I was faced with a mystery. A murder had taken place. The victim was a drive to succeed that not only mutilates the self-respect of employees and customers but also leaves friends and family lonely and forlorn. To uncover the killer's identity, I had to determine three things: motive, means, and opportunity.
- The motives: Spreading the joy with a business based on the personal touch, while spending time with wife and baby.
- The means: Promoting parties through a well-designed Web site, word-of-mouth advertising, and excellent customer service.
- The opportunity: The chance to purchase a company from a relative and operate it in a new way, including marketing it with energy and creativity.
Hot on the crime trail, I walk into the Chicago storefront that houses Murder Mystery Maniacs. There is no receptionist to block my way. The prime suspect himself, casually dressed in jeans and a pullover, gets up from a desk to shake my hand. Dave Wachtendonk is the owner, and Mario Calhoun is his single employee.
The case is quickly closed. Dave freely admits to being guilty as charged. Given the opportunity to purchase Murder Mystery Maniacs from his uncle, he put the "personal" into "success story." Not only has he been able to achieve his goal of working out of his home but he also has been careful to encourage staff and customers alike to live a "humane" lifestyle.
It might seem like a paradox to base a lively party on death, but Murder Mystery Maniacs brings people together and gives them a chance to bring out their creative and dramatic talents. Although Halloween is the busiest season, the company arranges "mystery events" year-round for corporations and individuals. Original scenarios surrounding a murder are provided to participants, who each assume the role of a character. As the night unfolds, a script is followed to determine which one is the killer.
Above all, the interaction is unique to each individual - a process that Wachtendonk is happy to promote through every contact he has with each of his customers. "We try not to use the answering machine or e-mail autoresponders. From the moment a prospective client gets a party kit from us, we work to define the experience we will provide. We manage each phase of the communication, from sending out invitations to running the event itself," Wachtendonk says.
It's no mystery why the Murder Mystery Maniacs Web site works, and how Wachtendonk manages the process of selecting a scenario and making a purchase. Even though they aren't buying a tangible consumer item such as a lamp or T-shirt, the site provides them with a shopping cart and the ability to pay with credit cards. Attention to the needs of customers is central to designing the purchase process, says Dave.
"It's really important, from an ecommerce standpoint, to design your shopping cart so it is easy to use. Listen to your customers: they will tell you exactly what they want to experience when they use your site."
Customers want to feel secure when they make a purchase online, he adds: it's essential to provide SSL security for the site. (This costs him about $79/year.) "If they don't see the lock at the bottom of the Web page that tells them the transaction is secure, they'll call and ask, 'What's up with this?' I used to get that all the time."
Over the past five years, the Web site and the purchase process have evolved. Originally, Wachtendonk designed the site himself with the help of his friend Ali Sabet. He only accepted PayPal for payments. Because customers could not complete a transaction online, he lost orders. He also tried free hosting services. He eventually signed with Volusion.com as his hosting service and pays $50/month. The shopping cart feature was provided with his hosting package. He also started accepting credit cards, using Authorize.net as the payment gateway. He strongly suggests that ecommerce sellers pay the transaction fees and accept credit cards online. "As soon as I started taking credit cards, my conversion rate shot through the roof."
He also has the following suggestions for anyone thinking of setting up an ecommerce operation:
- Be aware of current security threats. Customers need to feel secure, so make sure your credit card company is handling their information safely.
- Test your site. He tries out the site himself and asks friends to use it; he continually makes improvements.
- Keep enhancing the user experience. Currently, he's redesigning his site and creating a complete, custom application and shopping cart with Chicago-based PlumtreeGroup.net. Currently, customers are asked late in the process how many male and female roles they will need for their chosen mystery. The new shopping cart asks such questions earlier in the process.
- Know a little basic HTML: "It helps when you're talking with developers."
The biggest challenge in creating the Web site and creating a user-friendly purchase process is not a technical one, however. Rather, it's "trying to think from the customer's point of view and defining their experience."
Being attentive to customers' needs is one way in which a small online business can succeed where bigger operations fail. A few Google AdWords, in fact, are the only advertising purchases Wachtendonk makes. He relies on word of mouth.
"Treat your customers well, and your customers will do the marketing," he explains. "It just happens. What we do is the ultimate viral product. When you host a party, you tell twenty of your friends about it. Each of the people who attend will tell twenty of their friends. This year alone, 25,000 people will come to one of our events."
The profit margin has increased ever since Wachtendonk took over from his Uncle Bob in 2003.
"He said, "Would you want to buy it?" I thought, "What the heck is this?" I looked at the material I was given, and the Web site, and I thought, "I'll see if we can make it work in a few years. If not, I'll give it back to him and then I'll get a real job.""
The first year, Murder Mystery Maniacs generated $15,000 to $17,000 in revenue. The second year, that jumped to $50,000. This year, an expected $250,000 in sales will comes from a growing number of corporate gigs, as well as expansion overseas.
Yet Wachtendonk's primary motivation remains the same: the freedom to spend time with his wife Erin and son Mason. "I would have stayed with it even at a smaller income because of the flexibility to live your life. That, to me, is the most important thing. There are so many people who live their lives who don't get to live it. When I hired my first employee, I told him, "You're not just a widget, I care about you." If I let him know I feel that way about him, he'll translate that back to our customers."
The personal touch, Dave says, originated with his upbringing in the small town of Neilsville, Wisconsin. He studied business in college, pursuing a degree in service management. While in college, he started an online T-shirt business for college organizations and kids. He also sold books door to door in the summer.
"Every job since then has been a cakewalk because you are told "No" twenty, thirty, or forty times a day, and if you get one sale, you are making money." He persevered despite instructors who gave him low grades for his writing ability and who disapproved of his online business. He once got a D in entrepreneurship and an F in English, but he can laugh about it now that he is living the good life while running his own "killer" business.
