily than a large company” “Make a Dent in the Universe.” “Scratch your Own Itch” “Start Making Something”
There are so many good lessons, I realized I was just about to retype the entire table of contents here lol.
Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?
Sort of. In 2020, my Escape Room business was effectively shut down because of Covid. I heard that a local non-profit art gallery around the corner from me was about to go for sale. I put my name in the hat to purchase it thinking that I needed to diversify the eggs in my basket in case Escape Rooms never rebounded after Covid. It was a risky move because the art gallery wasn’t doing so hot because of Covid either. At first, they wanted to hire me to revamp the nonprofit. I instead proposed a deal that was mutually beneficial to myself and the current owners. They gained an exit ramp for a business that was costing more than it was making, while I would take over that burden and as soon as doors opened up again after Covid, I would buy the place and make it my own. This allowed me time to save money, list my current building for sale and learn about what worked and what didn’t work in the space. Now, 4 years later, I have to thriving businesses under one roof. The lesson here and with my original lease agreement that I’d like to emphasize is, it never hurts to ask a question, especially if what you’re asking is something that is beneficial to all involved parties. You won’t always get a yes, but you will always get a conversation in which you can learn, and that is a win in itself.
Contact Info:
- Website: FoundryPortHuron.com
- Instagram: /FoundryPortHuron
- Facebook: /FoundryPH
- Other: https://www.TheHallwayEntertainment.com https://www.Facebook.com/TheHallwayEntertainment https://www.instagram.com/thehallwayentertainment
Image Credits
These pictures were all taken either on my phone by a friend or staff or on a friend or staff’s phone.