|
Hi all.
Lately I've been trying to gain investors for Esports. As I'm not in charge of a million dollar company, I asked my dad. He's CEO of a company called LC Consulting. Handling Invoice and IT.
As I've been trying to tell him is that there's thousands of opportunities in various communities dedicated to Esports. Where as money can be made and we could have some fun doing it.
Since my dad was pretty into Starcraft Vanilla and Brood war he said if I got a Idea which sounds good and could produce some profit, he'd consider it.
And I did, I was thinking about starting something close the lines of NASL which would be held in EU.
He thought it was a good idea after watching some viewer numbers as well as the content which produced a "cool" factor for our products.
When we got down to a business idea I told my dad (the investor) that he should check out Reddit.com/r/starcraft and Teamliquid.net for info about the community as well as a general idea on how events go down.
This was probably my worst idea thus far because of my poor timing telling it to my dad, and all the drama lately.
The first thing my dad said was, he was unsure how this would pan out because the communities seemed so childish and it was easy to get disdained by the community just by a small error with communication.
This is the first thing he saw entering Reddit.com
+ Show Spoiler +
After glancing that page I figured he'd be totally against this whole idea, but he wasn't. yet..
Then he started to read some of the posts made and comments on different posts.
(I pointed out who were Progamers and who had a valid opinion in the different discussions(who were related to the issue etc)
At one point he just said, this seems like a whole lot of work for something that might be a total loss with a few small mistakes for a new investor in a whole new environment.
So he gave up the idea and said we should do something else. (Totally different. Totally boring.)
This would be an amazing experience for both me, our company as well as the excitement factor.
And I'm sure this would have benefited a lot of people in the EU scene aswell as maybe in other regions, I'm sorry to say that now this seems like a lost cause (atleast from our end).
My point of this blog is merely to say what we all are thinking.
Drama can be entertaining and funny, but it's slowly drying out investors and sponsors.
You might think well that's a load of crap since Razer just started sponsoring Eclypsia and more teams gets sponsored everyday?
Well I agree somewhat, but because of all this drama. New investors / sponsors / Teams will become more and more hesitant to try out Esports.
Forget about the current big names like Steelseries, Razer etc. Because these companies are already pretty invested in the concept of ESPORTS. They do not require the same amount of reassurance compared to new investors / sponsors. Because these guys have been doing it for years. And they aren't jumping out to try something new. (please take note that I love these companies and I hope they do whatever they do for as long as they possibly can.)
TONE DOWN THE DRAMA!
One big step in the right direction would be to tone down the drama.
Professionalism
If your a tales person for a certain company / team. You should not take likely on the fact that many Esport fans are younger people easily offended.(and older people) And should always be wary about what you say. If you don't, sponsors / teams / investors, all get hurt in some way.
If your not that kind of person, maybe you should try to tone down yourself in involving yourself in a online discussion or not talk out at all. (This sounds very drastic, but I'm sure these guidelines are already a big part of being on a team etc.)
If you want Esports to remain / become bigger, We all should invest some time in reassuring sponsors and investors that the scene isn't about all the drama and that companies make / could make alot of money. Along with it all they might even have some fun.
Investors POV
Try to imagine yourself as a rich guy who loves video games, and would like to support the community by investing a larger sum or starting up a webpage etc.
Which community would you go to?
- The one where all the drama happens?
- Or the one with the less drama?
- The one with the viewership advantage?
- The game you like the most?
- The game with the most potential as a esport?
From a investors point a view it mostly comes back to numbers and potential numbers, but here's the shocker!
It comes down to the community's potential market value. (duh..)
If something is not done with this, I'm not sure how anyone could make it grow.
If everything continues as they have thus far and everything is fine and dandy, That's great!
but there's that slight chance that everyday we're loosing potential sponsors and investors because of it. And I want to change that, because if my father decided to invest in Esports I'd be the happiest man ever. And just because of a "little" drama, that dream kinda faded away. Not that I'm not going to try and salvage this by waiting until the dust settles, then ask again.
