 to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Noor. Today we're talking with Jordan Decoe about his journey from gamer to eSports entrepreneur. Jordan's company is Sports Made Digital. Welcome Jordan. Catherine, how are you? Great. It's a wonderful Thanksgiving Eve and we'll start off with a question that many of our viewers would want to know is tell us about when you started playing video games and what games you played or play. So I started playing video games with the Nintendo 64. It was like the classic games were Super Smash Brothers and Legend of Zelda. Super Smash Brothers, that was the game that I met my first group of friends in elementary school. That was the first time I met friends and just trash talked against each other. So the trash talk started when I was very younger and then I kind of dabbled into adventure games and different type of games. That's what I started with. When it comes to competitive games now, I play Starcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 Reforged. And then I've recently started getting into World of Warcraft with the new Shadowlands or expansion. So I've been doing a little bit a lot. Okay, fantastic. And then you ultimately started Sports Made Digital. Tell us about what led you to start that company. So what happened was I was actually, I was involved with, I guess, character design and excuse me, an asset design, which was more on the development side. And this is kind of just my aha moment of sticking to what I was good at. And so I got fed up with trying to do things that I really liked, but really wasn't, it's not that I wasn't interested in it, but I was just struggling and killing myself to kind of get started. And so I kind of had like my aha epiphany moment of saying, hey, let's, you know, despite what it is, let's stick to what we're good at, which is writing and communicating. And so because I have a very entrepreneurial mindset, I started Sports Made Digital, which is a marketing company where I build, it's a content marketing company where I write blog articles and do sales copy for companies who are just starting out or need to improve their coverage on who they are as a company. And I would imagine that there are a lot of companies that don't have time or they don't have the competency or skill to do that kind of work. Is that right? That's correct. I mean, I think because we're at the tail end of 2020, we're actually the very end of 2020, I think it's now catching on like a decade later of where the internet was born to now, I think we're now finally catching on to where companies are appreciating it, but don't, but like you said, don't necessarily have the time or the competency to kind of do it themselves. And creating content might seem very small, but reaching out to your audience in a very organic way is kind of how you build a company nowadays. Sure. And there are so many things to do when you're working with your company. There's financial issues, there's so many aspects of it. And so it sounds like you allow them to delegate that very important social media and marketing part. Is that right? That's correct. So what I do is I pitch myself as somebody who can take over those services and kind of take one thing off of their plate that's very important to a business. But I think when it comes to, I don't know if it's, I guess I can't speak for other companies, but when it comes to a priority thing, maybe it's not as high, it hasn't been as high of a priority as it has been lately. Sure. And so you have a background playing baseball, is that right? That's correct. So I mean, background as in I played Little League and then several other sports up until high school, but kind of my road into sports and enjoying sports is I actually had a pretty tragic but now inspiring background of, so I was diagnosed with herpes encephalitis at six months old. And so to cut, maybe not cut the shory story, but that kind of threw me into an acoma and I woke up obviously with my left side paralyzed. And so it was a great idea, as you can imagine, for me to play sports and adjacent to taking physical therapy. So that's kind of my attachment and my, you know, that's how I romanticize sports is like it gave me my mobility back and I really don't want to think where I would be without sports. And so on more of a mental side, video games has helped me with that as well. So I can kind of point to Starcraft and Warcraft 3 as ways how video games have helped me and my brain kind of develop on my own. Okay, so you started your business during the pandemic, is that right? That's correct, yeah. How has that been? You know what? It's been great. I've seen a lot of early success and there's definitely companies and opportunities for people to get out for me to build my clientele. And I think people are just trying to manage and kind of strategize how you reach out to customers nowadays. I think at least we're technically in the second lockdown right now, but I think early on into the pandemic, people were really scared of, you know, how do they reach out to customers. And so that's kind of what leads me into why making content is so important is because, I mean, you won't have the opportunity to kind of do some on-site marketing. So making podcasts, making YouTube videos like this and just having digital marketing in general is kind of the way that businesses should be looking to grow their audience. And so what kind of businesses do you work with? So right now, I work with an eSports company in some Alabama that's building a team and hosts an eSports lounge and an eSports arena. And so what they're trying to do is kind of grow out the eSports awareness or eSports scene in Alabama and more so the South. So there's a lot of resources down there that, a lot of resources and a lot of attention down there that kind of just need an extra push for people to be committed to eSports. And then I've been working with other smaller businesses that are actually very interesting. So I'll just share another one. I'm working with eSports Circus, which provides a remote location for schools to compete against each other. And so that kind of takes away of the risk from vandalism and theft. And then they also supply higher quality or high quality equipment for students to play with. So that one is pretty, both of those are pretty interesting opportunities. So who are your ideal customers? So ideal customers are about like 18 to 34 startups. Kind of the companies I'm working with now. Some of them have been kind of out of that demographic in terms of age, but I'm just working with startup companies. So anybody who, and that's where kind of brand awareness is a major factor is putting out consistent content on a schedule where that's important, where they can start building awareness with their target audience. And so what are some of the strategies that you're using to connect with the