Carlos Rodriguez - Founder & CEO of G2 ESports | The Evolution of ESports

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host, Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the Blue Wire podcast network as well as the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot podcast network has other great podcasts like marketing made simple hosted by Dr. J.J. Peterson. Now marketing made simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly make it work. If you like any of these topics, you definitely want to go check out the show how to write and deliver a captivating speech, how to market yourself into a new job, how design can help and also hurt your revenue, creating a social media ad strategy that actually works. If these topics resonate with you, go check out marketing made simple wherever you get your podcast. Today my guest is Carlos Rodriguez. Carlos is a former legendary eSports competitor turned entrepreneur and successful CEO. He was born in Madrid, Spain. He came to prominence in eSports as a professional world of warcraft and later league of legends player from 2006 to 2014 competing and placing highly international tournaments across the globe. As CEO of G2 eSports, he has grown the highly decorated brand to business success driven by his accomplishments with industry leading sponsorship deals, production and sales and merchandising as well as securing multi-million dollar funding deals. Business leaders and people that have worked with Carlos recognize him as an inspiring and innovative leader with the ambition to revolutionize the entertainment industry as a whole. An incredibly interesting podcast we spoke about how we transitioned from actual not actual the legacy definition of sports into eSports. We spoke about the evolution of his gaming career some of the things that he had to work on to be the best the the number one league of legends player in the world and world of warcraft player as well. He was it so he had honed his skills some of the things that he did to train to be the best some of the requirements that it takes to operate at that level but ultimately how the industry has evolved over time and how he's been with this industry since its inception when he made about $2,000 in his first tournament to when now players are signing multi-million dollar deals. He spoke about leaving the industry as a player and pivoting into business ownership starting G2. One of the most prominent teams in eSports in the world first ranked in Europe the most prominent number one in Asia and number three in North America. He spoke about the evolution of the industry but also the evolution of G2 how he built out a business in a new category it has never been defined yet he had no mentors he had no playbook to follow we spoke about globalization of eSports how it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from you can excel and succeed in eSports we spoke about the mentality between being a player versus being a business owner what translated what didn't we spoke about the audience and how do you get new audience members into eSports we spoke about how it compares to more traditional sports and then ultimately how he sets his goals how he's always been a pioneer and an innovator how he's become the number one player how he's built at the number one team and how eventually he will be large enough to compete with some of the largest sports franchises globally and how he hopes to accomplish that his mindset and his drive is absolutely incredible and incredibly smart individual you'll understand why it was successful let's jump right into it this is Carlos Rodriguez he is a former legendary eSports competitor turned CEO of G2 I was probably 13 14 going to high school and I mean I never really liked high school never really liked to study too much but I had to because my parents had high expectations of me but I realized you know competing in different sports throughout my life I played soccer I played paddle which is like tennis with walls it's very well known in Spain and Argentina I always loved competition and and I realized there was a form of competition there was extremely accessible I didn't need to buy any gear for it I didn't need to take a bus I didn't need to go anywhere I just could be a home click two buttons and have competition against somebody around the world and and that was video game competition that was eSports you know that was a way in which I could literally compete with other people in a game that I would consider myself good and then somebody would give me the truth that I was you know after competing against team or her I'd be shit and so that was a great feeling you know it's two clicks into direct competition with someone I don't know I don't know their background I don't know their race I don't know their color anything and that to me felt beautiful that was beautiful I feel like that moment defined my life actually because I spent more and more time competing online with other people in other video games and that's how it's ended up building a career out of it and what is the first version of a career like when is it like when I think about traditional sports you know you're going through the collegiate system and then you probably you know go through NCAA and then you go into like semi pro and maybe you're getting like a really bad salary like a couple of thousand bucks a year for semi pro then you try and make it to like the pros but when do you start getting paid like what's the monetization so that if somebody's doing this you get that first dollar in the bank from eSports I mean the obvious answer first is you know there's tournaments that have price money depending on where you place in them the challenge is that those tournaments for the most part happen offline somewhere and in a city that you have to fly to and cover accommodation so yeah back then there were a couple of tournaments that I got a hold of and I told myself you know let me let me qualify for it I'll try to qualify right and the qualification system here is very open in the sense of if you are the best player in the world unlike in traditional sports there is probably close to 0 percent chance that you will not make it because everybody has access to your ranking everybody has access to they already will know right away just by looking at your at the data available related to your games that you play and when you're training by yourself everybody has access to that data and everybody will know if you're good actually or at least you could be good right if your numbers look good then you have potential and then someone will try you and so here for qualification it worked the same way you know I looked at people that I thought were good as well just by looking at ranking contacted them it was a three versus three game it was in World of Warcraft I remember it and and I contacted them and said hey you know let's play together we don't know each other but you know let's just try to try to qualify here and I remember that one of them had no money to because they had to pay for 10 bucks to qualify to enter the qualifier and I paid it for him I said yeah you know I'll pay for you and then you give me twice as much if we qualify okay and it's okay so I paid it for him and we started training and yeah we I mean as I said there's like you go up in the ranking you win games you go up in the ranking you lose games you go down in the rankings and the top 10 will go to the event well we were not only part of the top 10 we actually were the first team you know so we qualify to the event and it was in Hanover so I had to find a sponsor and I found somebody that paid for our trip which was a catastrophic trip I mean it was like I probably took like three planes just to get from Spain to Germany and and and then there the I mean for me it was great it was actually beautiful and we all slept in the same room and in two different mattresses so I was sharing bed with someone and and yeah that's how it all started and then I brought home 2,000 2,000 bucks which my parents were ecstatic you know like they were like what's going on like you're playing video games and you've just brought home more than we both earned together you know so it was insane and this was like when you were starting in eSports was it an established industry where you kind of like you were you were playing games you were building out like your professional eSports you know persona you were winning tournaments was that basically as eSports was was was I mean eSports was very bear bones at the beginning right it was really really bear bones it's like nothing existed it was like just events tournaments the contracts we had I mean I remember negotiating my own contracts I don't even want to remotely look back at whatever the hell I signed back then because he would have I'm sure it was garbage like worth a toilet paper but but you know it was it was the very beginnings you know of this thing and just compared with how it is right now man the industry of eSports and video game competition right now is fucking insane like my team so I I'll talk about it later but I found that the largest most relevant team in the world called G2 right and so there is you know in G2 we have players that get millions millions of dollars a year we buy out players for millions of dollars we sell them for millions of dollars there is player transfer periods there is contract durations there is deliverables within each contract this is like very professionalized they're all employees you know whatever it is you and so this is like sports level contracts like traditional sports level contracts and like rules and regulations within each league and the game which back then was not like that back then he was the wild west man and whoever whoever was willing to take the risk like me like I did then you could go both ways so you make two thousand bucks and then that was your first tournament uh so now you're now you're like hooked on it obviously so what as as you grow up in your and you're like I don't even know like your eSports career probably is the best way to put it you just you're starting to go after more and more tournaments and the industry is evolving and is there like uh is there like a point was it the first tournament where you're like this is going to be my life this is what I want