In your own words, what does your company do?
PanIQ Room is a leading global franchise chain of escape rooms, which are a relatively recent addition to the location-based entertainment industry. In an escape room experience, a team of players must collaborate to solve a series of skill and logic-based puzzles, uncovering clues and ultimately solving a mystery to complete their adventure.
PanIQ Room operates not only its own venues but also franchises its brand and offers support for the construction and project development phases. The company is equipped with its own manufacturing capabilities, producing the majority of the puzzles, props, and special furniture in-house. With a savvy marketing strategy, PanIQ Room excels in promoting its brand, utilizing social media platforms extensively, and actively encouraging player engagement.
📈 Monthly revenue: The monthly revenue of the franchisor company surpasses $200k, but the combined revenue generated by the entire franchise system exceeds $1M per month.
📈 ~% Churn: N/A
📈 ~% Net profit: Do not wish to disclose
📈 Funding: The franchisor company has secured over $7M in funding to support its operations and open corporate stores.
📈 Initial cost/investment to start the company: The cost of constructing a PANIQ Escape Room venue can range from $500k to $3M, depending on the scale and location of the project.
📈 Number of team members: While the back-office team at PanIQ Rooms consists of around 20 individuals, the franchise system as a whole employs nearly 200 people.
📈 Number of founders: 5
📈 Started: 2014
How does the company make money?
💰 PanIQ is a parent company that generates revenue from two primary sources. Firstly through sales generated by its corporate-owned stores. Secondly, through its franchising operations, which involve collecting franchise fees and royalty payments based on the sales performance of franchisees, as well as selling escape room equipment to its partners.
3 strategies that have worked to attract and retain customers?
In general, the influence of social media and word-of-mouth marketing within the escape room industry is remarkable, and PanIQ Room recognizes its value by investing heavily in Google and META campaigns. Additionally, Groupon remains a crucial aspect of the company’s marketing strategy, as coupon marketing proves to be an effective tool in attracting new customers, with the hope of turning them into loyal, returning patrons.
To summarize, within our industry:
✅ Groupon is an effective strategy to entice first-time escape room players by providing a significant discount.
✅ Utilizing review platforms such as Yelp, and Trip Advisor, and using Google ads, along with customer testimonials and audiovisual content on our website, can attract potential customers seeking an escape room experience.
✅ Facebook and Instagram are valuable tools for recapturing previous customers and enticing impulsive customers to visit our website.
3 things that you’ve learned about hiring and retaining great talent?
We strive to hire individuals who are eager to learn new skills and possess the ability to excel in multiple areas. As a small but rapidly expanding company, we require employees who are versatile and capable of performing a wide range of tasks. Many of our game masters and game hosts for example are capable of handling basic maintenance of our props and puzzles, but we also invest in our motivated employees by providing training courses, such as welding, for more intensive maintenance work.
At our head office, we also seek talented individuals who can handle various responsibilities, including managing customer reviews, finance, employee onboarding, and logistics. We value well-rounded individuals who can adapt to the dynamic demands of our company. As a result, PanIQ is a workplace that easily adapts to change, ensuring that our employees are continuously challenged and engaged. We strive to provide our employees with exposure to all aspects of our business, ensuring that they do not become bored and that they remain motivated. By offering a dynamic and multifaceted work environment, we aim to attract and retain talented individuals who can thrive in a fast-paced and ever-changing workplace.
In addition to the aforementioned points, PanIQ stands out as a distinctive workplace. Because:
✅ The company provides the option of working from home for its headquarters staff.
✅ Game masters and local unit managers have the flexibility to create their own schedules.
✅ PanIQ offers a safe and enjoyable work environment, with a fair and reasonable compensation system.