But the dust settles way to slow! people are still talking / making threads / Upvoting issues which is old news just for the discussion value. And remember. Investors / sponsors doesn't care for discussion except if it's related to their products (or company etc).
All they see is that people are arguing about issues and force official statements from everyone who's made a mistake.
Don't get me wrong. If the situation demands it. Ofcourse a official statement is required.
But most of the time there's just a few people constantly digging up dirt because they like the drama that follows.
for example the "Sjow Suspended thread" here
Yes there's arguably a faulty PR release, but don't make a bigger deal about it than it currently is.
(I'm not personally invested in this Thread. Just a thread which popped up on the side and kinda voices my concerns indirectly.
Mistakes happen, move on.
Sorry for making this so long and bad formatted. But my main language isn't English (duh..)
But I hope some of you take it to heart and if I got one of you to ignore some of the drama going around, Mission accomplished.
Disclaimer:
+ Show Spoiler +
I do not officially represent LC ltd, but rather a frustrated gamer trying to help out the other investors currently checking into our community.
  
|
/r/starcraft is killing ESPORTS.
|
This is pretty inane, Communities are going to be communities, telling people to grow up doesn't do anything.
I mean if you were considering starting up an EU NASL, and reddit had any affect on that, good thing you pulled out, you would have failed....
It's not that I strictly disagree, but if the ROI is there, it is there.... The fact that drama can draw the numbers and pages and pages of discussion that it does tells me people care enough for the ROI to actually be there...
I mean theres really a lot you said and I agree with most of it, I just think people should be able to freely discuss what they want, and the idea that that would cause a sponsor to back out because of unimportant people discussing unimportant things............... smh
my 2cents, and WTF do i know :D
edit: in my mind this is seperate from the SRS people and mass e-mailing sponsors because of an N-word... That I would agree with is a horrible thing, but other than that? :D
|
so shutdown starcraft reddit and sc2 general forums on TL. gotcha. Or maybe just take whatever is said on said forums with a grain of salt. I highly doubt any big sponor in the NFL or whichever sport goes to said sports dedicated forum and decides to sponsor it based on the forum.
|
On October 24 2012 21:08 Motiva wrote:
This is pretty inane, Communities are going to be communities, telling people to grow up doesn't do anything.
I mean if you were considering starting up an EU NASL, and reddit had any affect on that, good thing you pulled out, you would have failed....
It's not that I strictly disagree, but if the ROI is there, it is there.... The fact that drama can draw the numbers and pages and pages of discussion that it does tells me people care enough for the ROI to actually be there...
I mean theres really a lot you said and I agree with most of it, I just think people should be able to freely discuss what they want, and the idea that that would cause a sponsor to back out because of unimportant people discussing unimportant things............... smh
my 2cents, and WTF do i know :D
edit: in my mind this is seperate from the SRS people and mass e-mailing sponsors because of an N-word... That I would agree with is a horrible thing, but other than that? :D
Well yes of course discussing isn't a bad idea. But the amount of negativity is over the top. And any investor seeing a thread with 600 comments on how Blizzard have/is ruining the game isn't the thing you'd want your product affiliated with.
|
lol Yea, When I was typing that post, the NFL entered my mind and it's just a joke that they would even listen to the things on their own NFL forums if they exist.....
Like, yea... It's definitely a bad pitch to send them to reddit without even having a potential thread in mind.... But actually looking at ROI and finding a way to quantify the $/advertising prospects..
I mean, yea a random snapshot of the most popular discussions among 100s of 15-30yr olds is not likely to win any sponsors over anyway?
|
On October 24 2012 21:13 Nabes wrote:
so shutdown starcraft reddit and sc2 general forums on TL. gotcha. Or maybe just take whatever is said on said forums with a grain of salt. I highly doubt any big sponor in the NFL or whichever sport goes to said sports dedicated forum and decides to sponsor it based on the forum.
that's a totally different thing. As NFL etc has already gained reputation and market value to the investors. If someone there would like a sponsorship they have all the clear numbers and solid data to back it up.
