SCORE: The life of an esports founder

A few weeks ago, we were lucky to meet and spend time with Jacqueline Garrett, co-founder and CEO of GGWP Academy. Here’s a little more from her about building your own esports company.

The past six months have been a whirlwind of activity; networking, writing training material and being selected for a global startup accelerator in Berlin! The life of this Aussie esports/gaming founder just got WAY more exciting in 2018.

GGWP is my startup and I’m a solo female founder who happens to be backed by an incredible team and entering one of the fastest growing (and male-dominated) industries on earth. The buzz around esports is highly contagious right now and everyone from 10-year-olds to investors knows it’s shit hot. J-Lo, Ashton Kutcher and Michael Jordan, they know what’s up.

The fantastic thing about GGWP is that it combines so much of my life into one (almost) neat package. The truth is, I have a game streaming husband, a 10-year-old son, who is signed with a top-tier esports team, and a great deal of my fondness for gaming started with my Commodore 64.

It made sense for me to exit my first startup and begin building GGWP. So, let’s rewind to August this year when I found out that I would be one of nine startups from over 480 applicants, selected from all over the world, to attend Berlin for the leAD sports accelerator.

You might ask why I would apply for a German accelerator when Australia has so many, there’s an easy answer to this. Networking. Germany is home to some of the largest and most established esports/gaming companies in the world, companies like; ESL, Bitkraft and Unikrn. This is something Australia just couldn’t offer. Plus, only around 20% of Aussie startups that get funded, actually find investment within Australia.