Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Lapidus.
Natalie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Our story started in 2013, when my husband (Ruslan Balashov) and I played the first escape room in Russia, Moscow. It was an amazing experience, we both really loved it. After half a year we decided to open our own escape room, but Moscow was overwhelmed with it. So we monitored the market in the US and thought it would be a great move. We were one of the first escape company opened in LA. Our first room – Castle (La Brea location) opened its doors right before Christmas in 2014. It was a great success, people loved the concept and the ideas of escape rooms. Our second room – FBI was opened in the beginning of February. Our second location on Robertson was opened in the beginning of March with 3 rooms: Jungle Game, Motel, and Prison.
We also decided to sell Franchise, we sold the First franchise in June 2015 for 2 rooms on Vermont Secret Mission and Lunar Mission. After with a great success our franchisees opened a location in Austin, Texas. Currently, we sold 6 franchise agreement.
In 2016 we decided to open a new location on Highland with 3 rooms.
Currently, the number of rooms around LA is 11 and we are expecting new rooms, so it will about 19 rooms around LA.
Also, Maze Rooms was one of the first company who used Virtual Reality technology in the escape room. Our VR Cosmos Game is 1-hour escape room but in virtual reality. The team is playing in the Oculus Glasses, but they still can see each other in the bodies of avatars, communicate with each other to solve puzzles and clues.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Like every new business, it wasn’t a smooth road. When we moved to LA, we had no one around us, we didn’t know where to find a construction team or even where to buy tools. We spend a lot of time searching for one, but we succeeded and my husband was able to find them while walking on the beach)) hahaha)
Also, when we first opened people didn’t understand the concept of escape rooms, so we had to educate them. Also, people couldn’t understand why they need to pay money to be put in the room to solve puzzles.
The ellen show helped us a lot, it gave us a huge publicity and boost.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Maze Rooms Los Angeles – what should we know?
Our company is real escape game which, nowadays, are very popular all over the States. Our company was one of the first one opened in LA area. We are very proud of the job we did, we grew within 2 years from 1 room to almost 15, with more rooms to open. We were on a lot of TV shows and articles.
People love the idea of activity such as escape room. It’s a great family, team building, and friends bonding activity. People are so tired of every day stuff, phones, traffic, and etc, so they love to come at Maze Rooms and spend an hour solving mysteries of puzzles working together as a team.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
We didn’t have a mentors or supporters. it was just me, my husband and close family friend. We helped each other and supported each other during the first stages.
Pricing:
- 2-3 people – $99
- 4 people – $132
- 5 people – $165
- 6 people – $198
- 7 people – $231
Contact Info:
- Address: Multiple locations around the city, check web-site to choose the location or theme
- Website: la.mazerooms.com
- Phone: 3105952881
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mazerooms/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mazerooms/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/mazerooms
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/maze-rooms-los-angeles
Image Credit:
Maze Rooms pictures
