Virtual Team-Building Makes a Difference

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, the pandemic has rocked the escape room industry to its core. When business started to dwindle in February, we were concerned. The situation redlined on March 16 when we were forcibly closed and immediately had to furlough the majority of Puzzle Break’s employees.

This was emotionally devastating across several dimensions and it seemed like there was a new nightmare around every corner. The future of everything we had worked so hard to create was in very real jeopardy and everyone in the Puzzle Break family was in various degrees of bad shape.

I felt like I had let everyone down.

Fortunately, we had a moonshot in our pocket. For years, we have had portable large-scale escape experiences that we’ve taken to thousands of company events across the United States. We realized that we could do an online adaptation for a world savaged by COVID-19. After a month of design surgery, testing, iteration, and tweaks, we proudly launched The Grimm Escape, virtual edition. Not to be confused with a game of the same name our east coast partners developed independently (long story). The moonshot was an immediate success.

The world has changed. In several ways, we are further apart than we have ever been before. Puzzle Break virtual escape experiences (we now have multiple offerings with several more in development) are carefully designed & developed to bring teams closer together no matter where they are in the world, no matter their background or experience.

The response has been explosive (see: below). We are helping teams of all shapes & sizes across the globe every hour of every day. Some folks just want a nice time with friends, others want some heavy-duty virtual team-building and professional development. We’re thrilled to help everyone through these unfortunate times with our content and wonderful moderators.

Speaking of moderators, I’m happy to report that not only have we been able to bring everyone possible back from furlough, but Puzzle Break is now larger than it has ever been and growing faster than ever. We look forward to serving the world’s needs for remote online team-building for years to come. Stay tuned for many new experiences built with love. And puzzles.

Just a few example of our story:

• Zoom-based escape rooms are here for you and your friends or coworkers – Business Insider

• Players are flocking to this digital escape room, built with Zoom and Google Drive – Fast Company

• Can’t escape home? Try this virtual escape room instead. – Mashable

• With physical sites lost to COVID-19, escape room pioneer Puzzle Break turns to new virtual games – Geekwire

• Puzzle Break launches virtual escape room The Grimm Escape – VentureBeat

• Employee growth and team building is no mystery for escape room company – Workforce.com

• CEO of a 7-figure escape room company: How we managed to grow and thrive during quarantine – CNBC via Acorns

Stay safe out there,

-Nate

Nate Martin

Dubbed the "Founding Father of Escape Rooms," Nate Martin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Puzzle Break, the first American escape room company. Puzzle Break is headquartered in Seattle with locations in Long Island, Massachusetts and on Royal Caribbean ships. Prior to Puzzle Break, he was a senior executive at Microsoft and Electronic Arts. He has shipped software used by billions of users as well as some of the most beloved video games of a generation. @GuyFromTomorrow on Twitter.

More posts by Nate Martin