In Conversation with Mystery City Games

How a Female Founder & CEO is Shaping Mystery City Games

by Coral Movasseli

Sept 12, 2022

PARIS — We had the pleasure of catching up with Emilie Mendes de Leon, co-founder of Mystery City Games, at Vivatech Paris and got to know all things Mystery City Games, Emilie’s entrepreneurship journey and her advice for women entrepreneurs out there.

Emilie came to Vivatech Paris as a part of the Dutch delegation.

Have confidence in yourself and in your business because you're the one who knows it the best at the end of the day.

Key takeaways from our talk:

Mystery City Games makes games based on real stories from history and organises treasure hunts.
When folks visit one of their locations, they are handed a backpack containing all types of treasure boxes, treasure maps, treasure books. They can then follow the route around the city, learning about the area and its people, and solve puzzles.

Mystery Games was started as a side project by Emilie and her business partner, but they soon saw that it was resonating with people. They then left their jobs and committed to the company full-time in 2019.

Mystery Games began its expansion in 2019, just in time for a March 2020 launch date. Ironically their first game in London was called “Outbreak London” which was based on a pandemic, just before COVID-19 hit.

Mystery Games is present in Amsterdam, London, Naples, and Barcelona and will soon expand to Paris, Berlin, Dublin, Lisbon, and many more cities in the coming year.

Their key customers are visitors, who want to do something playful while also exploring the main sites in the city. These include local families, people going on dates and birthday parties. They also do team outings, where teams compete against each other to solve the mystery first. This is proving to be a hit with remote workforces as they let employees explore new cities while also bonding with their teammates.

Mystery Games began as an idea at a pub quiz and was developed over kitchen tables before finally the team cracked the formula that worked for them.

Emilie has a history of entrepreneurship and worked as an expert blind taster for an American wine company expanding to Europe. Emilie was inspired by how things worked when expanding to new markets and managing money and people which pushed her towards entrepreneurship.

Mystery City Games is a completely bootstrapped business and Emilie tells us that what entrepreneurs lack in investment can be made up for in sweat and energy. She advises other entrepreneurs to seek out help from their friends, visit DIY shops, and to learn things on their own online. Having said that, Emilie says that money is important and that they were lucky enough to generate enough cash from their business to grow it.

Emilie’s vision is to expand to 30+ European cities in the next couple of years as she believes every little town and neighbourhood has an amazing story to tell through playful, interactive and memorable games.

When reflecting on the obstacles women entrepreneurs face, Emilie notes that sometimes there is an assumption that her male co-founder is more business-savvy when in fact Emilie is more business inclined, whilst her partner looks after the creative side of it. She says that sometimes breaking these expectations can be tricky.

She also notes there are some amazing initiatives to help female entrepreneurs and having been a part of some of them, she is amazed to see how much women can do with limited resources. She also reminds women to dream big and to bring their vision to life by mobilising money and teams.

Emilie advises other women just starting their business to be confident in and true to themselves. She says that if women are starting a business, it’s because they have the drive and the energy to bring their businesses to life.

Key takeaways from our talk:

Watch the full interview 👇

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