We were lucky to catch up with Hareem Idris recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hareem, appreciate you joining us today. Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?
My hero is my Dad, Idris MS. An award-winning, serial entrepreneur who has developed, established and successfully operated more than 10 small businesses in various industries across North America & the Middle East. I grew up admiring; his journey, the decisions he took for his family for the betterment, his style of approaching risk-taking challenges, his positivity throughout the ups and downs he faced in life, the way he would invest himself into his adventurous ventures, these are a few things out of a million that not only fascinated me but encouraged me to try to follow his footsteps…
3 Phrase’s My Dad told me over and over again:
> “Always be close to your Mother, share everything with her, she will be the one standing next to you later in the future, whatever problems come in or be it anything, remember your Mother she has seen and experienced life more than you”
> “You’ll not get the opportunity of doing what you prefer each time, learn it all you never know where you end up.”
> “Your business degree will not get you the practical exposure you need in order to operate a business, it’ll only land you with a good job, your best foot forward would be to think this business is yours from an employer perspective and put aside the employee attitude.”
Both My Parents, have been keen on how they wanted their children to grow up, the sort of culture they wanted to bring us up in, the quality of education, as well as keeping us close to the family. My Dad has been very supportive in letting me get immense exposure in the business world by involving me in his businesses from a very, very young age. At that time I would just go with him and hang around after school, on weekends, even holidays and when that hanging around revolved into me starting to make small initiative’s towards helping out, and then sooner it turning into actually shadowing him behind the scenes and then he giving me the space to actually step on board into the real business world side by side with him. These layers just made me more passionate about the entire aura of running a series of businesses. My Dad have always been very encouraging towards learning different things, to exploring different career fields and guiding me throughout the journey instead of enforcing his orders on me, and that has really been the push. Now when I reflect back, it was all part of my training without even knowing it.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
In 2013, My Dad & I had put plans together to set up a family fun center which I was superbly excited about. I was about to debut into the business world by entering the entertainment industry. It became my dream project, and I was really passionate about the entire concept we were putting together. However, the plans were taking a long time to get on the floor due to city permits and licenses, etc. End of 2019, we finally opened the doors to our family fun center, Funtania, the dream come true project, something we had worked towards for the last 5 years. Dad & I put in a lot for this one, we would stay up past midnight, discussing ideas, sharing plans, ordering stuff, and whatnot, some priceless moments we shared. Our concept was simple, we wanted to set up an arena with multiple attractions in smaller experiences that would cater to all ages, rather than focusing on just arcade games or a certain age group like traditionally designed indoor entertainment centers do. We have a unique range of indoor attractions, a synthetic ice-skating rink, VR 9D movie simulator rides, bumper cars, virtual reality escape games (btw we are the only ones in Orlando, so if you are ever in the area that’s a must-try, the most trendiest and immersive entertainment experience ever), then our glow kids birthday party lounges are super EPIC and the most hottest thing in the market right now. And of course, we have real-life escape rooms also which are focused on pure family fun.
The real-life escape rooms are an original, Dad & my last masterpiece (the reason I say last is because I lost him an year ago) Nonetheless, coming back to the duo’s creative escape rooms, we both had a great time creating them, coming up with the scripts to theme designing, mechanics and props, and then game mastering. It’s been a lovely journey. Developing these Escape Rooms for Funtania, became my thing, it was something that I saw myself passionate about, and my dad kept supporting my crazy ideas to incorporate immense levels of innovation. I wanted to grow and expand that line of products, but then the pandemic came in the way in 2020. That period of time was full of uncertainty, as we saw so many successful and much older businesses in the industry close down overnight. We were blessed by God that we were able to make it through that phase. During this time of the shutdown, the idea of the remote escape game concept struck me as numerous escape room businesses innovated to offer online games in order to keep the operation cycle moving so that they can survive the pandemic. I diverted directions towards an alternative plan, and I started Grand Escape Game, which is an online remote escape room experience, played virtually on online platforms from anywhere in the world at any time. At the moment we are offering 8 virtual escape games. By incorporating this platform into our existing business of ours we were able to diversify lines of product offerings, and this expansion assisted in generating additional revenue as a backup to the business.
