Kyle Fitzgerald, 30, has gone through many business ideas with a number of successes and also failures – and the biggest lesson he learned is to know your market.
Despite graduating with an engineering degree from the University of Calgary, where he specialized in chemical engineering, Fitzgerald has been an entrepreneur since 2013, when the Cochranite helped co-create the Zombie Run.
“Me and (my business partner) were swimming around the idea for a fun run, they were popping up everywhere around the country so we kind of just landed on the idea of zombies. We were both really big zombie fans and wanted to do that and incorporate a mud run – it was a really good event,” Fitzgerald explained.
“It was our first time doing an event of that scale and it was a good learning experience – we made a lot of connections.”
Fitzgerald, and business partner Adil Hooda, organized the event for the first two years in 2013/2014 before selling it in 2015 to the Calgary Comic Expo.
The former Cochranite explained, the business partners made the decision to sell the popular run when their other business, The Locked Room, started getting busy.
Fitzgerald and Hooda opened the first Locked Room in August 2014 – a physical adventure game where players are locked in a room and have to use elements of the room to solve a series of puzzles to escape.
“My business partner came back from Europe where he played a couple and we wanted to try it in Calgary,” Fitzgerald explained.
Fitzgerald, Hooda and another business partner Edwin Tsui opened the first Locked Room in Calgary in a modest location, with two themed rooms available.
“It was crazy, we couldn’t be open enough to keep up with the demand and we realized it was far too small of a location,” Fitzgerald said.
The three moved to a bigger location last April with four themed rooms. At press time, the Locked Room had three locations with 12 themed escape. The themes include the Great Train Heist, Hipster Hangover, Captivity, Prison Break, Forbidden Temple, Game Over, the Wine Cellar and Dead Meat – with a participant success rate ranging from eight to 50 per cent.
“The response has been crazy, more than we were expecting,” Fitzgerald said.
The owners are not the only ones noticing the response, the business was nominated for the BDC Emerging Growth Award by the Calgary Chamber for small business week. The Locked Room made the short list of finalists with other nominees such as the Grey Eagle Resort and Casino.
“We were really excited and kind of surprised (to be a finalist) – it is awesome,” Fitzgerald said.
“We looked at the other competitors and we were definitely surprised and happy to hear the news.”
While Fitzgerald can now comfortably say he has found himself and his niche, there were several ups and downs in his entrepreneurial career.
“Definitely test your product or service first, make sure the market is there for what you are doing,” Fitzgerald said.
“We’ve tried a few things, we have a whiteboard with ideas, some don’t make it to launch, some do launch and don’t do too well. Definitely trial and error is our approach.”
While the Bow Valley alumnus has no problem discussing his business failures, he said it took some time before he “figured it out.”
“I’d tell kids think about what you are doing out of school, most people don’t know what they want to do, I know I didn’t know what I wanted to do so I took engineering,” Fitzgerald said with a laugh.
“Sometimes you need some time to find yourself before you know exactly what you want to do with your life. I think I am pretty happy with what we are doing – I have a good team, a good environment, and every day is interesting.”
The trio will find out on Oct. 20 at the 2016 Small Business Calgary awards where they placed.
For more information on the nominated business, go to TheLockedRoom.ca.
