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Without investment, turning a million-dollar idea on paper into a reality is nothing more than a dream. Or at least, that\u2019s usually the case. Tough Mudder, the military-style endurance experience\u2014where contestants looking to test their mental and physical limits can take on 5K to 24-hour muddy obstacle courses that require them to run, jump, crawl, climb and swim\u2014was the exception to this rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Its founder Will Dean, a former British counter-terrorism officer, was forced to self-finance the obstacle course after investors couldn\u2019t wrap their heads around why anyone would pay to go through such torture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found a small ski hill in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, we built a website and then suddenly we were selling tickets and I realized I don\u2019t need to raise any money,\u201d he recalls to Fortune<\/em>. \u201cWe sold 5000 tickets in three weeks, so it turns out they were wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Tough Mudder went on to become one of the U.S.\u2019 fastest-growing athletic and \u201cteam bonding\u201d activities, by 2017 it was turning more than $125 million a year, as per the Financial Times<\/em><\/a> and over 6 million people<\/a> have completed the obstacle course since its launch in 2009.<\/p>\n But by 2020 the company plunged into administration following various disputes and was sold to Spartan<\/a>. <\/p>\n Two years before it all came crashing down for Tough Mudder, Dean cashed in on his brainchild for \u201cmillions\u201d, bought a new house, and after \u201cthree months proper off\u201d started brainstorming his next venture.<\/p>\n The British entrepreneur\u2019s second light bulb moment came on a family day out with his two kids at a VR experience on a wet Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n \u201cI found myself with motion sickness,\u201d he remembers, adding that it resulted in him throwing up in a Swansea shopping mall bin. <\/p>\n \u201cIf VR is succeeding and people are doing it, yet in my experience it\u2019s antisocial, not fun, and it makes me sick\u2014you can\u2019t help but think I could do this better.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving finished Tough Mudder, which was all about bringing people together through sheer physical endeavor, I thought to myself: I wonder if I can create some sort of business that uses tech in a similar way to create shared memories?\u201d<\/p>\n Nine months later, he brought David Spindler, a fellow Tough Mudder veteran, on board as co-founder and CFO and built a simple prototype for what is now Immersive Gamebox in a warehouse in North London.<\/p>\n All of the games, which currently include ones based on Ghostbusters, Black Mirror and Paw Patrol,<\/a> put the players in the heart of those imaginary worlds with rescue missions and virtual villains displayed on the touch-sensitive walls, paired with surround sound and motion trackers\u2014no headsets needed.<\/p>\n But Dean would have to impress investors to get his idea off the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Tough Mudder, you could sell the ticket before you built the thing,\u201d the Harvard Business School alum says. \u201cWith this business, you\u2019ve got to build the thing before you sell the ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n The entrepreneur spent days pitching for funding for business idea number two, a London-based immersive group gaming experience, before offering investors the chance to go head-to-head in a live demo.<\/p>\n He emailed venture capitalists inviting them to test the game for themselves while flexing that he knows \u201ca thing or two about putting on live experiences and selling tickets\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not Elon Musk, but because I\u2019ve created Tough Mudder, all the major funds were all willing to come and at least see what I was up to,\u201d Dean says.\u00a0\u201cThe idea was to make sure they got a high score and then they\u2019d post-rationalize everything.\u201d<\/p>\n The CEO staggered each firm\u2019s appointment, used their company name as their team name, and had their scores ranked on a public leaderboard. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was very deliberate,\u201d Dean adds. \u201cLook at all these other people\u2014if you don\u2019t invest, one of these other people will.\u201d<\/p>\n It worked. Investors injected $3.5M into his venture and the startup officially opened for business in October 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since then, it has raised $65 million to date from backers including Index Ventures and Sweet Capital; partnered with the likes of Netflix for a \u201cSquid Game\u201d experience<\/a>; and expanded beyond U.K. territory to over 25 locations spanning from the States and Dubia to Australia and Berlin.\u00a0<\/p>\n Today, 1.2 million people have given the in-person gaming experience a go and the plan now is to open 1,000 sites by 2028.<\/p>\n The reason Dean\u2019s investment hack did the trick isn\u2019t just because getting a high score stroked the egos of venture capitalists playing at Immersive Gamebox (although, he admits, that helped.) <\/p>\n It\u2019s because they could see who they could lose the business to\u2014and that\u2019s something any entrepreneur can emulate.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to create this sort of fear of missing out,\u201d Dean says. \u201cI remember someone saying, \u2018Greed starts negotiations, fear closes them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n So how can an aspiring entrepreneur instill fear in big-shot investors? <\/p>\n Dean has a few tricks up his sleeve: Turn up to a pitching presentation with the wrong investor\u2019s name on the deck.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSay, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m sorry, that\u2019s still that presentation has the name of one of your competitors,\u2019\u201d he laughs. \u201cI don\u2019t know how that happened.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019s even emailed investors in the past with the wrong email, before swiftly sending a follow-up note saying: \u201cPlease ignore that email that was meant for somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThings like that are not bad ways to create a bit of competitive tension,\u201d Dean assures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nHow he literally played investors off against each other <\/h2>\n
\u2018Create this fear of missing out\u2019<\/h2>\n
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