Grand Escape Game, is a product line of Funtania the Family Fun Center, we kept our focus simple, which was pure family fun, fully interactive, immersive, remotely played escape room games. There are 2-3 more games that are under work, and I am personally very excited for their launch later this year. They are a conversion of our actual escape rooms in Orlando. An original masterpiece of Dad & mine.
All of our games are live hosted. We are targeting everyone nationwide, be it first-timers or experts; age is also not a barrier; we have had some fantastic family get-together groups play the “Detention” with the younger ones; you’re basically under detention and locked inside a classroom and have an hour to escape. Many people are loving “the Sword of Drakul,” one of the finest animated games we offer. My personal top favorite is the Rise of the Mad Pharaoh, and I encourage everyone to try that game if you’re looking for some fun time, be it as small as a friend’s virtual night-out or even a huge corporate event; it’s different from all of our other games, it’s got an essence of character role-play which you rarely see in other escape room games. Talking about corporate events, this is definitely a great platform for virtual team building events, and our most popular one for this is “Ben’s Big Heist” because when the group of players is broken into smaller teams, it becomes very competitive as each team is in the challenge of being able to escape with the larger amount of money in 60 mins. For all our games, you don’t need to download anything; just a good internet connection and zoom, and you are all set to play.
I am very proud of the collection of our games. I think each one is beautiful in its own way; they all have an element that sets them apart from one another as well as unlike the usual traditional escape room themes, we tried to keep it different, and when you play them, you’ll know exactly what I mean. We are working towards going global, taking this forward and adding leaderboards tournaments, and developing more games. In the industry we sit in, I believe the customer base is not limited; the exposure is vast, especially at the national or even international level. Our main focus is the idea of competitive play and interaction. When we were planning these games, I wanted to stay on top of keeping it real-time so that the team players could communicate with one another or work together to understand what happened that made something else happen, this was the prime idea when escape rooms actually started and I wanted to keep that idea alive in the virtual play. Secondly, we have created games that make you feel you are actually a part of that storyline, so it’s not only escaping rooms; it’s in fact, escaping the storyline. Lastly, it’s a conceptualized online game-playing experience, incorporating old and new puzzles which excite all generations that have been put together by a mastermind global team from the USA, UK, Australia & Netherlands.
There is another crazy/exciting live-play escape game concept on a very huge platform my team is in works with right now and will be launching very soon… so keep following us to stay posted!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I wouldn’t say it has been a steady, smooth road, because that would sound sugar-coated, but at the same time, I wouldn’t say I stumbled upon struggles I took each struggle like a speed bump, which are a part of life regardless of whatever phase you are in, I think it’s a part of learning when life slows you down, and you just have to find ways of re-routing yourself to get back on track. One recent story I can briefly share:
The current phase I am going through after losing My Dad, has been tough, to be honest it gets harder day by day. We lost him right after my birthday, in the most sudden and unexpected way. He had cough for about a week, internally he had covid we didn’t know until we got that tested just a day before his passing. His result came the next day in the morning which showed its positive, he was perfectly fine, apart from just coughing and later that evening I checked his oxygen and it showed up at 35, that’s when we rushed him to the hospital. Even then he was like “do we have to go, I feel fine”. Could you believe a person at a 35 oxygen level able to walk on his own to the car, being fully engaged in our conversation and then within hours the doctors come to tell us which changed all of our lives forever. Especially because even an hour left of My Dad departing from us he was constantly communicating with his entire family, texting us, individually replying to our messages and on that note how can anyone of us accept that he just left us like this.
