Sam is the co-founder of Exekias Games, a board games company making historical games that encourage interest and curiosity in the ancient world. They started the business with course mates, from a university project that inspired their first game, ‘Escape From Pompeii’, which will be launching on Kickstarter in May 2025.
I applied for the first stage of the New Enterprise Competition, Ideation, back in late 2023 on the recommendation of a friend, not really knowing what I was in for. At the time, the idea of ‘Escape From Pompeii’ becoming a real board game that I could share with other people was unlikely, if not impossible. But over the course of the next few months, I was inspired by the confidence and ambition of the speakers and other entrepreneurs to consider it could be a reality.