But with Esports almost every investor is trying something new. And with little data to be found on the internet about potential market value you have to resort to easy solutions as for example checking out current sites like Steelseries, razer etc.
And the opinions of community's makes it hard to even consider Esports as a main source of advertising / increase company status.
And I'm not saying you should shutdown anything. Just lower your voice when talking about matters which involve alot of people and their employers. And doesn't contribute to anything other than raising your voice against matters which should be solved silently because of the parties involved. With an official statement concluding the issue.
|
On October 24 2012 21:25 NeWeNiyaLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 21:13 Nabes wrote:
so shutdown starcraft reddit and sc2 general forums on TL. gotcha. Or maybe just take whatever is said on said forums with a grain of salt. I highly doubt any big sponor in the NFL or whichever sport goes to said sports dedicated forum and decides to sponsor it based on the forum. that's a totally different thing. As NFL etc has already gained reputation and market value to the investors. If someone there would like a sponsorship they have all the clear numbers and solid data to back it up. But with Esports almost every investor is trying something new. And with little data to be found on the internet about potential market value you have to resort to easy solutions as for example checking out current sites like Steelseries, razer etc. And the opinions of community's makes it hard to even consider Esports as a main source of advertising / increase company status. And I'm not saying you should shutdown anything. Just lower your voice when talking about matters which involve alot of people and their employers. And doesn't contribute to anything other than raising your voice against matters which should be solved silently because of the parties involved. With an official statement concluding the issue.
Like I agree with everything you say in this post except for 2 things
"almost every investor is trying something new" I'm curious what you mean by "investor"... like Intel, Kingston, Redbull, Monster, Razor, Steelseries, Pepsi, Korea Air, Samsung, CJ Entus.... trying something new?
Lower your voice? It's the internet? Use less caps? Every 3rd person decide not to post somehow? Just not possible imo.
|
On October 24 2012 21:33 Motiva wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 21:25 NeWeNiyaLord wrote:On October 24 2012 21:13 Nabes wrote:
so shutdown starcraft reddit and sc2 general forums on TL. gotcha. Or maybe just take whatever is said on said forums with a grain of salt. I highly doubt any big sponor in the NFL or whichever sport goes to said sports dedicated forum and decides to sponsor it based on the forum. that's a totally different thing. As NFL etc has already gained reputation and market value to the investors. If someone there would like a sponsorship they have all the clear numbers and solid data to back it up. But with Esports almost every investor is trying something new. And with little data to be found on the internet about potential market value you have to resort to easy solutions as for example checking out current sites like Steelseries, razer etc. And the opinions of community's makes it hard to even consider Esports as a main source of advertising / increase company status. And I'm not saying you should shutdown anything. Just lower your voice when talking about matters which involve alot of people and their employers. And doesn't contribute to anything other than raising your voice against matters which should be solved silently because of the parties involved. With an official statement concluding the issue. Like I agree with everything you say in this post except for 2 things "almost every investor is trying something new" I'm curious what you mean by "investor"... like Intel, Kingston, Redbull, Monster, Razor, Steelseries, Pepsi, Korea Air, Samsung, CJ Entus.... trying something new? Lower your voice? It's the internet? Use less caps? Every 3rd person decide not to post somehow? Just not possible imo.
My point isn't about the current investors of Esports like the ones you mention. But the "new" investors wanting in on Esports. Those Investors / company's already have some sort of clue about what they get in on. New investors not affiliated with gaming yet does not.
And by "lower your voice" I meant for example that, You don't make a thread about a ongoing issue where all parts of the story haven't been heard for example. (bad one indeed..) I'm sure I don't need to link to one as their everywhere today.
|
While it's noble you're "trying to help out other investors" (other?) - I see a whole bunch of flaws in your analysis.