to do like I've sort of validated because two thousand bucks is two thousand bucks but it's not a lot like it's really not that much money back then by the way back then it was like the world to me like my my mom and my dad worked pretty much all day my mom was a makeup artist my dad was electrician and between them both they didn't bring home two thousand bucks a month so that was like I thought I was the richest man on the plant I could buy half of a spend with that money but yeah it's yeah I did not think for a second that this would be how my life would look like and I kept studying obviously um but you know I've never been a person I mean now I now I force myself to like think ten years ahead and it war it helps me uh it helps guide me and give me ambition but back then I did not know these tactics right so I would just pretty much leave date day to day doing my best and trying to quote unquote survive and become the number one which eventually I did um but I wasn't so much planning as I was just living in the present and working really hard on being the best and what does that what does that mean for esports what is being like how do you become the best because if you're talking about all the different uh different games that you could play do you just focus on the one that's growing the fastest it has the biggest community and figure and play that again it's a it's a very good question right so I I will say I got lucky on my first move in water work craft because water work has just happened to be one of the largest games back then but then in the fourth year competing in that game 2009 actually I I decided to quit water work craft and I decided to quit for different reasons than the game being smaller I didn't even think about that I quit because I felt like I wasn't the owner of my lack how do I like I wasn't like the game had certain things that would make it so the class I play in the game would just become uh less and less uh up to me to win with you know so I was like yeah I don't want to be yeah I don't my control completely so I decided to quit you know and and I quit on my peak uh I think I I I played I I won in Europe and then I played the world championship and I think ended like third fourth I can't remember exactly and the first with my class you know and there's like different classes in the video game I was playing warrior and I was the third the best warrior in the world right and so yeah then I decided to quit because of that reason and then I then asked myself okay I want a career out of this so I think I have a gift to play video games I think that I'm my eye hand coordination is pretty good I think that I can think on this spot really well as well and also I have no fear I mean I I I am inherently a very confident person which is very useful in game um to assert dominance in whenever you're playing you know in in facing someone so what game should I play next what games fits my skill set and what game is played by a lot of people because the more people that play the game and watch the game the more price pool I will have access to right and that's when I consciously decided to go for League of Legends which is uh even a soft today one of the largest games on the planet if not the largest I'm pretty sure is the largest PC game on the planet and that's when I built the next portion of my career for five years straight played that game became one of the best in the world that it played a lot of tournaments build the brand uh created content live streamed and made myself you know a known you know professional player with a lot of fans and and yeah that that was a conscious effort and I'm very glad that I did that even though like League of Legends marketing was not my favorite game I just thought that I could be very good at it and I thought that I could have a career that I could live by it live with you know um when you're when you are trying to become the best at a game what is your actual routine look like what's your day to day so that the you know in in traditional sports you can't you shouldn't practice more than your body physically allows you to because then it becomes counter counterproductive right when your muscles are too tired then you get into bad habits and uh you know yeah you get you get into bad habits when you're too tired uh but with video games I always say if your mind can take it you should be training and you're not gonna get exhausted on your arms you're not gonna have unless you really have a fucked up way to pick up the mouse or the controller you're not gonna develop carpal tunnel you know like yeah like it's not gonna physically tax you if you just do the ABC of what to do when you play games like a stretch every now and then turn up from your chair and like you know stretch and whatever right uh but uh but mentally it's very taxing because every game you play you have to think about a thousand things a thousand things while you you're controlling your character while you're thinking about what your team is doing what moves should the team do next what is my opponent thinking of doing it's just very taxing you know and you have to take it seriously so that you can develop good habits so I think that an average successful career has a player training 8 to 10 hours a day and there's players that can take more there's players that can't take less there's more creative players that benefit more from playing only six seven hours whereas there's more players that benefit a lot from repetition that you know having 11 12 hours a day help them more so it ranges you know but for the most part I think that the rule of thumb is if you can take it you should be you should be practicing and the way in which you practice there's two waiting which you practice in esports one is alongside your team so if it's a team game you practice alongside your team and you practice against other teams or your sister team and then you practice team play you practice call outs you practice together you know you learn how to play together the game your practice picks and bounds you practice the way in which you guys play the game together and you practice what your team is known for what is your playstyle right which takes hundreds if not thousands of hours okay and then you practice by yourself in the sense of your practice your mechanics imagine this as if you're in your NBA player and you're just shooting by yourself right just shooting at the basket for hours and and the way in which you do that is is every game has their is something called solo queue and you just queue up and then you automatically get placed with other players in the world in your team and other players in the opposite team random people that are of your level more or less and that's how you practice you learn your mechanics you develop your own and yeah and those two combined make up for the totality of your practice some players like to go to hit the gym a lot of them actually like to also read books and just develop their minds and I have come to realize that it does help depending on the player you know I was gonna ask like if there's any any like physical or mental exercises that you do that translate into but for you in particular it was mostly just practicing the actual game that you're playing yeah I mean it was a practicing game I was hitting the gym as well and I was reading books I like to read books a lot and I like meditating as well I picked up reading books and meditation when I was 17 and finally enough it was when everything just boomed you know like yeah and I have never lost the habit anymore I don't meditate every day but I use it as a tool you know and and same goes for reading books when I feel like I'm a bit stuck or I'm a bit overly stressed about something and my current job is in it can get incredibly stressful even more so than as a player but I've learned the little tactics to get rid of that stress and to find solutions to complex problems that require a lot of creativity and ambition and balls honestly like sometimes I just have to sometimes I just have to take a leap of faith and you know using my gut feel as the faith you know and and and I feel like reading books and meditation spending time with myself helped me greatly yeah no I just find it so fascinating because you know you when you look at when you look at traditional sports and you find the people that are the best well you know they they put in the hours and they put in the work but then they find the best they usually will find the best coach and that will sort of guide them and because traditional sports there's been people that have done it before right there's there's training methods that have done it before if you're if you're the number one esports player no one's ever really done it before there's no coach that has done this as a professional for 10 years you know before you were even born that knows how to knows how to train knows how to navigate and how to deal with contracts so like technically you're you're more or less on your own did you find somebody or was it was it you sort of paving the way because when I look at you in your story it seems like you paved the way for how to coach how to train how to negotiate how to how to build a brand how to sort of operate at a high level when you're actually as as a player it was just you basically and probably a handful of other people that were coming up at the same time as you yeah this is actually a good point like it is true that I never had I didn't I never had a mentor as a player like just never had a mentor as a player that's simple because I was I mean I was not literally the first player but I was the first player you know in the sense of it was I was one of the first players you know and I could just look at my environment and say okay that works okay that doesn't work okay that got fucked okay you know I was just taking my learnings the hard way you know and yeah you're right I mean I had to build my own path and in a way that's why I think and I'm very grateful for this the industry um like my reputation and credibility within the industry is really high and it makes me happy that people look back and see me as um yeah a legacy player that now is touching a completely different um side of the business you know and and ultimately man I feel like it's just it's just it's fun when you have