New Trends /

Surprise Industries

Tania Luna, Kat Dudina and Maya Gilbert are well-schooled in the element of surprise. The three high-school friends are the creative force behind Surprise Industries, a New York-based company that crafts tailored adventures for those looking to add a little excitement to their life. Flying lessons, public speaking, sword-fighting, craft workshops and dancing classes are just some of the activities currently not on their list of surprises: the fact that I’m writing about them here means they’ll have to scrap those ideas (sorry).

Surprise Industries began in June 2008 following a run-in with The Something Store, a place where you buy a ‘something’ and eagerly await its arrival in order to find out what it is you’ve actually bought.

‘We loved the element of surprise but ultimately the ‘something’ was always pretty useless, like a bag or a scarf,” Tania says. “The exciting part was the surprise of not knowing what you’d get. So we thought: what if we took that element and turned it into a more worthwhile experience that impacts people’s lives for longer than just one second?’

The girls’ personalities were perfectly suited to the concept of Surprise Industries (which was, by the way, originally called “GoLearnSomething.com”). Kat, a sign-language interpreter, would be sent on different assignments every day of the week, often not knowing what she was in for until she arrived at her destination; Tania, a psychology graduate, had spent years at start-up companies teaching them how to imbue personality into their brands; and Maya, an off-again on-again college student, was, in the girls’ words, an “experience connoisseur”, often eating fire for fun and constantly participating in other crazy activities.

The idea behind Surprise Industries is to inspire people to see the world differently. To do this, the girls require that all their customers have a positive attitude to risk taking and a passion for living, details which they mull over in a pre-surprise survey conducted over the phone. Surprises depend on budget and time; you can pick from specialty adventures that can go from one hour all the way to an entire vacation, pre-existing mini-surprises for $25, and corporate surprises for larger teams. Once you sign up, you’ll receive carefully-worded clues in the week leading up to the event, and, the night before, a series of instructions telling you a time and place to be. What happens next is up to Tania, Kat and Maya, but so far they haven’t had a single unsatisfied customer. From their very first surprise in February 2009–a DJing class–until today, Surprise Industries has successfully coordinated over 350 surprises (averaging about 20 per day) and has grown the team to 16 full-time and part-time staff, based in locations around the United States. And all this without a fully-formed marketing strategy.

“We haven’t really been marketing ourselves because we’ve been more focused on structure,” Kat says. “So far the way people have found out about us has been through word of mouth, but that seems to be working pretty well!”

Which is exactly how I found out about it. Not wanting to leave me unsatisfied, Surprise Industries set me up with a day-long surprise that would, according to them, cater to my creative spirit while paying mindful attention to my respective fears of bugs, heights and rollercoasters. So, on a sunny New York Saturday, I found myself with a sheet of directions in my hand. What followed was a day of amazement, thrills and fleetingly terrifying moments: I took a Greek dancing lesson in Queens, had lunch at a Bosnian café, and learned how to play the musical saw (http://www.sawlady.com/).

Because Surprise Industries follows up all its clients with a brief phone call and survey, I had the chance to give Tania, Kat and Maya my feedback, which was brief but to the point: ‘Oh my God it was awesome!!!’

I’m guessing that’s what most of their clients say, which, given what they do, is not very surprising.

Tagged: New York