People2meet – Victor Milton van Doorn

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    Sometimes we cross paths with people that are nothing like anyone you have ever seen in this world. They combine intuition, creativity, smartness, craziness and on top of that confidence. Individuals who just know what they are doing, even though sometimes they are in the opposite direction from the rest of the world.

    Of course I would meet one (actually a lot) of these people in The Netherlands. His name is Victor Milton van Doorn. Founder of the hype store Uncover Lab, which “tattoos” and customizes objects, and the first ever escape room in Amsterdam; Sherlocked.

    You might be wondering what he has to do seats2meet.com, but I promise I will get there. First I want to briefly tell his story.

    He is impatient. He got permission from the government to not follow classes in high school. Instead of going to college he opened a film production company with a friend, which worked well for four years. A small thing was bothering him, though. He was sure that the light behind the apple logo on MacBooks actually occupied the whole back of the screen. I mean, that bothers everybody, right? And if his suspicions were right (which they were, by the way) he could design anything he wanted to replace the apple logo. So he did it. Long story short, that is how he founded Uncover Lab with Pim, whom won a design contest to make a customized MacBook for the king (he drew the royal family as chess pieces). The store went even further and now customizes almost every object you bring them.

    Curious as I am I asked him what was the craziest object they customized. He told me the story about a guy who made them write a poem in a plate. He cooked a dish for his girlfriend. The last line of the poem was “please say yes”. The rest you can figure it out yourself. If you can’t I will tell you, it was a marriage proposal.

    With the entrepreneurship and creative spirit mixed all together he went crazy when he experienced an escape room in England, which his friend and colleague in Uncover Lab, Tristan, also saw in South Africa. They met and thought about the idea of opening one in Amsterdam, the first step? Looking for locations, of course.

    Going back a little bit, in 2013 Martijn Aslander, whom Victor calls a modern day wizard (and I will soon tell why), introduced Felix Lepoutre, the manager of MeetBerlage, the Seats2meet location in the centenary building Beurs van Berlage (a must see if you are in Amsterdam). Now do the math, you have a location manager and a person looking for a room. Serendipity did its magic and Sherlocked is now located in a historic building basement, just the right place for mysteries. You can read more about this story in Victor’s own words here.

    In conclusion I’m still on a search of a team to play Sherlocked, so if you are interested in joining me let me know. Now if you will excuse me I have to think of a cool design to customize my MacBook as well (I am also open for suggestions on that matter).