I have never said this before, but till date I did not get a chance to grieve, when it all happened I put my set of emotions aside as My Mom and my siblings needed me the most, then uncounted responsibilities started burdening me like being stuck under a collapsing building which wouldn’t fall right away, little by little, taking its time. Then, of course next came the business it needed me to be back on board on the 3rd day, we had summer camp field trips, birthday parties everything booked and ready to be hosted. And I remember saying to My Dad, two days ago, “that next weekend is our busiest you have to get well soon, we need you there”. It was the first time My Dad had taken off from work, like a week off from work just being home, trying to recover from the cough. There are many times throughout the day when I go through a fluctuation of emotions, at times it feels like I have sunken down completely, or lost in a past moment in the crowded chaos but, being in the entertainment industry I am forced to cast a smile on my face at all times, and that is a daily challenge. Deep inside, I know I gotta keep our business not only running but push myself to make it consistently flourishing now. Even the tiniest amount of negligence or lack of effort can impact differently on the business’s health, which I can’t afford my dad’s business to face. And with all of this circling around me I did not pull my bar of performance down not even half a degree I kept pushing it up.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Apparently, my very first practical workplace experience came to be at My Dad’s Medical Office in Orlando, Florida. I still remember I started off like a new kid around the block at the age of 18 knowing absolutely nothing of the health care field, now I enjoyed different businesses and industries, I was doing undergrad in Business, but the health care just did not seem to be my cup of tea. I started off being assigned to the reception counter to check in patients, answer phone calls, and deal with tons of paperwork. I didn’t like the piles of paperwork or hearing patients concerns/problems, then the terminology used was just beyond my understanding, the cleaning products high smell & super low AC. The entire ambiance would tell me I don’t belong here.
One day I went to my dad and told him, ‘This is something I can’t do; I am better off just waiting until the family fun center plans get approved”, and he told me, “You’ll not get the opportunity of doing what you prefer each time, learn it all you never know where you end up.” I tried to figure things out, and it still did not work out for me. I was doing my undergrad degree in Business & Management on the side from The University of Essex Online, so I went up to my Dad again and told him, “I am studying, and I don’t see myself balancing as my grades are being affected,” he knew I was making up excuses, which was very unlike of me, And he tells me “Your business degree will not get you the practical exposure you need in order to operate a business, it’ll only land you with a good job, your best foot forward would be to think this business is yours from an employer perspective and put aside the employee attitude.” Then I thought to myself, let’s give it a final shot.
It was super hard settling in between a crowd of professionals, but my aim was to stand out in them, and I invested myself in the business entirely. I started little by little, first came in the coffee machine, the aroma would make it the office smell nice and welcoming. I just not learned but understood the dynamics of everything from the ground up. In less than 2 years I was managing the entire office, which I hadn’t even imagined in my wildest dream, no one could tell that I had no healthcare background at all. The entire operating sphere was at the tip of my fingers, from billing and coding to verifying insurances and credentialing, I was intaking interviews of the medical staff, training, and developing ways of running the practice smoothly on a day-to-day basis. We had become partners with medical colleges and their students were coming in to get trained under our management. We had grown the practice by adding more lines of care for our patients. And I got settled in finally :)
During the midst of these years, My Dad had redeveloped a restaurant and, on the weekends, I would be hosting events for up to 300 people. I enjoyed event management; it gave me the space to create my designs and work closely with clients to make their events the best ones ever. Working full-time did not put my studies behind; I just had to manage it right, in fact, I scored a distinction in my dissertation, so I was happy with how I had been achieving and multitasking. My convocation date had been finalized for Summer 2018 which was to take place in Colchester, London and I had made plans of taking 1 month off with my family. In order for me to take this vacation, I made some changes at the medical office; as the manager of the medical office, I needed to know everything by the minute, so I came up with a plan to convert the administration side remote so that I can manage it virtually from anywhere, and luckily, I was successful in doing that, transferring to an electronic workplace model made the life of our healthcare staff & professionals easier too, we went completely paperless and made the workplace much more efficient.
Then, I directed towards law, completed my master’s in law, started with an internship at Senator Marco Rubio’s Office in Orlando, wonderful team, great work exposure, something completely different to from what I was coming with, I loved it there during my semester.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.grandescapegame.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grandescapegame/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grandescapegame