Today we’d like to introduce you to Iris Nazari.
Hi Iris, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Locksmith Escape Games/Rooms started in 2018, but the interest in entrepreneurship and entertainment began in our childhood. Stephany and I (Iris) are sisters and we grew up in Honduras. We would typically travel to the USA during our summers and looked forward to our visits to theme parks, especially those near Orlando. It was always our favorite part of the trip.
Amir, my husband and business partner, grew up in California but moved to Florida in order to attend Full Sail University and study Mobile Development. All three owners graduated from Full Sail. Stephany and Amir were both Valedictorians and Advanced Achievement recipients upon graduation. I met Amir in December 2021. His older sister had just graduated from Full Sail and the family decided to celebrate by taking a cruise to the Bahamas together. At the same time, my family and I were on the same ship celebrating my mother’s birthday. Amir and I met while waiting in line for our breakfast waffles on the first day.
Stephany met Amir’s brother during our wedding and they married a year later. We began to play escape rooms and got really good at them. They were so much fun. It brought me back to the wonder I felt when I would visit the theme parks as a kid. Amir is a developer, so he fell in love with escape rooms the very first time he played one. That same day he met the owner. They got to talking and he realized there was a pain point in the way that the escape rooms were ran, that he could help solve. The clue delivery system needed a way to be atomized. Amir developed an APP called Kiwi Escape Master. It is a hub where the details of the games being ran are kept for easy access. It also allows interaction with the guests, allowing them to request clues and receive hints.
After befriending the owner of that first escape room, he took us under his wing. He has since passed but we will always have a special place in our hearts for the couple who first let us peek behind the curtain. They would talk to us about the business. They even let us work as Game Masters when we said we were interested in owning an Escape Room one day.
That day came in 2018 when we heard that the Seminole Towne Center in Sanford, Florida, had started to transition into an entertainment hub for Sanford. They were interested in adding an Escape Room in their plans and we jumped at the opportunity. It’s been six years since we played our first room and three years since we started Locksmith Escape Games. The ride has been long and full of challenges. It’s always nice to pause and take a moment to see how far we’ve come. Our vision for the future is bright, and we are excited to continue to build our lives both personally and professionally and continue to explore the world of entertainment.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Amir and I got engaged six weeks after we met. We recognized right away that we made a great team. That trust in our gut is what has gotten us this far. But when you trust your gut and jump like that, you have to know that there will be a lot to figure out along the way.
Professionally, the biggest struggle has been managing our relationship with time. When your are an entrepreneur, it is easy to succumb to stress and anxiety. The tasks can seem so daunting at the beginning. Once we realized that, we didn’t need to rush anything. We simply had to work hard and let our vision for our companies unfold at their own pace; we were able to enjoy the process much more. Time seems to go so fast and it can feel like things are slipping away, and like we were always playing catch up. During the pandemic, we realized that we had to re-asses our route. We began to build a stronger team. They are the key to our success. Once we were able to surround ourselves by the right help, we started to flow gain.
We’ve hired a financial consultant, a business consultant and we have created more leadership positions within Locksmith Escape Games. It has been truly life-changing to be able to create jobs for people. It has allowed us to meet incredible talent who not only run our games but participate actively in our growth by adding their skills and passions to our mix.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Locksmith Escape Games directed our focus towards the world of entertainment. Since then, we have started to make the necessary moves to learn about this universe. We have started to develop our social media in a way that we can take the entertainment we promise in our venue and continue it on your phone.
We have realized that each of our games is like a movie set. We are actively improving those sets because they are the backbone of our business. When you walk into an Escape Room, you should be transported into a new reality. You are the main character in the story. It all feels more real when the setting is done right. But it was a shame that those sets were being used in such a limited way. So we have started a few projects in which we can use them to create fun videos and share them on our different platforms.
We also have a blog on our website with more practical information about how we have come to run this business. We have taken Locksmith Escape Games as our master’s degree in entrepreneurship. We have learned so much and we are happy to share more of us and what we have learned. We want you to have a great time playing our games, but we also want those who visit us to be able to get more from us than those 60 minutes of fun. Which is why we have tried to share as much as possible about this industry. If we can help any person peek behind the curtain and feel empowered in their own journey, then we have done something amazing.
That is what I am most proud of; we have used our position as business owners to grow and bring as many people as we can with us in this growth process. We are very open about our struggles because it is important for everyone to know that success looks different than what we expected it to look. And how reassuring it is to feel successful in your present; even through the mistakes, we continue to move forward. Baby steps count!
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
I have personally come to understand that learning curves take time, and there are a lot of learning curves when you are an entrepreneur. Giving myself permission to “not know” and take some time to “figure it out” has been the most important lesson I’ve learned along this journey.
Pricing:
Tiered pricing structure.
Group Size —> Price Per Person
- 2 people = $36 pp
- 3 people = $33 pp
- 4 or more = $30 pp
Contact Info:
- Email: locksmithescapegames@gmail.com
- Website: www.locksmithescapegames.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/locksmithsanford/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/locksmithsanford
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/locksmith-escape-games-sanford
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@locksmithescapegames?
Image Credits
Jessica Carvajal
