The Esports Startup

Latest Episodes:

#7 | All About Accelerators with Quake Capital's Founding Partner Glenn Argenbright Apr 08, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to The Esports Startup, Episode 6!

Join our Slack community to chat with the hosts and learn about esports, startups and funding from your hosts and community members! To learn more about Esports One, visit our site.

This past week we were lucky enough to have Glenn Argenbright, founding partner of Quake Capital (the first Startup Accelerator we attended) and early investor in Esports One swing by the office to visit while he was in town and to record an episode of The Esports Startup with us!

Glenn played a crucial role in our early days as a company and has himself spent over 25 years as an entrepreneur, founder, and senior executive with experience running a wide variety of public and private companies, with nine exits, 3 public offerings and over $5B in value created.

In this episode, Matt speaks with Glenn about how Quake Capital came to be, what exactly they look for in startups that apply, and what to expect once you make it into their program!

#6 The Esports Pro Panel | Talking Week 1 LCS Playoffs with CG's Damonte & Vulcan! Mar 29, 2019

Show notes

Thanks for tuning in to our first-ever episode of The Esports Pro Panel! To our loyal "The Esports Startup" listeners, we have another episode coming soon and we hope you enjoy this while you wait!

This was a fairly last minute content collaboration between Esports One, Parkes Ousley, Tanner (Damonte), Philippe (Vulcan) and Clutch Gaming. Huge thank you to Parkes for hosting the episode and organizing with our guests, Tanner and Philippe for being down to record a last-minute podcast and providing some incredible insights, and Clutch Gaming for enabling the last minute content collaboration!

Episode 1 of The Esports Pro Panel is hosted by Esports Journalist Parkes Ouseley (@ParquesoMedia) who is joined by our esteemed guests:

Tanner "Damonte" Damonte: Mid Laner for Clutch Gaming (@Damonte)

and

Philippe "Vulcan" Laflamme: Support Player for Clutch Gaming (@Vulcanlol)

Parkes takes Damonte and Vulcan through a quick Q&A to get the show started, before moving on to a stats quiz & banter session about the 2019 Spring Regular Season. There are some more fun bits of the show that we won't spoil for you, and then the panel goes in for a deep look at this weekend's Playoff matches: FlyQuest vs Golden Guardians and TSM vs Echo Fox!

Hope you enjoy the first episode of The Esports Pro Panel! If you find this interesting and would like to hear more episodes in the future, tweet at @EsportsOneInc, @ClutchGaming and @ParquesoMedia to let us know!

#5 | GDC Road Trip - the SF Partner Meetings Mar 26, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to The Esports Startup!

Join our Slack community to chat with the hosts and learn about esports, startups and funding from your hosts and community members! To learn more about Esports One, visit our site.

In this episode we talk about:

1:00 — Our favorite parts of GDC (Then start talking about…. movies?)
4:00— Discussing the investor meetings
12:40 — Matt compares himself to Michael Jordan
16:40 — How quickly do investors make a decision after a pitch?
19:25 — Esports One board size
22:20 — The Forbes Midas club
26:20 — Pitching in a noisy place and the less than ideal pitch
32:00 — Larger fund size doesn’t equal fewer manners
35:50— Jordan and Jonny discussing their goals for GDC
41:00 — Jordan mentions the Pied Piper..?
44:20 — Everybody rates the trip

This episode comes with a complimentary blog post that has behind the scenes info, tips and resources on this episode! Check it out and follow the Esports One Medium to see whenever we post a new article!

Contact Info:
Matt Gunnin (CEO)
Email: matt@esportsone.com

Jordan O'Hara (Marketing Director)
Email: jordan@esportsone.com

Jonny Hockey (Head of Biz Dev)
Email: jonny@esportsone.com

#4 | The First Investor Meetings Mar 19, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to The Esports Startup!

Join our Slack community to chat with the hosts and learn about esports, startups and funding from your hosts and community members! To learn more about Esports One, visit our site.

