LeapTakersPodcast_#24 - Patrick Gobonya Patrick Gobonya: [00:00:00] I remember one time I was in a call with a friend of mine from Germany, and then he said that his younger brother would love to talk to me. And his younger brother was like 15 years old. And he was amazed to be talking , to the ovation e-sports co-founder. And he told me that he's a huge fan of our organization and now of our players and he loves what we do. And that's when I finally realized we actually, we have fans. And that's yeah, kind of melted my heart, to be honest. That was one of the sweetest things that happened in 2020 Intro Remo Kyburz: [00:00:37] Hello, everyone. I'm happy to bring you a new episode today of the leap takers podcast, where I'm interviewing. Up and coming European entrepreneurs, investors, and shapers from various fields to retrace their journey of how they started their own company. And to discover the insights, tips, tricks, and advice they gathered, so that you too can hopefully take the leap. My guest today is Patrick Gobonya he's one of the co-founders of Ovation e-sports. Ovation e-sports was founded in Zurich, Switzerland in February, 2020. And it's the first sustainable e-sports organization. They are a young dynamic pioneer in the professional gaming space, which combines professionalism and fun in one team. Ovation is one of the fastest growing and up-and-coming e-sports teams in Europe,. Especially in the DACH regions. Which includes Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. And they recently also raised their first seed investment round from very notable investors, which you will hear from later. Ovation currently competes with its athletes in the very popular games of Fortnite and Valorant. And some more games will be announced soon. I really enjoyed this somewhat different episode, since you will learn more about the fascinating and rapidly growing world of e-sports. The founding story of ovation. What it actually means to be a sustainable e-sport organization. The business model of an e-sports organization like ovation and Patrick's learnings and tips for other founders and Leap takers. So without further ado, please enjoy this episode with Patrick Gobonya. Interview hello, Patrick, welcome to the Leap Takers podcast. And thank you so much for coming on the show today. It's great to have you, Patrick Gobonya: [00:02:10] Thank you for having me. Remo Kyburz: [00:02:11] Yeah. It's a pleasure to have you, and , I would be very curious to learn a bit more about yourself in this episode and about what you're building. So if you could just start with briefly introducing yourself and what you're currently doing. Patrick Gobonya: [00:02:23] My name is Patrick. I live in Switzerland. I'm the co-founder of ovation e-sports, which is the first sustainable e-sports organization or team. And we're still a startup having done our seed round a couple of weeks ago and are excited for the year 2021, which is ahead of us. Remo Kyburz: [00:02:43] Since we will be talking a lot about gaming and e-sports in particular today, I thought it would be important for the listener to get basic understanding of e-sports and Ovation. So for people that are not that familiar with the topic, could you briefly describe what eSports is and why it's relevant and then give a high level view, of what do you do with ovation? But first just describe what e-sports is and why you think it's relevant in today's time? Patrick Gobonya: [00:03:12] Sure. So e-sport is the competitive side to traditional gaming. So gaming is what every young adult or, kid does nowadays at home on his PlayStation computer, or even mobile phone, just, just playing video games for fun. And e-sports , is the professional side of it. It it's about tournaments and competing against. The best video gamers in the world. If you want to call them like this, we call them e-sports athlete as these young adults and kids have insane abilities in regards of their speed and , how they play their video games. So that's a general. E-sports overview of what it actually is, and it became relevant already 20 years ago, more and more people got involved in gaming. The internet developed rapidly, and now everyone's connected all over the world, which is one of the most beautiful sights about gaming. And e-sports in general, ? There are no borders. There are no genders. It doesn't really matter who you are. As long as you have an internet connection and your computer, you can play with whoever you want to, and you could become , friends with whoever you want to. And around that e-sports scene over the years, a big community has been built and that's the kind of community we are currently. in And what we're doing with ovation, we're a team of various athletes in, in various games, for example, Fortnite, which is more or less a young e-sports topic and e-sports game very much developing rapidly, very interesting in regards of abilities , of , the players themselves, . The speed of the game. I've never seen anything like it. As well, we're competing in Valorant and sooner or later, some other games, which I can't announce already as the contracts have been signed, but the announcement is not yet over. So you have to wait for that and what we do, . We support all of our athletes in basically all their life matters in regards of we support them in fitness, mental coaching. We even pay for their, for