How EVOS Esports Almost Died | Evolving EVOS #2

Things were starting to look up & till now, my partners and I were still running EVOS as mainly as a side project and hobby. The team was doing well locally but was starting to stagnate & I wanted to find more opportunities to grow since the Indonesia market was still a bit young at the time.

Expanding the Horizon

I was doing some research on what potential titles the EVOS brand could expand towards & I managed to learn about Vietnam or more specifically, the League of Legends title in the country. You see, Vietnam had 1 x-factor, the numbers.

Back in 2017, Vietnam had the 2nd/3rd highest player base for League of Legends in the world only behind China, on-par with the big boys like Korea. Naturally, when the player base is so high, the audience of the local pro league would be huge as well. The VCSA was averaging around 60k concurrent viewers (CCU) in 2017 where Indonesia tournaments were only able to hit around 10k. The potential was there, EVOS just had to find a way to enter the market.

A New Partnership

As mentioned in the 1st article (Link), EVOS is built by 4 main partners. Michael, Hartman & myself were all friends from high school, the last guy is Wesley. He was one of the reasons EVOS had the opportunity to enter the Vietnam market.

Wesley had a team in Indonesia under the name Fortius where he imported a few Vietnamese players to try competing in the Indonesian League of Legends scene, but it wasn’t working out well. We both met up and came up with a plan to join forces and move the League of Legends division to Vietnam to qualify towards the top professional league, VCSA. We ran through the idea with the other partners and they were onboard with it, suddenly Vietnam was the next target.

Setting up Vietnam

The first step for this expansion plan was to get a strong roster. Just like in any negotiation, you need to have leverage in order to the best deals. In order to create a strong roster, we needed a few strong players to use as leverage to attract good players to join.

Thankfully while absorbing Fortius into EVOS Esports, we were able to retain Beyond. He was one of the highest regarded players in Vietnam back then, so we had a solid core to build off. Next, we wanted to secure YiJin, one of the most hyped players coming into the scene. We knew that if we had both these players onboard, we would be able to create enough influence to attract any player the team desired.

We had the game plan, executed it accordingly & our superstar LoL team was formed filled with players of great potential. Over the next few weeks, my partners and I were super busy trying to set up the infrastructure in Vietnam. Building a gaming house from scratch, hiring managers to take care of the players & a coach to help with the training. We wanted to ensure that we had the best chance to qualify into VCSA.

People fail to realize that it is on the company/employer to provide a strong infrastructure for the employees to grow, to learn. If you fail to have a strong foundation & people don’t see growth potential, they will leave. Just like building an esports team, you must provide the best support possible to allow your players to grow.

The First Hurdle

We got everything in order and the results were showing. We had roughly a month before we had to play for the qualifiers, the team was clicking well, and the players were feeling good. Our players were performing at incredible standards & we never lost a single practice match throughout our training period going 25-0, and this was against the best of the best in the country. Everyone in Vietnam feared us.

But as time went on, the players were getting overconfident. You see, EVOS Esports today have countless management staff keeping the player’s mental health in check & ensuring the fitness level of each player is in tiptop shape but back then, we didn’t know anything. We thought players getting confident was a good thing, but we were very wrong.

In the day before our qualifier games, there was an outburst. The players started to complain to one another, blaming each other for minor mistakes & saying that they deserved to be called the best player on the team. Egos were forming & we didn’t know how to deal with it. However, we were still confident in our team’s ability, how couldn’t you? 25-0 in training matches.

While the qualifiers to VCSA was going to be a full day of games, my partner, Hartman & I thought we wouldn’t head to the tournament area so early, get some extra sleep, thinking that the players should be able to last till after lunch with no problems with their quality of play.

Well, we were wrong. The team lost in the first round. The. First. Round.

On the Edge

How do you recover from something like this? We placed all our investments into this team in hopes of making it into VCSA. This was supposed to be the step to place EVOS on the world map for esports but instead, we became the laughingstock of the esports world. Spending an absurd amount of money without any tangible success whatsoever.

