The Faces Behind GewdGame: Meet the Team!
Fact: any modern company worth its salt knows that a business is only as strong as its team. For startups, especially, a team — however small — can make up for its size by prioritizing diversity in skills and expertise. That’s how we roll — our tiny team could hardly be more diverse than we already are: we’ve got a master chef, an amiibo collector, an astrology debunker, a streamer, a grammar nazi, and two herbivores. Can you guess who’s who? Presenting the GewdGame team!
Danijel ‘Pančo’ Pančić
Favorite game: Fallout 2
First game: Pssst for ZX Spectrum
Collector’s editions owned: +20 and counting
Steam account value: +€4000
When it comes to development and actually building GewdGame, Danijel is our man. One of our co-founders, Danijel has a wealth of experience in building web-based products as well as development teams. Before starting GewdGame, he spent over two years in the role of Head of Development at one of the longest-standing crypto exchanges, Bitstamp. Under his leadership, the development team more than tripled, both in size and productivity. In fact, in his own words, he is proudest that the team, although still small, had become far more than the sum of its parts. Ever the avid learner, he quickly absorbed all there was to know about bitcoin and blockchain technology, and took it upon himself to organize various educational talks for his colleagues.
This was not his first foray into fin-tech waters, however. Interestingly (and ironically) enough, Danijel got his first hands-on experience as a software developer back in 2006 by working on the back-end systems for several major Slovenian banks and the national lottery while he was part of software development agency Parsek. After three years with the company, Danijel started looking for new professional challenges — eventually joining Zemanta, one of the first Silicon Valley-style startups in Slovenia that managed to secure capital funding in the US. He stayed with Zemanta for over five years, eventually advancing to the role of Lead Front-End Developer. Danijel was in charge of development of one of Zemanta’s products at the time, the Widget for bloggers, which was eventually sold off by the company. Zemanta was recently acquired by Israeli-based Outbrain.
Žan ‘Shokugeki’ Zupančič
Favorite game: League of Legends
First game: God of War
Hours streamed to date: +800
The freshest addition to the GewdGame roster comes in the form of Žan. His viewers on Twitch — where he streams regularly — know him as Shokugeki, and he also runs a vlog on YouTube under the same name. Žan has been active on the local esports scene for the past five years, both as a competitor and shoutcaster for League of Legends tournaments.
His nickname combines another two of his passions: a chef by profession, he says he was inspired by Shokugeki no Soma, an anime series about the eponymous “food wars” set in a fictional culinary academy. At GewdGame, Žan is in charge of reaching out to potential partners in esports and building relations with them, as well as being an integral member of our testing team!
Vesna ‘Naerwenya’ Drofenik
Favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
First game: Super Mario World
Turf inked in Splatoon to date: +200,000p
Last but certainly not least my own self, a literal Master of marketing and operations in the making, Vesna. I am GewdGame’s other co-founder and like to think of myself as the oil that makes sure the GewdGame engine keeps running smoothly. While I come hailing from a decidedly more B2B-oriented business background, I first dipped my toes in entrepreneurial waters way back in 2012, when I founded a short-lived online store selling footwear. In order to improve my business skills, Iwent back to school at age 24 to study economics. I later spent two years with ecommerce startup Shopamine where I was in charge of managing the office and also helped out with customer support and marketing. It was then that I first started flirting with content and digital marketing. I parted ways with the company in spring 2016 to participate in a semester long short-term exchange program in Hiroshima, Japan, an experience that profoundly impacted my development as a young professional.
Upon returning to my homeland of Slovenia in September 2016, I joined ABC Accelerator, a private startup accelerator active in the region. At first helping out with scouting and outreach to potential participants in ABC’s acceleration program, I later assumed the role of managing ABC’s coworking offices and event venue, ABC Hub. Having achieved impressive growth in both the number of coworkers renting the offices and the number of events hosted for the local tech community, I was the natural candidate for the newly vacant Marketing Manager position with the company. I ended up staying in the role for about 9 months until leaving the company to start GewdGame in early 2018.
So there you go! That’s our tiny team as of August 2018. We’ll surely be hiring more fantastic individuals (preferably gamers) soon, so keep an eye on our social media (or, even better, join us on Discord) and you’ll be the first to know when a position is open!
GewdGame is an esports talent marketplace and matching platform helping competitive gamers to build up their skills and manage their teams. Find and hire great teams, players or coaches using our marketplace — or just find a practice match partner!
Join us on Discord, Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or better yet — sign up and start getting Gewd today!