their education. In some parts, we, we pay for tutoring to help them develop as, as an individual. And on top of that, we support them in, in regards to social media and gaming in general, we have game coaches and. All that is needed to give them the right environment to develop as individuals and athletes. So that's the very broad overview of what we do. Remo Kyburz: [00:05:36] Yeah, that sounds really interesting. And I'm sure we will dive deeper into that later in this episode. you already briefly mentioned That you are a startup and you recently had a fundraising round. So yeah. Why don't you tell a bit more to the audience about the news that you announced and how did your fundraising go? Patrick Gobonya: [00:05:54] it went well , after all it was quite a process to be honest, but we were done , by end of March, finally, ready to announce our two private investors, to Louis-Dreyfus twins. Which are, yeah, the families has always been involved in, in professional sports or traditional sports in football. They used to be the, the owners of Marseille and now currently own another football club in, in England. And so there are a lot of similarities between the traditional sports world and e-sports, that's where we kind of connected pretty fast and. Over the time. Yeah. We came together and finalized a first Seed investment round for ovation. Remo Kyburz: [00:06:36] Congratulations to that. And I think it's yeah, it's great to have investors that share your vision of the company you want to build. And just having heard about the fundraising news, I was very curious to learn more about how this. Came to be like, could you share a bit more about the story of you know, how you got even in touch with them or did they just reach out to you? Patrick Gobonya: [00:06:56] So we were kind of like on the lucky side in regards of looking for investors, because we haven't really been looking for any kind of investors. We were focusing on our growth and on, on building our team and building our community. And by the end of 2020, we got approached by some venture capitalist firms, two or three approached us in regards of an investment. And we. We kind of felt like that's, that's not the right choice for us as the interests are not really aligned. Because e-sports is, it's a growing market, but the revenues are slowly growing. So it's a long-term investment. That's most of the time, not an interest of venture capitalist firms and then other private investors approached us and also agencies within e-sports and marketing agencies. And so slowly there was. Quite some. Yeah. Talking about an investment round and , we started to think about it , more deeply. And it was actually a conversation with one of my close friends, because we were discussing a topic about a VC and also a private investor. And he told us, I will never forget the sentence. There are a lot of people like, like that one guy in Switzerland or in the, . German speaking region. Why don't you reach out to others? Because I could think that's probably , the Louis-Dreyfus projects could be interested. And he got some connections to them and we kind of like arranged a meeting and got to know each other and pretty much it started off very well. We connected, we. Not only on the business side, also on like the kind of, I would call it a friendship also. So we found out that we got the same interests that we want to do, basically the same things. And so it's, it's developed, but from, from the point of. Agreeing on what could happen together and what we could do together to the point of actually signing contracts that took some, some months of time. And in the beginning it was only one of the brothers and it started to be, , both of them after , we got deeper into the discussion and were more than happy to have these guys on board as they also support us in daily routines and daily businesses, and we're , all the time in contact and that's actually the kind of investor we were looking for. We were not looking for someone yeah. Putting money in, in our company and just . Hoping that it grows. We, needed someone that, that actually supports us. Especially in regards of networking, because nowadays network is one of the most important things in business to know the right people and to get in contact with the right people. And so that's why we're super happy to have, have these boys on board. Remo Kyburz: [00:09:33] Yeah, I'm sure you made a great choice with these investors and it's interesting that he said that some VCs even reached out to you because most of the time, it's the other way around that the startups are reaching out to the VC. So that's a really good sign. Actually, if you have VCs that contact you Do you know why that is? Is it because you got some attention in like some of the tournament's you've competed or why was this? Do you have any idea? Patrick Gobonya: [00:09:55] I don't know specifically, I think maybe because of media attention and I think it was just also a little bit because of e-sports in general, in 2020 due to the pandemic, a lot of traditional businesses . Got more curious about what e-sports actually is same goes with VCs and a lot of investments happened , in the department of e-sports. And so I think it was kind of like the whole environment and the whole situation of last year that brought them to talk to us. Remo Kyburz: [00:10:25] I think that makes sense. With