Small Business Spotlight: VROOM VROOM Escape Room

By Kimberly Knight

Often entrepreneurs form businesses aligning with current or past vocations or formal training, while others around interests, hobbies or passions. The latter is the case for the owners of Vroom Vroom Escape Room, Atlanta’s newest escape room experience that brings the challenge to you. The name reflects the mobile quality of Vroom Vroom, as each Escape experience is delivered and set up in a space at the client’s location.

Vroom Vroom is the brainchild of Georgia Institute of Technology graduates, Diana Nichols and Melana Singletary – who, by their own admission, are “escape room junkies.” Nichols, an economics major, and Singletary, an engineering major, would spend countless date nights in 2007 playing escape room games on the library computers. Their enjoyment of accomplishing the games together prompted an idea for the couple - what if they took the game and made it a live experience challenge for participants to complete?

The idea came and went, with both getting their respective master's degrees and entering corporate America. Both are also graduates of historically black colleges (HBCUs) with Diana getting her degree from Florida A&M University and Melana earning hers from Tuskegee University.

But in 2014, when the first live escape rooms hit the marketplace, Singletary and Nichols felt immediate regret for not reacting on the idea they’d had years before. The ladies got to work, designing their first game on a red-eye from California to Georgia in late 2015. By the time they landed in Atlanta, the concept for their first game, Escape the Dorm Room, was completed. This first game is still one of Vroom Vroom’s most popular to date. 

After rounds of testing with their college friends, they took their concept to test groups at nearby universities and eventually conducted a pop-up version of the Escape experience at Georgia Tech and Georgia State University for four straight weekends each. The pop-ups were a huge success, with numerous students showing up to complete the challenges and vie for a top spot on the leader boards.

Nichols and Singletary then looked to scale the experience and get things truly up and running. What began as date nights 12 years ago has now blossomed into a booming small business with a roster of clients – ranging from law firms to elementary schools – hiring Vroom Vroom to conduct Escape challenges for their employees and students.

“Vroom Vroom promotes confidence in participants as they stretch themselves beyond what they thought they could do to solve puzzles.” Singletary says. 

“We do team building in a fun way using these escape rooms,” Nichols adds. “There are a lot of wins in our rooms. Even if you feel you’re not good at the math puzzles or the word puzzles, if you find something that is necessary [to escape], then that’s a win for you. There are so many ways to contribute to the success of the team.”

The owners enjoy seeing their corporate clients embrace play again, but one of their most rewarding experiences was bringing the game to a group home and watching the children open up and enjoy themselves. Nichols smiles as she recalls a child at the home experiencing the game and performing exceptionally well. “I asked him what his plans were. He was the best player I’d ever seen. I told him he was going to be somebody. He just smiled. He was so happy.”

Vroom Vroom is now self-sustaining, employing part-time staffers called “game masters” who often run ten or more games per event. The experience of owning Vroom Vroom also prompted Nichols to pursue an MBA at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business, where she just finished her first year.

The duo takes advantage of marketing opportunities, like utilizing the Village Market ATL to promote the business through one-minute escape experiences. They also entered a pitch contest and won $5,000, which helped them secure a marketing strategy and make further investments into the business. 

The advice Nichols and Singletary would give entrepreneurs who are just starting out is to get help. “To be successful, business owners should do what they are good at and outsource the rest,” Nichols says. Singletary encourages entrepreneurs to get a schedule to keep on track with business goals and to have intent around making time for business planning. 

Future plans for Vroom Vroom are to get wheels, become a truly mobile experience, and create a leadership package for companies. They also hope to eventually franchise. “We get calls from all over the nation, and we should be able to go,” said Nichols. Pretty soon, the whole nation will be escaping the duo’s challenges.

For more information about Vroom Vroom Escape Room, check them out online and on Facebook and Instagram.