to build a path that's never existed before because you like you learn to take fuck up some failures as just another day in the office you know like right now like the culture of G2 it's incredible like I feel like people just know inherently that the only thing that will be held accountable to is to try out things does the one metric that everybody's held accountable to just try out things that haven't been done before or try out things that you think you can do better and that's the only KPI pretty much you know I love it if you fail at it that's okay but if you the if you get nothing new done if you're taking no no no risks then it's when you know when I start looking at you maybe not a good culture fit and I think that comes from my times as a player like so many decisions were straight up wrong even in social media just having a big mouth and it sometimes was great something was shitty you know and I built a brand as a my my brand is completely transparent this raw guy that is just bantering with everyone having a good time and sometimes misses the mark that's pretty much me you know and and I love it you know I really love it because you can't you can't you can't what's the word I'm looking for you can't serve the wave unless you're at the exact a proper place in the wave if you're too high if you're too low you're gonna you're gonna miss that you're gonna miss it so and and and sometimes you you will miss the you will miss the mark you will miss the wave and and sometimes you will missing the mark is gonna get you a lot of hatred and you have to be okay with that you know so I feel like going through all those failures including shitty contracts signed including bad decisions around changing players including whatever it is the fact that I can't look at a bible and just say okay I was right okay this is wrong and just look at just the results of my actions is very reassuring and like almost liberation you know it's like a freedom yeah you can you can trust yourself you can try I think that's the most powerful thing you can ever do you trust yourself you know that if you had to you had to do it all again you had to figure it all out again you just trust that you do it because you figured it out once and now you start to understand that if you can figure out and navigate all the the good the bad and and the shit that happened to you and you do it successfully once you can do it multiple times and you probably you know yep your your career in your life is gonna look different in another 20 years from now whatever that is and then you'll figure that piece out and I think that's probably the most powerful thing you can do and you can only fit you can only ever come to that conclusion if you failed a lot because then if you haven't failed you you don't know how to deal with the failure you don't know how to trust how you'd react when when step doesn't go the way you want it to go so I think it's all just the small things in the day today right like yeah small things small things whatever small maybe you know it's like when something is out of the comfort zone it's like the reason you just don't want to do it is because okay what if I do it and then I do I don't do it properly or what if I try to do it and it's just not the expectation I had it doesn't matter you know just just just go you know just do it yeah what's the worst case scenario you know you lose the evening like what is the worst thing you lose a hundred euros like what's the worst case scenario you know just try it you know if you're really a feeling it well why not you know if anything you get a hundred euro lesson I always said you know yeah no I agree okay so as you as you grew in your career okay so you left you left esports like as a as a player what in 2014 right that was like your final year and how okay so yeah right about yeah yeah yeah yeah and like okay so compare compare I guess your first year as an esports player 20 left in 2014 you made 2000 bucks on your first tournament in 2014 the industry is matured just so people who don't understand esports who don't really know the industry how much money are people making in 2014 when they're winning tournaments now that it's evolved what that what does that look I mean I can I can tell you about my my experience you know I was a professional player and also created content had my own sponsorship deals had my contract with my team and played in tournaments as I said and so I I was a racking on the on my last year on a team I thought it was 600 and something thousand euros during that year and roundabout years before it was probably like a little less 500 and something then 400 something you know and probably it was a point where at the very beginning of my career I was earning maybe 20k 30k only a year but yeah it grew organically and fast but yeah so 2014 I'd say was when I quit was probably the year where salaries not price monies necessarily but salaries caught up to the actual value of players I remember back then when I was competing my salary in our compensation in the team I was playing in wasn't very high I mean in comparison with the with what I was generating per year myself was a small portion portion whereas right now top players what they earn as compensation from their teams is probably like 70% of their overall earnings right for the year so things have changed a lot in that regard which gives a lot of security to players and allows them to take this as a without the need of being business savvy like I was well I wasn't like super business savvy but at least I had like some ambition you know to to to learn things learn how partnerships work how to create value for brands and stuff like that now players don't necessarily need to have that ambition they can just be a good professional player that is insane in the game and just come double down on that focus on that and they'll get paid well depending on the game of course right the larger the game the more they get paid it's almost like there's a very mathematical game you know is is is if the game is played by many and watched by many you'll get paid more if you're good you know that's how it is yeah that doesn't matter your gender you know or whatever it is you're gonna get paid more and if people don't watch it you're gonna get paid less it's as hard as so but I think it's pretty well developed right now in comparison yet now it's not at the point it's not at the point especially in 2014 where like some of the salaries that you see in like professional sports right I'm just curious about the viewership too so when you look at traditional sports and you get a signing you know you get a five ten twenty million dollar contract whatever that is and that and sometimes much bigger than that too there's so many eyeballs that and there's probably so many dollars you're supposed to bring into the organization so in 2014 when you're paying when you're getting paid like six hundred thousand dollars that would still be considered like a low salary in a professional sports arena for most for most leagues so where is it now where is where is esports now I want to talk about G2 but where is esports now in terms of if I'm the best player in the world and I'm I'm signing up with a certain leak what is what are those bonuses look like are they in the millions because you mentioned before now you buy players for millions now you so now it's starting to catch up it's like it's very much yeah for sure let's imagine you win world championship plus your salary plus what you are as a you know streaming and stuff like that you're probably earning five six million dollars yeah you know in the largest game on the planet that's very very possible again it depends on the game but that's very possible yeah and also keep in mind that players have what three four year contracts and if they're getting paid just a basic minimum compensation of a of a million point two or something that's already a three point six million contract guaranteed over the course of three years or like four point eight million dollar contract over the course of four years that does start being large numbers you know yeah that's that's that's starting to definitely like compete with like the types of contracts you would traditionally yeah and I was actually checking I have an excel sheet I do with my co-founder is a is a mentor of mine actually his name is Jens Hilgers he built the largest esports league in the world called ESL they just sold it for a billion dollars recently and he's my co-founder in G2 as well and he's been my mentor for the longest time and and he we together made an excel sheet checking a gross revenue of traditional sports teams like NBA NFL and so on and the valuation of those of those companies and we see that where NBA NFL specifically NBA because NFL is a little bit of a different beast but NBA thinking of salaries and thinking of a corporate value and thinking of gross revenue like the the pace in which esports is growing is essentially 5x what sports was growing at and if things are to be keeping up this pace in no more than 5 to 10 years we will be looking at current esports teams the top ones rack in the same valuations and revenue numbers than a lot of the traditional sports and again it's a different very very different business but a lot of the things or some of the things are similar I'll deal with it is audience watching competition right and there's different ways in which you monetize that in the case of esports there's a lot of sponsorship deals there's a lot of consumer products you know especially for the top teams like ours and there's one more layer which is the digital merchandise which traditional sports teams don't necessarily have besides maybe some NBA 2K deal they have with the video game whatever but but here we sell G2 skins in game in many different games so what is what this is is items that don't make you play better but make your weapon look different or your character look cooler they have a G2 mask on it or something right and so for that fans pay whatever it is 5 bucks whatever you know and we got a cut from it and so that's that's another large fast growing revenue stream but one thing we don't have is media rights right because someone owns the video game nobody owns basketball so as a result of that teams just have to get significantly more creative