the pandemic, definitely playing a big role in that gaming and e-sports came became more top of mind of investors and people overall. Yeah, so I think , we already got. A good general overview about what you're building and what you're doing and your investors that are backing you. So I'm always very curious in this podcast to find out more about the origin story of. The companies that you're building. So if you could just go back a bit in time, and even before you started thinking about building an e-sports organization do you remember when you first kind of had the thought of starting your own company or doing your own project? Let's say any, any idea? Patrick Gobonya: [00:11:06] Yeah. Pretty much an idea. I mean, it was a tough road in the beginning. So after doing my studies, I studied, first of all, I studied economics in Zurich. And then I found out that I don't really feel comfortable in that world. And as I've come from a. More or less sporty background always been into sports. I did another three years of studying sports management and finally wrote my bachelor thesis about e-sports doing the studies that I slowly drove into e-sports more and more. And after that, it kinda randomly happened that I sat together with a friend of mine who had an e-sports team back in the days. And he showed me some insights about what he does and what he wants to do. So I just. Told him I can help you. I love to do marketing. I could help you out with, with some stuff. I love to do sales as well. I could maybe get you some sponsors on board. So, get me on the team and that's what he did. So, so I helped him out and sooner or later I brought one of my closest friends, Leonard into that team as well. And yeah, the communication part was just lacking within the team. And it was in my opinion, a little bit on professionally built because there were a lot of young people in it and it wasn't really a business case. It was more like a fun kind of thing to do. And I poured my heart and soul in that project. And. I fell on my nose one day as, as he called the both of us, I will not forget that day. And he told us something like, "Hey, I don't need you on board. I don't want to have you on board , for that project. I want to do it myself." And so we were devastated at that time. And I, I will never forget that I had a call with my mentor back in the days I was still my mentor. He used to be my, my chef at the bank. I was working for a guy I, I always look up to and he said that. This could be the best day of your life, because in the end you put so much energy into that project and you will get probably 10 to 15% of the company. Why not do it yourself? And so that was beginning of 2019, mid 2019. And so I called Leo up again and told him that basically we got everything. We got everything covered that we need for the e-sports team. We just need some more people involved and the right people, and we need a unique idea to start that thing. And so that's when we kinda started brainstorming, which was a process of about eight to 10 months, brainstorming ideas, brainstorming business plans, and especially communication ideas games. We want to get involved. Yeah, by the beginning of 2020 in February, we registered or company and started. So that's, that's the short, brief story of how it all came down. Remo Kyburz: [00:13:57] Very interesting. That, so, Just to go back a bit, when you said you fell on your nose. So basically what happened is that , you were were involved in this company, but then I guess you, did not have like formal contracts of, what your involvement is. , and then just the guy said, I don't need you anymore. Patrick Gobonya: [00:14:13] Exactly. Remo Kyburz: [00:14:14] is that? What happened? Patrick Gobonya: [00:14:15] It, that is what happened. I mean, we were talking about getting more formality into that business, as it should become a business, it has been more or less a fun kind of in e-sports we call it clans and then you become an organization once it gets more professional and it has been more or less on the clan stage. But it was, there was a lot of potential if you do it. Right. So I told him we have to register right company and I want to get these kinds of shares to put all my heart and soul in that project and put all my expertise in that project to help you grow it to a completely other level. And same goes to my friend, Leonard. And yeah, one day he called us and he said he don't want to give any, any percentages away. He doesn't even know how he wants to build the company. And he thinks that he can do it better himself. So that's what he did. And six months later, that clan team resigned or kind of, yeah, he got out of the market. They are not existing anymore. So in the end it was the best choice of my life. Even though that day, it was super hurtful. Remo Kyburz: [00:15:13] Yeah, I can imagine that. , it must have been a bad feeling and yeah, but it definitely good learning, I think . Sometimes , this kind of downsides, , they also lead to something better. So, and the new case, I think that's definitely what happens. So. You were mentioning that then you're with your friend, Leonard, you started brainstorming and you got the idea of doing it yourself. Like I was just curious now about the name ovation as well. Was this something that you were doing early in this brainstorming process that you thought about the name or