The Bus, the Business and One Last Friday Night

He Built a Rage Room on a Bus. The Reason Why Has Nothing to Do With Anger.

I went looking for a man who lets people climb aboard a bus and break things.

I expected a few funny stories, some unusual business lessons and, if I was lucky, an explanation of where someone finds enough disposable objects to keep a mobile rage room supplied.

Then I met Christian Morgan.

On the surface, Christian’s business is exactly as wild as it sounds. Shake-N-Break Mobile Rage Room is a converted bus where people can safely smash things, let off steam and walk away feeling a little lighter than when they arrived.

But that is only the surface.

Behind the bus is a 30-year-old father raising a blended family of four children, a working life spent around rock crushers and heavy equipment, a retirement account emptied in pursuit of something better and a friendship that gave the business far more meaning than Christian ever expected it to carry.

This is not simply the story of a man who built a rage room.

It is the story of why he finally decided to build it.

Adam: Before we get to the bus, tell me a little about yourself.

Christian: My name is Christian Morgan. I was born in Calhoun, Georgia, and I currently live in Rome. I’m 30 years old.

I have four kids, three boys and one girl. The two younger boys are mine, and the girl and older boy are my bonus kids from my girlfriend. We’ve been together for seven years. My kids are my everything. They’re the reason I want to make this life easier for them and their futures.

I work full time at a rock quarry. I recently stepped down from a maintenance position that I had been in for six years.

Christian’s path to business ownership did not begin in a boardroom, business school or startup incubator. It began in the kind of places where the work is physical, the machinery is enormous and progress is measured by what moved, what ran and what got fixed.

Adam: What was life like before Shake-N-Break?

Christian: After my first year at the rock quarry, I bought my very first house. After three years, I quit and went to work in a tire factory.

The motivation for the change was that I got a six-dollar raise.

After a year, I quit the tire factory and went back to a quarry. Working on all the stationary crushers and everything else that makes a rock quarry run, and running the earthmoving equipment on the property, is where I was happiest.

We had haul trucks, a 980, a 988 and WA500 loaders. I was happy there.

There is something revealing in the way Christian describes those machines. He remembers the model numbers. He remembers the equipment. He remembers the work.

This was not someone sitting around waiting for a business idea to rescue him. Christian liked working with his hands. He understood machinery, maintenance and the satisfaction of making something run.

Eventually, though, he wanted to build something of his own.

Adam: When did you decide you wanted to start a business?

Christian: When I quit the quarry, I pulled out my entire 401(k) and held onto it until I could figure out how to use that little bit of money and double or quadruple it.

I came across my first business, renting inflatables and water slides. That business eventually led to the mobile rage room.

The inflatables were a start, but the idea for Shake-N-Break did not come from a formal business plan.

It came from Friday nights.

The Friday Night Idea

Adam: Of all the businesses you could have built, where did the idea for a rage room come from?

Christian: I had a very close friend that I went to school with. We would have game nights every Friday night over the course of the last six years.

We talked frequently, and I would always ask, “What does Rome, Georgia need? What will people enjoy doing? What will make Rome a little more fun?”

Christian and his friend returned to the question again and again. They were not conducting market research. They were two friends spending Friday evenings together, throwing ideas around and imagining what might work in their community.

Then, one night, the idea appeared.

Christian: We were all outside playing on the slide for my baby’s birthday party. It was a few years ago, and we were sitting on the couch talking about businesses again.

My very good buddy said, “You could try a rage room. Just a basic one in a building.”

Christian liked the idea. The problem was the building.

Christian: I didn’t have the capital for something of that nature.

So the conversation remained what many business ideas remain: an interesting possibility shared between friends, then placed back on the shelf while everyday life continued.

But the Friday nights continued too.

Christian’s friend had become seriously ill.

Christian: Last August, my best buddy was very sick and sore the last couple of Fridays.

I used to crawl on him in his recliner and give him these big hugs. The last Friday we were together, he told me his belly was hurting really bad. He was in so much pain that he told me not to crawl on him.

So I just did a little hug standing to the side of the recliner.

Little did I know it would be the last Friday we had together on this earth.

His friend passed away from pancreatitis a few days later.

