Sharing publicly for the first time - how we survived the pandemic:
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Our “Do things that don’t scale” moment circa 2018. To ensure our very first customer coming in has the perfect experience, we rented out an Airbnb to iterate our system rigorously weeks before deploying it to our store.
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That’s what we did back in 2020. Covid killed 100% of our revenue and raised on an 80% down round. It was liberating in a way as we went from “growth at all cost” to “profit at all cost”
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I wrote this five years too early (sorry!), but it is VERY relevant today. If you have a massive liquidation preference stack, and you are considering a convert -- please read this. 95% of you will regret it.
abovethecrowd.com/2016/04/21/on-
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Over 1 million tickets have been sold. Although we've persisted over six long years to get here, half of the tickets came within the last six months.
Next up, 10 million tickets.
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Sounds about right, in the early startup days there’s just so much to do. Not sustainable long term but this is the early sprint in the marathon.
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More hardcore execution to launch Fashion Place, Utah before year end. This marks our 33rd location and 17th opening of 2022.
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And if we can collectively make this happen, perhaps one day we can share the sense of excitement and belonging we've once had with arcades with the next generation of players. 7/7
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But we're still facing the friction of use outside of home. That's why incremental implementation of VR arcade popups and VR laser tag will not scale. We must build 10x product that truely delight and excite our guests. The tools are there, and now it is upon us to deliver. 6/7
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However, the reverse is happening today. Technology advancement in VR, AR, IOT, WiFi, and AI will unlock the ability to build incredible experiences with form factors not replicatable in-home. This can further be amplified through the leveraged of social media. 5/7
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And by 2004, arcade revenue dropped by nearly 90% from its peak. I remembered the day the local market lugged away their xmen vs streetfighter arcade machine. For them, the quarters were no longer covering cost. But for us dozen of kids, we've lost a home outside of home. 4/7
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But I'm not alone. The Arcade industry blew up in the 80s where at one point generated over $7 billion a year. However as technology advances over time, home consoles capability skyrocketed and the internet opened up the hotseat to the world. 3/7
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Growing up to immigrant parents that juggled multiple jobs, I would often be left alone to my own devices. The nearby arcade became my hangout where I would get losts in different worlds and meet like-minded folks. I still remember fondly tearing down foot soldiers in TMNT. 2/7
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Here's the story of my love of the arcades and why now is the best time to build for the out-of-home entertainment market... 1/7
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Founders facing tough times that don’t relentlessly optimize product-led margins will face inevitable doom.
We’ve been there. COVID killed our revenue, we’ve grounded all actions against margins, survived, and since then became one of the most profitable four-wall biz globally
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There’ll be a future where the most streamed game will feature players vs generative content leveraged through audience prompt.
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Scaling a post-revenue startup is just a series of diagnosis, hardcore execution, calibration, and recharge.
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Generative AI will fundamentally change the rogue-like genre, with titles potentially generating 10,000 hours of quality content.
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VR is probably the best platform to humanize AI
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Our 31st location just launched in Columbus, Ohio. We’ve now exceeded 2x year-over-year location growth!
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The biggest difference between a $50B company and a $1B company is the ability to own more of your addressable universe.
You either die a point solution, or you live long enough to become a platform.
Snowflake, Datadog, Crowdstrike
Here’s how some of the best platforms do it…
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Story about how started, survived the VR winter and the pandemic, and became what we are today.
youtube.com/watch?v=weJZD5
Thanks for the wonderful interview!
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Two years ago we’ve emerged from bankruptcy while hanging by a thread. Today we’re gearing up launch in Atlanta, our 30th location.
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Launching our 29th location soon @ City Foundry in St Louis!
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D-Wade in the house! 🔥 We knew & dominate on the court but who knew they’d be legends in the holodeck?! 🦾
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What simulation could they be playing? 🤔 launching 2023
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Location #28 and first in Germany!
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A former factory now houses #27, launching Friday at BottleWorks District, Indianapolis!
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We fought through the worst of the pandemic to create moments like this: inaugural Store Leadership Conference!
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Why game with a controller when your body could BE the controller? 🎮 💯
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After getting fully immersed in the virtual worlds of your favourite games and planets, you may never be able to go back to consoles 
@SandboxVR
secretldn.com/sandbox-vr/
@SandboxVR
secretldn.com/sandbox-vr/1
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We’re now one step closer to the #Metaverse. guests can seamlessly experience full-body immersion through wireless streaming, and over time we’ll roll this out across our hundreds of decks.
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Join us at !
We're looking all around for a front-end dev to help us deliver first-in-class tools to game testers and QA folks, giving some much-deserved TLC to this critical sector of the game industry!
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A common theme we see from recent reviews is "we thought location-based VR was mediocre, but then we tried Sandbox VR.."
Here's 's take on our recent London launch -
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