was it something that came at the end because I'm just currently kind of also. Brainstorming about some ideas personally on them also in this process Patrick Gobonya: [00:15:52] Finding Remo Kyburz: [00:15:53] yeah. Nice name finding. Is it even that important or not? So I just thought that idea Patrick Gobonya: [00:15:59] Yeah. For us, it was a topic that came up in the beginning already, but we decided to go with ovation actually, by the end, there were a lot of names involved in the process, but the nice thing about ovation is the, the origin of the name. I mean, ovation. It means it comes from standing ovation. That's where , we got it from. So we give kind of like a standing ovation to our athletes whenever they perform well. And. In, in the origin story, we, we looked into the books a little bit and there has been yeah, don't pinpoint me on this one because I don't know it for sure. But there has been , in ancient Greece or in Rome, a guy called Ovatius and he kinda like, he was the first guy standing up during , these Fights they had back in the days and applauding. And so that's where it kind of came from. And our logo represents more or less a modernized helmet , of these soldiers back then. So that's, more or less the story that we were able to build around the name and that convinced us to go with ovation. Remo Kyburz: [00:16:59] That's a good, story. And then when you basically started building the company, as you mentioned before in the previous project, it was like a clan that was then professionalized. How did you approach that in e-sports like you said, you need to select games, you want to compete in, et cetera. How did you approach that? Like with recruiting players, et cetera, like , what do you do first and , what were the priorities? Patrick Gobonya: [00:17:23] So the actually the biggest issue was to get that's somewhat of a connection inside the community. Cause I'm a, nobody back in the days I still am. But back in the day, no one within the scene knew my name or knew anything about Ovation because it was a project that. It's being built. So I somehow had to get in contact with the players and a lot of people reach out to these players. They have thousands and thousands of followers, so they wouldn't reply to me. And that's how I kind of came up with getting in touch with a young player manager who was in fortnight. You have to know everything is pretty young. The players are on average between 13 to 18 years old. As it is a mechanical game. And therefore they, the younger generations, they are just faster to it than, than we are. So I have to get into contact with the players and then convince them of what we are doing, what we are building, and also kind of let my pants down in regards of showing them that this, this is a professional thing that's going on. We are a registered company because in e-sports, as it is. A pretty young young genre. There are, there are still some frauds around. Which is something that happens every time in the world of internet, as you get some security to the anonymity of the internet. So it was a long process to get them convinced of what we're doing and then sign them. So we had a straight plan of what kind of players we want. We approached them. We were hoping for, for them to sign with us. And that took months also talking to the parents because most of the players that are under age, they need to sign contracts with the approval of their parents. So that took months of time. I thought in the beginning it could be easier to get into the scene. But it's, it's not that easy, unfortunately, especially if you're a 28 year old guy being sometimes double the age of the players, they are not really into talking to you. Remo Kyburz: [00:19:26] Yeah, I can imagine. And so you would basically really. Also, like look out for players. that could be interesting for you. Or like, since in the end, what you do as a e-sports team is you compete in tournaments, right. If that's my understanding. And so you want to discover players that will. Perform well, and that could win these tournaments or do well in the tournaments. And I guess, do you solely rely then on like some of these player managers to help you find good players or you, you do it yourself, like, or are there Scouts that help you pick good players? I have no idea how this works in this industry. Patrick Gobonya: [00:20:04] Back in the days, it was me just Yeah, hours and hours of leaderboard analytics and watching their streams, watching their game place monitoring their consistency. And in the end, then pinpoint it down to some players. Cause it's the, the top. 1% of the players. That's not a huge community. And especially as we are focusing on Europe and within Europe, the German speaking region, Germany, Austria, Switzerland there are not thousands and thousands of people available that could actually be of interest for us. But back in the days we did it all ourselves. Me and Leo and we just checked out the players. over months of time nowadays it's more or less an automated ongoing process. As we get hundreds of appliance on a monthly basis that wants to enter the team. But we now as well know the community, we know which players could be of interest for us. And then we, we let them monitor by our Scouts and in the end, Go over the data we get and then decide if it's an interesting fit or not. And then it comes to personality