TreasureFix treasure hunts have been released! Americana ($100,000 cash treasure), Nails in the Kitchen #1 ($2,500 cash treasure), and We Didn’t Start the Word Search ($5,000 cash treasure) are only the first hunts of a planned many. Searchers are enjoying working on these well-crafted, unique, and clever puzzles. Some of the comments to date, “Whoever wrote this crossword… amazing job, this thing is insane.” and “Love the cookbook idea. Very nice and interesting.”
Join the fun! Here’s how:
Six Questions with Michael:
- 1Q) How exciting for more treasures to find! Please share a bit about your background, and how searchers can get involved in TreasureFix treasure hunts.
Thanks, Jenny! You’ve built and continue to grow an amazing community of treasure hunts and searchers, and we’re thrilled to actively be part of it. My professional background started in law, which gave way to entrepreneurship and writing. I co-wrote a book that is currently in development as a limited series at Max. I have also written a few screenplays (one with the co-founder of TREASUREFIX, Michael P.), which we remain optimistic about getting made one day, in spite of the changes to and challenges within that particular industry! Michael P.’s background encompasses a broad range of experience and expertise in media production.
Searchers can get involved with TREASUREFIX by checking out your Discord channel, where we’ll remain active and engaged, as well as our website (www.treasurefix.com). On our site, you can check out and preview our hunts, as well as get a feel for what we hope to build and create in the coming years and decades. We encourage anyone interested to really explore the site thoroughly, because it’s quite possible that familiarity with all of the information, resources, and elements within will help you in a hunt one day!
- 2Q) When did you first get involved in treasure hunting? What treasure hunts have you worked on in the past? When did you decide to create your own?
I first became involved in treasure hunting as a (primarily passive) observer of the Forrest Fenn hunt probably about a decade ago. While I made some casual efforts to “figure it out,” I do not consider myself to have been an active participant. That was, in large part, due to my inability to devote (what I perceived as) the necessary amount of time and energy to physically hunt for a treasure in that part of the country during that time period.
The decision to create our own hunts came about in the past 12-16 months, partly (given my own limited interaction with the Fenn hunt) with an eye towards making treasure hunting more accessible — and more consistently available — for as many people as possible. We mention this in the podcast, but I’ll say it again here, hat tip to Jon Collins-Black for prioritizing accessibility in his fantastic TTI hunt by spreading his treasure around the country!
I’ll add that another major motivator for us in this endeavor has also been the prospect of creating and releasing content in a relatively unique format. As I previously mentioned, we have some experience creating more traditional content, but when we considered joining the two concepts (traditional content creation + treasure hunting), our heads instantaneously exploded with new ideas. We don’t want to overpromise, so I’ll just say we are currently working on some really exciting ideas that we think will be fairly novel additions to the general oeuvre of treasure hunts that have been released over the last several decades.
- 3Q) The armchair treasure hunting hobby includes all sorts of different hunts. Some are more complex than others. Will searchers of your hunts need to have any specialized knowledge? For instance, will searchers need to know ciphers, codes, or need to become tech savvy in order to solve your hunts?
This may go without saying, but it’s pretty tricky to accurately devise a treasure hunt with relative expectations or preconceived notions of how difficult it will be, how long it will take to be solved/located, etc! I will say that our hunts are meant to be tough — generally in correlation with the amount of the offered reward — but certainly not impossible. Also, all of our hunts will be solved by a preset “Solve Guarantee” deadline, via clues if necessary, but we hope (and anticipate) that clues will not be necessary for every hunt we offer. We also hope each hunt we offer feels somewhat unique in terms of the skills and knowledge required to solve it, so that a particular skill set or area of expertise is not consistently being rewarded over time.
We advocate the broad acquisition of knowledge in all facets and circumstances. Be curious — one might say 🙂 A familiarity with ciphers, codes, etc will not always be necessary, but it certainly can’t hurt a searcher in our hunts to understand the basics (and perhaps know where/how to look if the basics lead you elsewhere). We anticipate (and hope) that in some of our hunts, whether you solve it yourself or are reviewing the solve after the fact, you will look at a method or technique or application and think, “hmmm, maybe haven’t seen it done exactly that way before” — but also, and more importantly, that a certain logic always prevails, even if it looks somewhat atypical or non-traditional, and even if it turns out to have been “too easy” or “too hard” relative to what we were shooting for!