community? Yeah. So I mean, as a gamer, I've been using Discord and Discord for those of you who don't know is now a competitor to Slack because they're expanding their market base. But it's been an adaptation of TeamSpeak back in the day, but it allows you to chat on many different servers and channels for people to really, I guess, bond and communicate with the community. And so I've been using Discord, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. And so I know we met through Facebook. And so I've been producing a lot of content on Facebook and LinkedIn in particular. Sure. And we met on Facebook groups. And I actually have found Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups to be quite valuable in terms of connecting with people. And what about Instagram? I don't think you mentioned Instagram. I am building out my Instagram audience. I mean, the way I've kind of started looking at it, because on one hand, I am trying to focus on more, I guess, written content. And so that's where Twitter and LinkedIn comes in is that you can't is that that's more so written content. And that and that performs well. Instagram content, you can you can post videos and pictures, obviously, but I haven't I'm just starting my Instagram growth right now. So I'm planning to get on all three, but I've focused on more more content, more written content than than visual content for right now. Sure. And, you know, I kind of am in the same boat as you. I'm not as heavy in Instagram, but in the others. What about Twitter? Twitter, Twitter, I've started using Twitter more recently. And so what kind of my in depth strategy is, is I go into let's say, well, now let's say, I've been going into hashtag eSports. So what I do is get into get into a hashtag eSports, and then you see all the comments or posts within that with that feed. And then you jump into conversations and try to provide value that way. So I think, I think with face, well, like, again, with face, it's similar to Facebook, where once you start providing content and value for people, then you can kind of jump into other people's conversations and say, hey, like, this is, you know, say, I think I've actually spoken with a couple teams on Twitter, where they said, where they were looking for companies, not companies, where they were looking for team acquisition. And I just said, hey, that's great. This is something I can do for you. And then that the conversation kind of stems from there. So it's really just about recognizing, recognizing what they like what they bring to the table and see how you can kind of add value to that. But, Catherine, it's if you can kind of like, it's kind of the same strategy on all on all different platforms. It's just, it's the same, it's the same strategy. And yet at the same time, you have to do it differently for each strat for each platform. Sure. I would agree with that. And if you look at hashtag eSports, you'll always find links to my shows. Absolutely. You probably, you probably have. Yes, I have. So where do you see the most value in eSports? So I think a lot. So I think where the, where eSports can grow is within the collegiate level and and eLearning level. So and really just at like providing value in other ways than just focusing on teams and competition, because that is, you know, I think that's something that you can obviously make your money on. But I think if we're talking about the growth of the industry, like collegiate competitions, eLearning, kind of just, you know, education, education, I guess, providing education and different and expanding the different ways you can get into eSports is where I think it's going to grow. And I think if kids and consumers are aware of the different ways you can get into it that aren't necessarily leading towards needing to be a professional gamer, because honestly, that's as difficult and as rare as an opportunity as it is in traditional sports. So I think to be realistic with with what you want to do, I think that's something that that needs to be talked about is it's just the different avenues you can you can go down in eSports because it's not just all it's not just competition. Sure. So is it better to start your own company where you're working for yourself and you're doing something that you love? Or would you rather work for someone else? I would rather work for myself. I mean, I guess, obviously, because like I've also the funny thing about my company is it's not like this isn't my first project and that's what I think something that's what I think is a good subject to talk about. It's like with most entrepreneurial ventures, it like for me, my interests have changed like as I've gotten older, but it's always been something I've actually we've been talking about. I talked, we spoke before we went on that I went to a software engineering bootcamp because I wanted to be a video game developer that touched more so on general development. But that also stemmed from learning how to do, but before I went to that bootcamp, I learned how to code video games on my own with like with tutorials and YouTube. And frankly, that's just how I learned. So I think the way I learned has led to, you know, I guess more so of an entrepreneurial mindset. But, you know, but I think for people who don't, you know, don't see themselves as that is, you know, you know, entrepreneurship can be used as an opportunity for you to open your own doors to maybe grab the attention of a kind of a bigger company. And so it's all about nowadays just proving your worth, proving your worth kind of upfront rather than going through the well, I mean, I was going to say college, but you know, people people study, get their education differently. But what I'm trying to say is it's like there's no one way to get to get your education. And there's no one way to get exposure. So what I'm saying is like, is if entrepreneurship is what you enjoy, definitely, definitely go for it because it is a risk. But at the same time, it opens up a lot of doors for you to kind of either work for yourself or for a company to recognize your work and for a company to recognize your work and hire you. So I think it can be used for, you know, for those two ways is either work for yourself or to use it as a springboard into something else. Sure. And what is your, what's the best thing about owning your own business and use sports? I think one I get to let I get to do, I get to do something I love every day. That's something that my dad taught me very early on. And so I've taken that with me, you know, my entire life up until now. So I've been trying, I mean, if it, you know, if I've been trying different things and kind of had like a slip, you know, if I wasn't doing entrepreneurship, I, you know, I would I would have a slower progression to my career. But I think trying different things and tasting what you enjoy doing is, is great. So I think this is a career, I