Although Akos Gabossy started his first company in Hungary after university, the idea for his multi-million-dollar company came to him while he was participating in his high school’s foreign exchange student program that landed him in Los Angeles. Completely amazed by the indoor family amusement concepts like Dave & Busters and Chuck E Cheese, Akos decided that he wanted to establish a similar family entertainment concept in his homeland of Hungary.
Around 2012-2013, escape rooms became extremely popular in Budapest; most people still consider Budapest as the escape room capital of the world because the indoor entertainment venues have been the number one tourist attraction for the past 7 years. It only seemed logical for him and his partners to bring this concept to the US. Having opened three wildly popular sites in Hungary, Millipop, KACKAC, and an outdoor adventure park, Akos was already well versed in the entertainment sector and escape rooms seemed to be a fantastic concept— a brand new form of real life amusement.
It’s then that he decided to bring the first of many PanIQ Escape Rooms to Hollywood, California. They knew LA would be a great place to start any kind of entertainment business and they chose the entertainment capital of the world to be close to the media, strategically in the hopes of gaining some buzz with celebrities. LA was also a reasonable choice because Akos knew the city very well. Since this was their first American company, they had to start everything from scratch, and local knowledge was useful.
Doing business in a different country than you grew up in and aren’t familiar with is always difficult. And in the US, it’s even worse because every state is a little bit different, and various legal regulations and permitting issues vary greatly. It was important to them that they do everything legally from day one— which is sometimes extremely expensive and overwhelming for a small company like PANIQ.
Sharing a common goal with his partners to start an international business that could grow from day to day and that could be started from a limited amount of capital, Akos was proud that he could bring something to America from Hungary and was willing to put in all the work to make it a success. Although challenging, their strategy seemed to be sustainable enough to build a nationwide franchise chain out of PanIQ Room in less than 5 years. Their second location was in San Francisco as they wanted to stay close to the internet influencers and Silicon Valley, with locations in San Jose, Phoenix, Miami, NYC, Dallas, Nashville, Chicago and many more following after. PANIQ now hosts more than 150,000 players annually, and this number is growing day by day with the opening of new units.
So, why is PanIQ so successful? Their game plots are very addictive and complex. It’s just like the script of a good movie. Their games are creative and their themes are very immersive. When they design a room, they put themselves in the mind of a player— they make sure to pay attention to even the smallest details, and that takes the game to a whole other level. On top of that, they believe that there’s always room for improvement, constantly evolving to make them exciting even for repeat customers.
Smooth and cost-effective operations is also part of the success. Since PanIQ remotely manages an entire entertainment chain from Hungary, smart and custom designed technological innovations play a very important role of the strategy.
Akos also attributes a good portion of their initial success to Groupon—noting that even to this day, the online e-commerce company still plays an important role in their marketing activity. When they started this business in 2014, they didn’t have the funds for prime-time marketing. Selling coupons and deals seemed to be the right choice—they could reach thousands of people; in fact, they had to stop their first campaign in Hollywood because they were completely sold out for such a long time.
Humbly, Akos doesn’t believe PanIQ to be mega huge yet, but he believes they’re on the right track of being the biggest brand in the escape room industry. Akos’ partners are very experienced professionals and he believes no one else in the industry has business experience like they do. They are very passionate about what they do, always trying to be as innovate as possible and better than they were the day before. On the other hand, Akos is an economist, so he always has to look at the numbers, proud that every unit they have is profitable and the investment range is reasonable.
As for the future of PanIQ, in 3 years, they predict more than 50 operating units, including MEGA units with food and beverage areas; in 5 years, an international takeover after partnering with the right investors. Nowadays, the media likes to express that you can found a business from zero dollars and become a billionaire. This is not true— a real entrepreneur risks their own money, not just their time. According to Akos, if you don’t risk your own money, the only thing you can lose is time, which is less valuable when you’re young and enthusiastic.
