Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Matt Baysinger. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Matt, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Our goal is to gather folks for shared experiences and make it easy to have fun.

More often than not, we are close to our best friends because of the experiences we shared with them. Sometimes this looks like schooling, a summer camp, or being part of the same team, church, or organization. We believe that relationships are better when they are built around shared experiences, so we do everything we can to create as many of those shared experiences as possible.

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?

In late 2014, I learned about escape rooms while traveling in Tennessee. The idea of being able to play a part of a hero’s story piqued my interest; I thought Kansas City needed to have such an adventure, and I was determined to help make it happen. After opening the doors to Breakout KC in early 2015, we were met with more success and interest than we were ready for. After a handful of months of building, growing and developing, we decided it was time to multiply. From late 2015 through 2017, we opened five more stores across the country. In 2017 we decided to parlay what we had learned and jump into axe throwing with the launch of Blade & Timber, which we have since expanded to 8 stores in 7 states. Finally in early 2022 (after navigating the pandemic), we launched Sinkers Lounge – an upscale indoor mini golf cocktail bar and restaurant.

Our mission at Swell Spark is to gather people for shared experiences that make it easy to have fun, and everything we do points towards accomplishing that mission.

In short, Swell Spark identifies high-growth entertainment concepts and builds sustainable brands. Headquartered in Kansas City, Swell Spark has continued to build its position as a leaders in “small box” entertainment since 2015.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

Our key to building successful and personalized customer-facing brands has always pointed to Sandbox by Swell Spark, our internal design/build/fabrication shop. We have a 32,000ft fabrication shop in Kansas City where we design and manufacture everything from our escape rooms to our mini golf modules.

Originally we were working with a local CNC shop to design indestructible picture frames (you wouldn’t believe what folks will try in an attempt to breakout!) One thing led to another, and after about six months of growth through our manufacturing partners, we decided to bring the entire fab team under our umbrella to streamline growth.

While it started out with photo frames, our small but mighty team has now designed and built components for all 12 of our stores, in addition to dozens of other escape rooms, projects and stores around the world.

Any advice for managing a team?

In 2019 we adopted EOS – the Entrepreneurial Operating System. With the implementation help of Joe Calhoon we were able to turn from a bunch of squirrelly upstart entrepreneurs to an operating machine that has won awards for operational excellence and customer service all over the country.

Culture is everything, and it is also the hardest thing to maintain. In the midst of navigating a pandemic, going from a growth-minded company to a stability-minded company, and back to a growth-minded company has not been easy by any stretch – but we continue to be a company that stands for sharing joy with others, serving our team and our community, taking action to advance, maintaining grit when things are hard, and being eager to improve and grow.

We couldn’t be more grateful for the EOS system; we owe most of our pandemic-related resilience to what we learned through the process of adopting EOS. I cannot recommend it enough for early-stage entrepreneurs or small businesses.

Contact Info:

• Website: swellspark.com
• Instagram: @swellspark @bladeandtimber @sinkerslounge @breakoutkc @breakoutwaikiki
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewbaysinger/
• Twitter: @baysinger