think, I think working in esports and particularly, it's always changing. Like, it's always changing. I'm involved in sports. And that, you know, it impacts marketing, and particularly because, you know, every company now is trying to transition to is trying to, you know, improve their digital marketing strategy. So I think from 20 from from now on, digital marketing is going to be a major focus with with companies in general. Sure. And I think it's absolutely necessary if you aren't doing that, then you're not taking advantage of the markets. Sure. There is a question from a viewer. Does your company have to keep up with all the current trends? And then the second question is, do you have any thoughts about Twitch suddenly taking down a ton of videos because of music copyright? Oh, I want to tackle that the second one first. So I read an hour. I so we're talking about the DMCA strike, which is barbaric, I think it because how should I say, I guess the strategy that they took were just slashing at like all slashing all copyrighted music. I don't think that's a good strategy. I really think that be a partnership between Twitch and Spotify, where music artists get royalties from there, not only Spotify, this is actually something I thought in my head where if there can be a partnership between Twitch and Spotify, where the music, the music artists get used Twitch as an extra source of revenue, I think that would be a much more, if pragmatic, I'm going to say pragmatic, I think that's a much more reasonable solution than just slashing all all music to get all together. And so when I when I heard about music cat gold, which this is just kind of like a caveat, an extra layer to the DMCA strike is monster cat gold has is a subscription based service where you can pay, I think it's $5 a month to listen to a non copyrighted music library, but you can also just jump straight, you can jump from like a brand new streamer zero, you know, zero followers to affiliate status, which is where you can monetize your stream, which I just think that cuts out the hard work for streamers to kind of to kind of get that reward that that reward of putting that hard work in and becoming and becoming affiliate because I know for me that started, I was a streamer beginning to mid middle of this month or of this year, excuse me. And it took me about four months to get to it. So even though, you know, four months isn't isn't a long time, that's still four months, that's still, that's still, you know, you still have to put in work. So I just don't think which is going about, I guess, the DMCA non copyrighted music the right way. And so, I think the second, the first question was because I did this and refer, I did this backwards. Do this your company have to keep up with all the current trends. Yes, I think, because especially because I work in marketing, I need to, I, I'll use, I guess, I'll use myself, for example, I need to be aware of all different ways to communicate with, with, with my target audience and just audiences in general. So right now, now, right now I'm on LinkedIn because it's, it's very organic. The amount of, I mean, it may not seem like it, but the amount of content that's coming out from the amount of content that's going out is kind of out out playing the amount of, I guess, paid content. That's not exactly how I wanted to say it, but it's not as saturated as what I'm trying to say. So, so for example, like LinkedIn is something that I would, I would highly suggest streamers and, and businesses to hop on with because like everything that's going to be saturated at one point. And then in terms of like, in terms of, in terms of keeping up with the news, I think that I think that's something that you, you should, you should be doing at a point to a point, because it's definitely given me content to talk about. Yeah, so it's definitely given me content to talk about. So I think however you digest your news is, is, is it's important to kind of be aware of, of where the industry is going. But at the same time, I also think adding your own point of view is, is just as valuable, just as valuable, if not more valuable as well. Sure. And, you know, one of the things that they, one of my guests said that the word authenticity, authenticity is over talked about. But the bottom line is, it's true, you need to be authentic. And so it sounds to me like that voice that you have or that voice of that particular client and the authenticity of that voice is important in what you do. Is that right? Exactly. So when I go, so it's important for me because just, you know, outside of business, it's who I am. I'm, I'm bluntly honest to, to a fault. And so that's just, that's me as a person. And so sometimes, I mean, sometimes that's, that gets me in trouble, but I try to be as honest with people as possible. And so being your authentic self, if you're not, I think, if you're not, I think many people can kind of see through that. So I think, excuse me, I think on one hand, it's great to want to start a business and make money. But I think if you're coming at it from a place of authenticity and, and wanting to help people, having a higher purpose to wanting to help people, which is, which is why I started what I'm doing is, is a combination of knowing I'm good at writing and, and knowing that I really just want to help people. That's how I want to make my impact. And so having a higher purpose to starting any business than just wanting to make money is, I think is a, you know, as a prerequisite to entrepreneurship. And that makes a lot of sense. I think people can tell when someone isn't there for the right reasons or only there to make money. So I think, you know, that's terrific. So how can people follow you and your work? So you can follow me on LinkedIn, just Jordan Dicco. I have a LinkedIn profile for Sports Made Digital. It's just at Sports Made Digital. Each, I guess each letter is, never mind. It's at Sports Made Digital. And then you can just find it through my profile. I have an Instagram account. That's Sports Made Digital as well. And then a Twitter account, which is, it's Sports Made Digital, but I think digital is spelled D-I-G-I-T-A-1, just because I just because that's how the handle played out. So that's what that's where you can find me. Okay, terrific. Well, Jordan, it was great having you on. And I hope a lot of viewers are inspired by your story of going from a child in a coma and doing regular sports, playing games, and then starting your own company. Listen, it's, you know, it's been a journey right now, but Catherine, this was excellent. All right, terrific. And thank you to our viewer who sent the questions. And thank you to our audience for joining us today. Next week will, my guest will be Christopher Johnson. If you work in the eSports business, you'll want to tune in because we'll be talking about eSports insurance. See you then.