than traditional sports teams need to get significantly more creative than traditional sports teams in building not only a brand that people want to root for but also different revenue streams that people want to spend money on but that is being cracked on right now and you can see the progress of the last specifically two three years it's been incredible to see actually I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot now security is one of the major issues big tech is currently facing from AI scrapes to data leaks starting your business solidly can be just as difficult as growing it securely HubSpot is on a mission to help your business grow better with the CRM platform that grows with you start your venture with HubSpots easy to use secure website builder that scales with your business as you grow ensure your team of two is just as secure as your team of 200 with secure sign-on content and asset petitioning and scalable team permissions whatever comes next make sure your business is ready for it learn how your business can grow better at HubSpot.com it's also you also have an opportunity so you know you're right you don't know media rights but what you do have is you have global access where most sports teams are regionalized and they're and most of the revenue comes from a city right or a country that's right that's that's where you have a huge advantage because if you if you look at some of the larger like for example we look at like you know soccer football in Europe like not like not like American football like like European football and you look at the reason why it's so big it's just because the the fan base is spread out across so many different countries so many different regions but if in the South Africa South America all these areas but the states like you have money there but there's a cap there's a big cap but there's a cap like if I want to you know if I want to talk about like different like franchises if I go to like even like Green Bay Packers like yeah you're gonna have some fans outside of like you know Green Bay Wisconsin but you're not gonna have probably many fans or dollars coming in front like the UK yeah you have the nostalgia effect of having gone with your granddad to the stadium when you were young and whatever it's like a regional you know that they have in esports you're absolutely right I mean specifically you know for G2 specifically we're probably the most global brand at the moment we're the largest Western brand in China in games in gaming and we are number one in Europe and number three in North America which in turn makes us the largest within the context of esports and which this we had we had examples years back of different publishers coming up with a franchise system that was regionalized and we had to say no to it majorially because we don't believe in that regularization we believe that number one gamers have English more and more as the global language regardless where they play from again there's differences right like rations playing with rations they speak rations right Brazilians playing with Brazilians they speak Portuguese right but for the most part you see English becoming more and more they go to language for pretty much most distribution of competition as well as when you're actually playing video games with others just speak English right because you don't know if they like you have in your team a French guy a Swedish guy a guy that is from New York but happens to be living in you know Paris you're living in Berlin and it's a Spanish guy as well in your team so what language do you speak English you know and everybody knows that you grew up speaking English so it's almost like the language makes it a global phenomenon now and as internet and technology gets better and makes it more and more possible we're still a bit far from it but it makes it more and more possible to for someone from New York for someone from New York to be able to play against someone from Paris with a decent latency which right now is bearable but it's like it's not that good like if you want to play competitively you can't play with like a hundred ping you know you need to play with like 30 ping you know and that requires you to be on the same region now that that barrier at some point will be hopefully gone and when that happens absolute globalization will be achieved you know where you can literally play against anybody around the world in one language English and then what's where you got born worth nothing like it doesn't matter what your background is actually there's one of the things I love about gaming it doesn't matter what your background is you're a woman you're a man your race is whatever you got born in whatever it doesn't matter to anyone what your age is it doesn't matter you know if you if you hit heads in a first-person shooter game you have our accolades if you don't hit heads you're going to get shot on you know and that's the beauty of pretty against you know so yeah I completely believe in that global aspect from it and less and less believe in the regionalization that that that you know racial sports are inherently needing to have you know I'm happy you push back against that because I think it actually you know what you mentioned it's a beautiful thing like and and yeah you have like technology problems with internet speeds and latency and one up but that's that'll be solved too so this is you know this is an incredible industry that actually is a true global industry and I'm sure you do have some I'm sure like you mentioned you know you're not your number one in Europe your number three in North America you know you you rank what was it the eight the eight pack ranking it's like in China we're number one in China oh you're number one in China so I'm sure there's still like some regional because people are probably programmed to like root for people that are geographically close to them and similar to them but I feel like that's going to be a thing of the past soon so I think that by pushing back on regionalization like you're forcing people to think differently about sports yeah for sure you know the problem is that a lot of these a lot of so Americans like blink blink a lot okay and I say these with utmost respect you know as a European I mean I don't give a fuck if you give me like courtside tickets I mean I was in cars a few times and it just doesn't feel that special you know but when I see when I when I see when I get someone courtside tickets for the for an etsy game or something they're like they can't believe it you know and I'm like I don't know it's a American mindset you know and the American mindset of blink blink heavily idolizes traditional sports heavily idolizes you know and even myself I've tried it myself I tried I've tried in different ways to work with racial sports people and there is a reason why it doesn't work is because they're not the same thing digital commanding digital audiences in digital native platforms and distribution platforms is very different very very very different you by lebron James you he comes into the lakers you automatically sell however many jerseys you do that with the best player in the world in esports you will sell some jerseys but it's not even like remotely close to the amount of jerseys you would sell if you put some proper high quality well thought through campaign and content behind it so in other words it's almost like traditional sports teams as a result of the franchise systems majorially but in the case of soccer they have no franchise systems in europe they have no franchise system and yet they fall under the same issues they tend to be just more lazy you know with their brands you know that the craziest thing they have going for them is the mascot I mean fair enough that's interesting but beyond that there's nothing you know they don't understand web3 they don't understand content formats they don't understand how to create scripted or semi-scripted content with their players their players don't even want to make that content unless you pay them extra I mean it's really a mess you know so there is no entertainment besides what sports shows that have nothing to do with those teams do or podcasts that have nothing to do with those teams do and so esports we had to learn the hard way if we want to build something that lasts for long and that builds a large fan base that spends money in your brand we just had to learn the hard way that we had to build something interesting and that interesting thing your building is not connected with where you were born because then you're putting artificial walls where they should be none it has to be connected with your brand what is your brand standing up for what is your colors looking like what is your mascot what is the content you create what what makes you special you know it's very different from where you got born no it's it's a good point okay I want to I feel like we can talk about this more but I want to I do want to talk about G2 because it's kind of important so so as you left as you left being a professional player you you you could have just probably at that point you probably could have like coached other players you didn't have to go all in and start a business right like that's a lot of work and I'm sure you figure that out probably the hard way you did all this so and you started a business that I don't think really has ever existed before so you started so what do you what G2 is I'm I'm I don't know how to categorize it because it's not a league it's like it's just like a conglomerate of players right like you're almost like acting like as an agency in the best is that the best way no it's probably it's probably closer so G2 is a combination of LA Lakers and Marvel like G2 is literally what would have happened if Marvel bought the Lakers literally we are a sports team focusing video game competition that builds its long-term value within the brand in the form of creating scripted content animated in it and you need to not only be a team you know you need to be a team but you also have to be like a content marketing machine basically absolutely even from day one you look at our org chart and you're like okay that's a media company it has players that competitive video games and we happen to be the most competitive successful organization in the world across top titles