Google, Amazon use Israeli app for team-building fun
Israel’s Strayboots has set up mobile scavenger hunts and other activities in over 50 cities worldwide
Israeli startup Strayboots has set out to help employers take advantage of the maxim that an engaged employee makes a more productive employee.
A global provider of mobile experiences for corporate team building, group adventures and city exploration, Strayboots has set up scavenger hunts and other activities in over 50 cities worldwide, serving hundreds of people every day.
“We offer experiences for employees, to bring them out of their comfort zone,” said Ido Rabiner, CEO of Strayboots. “A job is not just a job; it’s also a way to forge links with colleagues and to learn teamwork. It’s a fun life experience that lasts.”
The company was founded in Tel Aviv in October 2015 by Rabiner, 38, with two other American partners, Jeremy Brooks and Scott Knackmuhs.
Thanks to extensive preparation work on the ground done by Strayboots’ content teams in the cities covered by the service, mostly in the US, companies can offer their employees scavenger hunts that bring people out of the office and help them discover the city where they work, the company said.
These hunts offer challenges to every participant, like reaching a destination and finding a specific shop where they have to buy something inside. Another challenge can be taking a picture in front a monument posing in a weird way. Once they pass the challenge, teams can continue their scavenger hunt.
“Our scavengers hunts are not a simple going from place A to place B. Employees are divided into different teams, and, following a different path from every other team, they have to answer trivia questions and overcome team challenges to reach the end,” said Rabiner.
Clients can find any kind of team experience they are looking for online, said Rabiner. Usually, these experiences are pre-scheduled and employers can customize them and choose the location they want for their team activities.
More than 1,000 organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, city governments, universities, NGOs, US agencies and international businesses, have already used Strayboots – including corporate giants like Google, Amazon, Nike, Facebook and Microsoft, Rabiner said.
“It is proved that companies with engaged employees produce more and spend less in health insurance,” Rabiner said. “They also report 2.5 times higher revenues than companies with disengaged employees.”
Strayboots is a mostly B2B-oriented company, but it can also serve single clients who want to discover their city in a unique and funny way. The company has also created partnerships with tourism organizations, like one with the tourism board of Gränna, a small town in Sweden.
Tourists can also use Strayboot’s website for walking tours and city explorations.
ExitValley, an Israeli crowd-investing platform, helped Strayboots to find investors and raise money.
“Today an employer pays $30 for each employee, and we can manage groups from 10 to 1,000 people, but the goal is to grow and become a world marketplace in the future,” said Rabiner, “For example now we are working to create something similar in Tel Aviv and then in Europe.”
