How a Solo Founder Built a SaaS by Selling to Escape Rooms

**Lucas** (0:01)
So, Escape Rooms. There are roughly 2,300 of them in the US right now, and if you've ever been to one, you know the booking experience is usually a mess, clunky calendars, double bookings, and paper waivers.

**Luna** (0:14)
I went to one last year, and we had to fill out a physical form with a pen. Felt like 1998

**Lucas** (0:22)
Exactly. That's the pain point a solo founder named Daniel H spotted back in 2021
He was a software engineer who had been to a few escape rooms, and he realized the operators were running on a patchwork of generic booking tools and spreadsheets.

**Luna** (0:38)
So he built something specifically for them?

**Lucas** (0:42)
Yeah. He built what's now called Locked In, a SaaS platform that handles bookings, waivers, and puzzle timers. The key insight was that escape rooms have a very specific flow.
Groups book a time slot, they sign waivers, they get a 60-minute timer, and then the operator needs to reset the room. Generic tools don't handle that reset logic.

**Luna** (1:04)
And the timer part is interesting because if a group escapes early, the next group might start early. That cascades.

**Lucas** (1:11)
Right. Daniel's software handles that dynamic scheduling. It also tracks which puzzles were solved and how long each took.
So operators can see which rooms are too easy or too hard. He launched a beta in early 2022 with just five local rooms in Austin.

**Luna** (1:29)
How did he find those first customers? Cold outreach?

**Lucas** (1:34)
Actually Reddit. He posted in our slash escape rooms with a simple, I'm building a tool for operators. Who wants to try it for free? He got 12 responses in 24 hours.
From those, he did video calls with each one to understand their workflow.

**Luna** (1:52)
That's a smart customer discovery move. Did he charge them right away?

**Lucas** (1:57)
No. He kept the beta free for four months. During that time, he added features they asked for, like group messaging for late arrivals and automated email reminders. By month five, he started charging $49 per month per location. He lost three out of the 12, but the other nine stayed.

**Luna** (2:17)
So a 75% conversion from free to paid. That's solid. What was his growth strategy after that?

**Lucas** (2:25)
He went all in on content. He wrote detailed guides on escape room marketing and operations, and ranked for search terms like escape room booking software, and escape room puzzle timer.
He also built a directory of escape rooms on his site, which drove organic traffic from people looking for rooms to visit.

**Luna** (2:45)
So the directory was an SEO play, attract consumers, then upsell the operators.

**Lucas** (2:52)
Exactly. By mid-2023, he had 80 paying locations. Today, mid-2026, he's at just over 200
Revenue is roughly $10,000 a month, $120,000 a year. He's still solo, no employees, and he's profitable.

**Luna** (3:11)
That's a nice lifestyle business. But is the market big enough?
2,300 rooms in the US. If he gets 50% market share, that's only 1,150 locations. At $49 a month, that's about $56,000 monthly revenue. Not exactly venture scale.

**Lucas** (3:31)
You're right, it's not a unicorn. But Daniel never wanted that. He wanted a profitable solo business.
And he's expanded slightly. He added a version for axe throwing venues, which have a similar booking and waiver flow. That's another 500-ish venues in the US.

**Luna** (3:49)
Axe throwing? That's a smart adjacent niche. Same pain points.
Waivers, time slots, safety briefings.

**Lucas** (3:58)
Yeah. He built that in about 3 weeks because the core booking engine was already there. Now he's looking at rage rooms and even some indoor mini golf places. The strategy is vertical, then horizontal within entertainment.

**Luna** (4:12)
So his total addressable market is maybe 5,000 venues across all those niches. At $49 a month, that's $3 million in annual recurring revenue potential.
Not bad for one person.

**Lucas** (4:27)
And the churn is very low. Escape rooms don't switch software often. Once they've set up their rooms and train staff, switching costs are high. Daniel told me his annual churn is around 8%.
That's impressive.

**Luna** (4:42)
What about competition? Is there an incumbent?

**Lucas** (4:45)
There are a few like Eventbrite for ticketing or Mindbody for booking, but none are purpose-built for escape rooms. There's also a company called escaperoomsoftware.com, but they're more expensive, starting at $99 a month. Daniel undercut them by half and offered better features around puzzle analytics.

**Luna** (5:06)
That price point seems key.
$49 is low enough that an operator doesn't think twice. It's less than the cost of one group booking on a weekend.

**Lucas** (5:16)
Exactly. And he kept it simple.