Being too early in an industry!

Back in the early 00’s, online gaming was really starting to get big. World of Warcraft peaked at 12 million active subscribers in 2005 and there was an abundance of companies being set up around gaming. Some of these were for players to show their skills in organizations (teams) and others were to market hardware. Two of the most successful gaming hardware startups to really push through into the mainstream from this time were Razor and Steelseries. I am guilty, typing this on my Razer keyboard and eternally using my gaming mouse!

I know what you are thinking, what does this have to do with startups? Well, in its infancy, online gaming and esports was very much based around advertising and sponsorship. There was no sustainability and if this money dried up then companies would die as they wouldn’t be able to pay salaries. This is the case of what happened with a famous European team called MyM who were a direct casualty of the financial crisis in 2008. When companies are in a tight spot, advertising and sponsorship are the first things to disappear. Back in those days, gaming organizations were wholly unsustainable.

If we fast forward to today, a tournament in Seattle for a popular game called Dota 2 just finished. The total prize pool was over $18 million USD with the winning team walking away with over $6 million. The online gaming / esports industry has caught up with itself. There are services like Twitch where top players can stream their content and make money. The game developers are more involved in the tournaments adding additional safety. Gaming is now just a massive business and still only going to get bigger.

Startups such as Vulcun are doing incredible numbers and growing massively fast. It is a good time to be in gaming. Bringing this back to the point though, I was heavily involved in gaming and esports in the early noughties. I helped to run a few community sites, replays for games and also tournaments with real prizes. The most I got for my efforts was a free headset and a mouse mat, The mouse mat has seen better days but still in general use as a reminder of my first foray into ‘online work’.

Does the industry still rely heavily on volunteers? Sure it does, but there are more and more people making a decent living from gaming. You are now seeing journalists being flown to key events to cover them which never happened before.

So what should you do if you are too early in an industry? Well,  there really isn’t anything you can do, you can just sit back and think about the good old days with a smile. There are a ton of industries in Asia which are often seen as being in their infancy, such as ecommerce in Thailand and logistics pretty much across SEA.

One of the other industries which is still pretty new is vacation rentals. Something I am betting rather heavily on with Roomfilla. Interested in hearing other stories about any other industries where you have been too early or you see developing rapidly in the region within the next few years.