because I never signed a player without knowing who he is and what he does and how he represents himself and ovation in the media and especially on social media and the internet. So that's for me, one of the most important. Parts before actually signing a player to get to know that, guy and get a feeling of what kind of person he is. And if, if that matches with our philosophy and or image and or idea, then we get to the point of signing a contract. Remo Kyburz: [00:21:36] Yeah, I think that's a very good point. The personal fit is very important in many aspects in life and business and sports of course, as well. So I think it's always important to have good yeah. Kind of mix of people and that they mesh well and fit well together. And just to go back , to the origin story, so. What I'm curious about is if there was a moment where , you thought, yes, this is, this is, you know, this is going to work? Because I could imagine you start building, , the company, you start recruiting players, but maybe you're not sure yet if it will work out, you know, was there a moment where you thought, yes, this could actually work because maybe you want a tournament or something, How was that journey , from, just start building it to thinking, yeah, this is actually something that can work? Patrick Gobonya: [00:22:23] I'm not too sure if we actually yet had the point where we say, ah, this is something we, we will do to till the end of our lives. And it will work out as we imagined it, then we will be the top five teams all over the world. And we will be like the Real Madrid of e-sports. I haven't had that moment yet, but in the beginning it was all about are w e accepted within the community is our communication. As the kids call it cringe or are we cool enough for, for the younger generations as well? And also, I mean, e-sports is a, it goes from 12 year old kids to 40 year old adults, all being involved in all being interested. So you have quite a wide range of community. And the very interesting, interesting type of target audience, if you want to call it like that. So it was more or less, how are we received within the community? And after a couple of months, as we were growing way faster than most other e-sports teams that kind of started, we felt like we might be in for the long run and we might be something that could become bigger and bigger as, yeah. I mean, as a team, you need to build fans. Because that's what in the end pays your bills. If I want to call it like that you have to have your fans, you have to have your community that's backing you. And that is interested in what you're doing and not just in, in your players. That is also a very important aspect about teams in general. It goes to traditional sports, as well as e-sports you need , to build your community and fans. And by mid 2020, as we were growing consistently it's still are. We felt like that community is actually there , for us. And they were actually interested in what we're doing and they're fans of our brands. And that was like the first time I really felt like we're doing something good. And yeah, I remember one time I was in a call with a friend of mine from Germany, and then he said that his younger brother would love to talk to me. And his younger brother was like 15 years old. And he was amazed to be talking , to the ovation e-sports co-founder. And he told me that he's a huge fan of our organization and now of our players and he loves what we do. And that's when I finally realized we actually, we have fans. And that's yeah, kind of melted my heart, to be honest. That was one of the sweetest things that happened in 2020 Remo Kyburz: [00:24:39] That's, that's a nice story. Yeah, I think it's a very interesting thing you do because you are really building like a sports brand basically from scratch. And this is, I think often overlooked as well because all these other sports clubs, football clubs, et cetera, they exist already for a hundred years or so. And. You're basically doing the same maybe, but for like the next generation of all sports. So that's, that's it's very cool. And since we are still talking about Ovation, could you tell the audience a bit. Now about , which games you're competing in. You know, some of the stats about ovation, like what games, how many players you have on the contract, et cetera.? Patrick Gobonya: [00:25:17] Sure. So currently as of today mid April, 2021, we're in Valorant and Fortnite , as I said before, there are other games coming up within the next few weeks as we are diversifying because every game brings in another community and another audience currently. , I think we have 18 athletes tones pinpoint me on that one either as it is. Yeah, we're in a restructuring phase right after the investment round. Things are changing. We got a nice boost and we are growing faster than we have ever before, and that needs some restructuring within the team. So we are letting people go and having new players signed. And basically what we do as, as an organization and what we live off is our, our reach and our target audience. So , our audience is mainly, , between 15 to 34 years old, 18 to 34 is the biggest target audience we have with around 75% of all the people we attract. And we communicate, or we reach out to around 25 million people a month growing by 10 to 20% a month. And that's basically it, the interesting part, especially for, for