I’m not sure if this terminology will make perfect sense, but we are always aiming for “hard solves” rather than “soft solves,” which is to say, we are aiming for solves that feel very complete and certain, rather than solves that feel like they are one of several or more that all make about as much logical sense as the other. Re tech savviness, generally speaking, if you have the ability to access and navigate our site (and the internet generally), that will typically be enough tech know-how for our hunts.
- 4Q) What advice would you give to new searchers, not only on how to go about solving your hunts, but on how to enjoy the hobby as a whole?
I would say to always keep an open mind and a positive mindset. Treasure hunting can be frustrating! The difficulty of “getting into” someone else’s mind, confirmation bias, unsuccessful efforts (especially BOTG efforts!), naysayers — it can all add up! I do it because I love the thrill of the chase, and it’s exciting to now be in a position to hopefully create that thrill for others. But at the end of the day, treasure hunting is meant to be entertaining – a diversion from the occasional drudgery of what we might call “everyday life.” At the very least, hopefully you will learn something new. Also, with all of our hunts, there’s a known deadline by which someone in the community will solve the hunt. So stay optimistic even if you feel frustrated – someone will ultimately get it right, why not you?!
- 5Q) In researching other hunts, and how they are produced and managed, what do you feel makes TreasureFix stand out? Are there things you feel are unique as an experience for searchers?
We’ve released an initial batch of hunts that should feel somewhat comfortable and familiar in the context of treasure hunts that have come before ours. We have some pretty radical ideas in the works, but we didn’t want to stand out too much right out of the gate, at least not to the extent that most searchers would feel like they just didn’t “get” what we’re going for, or connect with our hunts. As we build some trust and credibility in the community, we’ll take some bigger swings with the type of content we release. It may not all land all the time, but ultimately, we want to expand the vocabulary of what types of content and experiences “treasure hunting” can encompass.
More specifically, we think the “Solve Guarantee” deadline is a relatively unique addition to the experience (not that we invented the concept of putting a timeframe on a treasure hunt, but more in the sense that it’s explicitly attached to everything we offer). We hope that it provides a certain level of transparency and excitement surrounding the experience, such that everyone is working towards the same known finish line.
Another thing to touch on is that while we will be offering more “physical” hunts (i.e., with BOTG elements) in the future, and are certainly encouraging of people consciously choosing to get off their screens and out into nature, the reality is that BOTG hunts are not accessible to many people depending on location, difficulty level, time required to search, etc. We hope that our “digital” hunts will prove to be compelling and fulfilling experiences in their own right — a full treasure hunt experience, just without the need to travel somewhere to grab the box! (And much cheaper too, at the end of the day!)
- 6Q) What is your goal for TreasureFix? What are you enjoying about the process and are there any challenges which are surprising to you?
First and foremost, our goal is to still be creating treasure hunts for a thing called TREASUREFIX thirty years from now! Creating treasure hunts very quickly transformed into an all-out passion and obsession for us, so you could say we’re enjoying almost everything about the process, including the challenges. As mentioned above, it’s tough as a “treasure hunt creator” to accurately put yourself in the position of someone viewing the hunt for the first (or hundredth) time. Obviously, releasing a hunt that is instantly solved is neither entertaining — at least to all searchers except one! — nor sustainable as a model by which to grow and last and offer bigger and better hunts.
We are trying to be quite transparent about what our goals and plans for TREASUREFIX are. If the content we offer isn’t sufficiently compelling to attract a wide audience, we’ll give away some money over the next few years and still consider it to have been a unique and fulfilling experience. But just to tease the “exciting content on the horizon” angle one last time before signing off, we truly hope we get the chance to deliver everything we’re working on (and more) to this dedicated and growing treasure hunting community.
Jenny, thanks again for the opportunity to share our story and for all the work you do connecting and growing this community!