First of all, you severely underestimate the average age of the esports target group. Childish behaviour always pops up when there's a mass of people (i.e. football hooligans). But that's not even relevant; if your in the toys or sweets business, your target group is way younger, yet in no way this makes it harder to make cash (rather the opposite).
Regarding the drama. Let's keep it simple; don't post reddit links in your market analysis. You can accumulate stats from there, but fuck it's ugly, lots of trolls, etc. etc. Good reasons to not include anything but their numbers (if relevant). Stepping away from the nastiest cesspool in the community, drama is good. Drama means people are passionate, emotional about the subject, they care, there's plenty to talk about. I can tell you Hollywood knows a lot more drama than SC2.
To be honest, while totally respecting your attempt to help out the community, I have the feeling you might be a bit too young/inexperienced to do this in an effective manner... could that be?
|
On October 24 2012 21:37 NeWeNiyaLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2012 21:33 Motiva wrote:On October 24 2012 21:25 NeWeNiyaLord wrote:On October 24 2012 21:13 Nabes wrote:
so shutdown starcraft reddit and sc2 general forums on TL. gotcha. Or maybe just take whatever is said on said forums with a grain of salt. I highly doubt any big sponor in the NFL or whichever sport goes to said sports dedicated forum and decides to sponsor it based on the forum. that's a totally different thing. As NFL etc has already gained reputation and market value to the investors. If someone there would like a sponsorship they have all the clear numbers and solid data to back it up. But with Esports almost every investor is trying something new. And with little data to be found on the internet about potential market value you have to resort to easy solutions as for example checking out current sites like Steelseries, razer etc. And the opinions of community's makes it hard to even consider Esports as a main source of advertising / increase company status. And I'm not saying you should shutdown anything. Just lower your voice when talking about matters which involve alot of people and their employers. And doesn't contribute to anything other than raising your voice against matters which should be solved silently because of the parties involved. With an official statement concluding the issue. Like I agree with everything you say in this post except for 2 things "almost every investor is trying something new" I'm curious what you mean by "investor"... like Intel, Kingston, Redbull, Monster, Razor, Steelseries, Pepsi, Korea Air, Samsung, CJ Entus.... trying something new? Lower your voice? It's the internet? Use less caps? Every 3rd person decide not to post somehow? Just not possible imo. My point isn't about the current investors of Esports like the ones you mention. But the "new" investors wanting in on Esports. Those Investors / company's already have some sort of clue about what they get in on. New investors not affiliated with gaming yet does not. And by "lower your voice" I meant for example that, You don't make a thread about a ongoing issue where all parts of the story haven't been heard for example. (bad one indeed..) I'm sure I don't need to link to one as their everywhere today.
Yea, I just don't think the lower your voice thing is plausible at all... If X person doesn't make the thread, someone else willl... Sure if you've got 200,000 fans and your name is Desinty, you should prolly reconsider... But aside from those few cases, Someone else will make the thread, and 500 people will still upvote it.... or TL Mods will close the first 3 threads and then someone will put in real time on a thread and they'll just wait for it to die out....
I mean, Without talking narrow specifics it's all generalized... As for the new sponsors... I mean... Yea sure like has already been said, A random visit to reddit isn't really relevant information to your business venture...
I mean I'm obviously not a potential investor like you and your father were, but immediately the twitch.tv gamelist, and the #s at the top of this page, 76 streams, 20k viewers, 7500 active people on TL this very moment.... or the 1,000+ upvotes...