There are parts of a founder’s story that should not be dressed up, sharpened into a slogan or pushed into becoming more dramatic than they already are.

This is one of them.

It was one final Friday night. One smaller hug. One conversation that Christian did not yet know had ended.

Christian: I was very sad for a few weeks. Then I gave my mind another thing to focus on, and that was what we had talked about: the rage room.

Finding the Bus

Adam: You decided to revisit the idea. How did a rage room in a building become a rage room on wheels?

Christian: I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it happen, so I went on the trusty old Facebook Marketplace looking for a small building.

Then, there among the listings, Christian found something far more interesting than a small building.

He found an old prison bus.

Christian: I found the old prison bus and made the guy an offer. Then I went to get it.

The bus had already been gutted. There was nothing left inside except the driver’s seat. For most people, that might have looked like an empty, aging vehicle.

For Christian, it looked like a room.

A room he could afford.

A room he could take anywhere.

A room he could rebuild with his own hands.

Christian: Over the next few months, I built the bus into the mobile rage room. I came up with a name, started the LLC and got everything in order.

The name arrived late one night.

Christian: Every night I contemplated a name, and then one night while we were lying in bed, the name Shake-N-Break came to me.

I’m a Talladega Nights fan, so there’s that.

A business born partly from grief, partly from determination and at least slightly from Ricky Bobby feels exactly right for Christian.

What Happens Inside a Mobile Rage Room?

Today, the bus has attended three events, two car shows and a car wash business, where it was rented for employees as a team-building and stress-relief experience.

The concept is simple. People enter the bus intending to break things, but Christian believes what leaves the bus matters more.

Adam: For someone who has never tried a rage room, what do you want them to understand before they step inside?

Christian: My advice to someone who is considering booking an event or just trying out a rage room is to go in with the intent to let out any and all of the emotions you have kept bottled up.

Don’t be afraid to let loose.

It can be loud, strange and wonderfully freeing. In a world where people are constantly expected to keep themselves composed, behave appropriately and move on quickly, Shake-N-Break gives them a place where letting go is the entire point.

The experience can work for birthday parties, community events, car shows, team-building days or anyone who simply needs a safe place to release some pressure.

The bus may still be in the early stages of its journey, but Christian’s vision for it is already much larger.

Adam: Where do you hope Shake-N-Break will be in the next few years?

Christian: My hope is that in two or three years, Shake-N-Break Rage Room will be a name and business that families talk about and invite others to experience with them.

I hope we become a fixture in the community and give everyone an outlet for relaxation and stress and emotional relief.

That answer changes the way you look at the bus.

It is easy to reduce a rage room to the novelty of smashing things. It makes for good videos, memorable birthday parties and a business concept that immediately gets people’s attention.

But Christian does not see destruction as the purpose.

He sees release.

Adam: People see a bus and probably assume this is simply about breaking things. What do you believe you’re really giving them?

Christian: People think I operate a rage room, but what I really operate is a way to provide self-care for your mind.

I like to view what we do as a form of therapy for all ages, young to old.

Building Something From What Was Broken

I went looking for a crazy service business built around breaking things.

I expected noise, flying debris and a few good laughs. I found all of that, but I also found Christian Morgan: a father raising seven children who risked his retirement savings, bought an old prison bus and rebuilt it with his own hands.

More importantly, I found a business carrying forward an idea shared between two friends over years of Friday-night conversations.

That was the beautiful surprise.

Shake-N-Break may be a place where people go to destroy things, but Christian’s story is really about building something: a business, a future for his family and a lasting piece of those Friday nights spent dreaming with a friend.

Christian’s friend suggested a rage room in a building.

Christian found a bus.

Then he got to work.

What a story.

BUSINESS INFORMATION

Shake-N-Break Mobile Rage Room
Owner: Christian Morgan
Based in: Rome, Georgia
Phone: +1 706-767-7709
Email: morganenterprise25@yahoo.com
Facebook: (3) Facebook

ABOUT THE SERIES

LJOS Service Business Founder Stories celebrates the people behind the businesses that make communities more useful, interesting and connected. Every service business begins with a person willing to take an idea seriously enough to build it.