the brands that we're currently talking to and also new brands that want to get involved in e-sports because. The target audience and the community of e-sports is so interesting. You will never have a community that is so deeply connected with the internet, with all the techie stuff that is out there. It guys are more and more important. . With , every kind of company, they're all looking for their, their CTOs or it specialists, whatever you want to call them. And , we talked to that community and we interact with them on a daily basis as well. There are a lot of insane young designers and editors and. Just , aspiring young people. And basically what we do. We, try to get sponsors on boards that have the chance to hop on our image, hop on our team and communicate and interact with that community because you might know it as well. How often do you watch television nowadays or, or read the newspaper? I Remo Kyburz: [00:27:21] almost, almost never Patrick Gobonya: [00:27:23] yeah, exactly. You're Remo Kyburz: [00:27:24] TV. Yeah. Patrick Gobonya: [00:27:25] I mean, newspapers, I read them whenever I feel like there is something interesting in them for me to read concerning what I do. Business-wise but everything else you get through the internet, as well as the traditional media, you can read it on the internet and it's especially , for traditional brands. It's hard to get a grasp on that community because they have no clue on how to interact with them. And it already starts on where to interact with them. And that's where we help and what we do on top. We sell emotions because every time we watch a game, it's like football, watching football, or watching tennis or watching whatever sports you prefer. It's full of emotions. You support your teams, it's nerve wracking. And in the end, it's all about championships and winning titles with your team. And that's a broad, overview of what we, what we actually do business wise. Remo Kyburz: [00:28:15] And you, you mentioned this, the sponsorships and like looking at Ovation as a company and your business model. So that's basically how you work is that you get most of your revenue, how you also finance then your own teams, et cetera, apart from the investment, of course through sponsorships or what are the ways you actually . Generate revenue as a company? Patrick Gobonya: [00:28:36] They are pretty similar too, to, to traditional sports. I mean you can compare it to two football teams. I had long discussions with, or investors about that topic because the, revenue streams are the same. You have. You're sponsoring sponsorship deals. It's just a different kind of media channels that we are interacting. I think we're more focused on, for example, Twitch, which is something traditional sports is not yet involved in, but in my opinion, one of the most important, most interesting marketing channels Then you have your merchandise selling, selling clothes of, of your brand. Even going maybe one step further part of street style and not just shirts, but you can see that in football clubs as well. For example, if you go to Dortmund and check out the fan store, you can buy everything , from a doormat to. Send it to a tissue, whatever you need, everything can be branded with the club. So that's the other revenue stream. And then you have the player contracts play or transfers, which is something that is growing e-sports slowly but surely I think in, football, it's way more developed Remo Kyburz: [00:29:43] Okay. But so you have also like transfers of e-sports players that pay some, basically other clubs or teams play some money that a player will join their team? Patrick Gobonya: [00:29:54] Exactly, but that's, I said it's, it's, it's still developing. And we're trying to as well build, build a unique system there. Also very much in, in close contact , with our investors, as they just have way more expertise due to their, their life of football. But that's something that we'll get more and more interesting in e-sports as well. Remo Kyburz: [00:30:13] Okay. Basically, if you are a sponsor, we'll be interested to work with you. How can I imagine to get that? Like, if I'm on Twitch, does it mean that my logo is displayed? Or like , how does this work in practice , to be a sponsor , for an e-sport team? Like Ovation? Patrick Gobonya: [00:30:30] I mean logo displays the simplest form of sponsorship, but you can go as far as you want. It always depends on the budget and the ideas and the in the end, the targets of, of the partner and to sponsor, but we can do everything from. Image videos or even advertisement videos that we spread through our channels with authentic content with our players involved to traditional local placements, even product placements. But nowadays with Twitch, for example, you can direct link the products. Which makes it way, way easier to get straight involved , with the company. And that's just the Twitch part. I mean, , it's not only logo display. It's it's first of all, it's, it's building an image, building a story, telling a story and. And that's what we do as well. The part of consulting, helping brands to interact with the community that we're trying to shift to, to their social media pages, to interact with them in an authentic fashion as well. Because these people, they, as hard as it sounds, but they speak another language. I mean, 15 year old kids nowadays also speak