Starting an Escape Room - The Time's Up Story

How Time’s Up Escape Rooms Perth started

The Time’s Up Story all started in 2014 with me escaping my first Escape Room, with 38 minutes to spare. I absolutely loved the experience and wanted to do another right after! After getting back into the car I said, ‘I could do that!’

Month after month my mind would think of how to make everything around me into a puzzle. Pinterest became my best friend and exploring all the different themes that could be turned into an Escape Room became my hobby.

At that time I had a full time job 🤓 as an accountant. I convinced myself I couldn’t simply quit and follow some ideas I had about building my own Escape Room. However a year later and I was miserable as an accountant and decided that it wasn’t what I wanted for my life, so I quit!

After being unemployed for almost 6 months my parents started to nudge that I better get some sort of job as my savings was slowly running out. So after months of applying, with no real interest of actually working, I finally got a job at another accounting firm. I was back doing tax returns 9 to 5. I can’t remember how long I worked there for but it wasnt long and I quit yet again. 😫

This time I knew that working in an office just wasn’t my thing. I decided to follow the dream and start the Escape Room business. 🥳🤩

From the moment I made up my mind to open the business to the day I received the keys to what is now Time’s Up Escape Rooms was 4 months. Wow, typing that out makes it sound even more crazy!

It wasn’t all smooth sailing from there, I still had to work as a recptionist to fund this incredible dream and convince my then business partners to get involved and contribute funds needed to start up.

I would work as a receptionist 3 days a week and spend all my spare time demolishing, constructing and brainstorming everything you see today at Time’s Up Perth Escape Rooms.

After 9 long months The Pursuit was born! And not long after that we started the build on WANTED and opened within 6 months.

Fast forward to now.

We have built 4 rooms, a portable game, run outdoor games and are in the process of building our 5th room! Our business has been approached by ECU, the JBA and even the Geraldton Maritime Museum aswell as many others to provide their customers with an experience like no other.

None of this would be possible without my father, who also happens to be my business partner. I know, I know business and family don’t mix. In this case it does! We have worked tirelessly the past 5 years to make this dream come true. Without the help of my entire family we wouldn’t have been able to grow Time’s Up into one of the best Escape Rooms Perth has to offer. Our goals is to continually improve each new room we build with more immersive designs, better technology and engaging puzzles.

Our Game Masters play a vital role in the success of the business, and are definitely the best in the businesses! I might be a tad biased, but couldn’t ask for better staff. We’ve all learned to grow as a team and better the experience for the customer. I had no experience in managing a team when I started this dream and none of the staff had ever worked at an Escape Room before. Lots of on the job learning has occured and it’s made us all learn more about ourselves and our strengths and weaknesses.

If you had asked me 5 years ago if I thought we would have built 4 rooms, saw thousands of customers coming through the doors, have our own printable games and working towards so much more I wouldn’t have believed you.

My moto since the start of this whole adventure is; Let’s try it. If it works then great if not then we move on. I believe that has been my greatest success not overthinking everything that could possibly go wrong but trusting that I am doing what I was made to do.