The History of Mystery
Whether you heard about us because your team signed you up for a virtual happy hour, you're looking at applying for a role on our team, or you went on a magical date night a couple years back, you might have wandered at some point—what exactly is this company up to? With a name like Mystery, it might seem like we're doing some top-secret stuff but really we've just done A LOT since we launched in February 2019, so we're here to get you up to speed with everything Mystery.
The story starts with a trip our co-founder, Shane Kovalsky, took to Austin, Texas a few years back. Shane is one of the most spontaneous people we know and loves a good surprise. After taking a first-flight-out trip to ATX and everything simply fell into place, he wondered how I could bottle up that feeling of delight and the thrill of the unknown and deliver it to even more people— Mystery was born.
Mystery started as a surprise night out in the city you didn't have to plan. Discovering new things, stepping out of your comfort zone, and a night full of spontaneity was at all of Seattle's fingertips with Mystery Night Out. We did 1,000's of Night Out's, built an app, grew our team; until COVID-19 put a halt to it all.
We quickly realized where things were headed in 2020 and that a Night Out wasn't in the cards anytime soon. So naturally, we brought the magic of Night Out right to people's doorsteps! Our team worked tirelessly to develop an entirely new product in just one week, enter: Mystery Night In*. Night In boxes up an entire evening's worth of fun and activities, delivers them straight to you, and supports a ton of local businesses while doing so! It was the pick me up everyone needed when we were all stuck at home.
We noticed quite a few teams using our Mystery Night In boxes to send gifts to coworkers or welcome new employees while they couldn't meet up in person. It got us thinking about how a sense of surprise and delight was missing from the workplace. What if we could bring that same magic and surprise of Mystery to these teams? That brings us to where Mystery is now. Our team has pivoted yet again into the B2B space. We've now worked with hundreds of companies to keep their teams connected through surprise virtual events and team gifts*. We're using our event planning expertise paired with our love for getting people out of their comfort zone to do everything from five person team happy hours to sending morale boosting boxes to over 500 employees. Our own team has stayed connected through it all and we're growing fast, continuing to bring delight to the now hybrid work space.
It's been quite the journey to get to where we are today, and that was just the tl:dr version of it all! If you're itching to hear even more about our pivots and growth as a company, we recently did an interview with Starter Story diving into even more detail, or you can check out our about page. We're looking forward to making even more Mystery history in the years to come!
*With more than half a million dollars back into the pockets of small businesses during COVID-19, we are no longer offering Night In or Corporate Gifting as of 7/27/2021.
