Tell us about Getting Lost.
Getting Lost is a card came that you use to turn everyday activities into adventures. We use widely found landmarks and cues to direct you on an adventure no matter where in the world you may be. We have 36 games for everything from Girls Road Trips, to exploring new cities on foot, to cruises, to decluttering your house and walking the dog.
What inspired you to start Getting Lost?
I started a travel blog, called Getting Lost, after me and my childhood boyfriend picked up where we left off after 23 years apart – this time with three small daughters in tow! We blogged about all the off the beaten track places we were finding and people were always asking for directions. The best places though didn’t come from directions or lining up with everyone else – they came from the unplanned rambling you did without the help of technology. But people had become really conditioned to searching for places to go, reading trip guides or following bloggers like us. So we decided to make an offline game with directions that would lead you nowhere and everywhere.
Tell us about your career and background.
In my corporate life I spent 20 years working in advertising as a strategist. I worked on some of the world’s biggest brands during this time and for some large global agencies. Despite having a really full on job (and three children!) I was always a fan of the side hustle and had a few different projects on the side like running a photography studio photographing babies and a few rather unsuccessful blogs before Getting Lost. These were never really about the money but more as an outlet for me to be able to do something creative without the barriers that you often found working in a corporate environment on big brands.
Explain how you turned your hobby into a successful business.
Instinct, luck, some belated strategy and bloody hard work!
I never dreamed that I could turn Getting Lost into an award-winning, multi-million dollar export business so to start with it I went into it with no expectations beyond it being something fun to do. That’s where the instinct bit came in. Although we had no strategy documents at the start (the irony given my day job!) my years of studying people allowed me to instinctively tap into a trend of people wanting to escape the algorithms and get off screens and explore.
The luck came at every turn when we first began and although we had our fair share of tough times we got so many lucky breaks in those first few years.
The belated strategy came three years into our journey when I realised simultaneously how big this thing could be and also how woefully unprepared I was for that. We had to unpick almost everything and re-imagine Getting Lost so it was ready to take on the world.
And then there is the bloody hard work. For the first 5 years we were putting every cent back into the company so with a big mortgage and young kids I was still working in my day job to pay the bills. I’d regularly work 16 hour days, getting home from the office, spending time with the kids and then starting work again at 8pm until the early hours. Thankfully I’m now able to work full time in the business and have an amazing support team but that sweat equity at the start of setting up a business is gruelling!
Describe a typical work day for you.
I get the kids out the door to school and then walk down the road to Getting Lost with my dog Buster. At Getting Lost we don’t have set hours (just outcomes) and we encourage people to structure their day as it suits them but usually people start to trickle in around 9.30. I don’t have a set desk at Getting Lost but I usually settle myself at the table at the front of the office so I can chat with everyone. Buster climbs the mountain of cushions that the teenagers use when making games and I chat to my sister Jo and cousin Ali about any new ideas or feedback that has come in overnight (I don’t think we have a day when there is not any!). I answer a few e-mails but generally the morning is for collaborating, planning and talking.
There doesn’t seem to be a day at Getting Lost where we are not planning something. In the afternoon people start to leave and by 2.30 everyone has left to pick kids up from school and it’s just me. It’s a quiet hour and a half before the mobs of teenagers arrive to make games and I either tap away quietly by myself or Buster and I wander up the road to my house and I work from my desk up there. Afternoons are the time that I set aside for projects – all the big, meaty stuff that I have to attack by myself in quiet (before taking it back in the next morning to run past Jo and Ali). My desk is on the mezzanine floor at home so I’m here as James and our three teenage daughters all arrive home from work and school.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
Oh, I actually have six steps for this!
- Create a product that is led by your audience – we had a community of 20,000 people before we even launched our first game and our games are made with and by them. It doesn’t have to be perfect at this stage. Just get it out there and test, learn and refine!
- Sort your logistics – not being able to keep up with demand can be the biggest barrier to early growth. Think about how are you going to scale effectively (and in our case quickly).
- Operationalise it – you’ll quickly figure out that there is not enough time in the day to do all the things (believe me I tried!). Hiring experts will save you time and money, as will having you full-time in the business so quit your day job as soon as you are able.
- STOP – if you’ve done all of this right and got to this point chances are you’re a little like us and have grown too fast and there are things about your business or product that no longer make sense. This is the time to reimagine your business as it currently is and make the changes you need to power to the next level.
- Plan big – there is so much power in setting a target – particularly one that is ambitious. Make sure that you share your goal with your team and partners.
- Go all in – our catchphrase is “Am I the handbrake?” There are so many times in our early years that we were limiting our own growth based on our fears, assumptions or lack of knowledge. This is the moment to take a leap, find out the things you don’t know and believe that you as the business owner are the secret sauce!
What’s next for you, and Getting Lost?
From a product perspective you can expect to see lots more games from us in 2025 – it’s an eclectic mix with a restaurant, menopause and zoo edition all slated for development next year! For us as a company, the biggest challenge that we have is how to continue our growth (more than tripling our sales in the last two years) without sacrificing the culture that we love. At the moment I get to work with my sister, cousin and all 3 of my daughters. I bring my dog to work, we have no set hours and I can walk to work. I don’t want to lose that so we have to figure out the best way to grow while keeping all of those great things.