but so that makes us the sports that makes the sports team side of the business but where we truly monetize our brand is through the creation of I mean just content production and distribution capabilities which we'd have everything in house and so we have a team of 30 plus people just in production alone so we have a total of 160 people in the company now and a large portion of those are a marketing a large large portion of those are a marketing and what happens to result is that yeah we play the games that are most played in the world we go into the events we them lose them but whatever you know competing them and choose what names what games are going to be we think are going to be relevant tomorrow and build teams in those games ahead of time and then once we have those teams we create content around those teams for socials I mean doesn't matter the you know tiktok twitter instagram youtube everything right reddit discord whatever it is and and so and then with that we build sort of like a like a we build our community that every other passes games come and go but our community continues to grow why because if one the game dies the community evaporates no the community goes to the other game that is maybe close to what that game used to be maybe is a first person shooter but the community will go to another game we already happen to be part of that game so all of a sudden what do they do they gravitate towards becoming defense so unlike traditional sports we don't rely on a game being alive we are we have the most portfolio approach you can think of and and and the way assessing which we want it we monetize is majorly through sponsorship deals league revenue share consumer products both physical and digital consumer products so merchandise and and of course you know depending on the team there are teams that make a lot of money by selling players sort of like Ajax in soccer in Europe or like all the other other teams that just tank all the other you know tank this is on every single time and try to get good drafts you know yeah and trade them you know so yeah there's teams like that and but yeah I'd say I'd say it's a is a significantly different business than at least is a more complex business the one traditional sports teams well it's much more because you're so I made the incorrect as I said agency because you're representing players and those players we have a brand right so it's not like c a or w and me those guys have no brand nobody cares right so yeah with our players we pay them salaries they we have deliverables with them and they have their agents you know so they you know it's not we're not their agents we are their organization their team their their club you know and they play difference but they they're playing different games so you're playing different games you're you're creating content for that but it's like I don't think that I don't think what you've built that G2 actually exists in traditional sports like I don't think that entity actually it doesn't yeah it doesn't it's a it's a media company with heavy focus on video in competition that just doesn't exist when you first started it what did you what did you do first did you find all the the players that you wanted to bring on or yeah I be the team I be the team and I decided to play for that team I was on quote unquote an attraction everybody knew me right they were like oh my god you you leave a top team to create your own team studying from zero not even second division it was like 50 vision okay yeah I was yeah I'm gonna do it and so I brought I brought people on board and I competed competed until I realized until I sorry my goal was to compete until I found somebody better than me I was already quote unquote old for at least first competitor and I was already you know after competing for nine years I don't know like your your targets and ambitions when you have one MVP's have one trophies have achieved everything you wanted to achieve what's left to be achieved the new motivation goes down you know so I just I just wanted to face out eventually and when I found my replacement which I did and then when I did that when I found my replacement I just quit professionally and just focused all in on being the founding CEO of G2 and I bootstrapped the company from from zero with what I earned as a player put all my money there and and Jens joined me very very shortly after and I consider him a co-founder he is a co-founder and then together we we started you know pitching two different investors and honestly surviving and eventually after survival was accomplished driving you know trying to look for ways to become larger you know increasing the ambition of our targets at first I wanted to be a team people know then I wanted to be one of the largest teams in Spain then I wanted to be one of the largest teams in Europe then I wanted to be the largest team in Europe then I wanted to be one of the largest teams in the world then I wanted to be the largest team in the world and now I want to be the media brand focus on video games that's largest in the world which of course, it's a strong target considering things like Fortnite exist, like, you know, but it's a, you know, I always, I'm always a big believer that Bauman is that who carries a bow, archer, okay? An archer? Yeah, an archer is like aiming the bow a little too high so that it reaches further, you know. If you aim exactly straight up in front of you, it reaches, it, the arrow goes for a shorter length. So, yeah, distance. So, so it's, it's important to me to have this crazy target in front of us and I'm sure if you ask me five years from now, the target will be larger. What was the biggest, the biggest mistake, the biggest mess they had to clean up when you were, when you were starting G2, what was the one thing we're like shit? This isn't gonna work out. You know, I'm actually not good. I'm good at learning a strong lesson from each of those, but I'm not good at like keeping them in my head, you know, as a token of shame, you know, it's almost like, I feel like a good one is the actual name, okay? So, it's G2, right? G2 and you're like, what does G2 mean? Like G2 means nothing by itself, but the beauty of G2 is that when I created a team and here's the first fuck-up of many, I thought to myself, oh my god, this name, nobody has it, gamers2, gamers2.com. What a domain? How is nobody getting this domain? Gamers2.com. Oh my god, we are all gamers too. That's a beautiful fucking slogan. Yep, I learned the hard way that my English language skills were not up to power back then and at some point I was like, I was talking to myself and I was like brother, what is this? Like what are you, what, what were you thinking? What is this name? It's so cringe, it's so tryhard, it's so not English native, you know? And so I decided to rebrand, right? And we worked with like a thousand iterations of a different logo and then we realized that you could make with the G and the two a mask. And in our case, we wanted to have a samurai mask because samurai is a dope, you know? And so I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I don't want a new name, I want to carry this G2 as a token of shame forever, you know? I want to remember that I didn't know how to speak English back then. So now it's gonna be G2 forever. And so G2, it is, you know, it's like if that things don't have to be perfect branding wise, if you do a good job, people are gonna follow you and the samurai as I said is dope. So that's good. And by the way, like there's other like there's not a big company that actually like that does a G2 thing too. So it's not like it's not like it's a bad name. There's like a huge G2, you couldn't get G2.com. I think if you probably tried to buy that from G2, I think they're like a software rating company, right? Yeah, I saw that, I saw that, I saw that. But we have a, yeah, I love you. Yeah, you two use first works. I'm happy. Fuck it. Yeah, it's good. No, no, it's good. It's good. Okay. Okay, as you as you grow G2, so now you build into a media company. What's the difference in your, like what's the difference between being a player, being an owner, like what's the mentality? How do you approach problems? Like what did you learn from that, that switch? I mean as a player, you learn to do one thing really well. You become a specialist, right? It's almost like having a, it's like, it's like mastering the sword, you know? It's like you become a master of that one thing. And whoever you face, you know that whether you win or you lose your confidence and your ability to master that sword, to use that sword, you know? And there is no, not a lot of room for extraordinary ways to approach your work because the game has a set of rules. You have to follow and you have, you can be creative within those rules, which for an overly creative person or artistic person, it can be a constraint sometimes actually because after playing the game for a thousand hours, you realize that those constraints, constraints exist, you know? And you just learn to live with those. So I guess the biggest difference, I mean, number one, I actually did learn very valuable skills as a player. Number one, I learned how to deal with people in high pressure situations. Some people like to be told, what the fuck are you doing? Some people like to be told, hey, let's go through this together, okay? Because I think there's, there's something we could do better, you know? And I learned the value of having people around you that know how to take responsibility over their actions and not be cynical about everything. So I was a player but also the captain of my team. So I did a lot of changes to my lineups and over the years. And sometimes those changes were good. Sometimes the changes were bad. And I learned what makes up a good group of people is not just mechanics. In other words, it's not just skills is the is the attitude actually. What makes up a good group of people? You need a minimum set of skills, of course. But after that minimum set of skills is matched is achieved, you need attitude in a perfect merge of attitudes. And a group of five, five and five needs to have the humble guy that is the supportive mindset that will go out of his way to help a teammate when he's in need. We will need the super cocky guy that is a wholesome dude that just loves the video