completely different than we did when we were growing up. And every community, same as the gaming community has a different language than for example, the golf community. And we do speak that language and we help, we help the brands to interact with them on a sustainable long lasting way. Remo Kyburz: [00:31:48] You mentioned long-lasting before, and I think that's also something where you differentiate yourself , as an e-sports brand. You mentioned it in the introduction, but could you explain again what this means in practice for you and your players? Patrick Gobonya: [00:32:02] Yeah, , we look at sustainability in regards of sustainably providing an environment to our athletes, to, get them ready for even a life after e-sports because. Let's be honest. We are not yet there. Where for example, football is, so you, you become a professional football play. You play you're eight years in, in the best leagues, make your millions, and then you become a football agent or a football manager or a football coach or whatever. And you live a nice life till the end of your life. That's not what happens in e-sports yet. So. We also have to help them out to be ready or that's actually, what, what is our core essence that we help them to be ready for life after e-sports if that career doesn't go to the level, they want it to go, or let's say that way. You're only have the ability to perform an e-sports till a certain age, same with traditional sports. So we help them build their channels to keep on having a revenue stream. For example, Twitch, if you're streaming on Twitch and you have your average viewers have five to 10,000 viewers or whatever, it doesn't even need to be a number that high, but you will get. A revenue stream out of it because you have your support to stay. You have your subscribers, you have your donators that interact with you on a daily basis and support you. And by the end of the time, as I always tell it to, to the younger guys, we will help you make your hobby to your job. And that's, that's what we call sustainable. So we're not just looking at the player, signing him whenever he pops off and does great results and then letting him down as soon as the results are not as happy to us as we would love them to be. So we actually, yeah, we take them by the hand and help them grow. Remo Kyburz: [00:33:44] Think it's the first time I hear that a nice port sprint. They start putting that in there. Core approach how to do things. So, that's very cool. I just wanted to get some. Of your learnings for people listening that want to start a company or want to do something in the e-sports space. So do you have any, you know, advice of things you learned now, building ovation? So far. what would you maybe tell yourself? Patrick Gobonya: [00:34:10] I don't know if you can pinpoint it to e-sports, but I would say like my recommendation is to be, open-minded always keep an open mind. Don't fixate yourself on. Things as for example, I mean, I studied something completely different than what I do now. So just be, open-minded take your chances. Chances will always come in life and also connect with others, listen to what others can, can help you out. You don't have to know everything, but you have to know the right people that know everything. And in the end that will help you help you grow. So. Keep keep the right people around you, help you out involve them in whatever you do. And yeah. Keep an open mind. That's in my opinion, the most important thing in life. Remo Kyburz: [00:34:55] Good advice. For people that, might be getting curious about e-sports and also would like to break in maybe looking at my audience, not as a player potentially, but maybe more as like a building a company or doing something in the e-sports or gaming space. Do you see any, you know, trends or, or like, Opportunities in the space that might not be that obvious yet. Like where the whole space is going, developing towards? Patrick Gobonya: [00:35:22] I think it's getting more and more professional overall. I wouldn't, if I had a secret game that has growing currently that only I know of, I wouldn't tell you that. I'm sorry about that. But there actually isn't that I I'd say in regards of games, Valorant, and this is extremely interesting. That's why we put a lot of focus on that. As it is produced by riot, which is one of the most successful gaming companies. as we have seen the e-sports scene in league of legends developed. So I'm pretty curious about what's happening in Valor and that's, that's a very, very interesting game to look at. And if you want to start get, get the right people on boards gets connected to the community. I think that's the most important thing. Know what the community wants try to build your community because in the end. It's it's all about yeah. Who your fans are in the end. And, otherwise, , if you don't have your community supporting you, you won't have the right players signing your deals as they are not interesting in working with you. So I think that's, that's very important in any sports, especially in the beginning and always be open to players. Don't don't hide things. Don't, don't try to fool anyone. Just, just do what you, you can do best. Remo Kyburz: [00:36:38] So towards the end of the podcast, I'm curious to learn a bit more about you as a person as well. And I like to do that with a quick fire round of questions. So I just