I wanted to give up & shut down EVOS Esports as a whole.

I was still running 3 businesses at the same time and it was taking a toll on me. There were a few health problems that were started to surface, my back, in particular, was causing me some discomfort. The EVOS Esports accounts were running low. It felt like a perfect time to just throw in the towel and focus on my other businesses instead.

A Change of Fortunes

Thankfully, not everywhere was bad for EVOS Esports. Back in Indonesia, our strategy of making the team famous through the social media push was finally paying home. Brands in Indonesia saw the potential of esports teams and wanted to invest with us.

The first one to officially sign on with the team was Lenovo & they gave us a deal worth 7k USD per month running for a year, this was the largest ever esports sponsorship deal from any Indonesia team back in 2017. On top of that, we were also able to sign together with Traveloka for a further 8k USD per month for also a year, the largest non-endemic sponsorship deal in Indonesia. Suddenly, we were breaking records.

These 2 deals single-handedly kept EVOS Esports afloat and made the organisation profitable. More importantly, it started to show my partners & myself that all our hard work was starting to pay off.

Shifting Strategies

These deals also made us change our strategies in acquiring teams, instead of creating strong teams straightaway, try to create popular teams & win the heart of the people. This way, fans will have a recognizable team to cheer for while the brands will be able to see the huge number of following we can garner from the teams & be tempted to join on board the EVOS family. Creating influence.

So now instead of trying to find the next biggest player to improve our team, I wanted to find ways to continue to build the brand into a household name. The next step was to start scouting for a mainstream brand ambassador, all the other teams were already engaging all the usual gamer ones, EVOS needed an edge.

Well, we found one in the form of an angel, quite literally.

In one of the Dota tournaments, my players were taking pictures with all the usual brand promoters and they were talking about how nice this one girl was, Angel. She wasn't exceptionally famous or anything but my DOTA team loved her due to her friendly outlook. It got me thinking; if my players were loving her, maybe other games would too. Why not bring her onboard to act as the EVOS Esports ambassador to help grow the brand.

We got connected and the rest was history. When we signed her, she was working as a events model with only 200 followers on Instagram. Today, she is a gaming icon with over 200k followers and acts as the face of EVOS Esports.

That was the strategy. Spot potential talents, groom them & grow them.

Lowest Point of My Life

Things were looking up, our teams were working out well and even the Vietnam League of Legends team managed to qualify into VCSA after I purchased one of the promotional slots from the other teams. It looked like perhaps maybe the rainbow was finally starting to shine.

Well, not quite.

One day in August 2017 when I wanted to visit my players, I realised I didn't have a lot of strength all of a sudden. I found it pretty hard to actually walk up the stairs altogether. I didn't think much about it, just went to the doctors for a quick check thinking it was just another back problem. It wasn't. I was diagnosed with Kennedy Disease, an incurable genetic disease.

For those don't know what that is, don't worry, I didn't either. Here's a link for you to read up on it if you're interested:- https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/6818/kennedy-disease

I will never forget the doctor's words to me.

"You only have 5 years left to walk, eat or talk normally." I was lost.

I didn't know what to do anymore. I didn't feel like doing anything anymore. It felt like my life had no purpose since it was just going to slowly fade away. I cooped up at home all by myself, trying to find meaning on what to do.

It was that time that I realised that I found the most joy when I was watching EVOS Esports compete and play. I found a reason to wake up.

One Last Stand

You see, I told myself I couldn't be a hypocrite. When my team Vietnamese League of Legends team failed to qualify to VCSA, the players wanted to give up and quit. I was the one who convinced them to fight on, to keep going, making them believe that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

I couldn't be a hypocrite. I couldn't give up.

I knew at this point I had nothing to lose anymore & time was at the essence. I dropped all my other businesses to do EVOS Esports full time & set my goal to build SEA's largest media and entertainment empire within 5 years.

It was time to go to work.

To be continued in the next article.