Steve Arhancet has his dream job. As the co-owner of Team Liquid, he runs one of the most popular professional gaming organizations in the world.
His teams compete in professional leagues and tournaments in every major competitive video game, earning big cash prizes and netting lucrative sponsorships from companies like HTC, Nissan, and Red Bull.
It didn’t start that way. In 2012, Arhancet left behind his six-figure salary as a Washington D.C.-based consultant to build a business from scratch based around a professional video gaming team. Along the way, Arhancet has had to use every skill he learned on the corporate ladder to grow his team in a cutthroat market.
Team Liquid is still a work in progress, but in a dynamic and growing space like professional video gaming, the team has the chance to become the next Yankees.
Arhancet wakes up at 6:30 a.m. Though the majority of the pro-gaming world doesn't start their day before 12 p.m., Arhancet has found it hard to let go of his East Coast-go-getter mentality.
While eating breakfast, Arhancet takes a look at his calendar for the day. It is absurdly packed. As Team Liquid's general manager Steve Perino told me, Arhancet is often so busy meeting with sponsors and e-sports organizations that if Perino asks to discuss an issue, Arhancet's answer is "Find an empty slot in my calendar." There aren't usually many.
At 7:00 a.m., Arhancet takes a call with his co-owner Victor Goossens, who is based in the Netherlands, to discuss what needs to get done that day. The two merged Arhancet's Team Curse — which focused on League of Legends, the most popular game right now — with Goosens' Team Liquid, which had teams in every other major e-sport, to create a professional gaming juggernaut. The deal is still fresh, so they are still working out the details.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