game. But like it's incredibly cocky. And you know that you leave by the sword and die by the sword. If he has a good day, it's great. If he has a bad day, you lose. You need to have the guy that is like very serious and training everybody. Come on. I'll shoot together. You need to have that captain figure. You need to write. And so there's different, independent of the game as well. So learning what each game needs in terms of the types of attitudes mix within each team is something I learned as a player and something that I still to this day deploy in my job today. So it's not like my previous career as a player was useless. Quite the opposite. A lot of the skills that I developed and I still use to this day, you know. But the biggest difference is I'd say is the ability to be creative. Like in my job, there is no, there's no walls. There's like no limitations, you know. Like I literally wanted to make a song. I love singing. Okay. I wanted to make a song. So I did a metal song, an epic metal song. And we went hand with it. We spent like half a million dollars in building the most incredible, incredible high production quality song. Best guitarist in the world, best drummer in the world, best celloist in the world, the celloist of Hans Zimmer. We weren't fucking insane. Best song writers. It was insane. Okay. And that was the lead singer. Okay. Which there's nothing more ego focused than that. And I was like, why not? You know, you can't do that shit as a player. You know, so yeah, it's just my job allows for a lot of creativity and a lot of fun. Sometimes I'm focused on video content, on approving scripts, on approving the final video, on approving the music, on the actual scoring of our pieces. Sometimes I'm focused on how we distribute all of that. Sometimes I focus on social media, the quality of our pose, which social should we get into next. You know, understanding KPIs, are we ahead, are we behind, understanding consumer products, how consumer products look like? Then sometimes it's investor pitching time. Sometimes I have to close sales. You know, it's like, and sometimes, very often, I have to spend time on the actual esports teams, the quality of the lineups. Do we have to improve it? Sometimes there's problems. They call me Hey Carlos 3 a.m. I'm homesick in Korea, whatever, you know, and I have to speak with him. And it's a it's a it's a different job that touches on a lot of different things. So so fun, bro. I would do it. I always say when I'm a billionaire, I will literally do what I'm doing right now. I love dude. That's awesome. You leave me the same thing. You know that you're doing the right thing when you could say that. That's amazing. Yeah. Confident as well. No, it's good. I thought I thought one of the things you mentioned before was interesting. Like, you know, you wanted to get it to to the you want to be the largest brand. I guess, you know, esports team, agents, not agency, media company in the world. And there's a lot of competition for that. I think in one of the interviews I listened to before you said, you want G2 to be the real Madrid of esports, which is awesome. So I remember that. Yeah, I you know, I you just do my dream to be the Real Madrid of esports, but now is my dream to be in a position to acquire Real Madrid and not do it. Good. Good. Let's go. Let's fucking go. Let's do this. Let's that's awesome. And not do it. Yes. Okay. So okay. So now you're at a point where like you have a huge, huge like G2's like enormous, but how do you become how do you become how do you take the next level? What's the next thing? Like if you're looking at the industry and you're like, okay, we have this media, we have all these great players like we're making millions of dollars. And but I want to take the next level. What's the next level and what G2 could actually accomplish? I feel like this is widening the final of our audience in the sense of our audience is comprised majority of people that follow esports or play those games that esports are broadcasting and video games in general, right? But but less so casual video games like, for example, you know, there's the Minecrafts of the world, Roblox of the world, like those are my son plays Minecraft and Roblox in his iPad. And and you know, those games we have no we're not tapping into whatsoever and no team is properly being able to tap into. And because it's very hard to find an excuse to do so as an esports team, right? So for us, the next step is to widen that final of audience and we're going to do that through our exact know how, which is counter production, animation, VFX, scripting, fantasy, and connecting that with our esports team. So it's again, it's a first, it's never been done before. It's we're going to be the first, we're essentially the first company on earth to merge the reality of sports and esports with a world of fantasy. How do you get people that aren't even video game players or watchers into esports because that's the real opportunity? Yeah, that's exactly what we're trying to work. We are trying to be the bridge between those casual audiences and those hardcore esports audiences in a way that what if we tell a story within our fantasy world everything done in house that that story is the story of one of our teams in one specific event, one specific tournament, one specific finals, but we thought we tell that story. Through the eyes of a universe we create that has nothing to do with the game we were playing that day, nothing to do with the actual players playing the game that day, but it very clearly winks at that moment in time and it will be very appealing for current fans because they will want to watch it because obviously it references a moment they deem important in the legacy of G2 and non G2 fans or non esports fans will have an entry point through something they're happy to watch which is animation, whether it's an anime series what you know TBD right and they'll be like okay this is interesting okay and all of a sudden they have an entry point towards esports that has nothing to do with video game competition and so that's the bridge everybody's trying to be because once you crack that net open is going to you're gonna reap the benefits from it by far I'd say there's a one team that is doing a decent job at widening that funnel but they're doing very differently that we need through celebrity partnerships which is FaceKlan. FaceKlan has a lot of celebrity partnerships you know with Snoop Dogg and whatever but that's just prohibitively expensive I mean in the sense of FaceKlan is not a company you know like this is just it's a family bakery store you can't really expect to build a business on the back of giving people shares to represent the brand you know so yeah that's why you know that's not everybody's trying to crack that's good no it's good I like the plan I think that that the the content strategy just like creating these like worlds around these worlds and alternative media channels and you create shows you create all this different stuff that will bring people in will get people like so excited and then like when you like there's the guy that I spoke to before he he creates something I can't remember his name now it's so bad but he creates what it's called a story world and it's like there's like one piece of content that he creates then he creates books and movies and everything around that piece of content and then you can you can consume a podcast you can consume like a a Netflix show you can read like five books you can go on social you can go in like little Reddit communities or even like Facebook you do everything and like you you pull in all these people into all the other assets from everything you put out into the world and like people just become like like like if you think about like anime like attack on Titan or something like that like if you did like like six other pieces if you did like a Netflix movie if you did like a video game if you did like that's literally that's literally the that's literally the way we think and thought always about you to G2 is a universe right is the universe of G2 we play many different games each game is different from one another each player is different from one another each piece we create is different from one another with script or semi script most of our most of our content so every piece is literally different from one another and we're telling stories consistently sometimes those stories are real sometimes stories are made up and this is no different than that we're just doubling down on on that goal of ours and that G2 universe we want you to consume it in many different ways through music like the song I just told you about and the scoring music to yeah yeah is this a form of it's like a 360 media it's a it to add layers in which you can consume G2 that's awesome man I love it and entertain this way and I want to do a couple rapid fire at the end but there's a couple questions to close off about G2 what's one thing after you've been in this industry for so long what's one thing that you would change about it what's one thing you don't love about how esports has evolved yeah trying to copy paste what what works in traditional sports which typically happens as a result of bling bling like I said because they can start track by people in the sports world or because they lack the confidence to know that we actually are the best industry pertaining commanding digital audiences and how to talk to them you don't talk to them the same way you talk to traditional sports audiences the ads the the commercials for esports fans and gaming fans are different must be different than the commercials for sports fans the humor the like esports fans see through the bullshit man it's incredible like you're not gonna lie to them like you know this this email you're receiving from the Saudi prince that wants to give you Bitcoin or some shit like that's just like that automatically I don't this is zero percent chance if these people play one esports game the zero percent chance that email is gonna get ever responded okay is a different is a different audience bro like you cater to this audience differently no that's funny um okay I just want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today's episode swag dot com now you know if you've ever received a corporate gift or swag in the past