Building an eSports Venture from Ohio to $10M+ in Revenue: eFuse CEO Matthew Benson (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Fantastic! What are some of the nuances of go-to-market strategy that you have learned?

Matthew Benson: We took a shot at this influencer-based model. We created a tournament for a single influencer. Once we saw the spark, we doubled down on it. It was based on being receptive to the community and listening. That platform has become our main revenue driver.

An interesting theme that we leaned into is the idea that creators are driving a lot of the new audience engagement and total viewership. They’re not necessarily going towards a specific brand or team; they’re leaning into this creator-based model. It’s driving these tournaments and using the creator IP to create opportunities.

Sramana Mitra: How does that work? An influencer decides to run a tournament for a game. Then you would go to the game developers and bring together a set of ecosystem players.

Matthew Benson: Exactly. There is a Twitch streamer called Nick Eh 30. He gets around anywhere from 1,500 to 5,000 watching him on Twitch. We were able to go to Fortnite and say, “We’d love to run a high school tournament and have Nick Eh 30 be the voice behind it.” Fortnite actually sponsored that tournament separate from our licensing agreement with them.

We were able to spin up the Nick Eh 30 collegiate cup. We had high school gamers compete in front of these colleges and universities with Nick Eh as the shoutcaster. It was great distribution for Fortnite. It was a great revenue driver for Nick Eh, and we were able to use our league management system to facilitate the whole thing.

Sramana Mitra: Very cool. What about the team? Are you based primarily in Ohio?

Matthew Benson: We’re predominantly Columbus-based. Around 60% of our team is here in Columbus or near Columbus. We do have employees globally. We got folks in London, Germany, South America, and Canada. What’s been really interesting is most of our team was hired during COVID.

When we first started, we only had six employees. COVID hits. From that point forward, everybody has been hired during COVID. It’s been really interesting for us to build culture and communication in this remote environment while trying to build a business from the ground up.

Sramana Mitra: Is the team working remotely?

Matthew Benson: We do. One of the things we adopted towards the end of COVID was bringing everybody together once a quarter in person in Columbus. We started bringing everybody in. It was a cool opportunity to build that camaraderie and culture. We still do that today.

Sramana Mitra: What about the leagues and gaming companies? Are they also global?

Matthew Benson: Yes, they’re also global. Fortnite, for example, is primarily based in North Carolina. They have employees all over the world.

Sramana Mitra: Scandinavia has a lot of gaming companies. Is that part of your ecosystem?

Matthew Benson: Absolutely. There’s a massive contingent in Asia as well with a lot of the big gaming developers with Tencent.

Sramana Mitra: What else do you want to share in this story?

Matthew Benson: We’re really bullish on gaming and eSports. Most people undervalue what gaming can become. When you look at traditional sports, you’ve got to be a certain type of person. To be able to play in the NBA, you’ve got to be 6’5”. For gaming, who you are doesn’t matter. It creates this unique dynamic.

Sramana Mitra: Are you raising money primarily in the Midwest or from the coast as well?

Matthew Benson: We’ve raised from the coast as well. Our angel investors are all over the place.

Sramana Mitra: Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Building an eSports Venture from Ohio to $10M+ in Revenue: eFuse CEO Matthew Benson
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