Dueling Axes started in Columbus, OH as an urban axe throwing lounge in a young industry, which was fairly unknown when it first emerged. Dueling Axes’ mission is to provide a one-of-a-kind experience and atmosphere for axe throwing. Conveniently located in the downtown Columbus area, New Albany/Gahanna, and now the newly opened Las Vegas. Dueling Axes provides a lounge atmosphere where friends can eat, drink, and throw axes with a variety of gameplay options.
The Dueling Axes owners reached out to Switchbox to develop a high quality, more intuitive reservation, scheduling, and payments platform. The software that they were using just did not fit their overall needs as a business, and the growth that they were experiencing. The closest software they were using was developed for bowling alleys, but since the axe throwing industry was fairly unknown, this didn’t account for all of the stipulations they needed, and they were piecing together different software systems to get something to work for their business. Dueling Axes required software that could take deposits, automated lane availability and scheduling, and a secure collection and storage of customer-signed waivers. Dueling Axes also needed a system that could manage marketing opportunities like recreation leagues and tournaments, in addition to their day to day operations.
Switchbox worked with Dueling Axes to build out a custom web based application using Ruby on Rails and React. The final solution that was developed integrated multiple software systems into a single customized platform that was tailored to the axe throwing industry. The new software allows for seamless integration with existing marketing sites allowing customers to schedule and pay for their reservations online. The new platform also allows for waiver management, score tracking, point of sale, reporting, and custom multi-tenant branding.
The software, now known as RKd, has grown from custom software for a single business into a SaaS suite of tools being used by over 40 businesses across the country, and is continuing to grow. This has allowed Axe Arcade to evolve their product and provide their customers with a top notch software solution that is becoming a standard in the industry. The result has lead to Dueling Axes rapidly expanding their locations in Columbus, as well as having the premier axe throwing location in Las Vegas. While also allowing the two owners to take a step back from the time intensive hands-on retail operation, and to focus more on the growth of their business. Not to mention it has made their lawyers happy to finally have a solution to capturing and storing the legal waivers to axe throwing.
