Chris Ricard

My most recent venture was an escape room business called SmartyPantz. We had locations in Gastown, Edmonton and Calgary.  We were the first of this type of business to open in Vancouver.    There is a long story behind this idea, and I’m happy to regale in the success and challenges inflicted on me and my partner.

Needless to say, it was a rollercoaster ride, but in a nutshell; Gastown crushed it right out of the gate after taking longer and costing more to open than anticipated.  Our goal was rapid growth and we felt opening additional locations in Metro Van might cannibalize our Gastown location, hence moving to conquer Alberta.  In hindsight, we should have stayed local, but what can you do. It made it through the first few waves of the pandemic but round 3 was too much.

I’ve been teaching Marketing at Douglas College since 2018 and thoroughly enjoy sharing wisdom with the next generation and learning a few things from them too. Connecting students with local businesses for service learning opportunities is fulfilling as both parties derive great benefit from these experiential learning opportunities.   

Other past experiences including running a website hosting and design company for over a decade, back when things like Wordpress didn’t exist, selling custom training and development services and another large chapter was working directly with new start-ups throught Self-Employment Programs, focusing on building Sales and Marketing plans and then coaching them during their first year of business.