how many of those gifts 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success and enter promo code success 10 remember for 10 percent off go to swag dot com slash success and use promo code success 10 where do uh where do people connect with you where should they go what's the socials website all that so um best ways is is socials but we have a website obviously g2esports dot com and ours our twitter at g2esports and my twitter at carlos r i pretty much we pretty much read everything even though there's like thousands of mentions every day but we pretty much read everything if there is a comment a question anything i'll gladly answer and uh yeah i'm readily available i i love coming in touch with uh um people that are not aware of esports what what it means you know how to even remotely get a hold of the first you know a tournament or something maybe just try to figure out which game is for you um it's it's it's also a good way to to you know banter and and and talk and have a topic of competition with your son and daughter you know because a lot of those are playing and watching do you have um do you have like a like a like a like a like a incubator program or something for like people that are just starting out like you have like info like a like if somebody like i want to get into esports i want to go watch a tournament like do you have infinite like info like that or do you have like a up and coming players program or they can like that's actually a beautiful question you know what i don't think anybody has that but you but it might not be a bad idea actually we're so we're so tunnel vision into our industry that we just lack the um creativity to look outside of it but that's actually a pretty good point let me actually write it down because it's i think it would work really well if i was if i was getting into esports and i've never played a video game or i'd play video games like casually probably that's the first person you want to target but if you had like a mentorship program where you like pair like up and coming like video game players and it like it would take like not that much time to be honest yeah that that's a very good point and at least to get them to understand okay if you want to watch a tournament or like what you know or figure out what game is for you this is the place to go i'll say though like um twitch dot tv t w i c h t dot tv is the largest live stream platform for video games and you can just browse in there which game could be for you because there is games for all tastes like there's first person shooters there's car games first first person car games with sim racing geek rigs that is like really advanced as well there is like fee file of course mba2k there is card games there's all kinds of games for all kinds of people and if someone tells you i don't like video games is because they haven't found a video game they like guaranteed you know it just makes me think about like you know the story of like how like a mac an apple got like so popular is because they gave like free computers to everyone in college in like universities and colleges so by the time they graduated um they all use max and all use computers and then like crazy i didn't know that yeah dude so you do the same thing like expensive marketing tool but i listen i'll take it but imagine no seriously it's an expensive marketing tool if you have max but if you if you're just doing that if you're just doing that with esports like you're not giving anything physical it's just time it's time and that's it and you and you and you know are the people that bring like everybody into the industry you know who's going to be you're going to well first of all you're going to the best pick of new players they're going to be they're going to be hyped for you're going to have people like like that are like fan like huge like huge huge fans trying to get onto g2s you're going to the best pick of players we do stuff with the universities though we we do you know we we get involved early in their in their in their lives and and try to add value there uh with nothing has changed yeah yeah nothing has changed and it's worked you know how we actually have a lot of uh junior employees some of them actually grew in the company from that and they're like data analysts and stuff like that and that's from literally from university and they might not even like know what esports was you know so doing these things uh actually has been a great great tool to get really talented people hungry talented people into the world i think i think if you did this i think if you did this effectively and you targeted like young talent i think you would easily become the best in like five year biggest and best it would be much easier than buying your way into biggest and best with just trying to like pay for eyeballs and and win more yep yep if you know especially no one's doing it smart yeah smart okay let's do a couple rapid fire closes out um okay it's rapid fire i'm just i'm just fucking it up it's like a small fire no no no you take you take you take as much time you don't give a shit man like i say rapid fireman yeah um the Spanish you can't stop talking man so i should have warned you before it's great dude you're awesome i love it if you're ever in Miami you let me know we'll do an in-person i have a studio i actually mean Miami first week of june hey for real okay so i'll give you my info you let me know right okay uh awesome career as a player and then you built out a huge business but what keeps you up at night now i'm incredibly ambitious bro i mean i have to i feel you know oh my god that's it this is a good example that but it's gonna make me look like like like i'm out of my ruckus so i i went to i went to a hand simmer concert yeah uh earlier this week you know i last week okay um i thought it was like Wednesday last week and and and so i went there i enjoyed it so much i was by myself but it was so enjoyable i was like i cried a couple times uh it was incredible like i said genius and the people he's runs himself by geniuses well can you believe that i couldn't sleep i was thinking for three hours i couldn't sleep because i was angry that i couldn't put that show together if i wanted to so i was like thinking okay i can't i can't do a live show like hand simmer that was my my my standard that i was a lot of sudden just comparing by dude but you're you're like you're so you're like a special kind of person that's why you've been successful because you think like that i don't know what is that curse i think i think is i don't know if it's a curse or a gift i think it's both at equal levels bro because i was so pissed the day after i remember just having one on one's with a head of content head of media head of uh gm everybody and i was just telling them i was just all of a sudden the the ambition just grew and it was already high you know and i was like shit we have to just look better at the way we hire people we have to look better at okay do you think this person is like this person that can carry the light show of our show in the long time ten years from now and we're the number one in the world can this person carry the light show yes or no no okay then why do we have this person right it's not bad it's not a bad way to think but no dude it's not a bad way to think it's just it's like it's uncomfortable to think like that like it's very uncomfortable but i mean it's it's like that's what you got it that's what you have to be to be the best you have to work with the best i mean there's no reason like the way that i look at it is if there's someone who's done it that person is just human that person is just somebody who spent a lot of time figuring it out but that's a very good point that's a very good point is that we idolize i mean i idolize consumer i idolize i don't know fucking whatever it is you know christian or not although lebron james whoever you said it's it's just people bro it's just people so i'll tell you like okay so you idolize hand Zimmer and you're at the concert and you're like fuck like i should be able to do this okay so if you put in 30 years into figuring out music and playing music and then you hire the team and you spent the money you do it it's not like it's not like a complicated pathway to get that done and if you don't reach that level of genius at least you will be close enough to be comparable right that's what i that that's what i think is very possible right because of course you can get born with traits right and hand Zimmer has traits that i will never have and that's just life that's just normal but do you believe do you honestly believe that if you put your whole life and you put 12 to 14 plus hours a day every single day doing it that you couldn't look it depends on what i think i think you you you have a point for some things i think something some other things the way in which you get born and you're up bringing which you have no control over true has a lot more to say about like i think for art specifically if you if you're talking like surgeon maybe you do still need to be very still so things that require physicality right lebron James you need to be told and so there are things that you can't just work on but but but and i think art is one of those things that just your brain has to be fucked up in a way that only like like insane already yeah yeah um but but let's imagine you have the bare minimum and just do spend those 30 years doing what you said at least you will be close enough to be comparable right i agree with that and and and if that's the the max you achieved and so be that consider that success right but yeah you're right it's just people it's just people people that when they speak they fuck up sometimes they're shy sometimes they're happy sometimes they're set sometimes they scry sometimes they have shitty nights they have shitty mornings they have happy mornings it's just people bro and it's like people also you know you know at a different scale right it's not like i'm fucking it's not like i'm Barack Obama but people idolize me at times right especially in the gaming community right now and i'm thinking to myself and i tell them the same right i'm like bro like yes i had something that made me a good player right yes it's correct but what made me a good player is not is not necessarily what made me good