Blue Apple Launchpad

Austin Gwaltney co-founded Blue Apple Launchpad alongside Dmitry Mikhaylov, building the agency as an offshoot of their operational experience running entertainment venues. According to the site, the two own 15 entertainment businesses across five states, including escape rooms, family entertainment centers, and related attraction concepts, with a new escape room opening in Charlotte, NC in March 2026. The agency grew directly out of that operating footprint: the marketing playbooks were first tested inside their own locations before being offered to outside clients. The public founder story is brief and the site does not detail prior career history or formal credentials beyond the operator background. What is clear is the thesis. Gwaltney and Mikhaylov argue that most attractions marketing is interchangeable across venues — the same Meta ad creative, the same booking funnel, the same Google Ads keywords — and that the real unlock for FECs, escape rooms, axe throwing venues, and rage rooms is community-level influencer marketing paired with attraction-specific conversion mechanics. They describe their approach as crowdsourced: strategies that work in one of their owned locations get templated and rolled out across the portfolio and client base, which they say typically drives revenue lifts of 22 to 47 percent. The parent entity, Blue Apple Marketing, LLC, operates related brands including Escape Room Launchpad and FEC Launchpad, and publishes content through the Blue Apple Podcast and a YouTube channel. Offices are listed in Atlanta, GA and Sacramento, CA. The operator-first positioning is the agency's primary differentiator from generalist local-business shops.