Honesty

Don't exaggerate your figures in a pitch to partners. Find the true value areas (determined by what you feel, and what you think a company or partner looks for and finds valuable) and focus on those strengths - build this significantly into your business plan, if you haven't already.

Be honest in your negotiations or discussions. People will appreciate this more than you know, especially in today's eSports industry where thousands now claim to be the best team manager in the world with zero experience or qualifications.

Be honest always to your players and to the staff you work with. Build your organization on trust, reliability and principles.

Happy holidays!

Patience and Earning Trust

Too often do inexperienced individuals at the helm of new organizations dive in head first without considering the true benefits to each and every partnership.

As the year draws to a close I see this more and more as a sponsor when budgets for the following year are being set and new seasons begin, promising riches and fame for new promising teams.

My advice is this: take your time, assess your options properly. The most money isn't always the best option - rarely is it ever unless you're incredibly lucky. It's easy to jump to decisions based on money, especially when you're a new organization. You want to build that foundation quickly and get things in place. Chances are you have quite a lot of people banking on you for their success.

The truth is that partnerships are not built on money (though this is of course important too) - they're built on trust. You need to earn this first before you can expect anyone to invest anything significant in you. Just because you qualified for tournament X or you have Y amount of viewers doesn't just entitle you to what you want.

How will you leverage that tournament? How do you engage that fanbase? How do you make that stream interactive?

Cristian "Trance" Tamaş on Making it in eSports

I wanted to draw readers' attention to a recent Reddit thread which was expertly crafted by Twitch's Trance thanks to some of the experiences Cristian went through to be where he is today in eSports. There's some great stuff for people to take away from the thread for those wanting to make it to the next step. A snippet:

2012 - presentAs of writing this now, I still am a Twitch full-time employee since Sept 2011, GD Studio co-founder and COO (altho I will pass this on to Bruno now) and Dreamhack Stream technician (free of charge because they gave me a shot in my early days). That whole "give esports a try 1 year full-time" has now turned into 5 years and counting with no sign of slowing down. All because I took it upon myself to get things done, try new things and just go for it. If anything, I could not ever, absolutely ever fathom having to go back to a 9-17 regular job.

Head over to the original for the full details!

http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2htw53/weekends_at_brunos_episode_1_esports_actors_part_1/ckw1kk4

Don't Be a Lazy Pro

As a professional player - regardless of which game, or how big it is - you're an ambassador for your community and for eSports as a whole.

Do what you can to always go above and beyond, for your manager, your sponsors, and your fans. If streaming, don't simply tweet, "Streaming, come watch". Give some context. Give reasons for people to come and actually watch you.

Engage your followers, and be a good example to those aspiring to the top of the industry.

How Do I Get Noticed?

So a lot of people ask me, "How do I make people turn around and take notice of me or my idea? I have some great ideas, but how do I make people pay attention?"

In theory this sounds harder than it really is. Why? You need to aspire to people's desires and needs. Find out what your potential investor, employer, or partner wants and deliver it - or at least show how you can successfully.

Here are a few quick tips that could help you get noticed:

• Volunteer. Do awesome work because you love it, not for cash
• Don't waffle. Cut to the point and be honest
• Don't beg, pester, or hound anyone
• Support your pitch or idea with data and numbers
• Do your research. Don't go blindly into a pitch about topics you know little about
• Be very specific about why your idea is valuable
• What is in your arsenal of skills that will help you reach your goals?
• Specialize. Team management? Web? Software? Events?
• Be professional. Be mature.

Stay tuned - next time we'll be looking at some of the specific roles in eSports we outlined last time.

The Roles in eSports

You're a casual player, or maybe you've been in a few teams before and played fairly competitively. Perhaps you're just a spectator and you like the excitement of watching live games from multiple genres. Maybe you're brand new to the industry and you've yet to jump in. The one thing that units you is that you somehow want to be more involved in eSports.

Over the weeks I'll be breaking down some of the best ways for people to involve themselves, trying where possible to give general advice which can be utilized across any number of games or communities. First though, let's look at a quick sample of the potential areas you could potentially explore in eSports. Once you've made that decision, focusing your efforts will be far easier.

• Professional Player - a competitive eSports athlete that earns money for high level competition
• Team/Squad Manager - someone in charge of team logistics, management and communication
• Team Owner - someone that runs a larger eSports organization composed of multiple teams
• Team Content Specialist - someone that manages team social media, video, graphics
• Team Coach - a highly experienced individual that teaches and trains teams
• Event Organizer - someone that organizes and runs competitive events for players or teams
• Event Admin - someone that supports and admins competitive events for games
• Event Photographer - someone that takes professional photos for an event/events
• Translator - someone that translates interviews or written work for events, teams, sponsors
• Interviewer - someone that interviews professional players or eSports personalities
• Commentator - someone that shoutcasts or commentates eSports games
• Host - someone that hosts live eSports events
• Developer - someone that creates competitive games
• Journalist - an individual that covers eSports news and stories
• Streamer - someone that live-streams gameplay for an audience
• Sponsor - someone that sponsors teams, events, or communities

Undoubtedly there are many, many more specific roles within eSports which could potentially appeal to individuals, and we'll hopefully touch on some of those later. If you have any roles or positions to add to this list, please let me know in the comments below.

Over the next few weeks we'll look deeper into some of these roles by speaking to professionals already performing these jobs across the industry. Make sure you tune in and register for email updates on the right hand side!

Take Responsibility

eSports is still a young and disorganized industry for the most part and quite often you come across individuals who have little concern for anything but themselves or their self promotion. It's worrying how often you see people in positions of authority with little to no true experience in marketing, finances, legal issues, or general eSports customs. But above all, when shit hits the fan, people aren't willing to take responsibility for their actions and fade into the night.

If you're looking to start a new organization or a new venture in eSports, consider that while it's most likely a project of passion and your intentions may be true, you will inevitably be responsible for the well-being of others. Most often we see this occur in professional teams that take on team managers with little to no experience in managing people, contracts, finances, or partner relations. If you're a team and you find yourself in this position, look for advice before things turn sour.

Be responsible for your actions at all times, and consider the consequences that they might have on others in the industry around you. Our industry may be young but it is growing at such an incredible rate that there are external parties - non-endemic sponsors, investors, tech giants, journalists, and general public who are watching closely, some rooting for our success, others for our failure. Don't be responsible for driving them away.