at my job right now and i consider myself better at my job right now than i was a player so i do think that the vast majority of available jobs and career opportunities and things you can do you can actually work yourself into and you're just human just like Elon Musk and these other people yes some of them are incredibly fucked up in the head in a good or a bad way that leads them to these positions and and you might never be able to be Elon Musk but you don't have to be Elon Musk you know no like you can create your own value just following your own path you know i fully i fully believe that and that's why i think i think to have that that outlook on life that that i think you have to be like a little bit a little bit like off to like think like that too because it's like it's incredibly ambitious but if you don't think like that then you're never going to get started because like why would you like if you don't think like that then logically you would assume that you can achieve that and if you're if most people are logical and rational and if you have already decided that you can achieve that and you idolize that person then you're not going to start from day one because you're like well why would i ever start to think that i can't defend it the people you hire the work you put in everything you're going to hold yourself to the standard of that's below what that best case scenario looks like and so you know you're going to hire worse you're going to work worse you're going to be less creative and you know what what was the sentence is that yeah i said say when you need to survive you just get creative you find a way i love it okay next question next question in this yeah another another uh yeah rapid fire my ass bro he's been like half an hour of rapid fires we suck man no it's it's awesome this is all be good this this will be good social shit we'll do like someone like this it'll be good um biggest challenge uh you've overcome in your personal life what was it had you overcome it what you learned from it um yeah my wife um well fiance so when we when we had our son five years and a half ago she had an incredibly tough post part room and she almost died actually so um yeah that that part is like i mean give me perspective i guess it's like nothing else nothing else scares me you know because i saw what real fear is like and even looking back i don't even remember those that that one year i don't remember bro i don't know how my days look like i don't know it's crazy because i'm very um conscious about what happens in my life and like my my brain and in i'm very transparent with myself and when i have a problem i tell myself what the problem could be and i try to i don't know i'm very straightforward there's no bullshit with myself you know yeah i'm very real and i swear to god bro i don't know what the fuck happened that year i don't remember i don't i i can't recall i can't recall i know i was existing and when i was leaving and everything but i was like i don't know i don't i don't even know if it's over load i don't know i don't know so yeah that that moment is like yeah it it it it built uh i mean of course my relationship with my my fiance is like like what else can be important enough to lose our shit over nothing you know yeah so like everything becomes secondary but at a personal level you know just knowing i mean the the fact that your life is finite yet the life those those around you is finite um yeah that's an imperfective yeah it allows you to enjoy things more and live fullest more and take more lips of faith i mean i'm going to New York to live with my life with my family you know my life is perfect right now and and why would i change anything and add complications and like i don't know i just want to do it it's like no so what if it goes wrong for so what i can always just go back to Spain no whatever it is i said what's the what's the matter you know so i guess that's the biggest thing i have overcome and it's a bit selfish because it wasn't me who overcame it it's my wife my fiance but yeah but you know it mentally it was it was yeah i had to work a lot on it but i'm over it and it's i'm a better guy as a result if you had to choose one person and it could be your wife too but if you had to pick one person although there's been many that have helped you in your in your life mentored you who was that person and what did they teach you yeah so i'll say i'll say i can see more than one another uh fucking up your rapid fire no no it's okay it's okay uh i'll say i'll say my wife um definitely five years ago i call her always my wife so whatever um she rose she's um she's very ambitious as well and she demands the best from me as well in a non-intrusive way right she just knows what triggers me the right way and and tells me what i need to hear to piss me off and be better and she's my backbone it's in for my son right so of course i think family is almost like chick is like cheating the question those two my son and my wife need to be there obviously but then i have to add gents healer's my mentor um he's taught me so many things bro like i mean i have no university career and my only career is the career of his business life of losing my money of being borderline or being at the verge of losing the company running a lot of funds of getting creative in all kinds of ways of never sacrificing my moral compass um for for short term gains which have given me now the long-term credibility with partners and investors and the like uh i don't know i feel like every conversation i've had with gents has been i've learned something and i'd like to think of the same way for him and me uh although i'm the student uh we are very different he's a very German he's very structured he's very um his thoughts are very clearly put together his commandment of the english language is incredible uh and and and and and he's very ambitious as well so that's something we share but i'm more i you know he's more data driven whereas i'm more got driven i'm more like i connect with people through emotions a lot more and the gestures of the people i'm talking to um i'm much more reactive when talking to people reacting to how they will react you know but um we we we i think we're both a very good tech team so i'd say gents will be yeah that's the guy good no very good um if you had to pick a book or podcast or something you've consumed in your life that you'd recommend people go check out i'd say book meditations markers or relics i really like that one a lot i also liked even though i didn't like the book as much when i finished it it's a book that i always think of when i like thinking back which is called outliers and that book taught me that um i don't know for example like some you know the the best athletes in football got born specific gear or a specific month sorry and that's for a reason you know that means that they're like the largest in their class and so they play better and so i'm playing better that year because they're larger they have more leveraged physical leverage over the rest all of us and they grow up confidently knowing they're the best so it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy and they become better and better and better and better and that's mathematically it's a it's a it's a numbers game you know it becomes a numbers game and so that taught me that book taught me that a lot of it isn't your head so you know the famous fake it till you make it i hate the actual same but in a way in many situations it is so true like you just have to do it you have to walk like you own it you have to and i'm not saying be like arrogant in this oh i know everything no no it's like confidence a big portion of confidence comes from saying i have no fucking idea about this like we need someone that knows more than me that can just make my face go red you know i need someone that figuring it and being okay with that too being okay not know by the way gens gives me shit all the time like i'm telling you like he gives me so much shit it doesn't matter when i think i'm at the top of the of the of the food chain he comes and just says you piece of shit you know nothing because pop pop pop pop and then i okay understand i'm sorry and that's you know just keeping you grounded bro it's a must have you know but yeah i feel like confidence is a must have right just this confidence like deep confidence i'm not saying like oh you know like i'm some deep confidence you know being okay with being wrong seeking feedback while still knowing that if you deploy that feedback you're gonna be the number one what would you tell your 20 year old self what would i tell my 20 year old self don't call it gamers to use Spanish son of a bitch i actually don't hate the name it's not that bad i think you're hard on yourself bro that's like that's like a Spanish person just gathered his russian friend and they came up with an english name for a team okay it's like the least english native thing you can think of bro so bad oh my god okay last question last question what does success mean to you success for me is enjoy it so i can see myself successfully if i'm enjoying the misery that comes with following a tough path that's a good one i've never heard that before that's good yeah yeah because it's like a constant fucking misery i mean it's like holy shit this goes wrong holy fuck this goes wrong things are going good no my brain just makes up some shit and all of a sudden we're terrible we're trash we why are we not marvel well and there's like there's like that misery like knowing that you use this so much to do knowing that you could be so much better knowing that you're in control of your actions meaning you are the reason for your failures is at first a lot of stress to go through but at the same time it's so liberating because you're in control actually you feel you're in control you know you are where the back stops and so for me success is enjoying that process and it's hard to enjoy the process like at a shallow level because when you feel when you're dealing with miserable shit you have you it's not it's not like pleasant in that moment but at a deep level if you do enjoy it if you if Monday comes and you're waking up knowing okay let's fix some shit you know it's like that success to me you know and it's not for everyone but it works for me man you