I guess most of my reaction is also because you said something along the lines of "EU NASL" we're talking like serious money and lots of time before a real ROI..... That a random visit to reddit is relevant seems really silly to me in 2012
|
your dad just didnt feel like telling you it is a stupid idea because his roi would be minimal, so he blamed it on the community being retarded
no investor gives a shit about that because every community/forum for every sport out there sucks ass.
it's simply roi. the number of eyes on something, the demographics, the amount of disposable income that the demographic probably has, and what it is that you are selling.
all esports have relatively low viewer count, it is spread out all over the globe and not localized to anywhere, and the demographics arent one that would most likely not need a consulting company, much less one in norway
all of the sponsors now are international brands, with the exception of korea air. and they are the exception because of the popularity of esports in that country, so it makes sense to spend the money
red bull gives absolutely no fucks if there is a giant drama thread about a player on their sponsored team. shit, if anything, they are happy, because those threads typically are among the highest in views and that is all that matters in sponsorship. unless that player is drowning puppies or choking kids or something no one cares
|
On October 24 2012 22:37 QuanticHawk wrote:
your dad just didnt feel like telling you it is a stupid idea because his roi would be minimal, so he blamed it on the community being retarded
no investor gives a shit about that because every community/forum for every sport out there sucks ass.
it's simply roi. the number of eyes on something, the demographics, the amount of disposable income that the demographic probably has, and what it is that you are selling.
all esports have relatively low viewer count, it is spread out all over the globe and not localized to anywhere, and the demographics arent one that would most likely not need a consulting company, much less one in norway
all of the sponsors now are international brands, with the exception of korea air. and they are the exception because of the popularity of esports in that country, so it makes sense to spend the money
red bull gives absolutely no fucks if there is a giant drama thread about a player on their sponsored team. shit, if anything, they are happy, because those threads typically are among the highest in views and that is all that matters in sponsorship. unless that player is drowning puppies or choking kids or something no one cares
It's not a consulting company ( had to correct that. Name of the company is Langaard Consulting. Where we do everything from Netweight distribution to Mobile application development)
On October 24 2012 22:37 QuanticHawk wrote:
your dad just didnt feel like telling you it is a stupid idea because his roi would be minimal, so he blamed it on the community being retarded
Well that might be true, but he dedicated the time to go over a business idea and we agreed that the ROI was worth it dependent on how successful the idea would be.
But wouldn't it be cool if "private" small companies wouldn't be terrified of jumping on the idea of sponsoring because of all the drama?
And If you as a company wasn't scared of jumping in, we might have more individual player sponsorships aswell as single events being sponsored by new sponsors and investor.
|
Welcome to my world, it is a depressing place.
All non endemic sponsors (not razer,steelseries ect) will not accept any risk on something that hasn't been proven to be worthwhile to outside investors yet. The second that one of them breaks through, then we will have a much easier time but until then why would they take the risk when there are much less risky places to put their money.
There are shitty communities everywhere, but companies that invest into them anyway know the return they are getting, for esports they don't because it is very hard to track and gauge so they don't know if affiliating themselves with something at first impression doesn't look so great will even make them money at all.
|
'we agreed that the ROI was worth it dependent on how successful the idea would be.'
what does this even mean??? if the idea was successful by definition you would have a roi that makes it worthwhile
and you honestly just really dont know what you are talking about. small private comapnies dont jump in because it doesnt make sense to invest in sponsorship, which is essentially advertising, on a global scale if your company only does business in a very small market.
if a norweigian pizza chain were thinking about sponsoring a team, it wouldnt be worth it. You'd be paying sponsorship that is seen by players all over the glove, when the only people who would realistically buy your product would be located in your country, which has a very small fraction of the viewers, which arent even all that high in the first place.
your dad's company, who the hell from your average teenager to early 20something is gonna give a shit about netweight distribution? and unless those apps are avialable in something other than norweigian, it hits a very, very small market. even if they are in english, unless they're an app that your averager 15-25 year old is gonna use frequently, it doesnt do shit.
sponsors dont care about the drama at all, be it player/team drama or this hubub about HOTS sucking. if there is anything that scare sponsors, it is the fact that every game is essentially a bubble. bw was an abberation that lasted 10 years, but that was only in korea that people cared enough to invest on a large scale. Your average game is old and replaced in maybe 2-3 years. Why sink money into something when people will run along to the next game in a few months.
if anything, the fact that SC2 has HOTS coming out and two more expos behind it gives it more longevity. the fact that people care nough to talk about the changes means that there is significant interest in the community.
|
Hawk, while I agree with most you say, you're sounding a bit aggressive!
