The start-up facing its own obstacle course Will Dean profits from other people's pain. They pay him to be forced up walls, through mud-filled tunnels and over hurdles of ice, fire and electric shock. On weekends Tough Mudder, his extreme sports company, descends on ski resorts and racetracks in the US, UK, Canada and Australia to put on what it calls "probably the toughest event on the planet" - an exaggeration many participants probably repeat later at the bar. IN Entrepreneurship "This is about getting muddy and bloody and having a beer afterwards," says the soft-spoken Mr Dean. Sitting in his Brooklyn office in a former factory, the British 31-year-old looks relaxed in jeans and fleece jacket. A keen runner, Mr Dean got the idea for Tough Mudder when he realised he and his friends sometimes found running boring. He wanted to make keeping fit more fun. "Most people who do a marathon or a triathlon are not doing it for the race component," he says. The point is the camaraderie and the accomplishment of crossing the finish line. Tough Mudder is not a race, Mr Dean says, talking up teamwork and "getting runners out of their comfort zone." Tough Mudder may not be the toughest event contestants will ever enter, but it could be the most uncomfortable. The 10-12 mile races send teams scrambling over military-style obstacles - climbing ropes, crossing greased monkey bars and crawling under barbed wire. Completing a course can take several hours. There are no prizes, yet thousands of people - 80 per cent of them men - risk pain, injury, electric shock and hypothermia to claim an orange sweat band. "We haven't had any serious injuries," Mr Dean says, adding: "We know we will. It's just statistical certainty, unfortunately. Participants register online, paying up to $180. Despite requiring a sobering waiver releasing the company from liability for injury or death, many events sell out months in advance. Tough Mudder's website is stocked with videos, training plans and forums for athletes to psych each other up and speculate about new obstacles and course layouts. Launched in 2010 with $20,000 from Mr Dean and Guy Livingstone, his business partner, the venture was slow to take off. Mr Dean recalls sitting with Mr Livingstone and four unpaid interns in a makeshift office in a hot, stuffy server room. We hadn't any sales yet. But you have to be slightly [split personality] - you have to be incredibly optimistic and very tough on yourself when you first start a business. They went on to sell 5,000 spots in five weeks, and held two more events that year in California and New Jersey. In 2011, 14 competitions across the US drew more than 100,000 people. Mr Dean acknowledges the tangled logistics of securing locations, setting up courses and insuring the company. "I look back now and I have no idea how we thought we could go from three [in 2010] to 14 events," he says. He is familiar with the risks of start-ups. Tough Mudder is his fourth venture. His first was a business selling colour-changing nail polish, start­ed while still at boarding school with Mr Livingstone. He has also run a T-shirt business and a company making Bollywood posters in India. Mr Dean hit on the idea for Tough Mudder while studying for an MBA. Inspired by the UK's Tough Guy competition, he drew up a business plan for an obstacle course that would in­corporate special forces training and seize on the growing popularity of mud runs and endurance contests such as Warrior Dash and Spartan Race. In fact, the founder of Tough Guy sued Mr Dean in 2010, claiming Mr Dean had unfairly copied his ideas; the lawsuit was settled last year and the parties are barred from discussing the details. While the number of obstacle-race companies has taken off, Mr Dean is not concerned that his own venture might suffer from copycats. "We compete against things that guys do together at the weekend, and we also compete against the things that stop guys from doing things together, like having to put up shelves or visit their girlfriend's parents," he says. Despite a background including Harvard Business School and a Bain & Company internship, Mr Dean sees himself as an outsider, prizing creativity and individual responsibility. He credits this to his post-university years on the counterterrorism desk for the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the Middle East, including working on freezing financial assets - an experience he calls "incredibly entrepreneurial." This year Tough Mudder added events in the UK, Canada and Australia, for a total of 35 competitions and 460,000 contestants. Fifty-six events - including three in Germany - are planned for 2013, with a projected 1m participants. It is also looking at Japan, South Africa and New Zealand. Growth is expected to slow from the swift rates of the past two years, so international expansion - and the logistical challenges of mounting events almost every weekend - will become more critical. The company, which had revenues of $25m in 2011, expects 2012 figures to reach at least $70m. Of that, 90 per cent comes from entry fees with the balance in sponsorships from brands such as Under Armour sports wear or Dos Equis beer. As Tough Mudder grows, Mr Dean says he is starting to give up the pragmatic experimentation of a start-up. You have to stop evaluating things on merits and replace those with policies . . . You have principles by which you make decisions. And then you don't have to think, "oh, what shall I do?" " His vision for the next phase is inspired by the business model of Ultimate Fighting Championship, the mixed martial arts promoter. For Tough Mudder, he pictures a fitness and media brand with 150 events a year, gym and training deals and a television presence. Mr Dean has tapped into a zeitgeist that says it is experiences not possessions that matter. Memories are the next luxury goods. There are very few things in this world that you can differentiate yourself with. There was a time 30 or 40 years ago when it was the car you had, maybe 10 years ago what phone you had, but now people talk about the stuff they do.