Meet the 2023 Dare to Scale Cohort – Augment
Let’s rewind the clock to the beginning. How did your company come to life? Was it a eureka moment, a late-night brainstorming session, or a happy accident?
I had the concept for esports coaching/tech since 2018. Most of my teenage years I spent in competitive gaming and sports (football). While I was playing games competitively, regardless of the genre I kept noticing how players at the highest levels were making some fundamental mistakes. Most of the quality knowledge in the esports scene is done via either a lot of studying of other pro players or by being with better players by swapping semi-pro teams all the time. The entire process to become better is still not straightforward at all. The main difference I noticed was how sports has solid foundational training since you are a kid but nothing similar existed at the time for gaming. Esports generally is still in its infancy when it comes to player development and even the major game publishers barely cover the topic themselves on how the competitive game titles should be played properly within the game.
Tell us about the accomplishment that makes you do a happy dance or fist pump in the air. What is your proudest moment to date?
Well, the major one is forming the amazing crew in Augment. I feel lucky to have such quality people in the team and we wouldn’t be talking about any other accomplishments without mentioning the team first.
Regarding an accomplishment within Augment, the first one was definitely when we got our first clients. We had launched 3 months earlier but it was during the off season of the esports circuit and we couldn’t do much proper validating as the teams were not playing (never doing that one again). Then when the season started in January 2021, we had 15 clients right away and the word of mouth was getting out of hand. It was a great sense of relief knowing that those months invested previously weren’t wasted and we had a reality check that we are moving in the proper direction. That, and working with the best game publisher in esports Riot Games. Seeing our product at the biggest events in the esports industry was and still is surreal.
Dare to Scale is here to help with your entrepreneurial journey, but we’re curious about your wildest dreams and aspirations! Do you envision scaling your company to new galaxies, conquering untapped markets, or revolutionizing your industry? Share your boldest dreams and let your imagination soar!
Our vision long-term is to enable other companies building on top of games to utilize our tech. Our goal is to provide a marketplace where we create new opportunities for game publishers but also their communities who want to build products on top of their beloved games. The vast majority of successful titles in gaming within the competitive space were just concepts, initially built from the community and it’s a great signal that the publishers are moving in such a direction to work with their communities on improving their games even further.
From the outset, we knew that solving global challenges requires operating at a global scale, so scaling has never been a choice for us, but rather the logical next step. As we enter into uncharted territories, we are extremely happy to have found partners who believe in our vision and the potential to transform the industry.