Responding to some previous statements; the e-sports target group isn't all bad; easily defined by interests / tech preference, well defined age range, which contains mostly working people who not yet need to maintain a family, etc.
Finally one factor that seems to be systematically ignored is the professionalism of those organisations that attempt to create an e-sports business... a lot of the time, they just look like amateur fan boys who'd be clueless on how to use investments or benefit their investors (whether sponsor or angel).
|
This thread contains more drama than some of the so called "drama" threads it complains about.
"Stop the drama!" "Can't you see you are ruining esports!?"...
Every community is childish if you look at it at reddit and from a serious business perspective. If anything big discussions of minor evens can be even considered a plus because it shows passion of people for the subject, that they care and wont just pick up and leave when some things get nasty.
I was working as an investment analyst for 2 years and if there is a big problem why your dad wasnt interested its not drama. The first thing you need to understand is that investors aren't entrepreneurs. They dont (almost dont) create startup projects in an unknown environment hoping their plan would somehow work. If you want to attract them to esports you bring them a solid business plan backed by real facts. I would expect the risks of investing in esports are very high so the return on investments should be very good too. What you dont do is go to investors and say: "Ok there is this new super promising market called esports. There are some businesses being created all the time so it must be worth it. Go ahead look at it you'll like it." They would be like "yeah, right" and forget about you the moment you walk out. And in the worst case scenario they will just laugh at you. I'm almost sure that your dad picked the factors outside of his control just so you would leave him alone. You are not putting anything on the table, you want him to go in the market he knows nothing of and create an investment project all by himself. Investment business is lots of work already.
|
On October 25 2012 00:43 Cheerio wrote:
I'm almost sure that your dad picked the factors outside of his control just so you would leave him alone. You are not putting anything on the table, you want him to go in the market he knows nothing of and create an investment project all by himself.
This, and similar responses.
Dudes what the fuck. Maybe his dad was plain wrong, maybe he sees stuff we don't, whatever. Presuming he wants his son to get lost while said son is expressing his passion for e-sports and willingness to learn from his dads experience, that's just weird and pretty damn unkind to state as such - aside of being pretty much irrelevant.
Everyone here had something useful to add (I didn't double check, let's just presume), we can gather that knowledge, help the kid, do a good thing for each other and perhaps even e-sports!
|
The player base in sc2 has gotten so small, why would you want to invest in it in the first place.
|
This is not what a potential investor sees in Starcraft, because no serious investor is getting their first introduction via a Reddit page. They see the tournaments and the enthusiasm there, or they see live streams, because that's where the fans and players interact most.
You should've made the title of this post: How to be terrible at courting investors. No sane person would bring somebody to Reddit or even the TL forums first because while these things are valuable to the community, they offer absolutely no value in the way of exposure for an investor or any other sort of business opportunity. You show the largest upcoming tournament and some well-designed team websites, and you go from there.
Unless you have experience running a business (some of us here do), you're talking out of your ass, sorry. And no amount of business-speak on top of it changes that.
Besides the point, why would an invoicing/IT company invest in Starcraft unless it were big and really relevant to Average Joe business owners (like BW was in Korea)? I've considered investing in some small SC2 teams because I sell some small consumer software products (B2C, your father is in B2B almost certainly) and I could arguably drive sales with adverts on SC2 streams and such, but there's just no intersection with your father's business. He was just humoring you because you spend a lot of time on the game.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/I1gUe.jpg)