prepared two or three questions. And if you could give me just your immediate thoughts that will be great. So. Let's get started right away. So what is your favorite game and why ? Patrick Gobonya: [00:36:58] Ah, currently on the plate I, it used to be Rome, total war. That's an insane game. And then it became Fortnite for quite a while. Until I just realized that I'm too slow and not good enough to, compete anymore. And yeah, nowadays my, my favorite games to watch are Fortnite and Valorant Remo Kyburz: [00:37:16] And it's more as a spectator than a player, I guess? Patrick Gobonya: [00:37:19] Yes, more as a spectator, as a player as I don't really have the time to, to play anymore. I usually just spectate our players competing and I think it's, it's a way more entertaining as they know how to play the game compared to me. Yeah. Remo Kyburz: [00:37:31] all right. Cool. If you could give your younger self maybe when you were still in your studies, any advice, what would you tell your younger self? Patrick Gobonya: [00:37:42] That's a tough one, learn harder focus on the things you really love and don't and try to avoid studying stuff. You're you're not interested in just because you think that's, that's the right way to go. , I'm happy to have parents that supported me in doing more or less, what I feel is right. But in the beginning, I didn't really know what was. Right. So find, find your, your, your true love or your true passion and yeah. Per se, that way. Remo Kyburz: [00:38:11] And the next question, I'm not sure if it, if it goes anywhere, it's the first time I asked this question, but I heard it the other day on the front. It's very interesting. What are your current open browser tabs in your browser? Patrick Gobonya: [00:38:22] Some, some rankings of FIFA and other games and apartments as I'm looking at apartments in Munich once again. So, so those are open. Okay. And the rest is e-sports spaced. E-sports rankings in Fortnite tournaments in, yeah. In call of duty. I'm checking out at the moment. As I see, I have a lot of open tabs. I'm a, I'm a tap kind of guy, but 20 different departments. I think that's, that's why I'm focusing on. Remo Kyburz: [00:38:57] Okay. Cool. Yeah. Then I already would like to ask my last question, which I always ask my guests. Since it's related to the name of this podcast. So since a lot of people that listened to the podcast, I think about maybe starting their own thing or to, you know, take the leap to start your own project. So in your own words, what does courage mean to you? Could be in life or in business. Patrick Gobonya: [00:39:20] Courage means to be ready to take risks, I guess. And for me it's, as I said before, be ready to, to yeah, not have a rich life, but to do what you love, because I mean, rich, financial wise, as you. As you do a start up. I think most, most of the startup founders can agree on that in the beginning. It's not a wealthy life. You're not spending as much as as you could , doing something else , for a traditional brand. So yeah. Be, ready to, suffer a little bit, but suffer for, the good cause and for something you love. And Yeah, that's that's what I think is, what awaits you and what, what courage means , to Remo Kyburz: [00:39:59] Hmm. Well, Patrick, thank you very much for coming on the podcast and for this interesting conversation and for giving us the opportunity to learn more about what you're building. So thank you very much for that. To close off. Is there. Anywhere where people can find you or they can find out more about ovation , any websites or other places you want to mention. So feel free. Patrick Gobonya: [00:40:19] First of all, thanks for inviting me. It was a pleasure talking to you. And yeah, you can find us on all kinds of socials. Always ovation e-sports and www dot ovation minus e-sports dot com. That's where you find our webpage. So go check it out. Remo Kyburz: [00:40:37] perfect. And I'll also as always make sure to link all of these links and other things we mentioned, or that Patrick mentioned in this episode, in the show notes. So also the games, if you want to check out Fortnite or Valorant, and you're not sure what they are. So I will link to those as well. If you got curious from this conversation, so . Thanks again, Patrick, and good luck with your future adventures. Patrick Gobonya: [00:40:59] Thank you very much. Outro Remo Kyburz: [00:41:01] Hey, before you go. I just want to ask you for a very small favor. If you get any value out of this podcast, please quickly head over to the Apple podcast store or wherever you are listening to this and give the Leap Takers podcast a positive rating. It just takes 10 seconds. This would really help me to get more visible and I'll be able to continuously bring on great guests to the show. If you want to do even more, you can now easily donate something to support with the costs of this podcast. Just go to Leaptakers.com and you see a coffee mug at the bottom of the page. If you click on it, you can donate a small amount as much as you want. Like buying me a coffee. Which helps me to cover the costs of this podcast, like hosting, editing tools, et cetera. Thank you so much. As always, if you have any feedback or want to get in touch. Just shoot me a message. You can find all my contact info as well as all social channels on Leaptakers.com. Thanks again for listening. And until next time bye-bye.