EPTI'm in a very unique position of co-owning a site doing all sorts of Starcraft related activities - tours and content, to mention the most prominent two. I won't say which in order to respect the rules of the TL household I'm currently in (but it will take you 5 seconds to click on my profile and figure it out if you want to anyway), I just reached the point when I need to vent the stuff I face on an everyday basis. If someone finds it interesting, great, if not, will not be the first nor the last time.
Anyhow, after the introduction (which was also a kind clue not to pay too much attention to my previous posts), let's skip right to Part 1:
How Did It All Begin
A few months after I began my college studies, a friend of mine (technically the only guy from High School I talk to) introduced me to the concept of Internet Marketing, i.e. making money by owning websites. I always loathed the idea of being an employee, having some goddamn back-quarter job and struggling to make a living with an average wife and two kids; no way hombré. So, following the concepts of creating websites, monetizing them and taking advantage of all perks passive income offers seemed to be the ideal thing for me.
I have no clue how much experience with Internet Marketing you guys have have (my guess for an average citizen is either "none whatsoever" or "it's all a bunch of hyped lies"). Me and my buddy spent a year doing all kinds of useless crap, but were gaining experience during that period and finally, when I started to have some little results, he came to me on Feb 25th, 2011 and said "Dude, let's have an SC2 blog, it's a hot game and it could get big".
I was reluctant because I played Brood War for 8 years, loved that game for all its complexity and extremely hard mechanics and ever since I heard first pieces of gossip about SC2 (including stuff like worker rally points or unlimited control groups, combined with the pretty graphics), my position immediately became "O-M-G, that will be far too easy, give me a break lol."
However, the desire to own websites for a living is so strong that it made me to overcome this reluctancy (and also, let's face it, elitism and haughtiness), persuade my brother to buy me a copy as a birthday present and dive into the game.
I immediately fancied Zerg but ended up playing Protoss for a while because it was less complex. Although I was very displeased to be placed in Bronze upon finishing my first matches (I didn't play any practice league or something, just a few 2v2s), I got to Platinum in 27 games and in Diamond only a while afterward - where I felt confident enough to switch to Zerg and has been stuck with it ever since.
In the meantime, we started to blog about our SC2 experience and after receiving a couple of thousands visits in a single day (kudos to Reddit), we became excatic and were convinced this is it - finally a niche that appreciates us.
As a part of spreading the awareness of our site, I browsed around for similar websites in order to offer a guest post in exchange of them linking to our site. That's how I stumbled upon Hasu Tournaments - and that's the deal changer which made us to close our site for two months and then come back with more people, an entirely different format in mind and a lot of enthusiasm to become a strong brand in the SC2 world.
But more of that next time.
Thank you for reading!
