💻 Modern · Present day
Tech Startup Murder Mystery Party
The Series B closes Monday. The CEO won't be there to sign.
6-14 players, sweet spot 9 · the full kit is ready in about 20 minutes. Or name your guests and see who they play, with the opening scene, free in about 30 seconds.
Welcome to the all-hands nobody wanted. The office has a kombucha tap, a ping-pong table nobody uses, and a wall of Post-its that says Move Fast. Tonight the founding team, the investors, and the one engineer who actually understands the codebase have gathered to toast the IPO. The CEO gave a speech about disruption. Then the CEO went quiet, permanently, somewhere between the standing desks and the server closet. The cap table just got interesting.
Playing it feels like the tensest board meeting of your life, with cocktails. Everyone has a stake, and everyone has something in their Slack history they would rather not surface. Accusations fly in startup dialect: who was really shipping, who was quietly interviewing, who forked the repo at 2 a.m. Your kit hands each guest a character, a secret, and a set of clues. By the final round, the room is pitching theories like they are pitching Sand Hill Road.
Perfect for
A natural pick for corporate team building, office holiday parties, and product launch celebrations, especially for teams who can laugh at their own standups.
Cast size
6-14 players, sweet spot 9. Every kit is written for your exact headcount and gender mix, so nobody doubles up and nobody sits out.
Who is at the party
A taste of the cast a tech startup kit produces. Your mystery is written fresh, with its own suspects, secrets, and one guilty guest.
The Founder Who Pivoted
Co-founded the company in a garage, got pushed off the cap table by round two, and still has the original admin login.
The Growth Hacker
Turned the user numbers from flat to hockey stick in one quarter, and refuses to explain exactly how.
The Lead Investor
Wired the seed check, sits on the board, and has been reading the term sheet like it contains a loophole.
The Ten-X Engineer
Wrote most of the codebase alone, was passed over for CTO, and knows what is actually in the commit history.
Setting the scene
Costumes
- Grey hoodie, jeans, and a lanyard with a printed badge that says CEO in a sans-serif font.
- A fleece vest over a button-down for the venture capitalist, with a laptop bag carried as a prop.
- Black turtleneck and wire-rim glasses for the visionary who has read one biography too many.
- A company T-shirt (print a fake logo on a plain tee) with noise-cancelling headphones around the neck for the engineer.
- Blazer over a startup tee, white sneakers, and an oversized smartwatch for the head of sales.
Food and drink
- Cold-brew coffee on tap, served in mason jars, for the non-alcoholic option that keeps everyone shipping.
- A build-your-own poke or grain bowl bar, the catered-lunch signature of every funded startup.
- Kombucha cocktails: ginger kombucha with vodka and lime, garnished with a mint sprig.
- A tray of expensive avocado toast squares, because the runway is still eighteen months.
Atmosphere
- Cover a wall or door in Post-its arranged as a kanban board with columns labelled Backlog, In Progress, and Deceased.
- String a banner reading Series B Celebration and leave a single overturned standing-desk chair for effect.
- Playlist: lo-fi beats and synthy indie, the sound of an open-plan office at 9 p.m.
- Set out whiteboard markers and a whiteboard covered in a nonsense growth chart that ends in a red X.
Host tip
Give every guest a badge lanyard when they arrive and print their character name and job title on it. In an office setting, titles do half the work of characterisation, and guests will start posturing before they read a line. Time the reveal like a board vote: gather everyone around the whiteboard, have each player write their accused name on a Post-it, then stick them up and count. Read the solution as the post-mortem.
How your kit comes together
Set the table
Pick Tech Startup, your player count and gender mix, the difficulty, and the tone: campy, dramatic, or dark. Add your guests' real names if you like.
We write the mystery
A complete, original plot with a victim, a killer, red herrings, and a web of clues that lets the table solve it. Usually 15-25 minutes; we email you when it is ready.
Print and play
Download the host guide, one booklet per character, name tags and ballots. Or send each player a private link to read their part on their phone.
Questions hosts ask
Does a startup murder mystery work for a remote or hybrid team?
Yes. Send each teammate their printable character booklet ahead of time, run the rounds over a video call, and use breakout rooms for private accusations. Gather & Gasp kits are fully printable PDFs, so nothing needs to be handed over in person.
Can I use my coworkers' real names for the characters?
You can, and it is the fastest way to get a room laughing. Gather & Gasp lets you rename any character before generating, so your actual head of engineering can play The Ten-X Engineer. Keep the victim fictional unless your boss has a strong sense of humour.
How long does a tech startup mystery take to run at an office party?
Plan for about two hours including a break. The kit takes roughly 20 minutes to generate, and the host guide lays out the rounds so you can fit it between drinks and the raffle. Nobody needs acting experience; the booklets do the talking.
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Ready to gather the suspects?
A custom tech startup mystery for 6-14 players, written for your guests, in your inbox in about 20 minutes. Kits from $19.99.
Create your Tech Startup mystery