In this episode we talk about:

0:00 - Random conversation about tap water
1:48 - Intro
2:23 - Why investors introduce you to a portfolio company
7:40 - Our first in-house investor meeting
15:20 - The good and bad parts of the meetings so far
18:47 - Indications a phone pitch is going well
22:00 - Our progress compared to the seed round raise
29:30 -The ideal criteria for an investor
38:38 - How to handle drinking with investors
42:22 - Discussing GDC and San Francisco for next week's episode

This episode comes with a complimentary blog post that includes actual screenshots from our current Series A pitch deck, behind-the-scenes information, helpful links and more! Check it out and follow the Esports One Medium

Contact Info:
Matt Gunnin (CEO)
Email: matt@esportsone.com

Jordan O'Hara (Marketing Director)
Email: jordan@esportsone.com

Jonny Hockey (Head of Biz Dev)
Email: jonny@esportsone.com

#3 | The Beginning of Series A! Mar 11, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to The Esports Startup!

Join our Slack community to chat with the hosts and learn about esports, startups and funding from your hosts and community members! To learn more about Esports One, visit our site.

In this episode we talk about:

1:30 - Why we decided to start raising for Series A

4:40 - When exactly did we start raising our Series A?

11:14 - Strategizing the best way to raise Series A

16:48 - Celebrity Investments

19:05 - Timing for starting series A, early meetings, and the story of the deck

21:13 - Understanding the market and personas/archetypes

29:43 - Slide by slide through our current Deck

51:40 - The deck building process, challenges and solutions

This episode comes with a complimentary blog post that includes actual screenshots from our current Series A pitch deck, behind-the-scenes information, helpful links and more! Check it out and follow the Esports One Medium

Contact Info:

Matt Gunnin (CEO)

Email: matt@esportsone.com | Twitter | LinkedIn

Jordan O'Hara (Marketing Director)

Email: jordan@esportsone.com | Twitter | LinkedIn

Jonny Hockey (Head of Biz Dev)

Email: jonny@esportsone.com | Twitter | LinkedIn

#2 | Seed Round Secured, Now What? Mar 05, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to The Esports Startup!

Join our Slack community to chat with the hosts and learn about esports, startups and funding from your hosts and community members! To learn more about Esports One, visit our site.

In this episode we take you through:

1:25 — Closing a seed round of funding, lawyers & negotiating with your investors
12:50 — Press Releases and why you should Always Be Raising (ABR)
17:59 — Moving from NYC to LA and why Co-working could be a great option for your startup
23:18 — Hiring your first employees & recruiters vs. hired.com vs. job boards
27:58 — Building our first product and the importance of user feedback
34:57 — What to expect in your first board meeting
42:35 — Finding our first office space and moving out of WeWork

This episode comes with a complimentary blog post that includes some behind the scenes pictures/details and links to the actual pitch decks, job descriptions and presentations that we used throughout our Seed Round and beyond.

#1 | From Idea to Seed Feb 26, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to The Esports Startup!

Join our Slack community to chat with the hosts and learn about esports, startups and funding from community members! To learn more about Esports One, visit our site.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about where the idea for Esports One came from (spoiler alert, we weren’t called Esports One at first). We’ll also discuss what it was like to attend two startup accelerators, the value we got from them, and how we approached raising our seed round of funding afterwards.

Contact Info

Matt Gunnin (CEO)

Email: matt@esportsone.com
Twitter
LinkedIn

Jordan O'Hara (Marketing Director)

Email: jordan@esportsone.com
Twitter
LinkedIn

Jonny Hockey (Head of Biz Dev)

Email: jonny@esportsone.com
Twitter
LinkedIn

Intro: The Story of Esports One and How We're Raising Our Series A Feb 18, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to The Esports Startup!

Join our Slack community to get your questions answered on an upcoming episode! To learn more about Esports One, visit our site.

In Season 1 we're going to take you on the journey of raising our Series A round of funding. You'll get a firsthand, behind the scenes look at exactly how we approach the tricky business of raising VC money to build your own esports startup. Thanks for tuning in!

Contact Info

Matt Gunnin (CEO)