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

**Fexingo** (0:01)
If these conversations are useful for what you're building or running, we want to keep them free of ads and sponsors. That's a deliberate choice.

**Luna** (0:10)
Yeah, and it means the only support comes from listeners who find real value here.

**Fexingo** (0:16)
If that's you, the simplest way is buymeacoffee.com/fexingo. No pressure, just an option to keep this independent.

**Luna** (0:25)
Exactly. Now, today's story is a master class in niche focus.

**Fexingo** (0:30)
We're talking about Escape Rooms. Not the biggest market, but one solo founder built a SaaS that now serves over 300 venues across the US.

**Luna** (0:40)
I love this because it's the opposite of the build for everyone advice. This guy went super narrow.

**Fexingo** (0:47)
Right. His name is Alex Chin. Before Escape Rooms, he tried building a restaurant reservation app. Failed. He told me he learned a hard lesson. He was competing with OpenTable.
Ouch.

**Luna** (1:01)
That's a death wish for a solo founder.

**Fexingo** (1:04)
So he pivoted. His friend ran an escape room and complained about the software out there.
Clunky, no calendar sync, no way to manage puzzle maintenance. Alex built a prototype in a weekend.

**Luna** (1:17)
What did he call it? I'm guessing something escape themed.

**Fexingo** (1:21)
He called it keyed in. The core features were online booking with dynamic pricing, staff scheduling, and a puzzle rotation tracker. That last one turned out to be the killer feature.

**Luna** (1:34)
Explain that for someone who's never run an escape room.

**Fexingo** (1:38)
Escape rooms have to change their puzzles regularly to keep repeat customers coming back. But tracking which props are worn, which clues need replacing, it's a mess.
Heedin lets you log each puzzle's condition and automatically schedule maintenance.

**Luna** (1:54)
So it's inventory management plus booking. Smart.

**Fexingo** (1:58)
Exactly. Within six months, he had 20 paying customers, all from attending a single escape room convention in Orlando.
He set up a booth, demoed the software, and signed up 10 rooms on the spot.

**Luna** (2:12)
Conventions. That's such a better strategy than cold emailing for a niche like this.

**Fexingo** (2:18)
He told me he never sent a single cold email. Every customer came from a convention, a referral, or an inbound Google search. He focused on three events per year.
The escape room expo, the live entertainment summit, and PAX unplugged.

**Luna** (2:35)
What was pricing like?

**Fexingo** (2:37)
He started at $99 per month per location, then added a tier at $199 with analytics and a $499 enterprise plan for chains. His average revenue per customer is about $170 per month.

**Luna** (2:53)
And what did that translate to in terms of MRR?

**Fexingo** (2:57)
He hit $10,000 MRR in month 11 By month 24, he was at $50,000.
Not exponential, but steady. The churn rate hovered around 4% monthly, which he said is high but manageable because he kept acquiring new customers.

**Luna** (3:15)
4% monthly churn is rough. That means you lose almost half your customer base each year.
So he's no longer a pure escape room play. He's a live entertainment booking platform.

**Fexingo** (3:27)
That's exactly the pivot he made last year. He rebranded from Keedin to Venuflo.
The escape rooms are still 60% of revenue, but the other 40% is growing faster.

**Luna** (3:40)
Interesting. I wonder if going to Niche initially actually helped. He learned the escape room pain points deeply, then generalized.

**Fexingo** (3:49)
That's his thesis. He told me, if I'd started with a generic booking platform, I'd have no differentiator.
But because I knew escape rooms inside out, I could build something that felt custom.

**Luna** (4:02)
What about the tech stack? Anything unusual?

**Fexingo** (4:05)
Pretty standard.
React frontend, no.js backend, PostgreSQL database, striped for payments. He used Twilio for SMS reminders. The only unusual thing was a custom algorithm for puzzle rotation scheduling. That's the secret sauce.

**Luna** (4:24)
And he's still solo? No employees?

**Fexingo** (4:28)
He hired one part-time customer support person after year one. But he's still the only developer.
He says his code is embarrassing, but it works. And customers don't care about code quality.

**Luna** (4:41)
That's the solo founder ethos. Ship fast, fix later.

**Fexingo** (4:46)
Right. And his biggest mistake? He initially built a mobile app. Nobody used it.
All the usage was on web. He wasted three months on iOS and Android versions.

**Luna** (4:59)
Classic. Customers tell you they want an app, but they really just want a good mobile site.

**Fexingo** (5:05)
He also learned that escape room owners are not tech savvy. So he invested heavily in onboarding.
A 30-minute video call for every new customer, plus a knowledge base with screenshots.

**Luna** (5:18)
That's high touch for a $99 product. But if it reduces churn, worth it.