okay welcome back to the daily mastermind george wright the third here with your daily dose of inspiration motivation and education and i i've got an awesome guest here today with uh with us on the podcast titus walker welcome hey thanks for having me man thank you so much this is good you know listen i know we we had a chance to talk a little bit beforehand but i think we're going to get into some cool stuff. But before we do, I want to give them kind of a little bit of your background. So Titus is the CEO and founder of the Ultimate End Gamer League, UEL. And his goal is for that to be the NFL of esports. But you've got a pretty diverse background. You've gone from real estate to gaming, to starting your own company, growing a community, creating a brand. We're going to get into all of that. But I really love what you've done in a very short period of time. So you've got some great nuggets I'm sure you can share with our audience. So once again, just super glad to have you here, man. Yeah, thanks. Thanks so much, man. Appreciate the intro too. Yeah, no worries. No worries. And I know we're going to be able to do some other things too in the future. So let's do this. I always like to give our audience a little bit of a framework for the success that you and I kind of touched on. So help us to understand where you came from, right? You mentioned that you've been in real estate and then you went into this. let's just start real quick with Titus's background. Like, did you grow up like a, you know, side hustle type of guy? Like, well, how did, where did you come from? And then how did you get into, tell them a little bit about how you got into real estate and we'll go from there. Yeah, absolutely. Always been a side hustle guy. So I was introduced to gaming when I was probably like five or six years old and it was Mortal Kombat. My dad introduced me to Mortal combat one on sega genesis and um loved it kind of just fell in love with the the the gaming um part of it i played a lot of games as a kid um fast forward to elementary school um i was selling candy bars you know by going to i found out you could buy in bulk candy bars and i'm like doing the math in my head i'm talking to my mom like hey like you know we can sell these for a lot more and make a lot of money. And so she would take me to the store and buy Butch candy bars and sell them. Well, that's funny you say that because I was just at dinner last night talking to buddies about how I used to buy those boxes of candy bars at school. I'd have them in my duffel bag. And I'd just always be the guy. It's like, yeah, you need something to eat. Here you go, man. Like, I'm just constantly all the time. That's funny. Okay, keep going. Yeah, graduated from that, started selling sneakers, did that very successfully. And then found out, kind of got into the insurance world and was doing both of those, selling sneakers and doing the insurance thing. And then I actually, I got sick. I don't even know what the sickness was, but I got really sick. And while I was sick, I was thinking a lot because I was in the hospital. Realized I wanted to try something different. And so I just happened to have an email that said that a company was hiring and it was like a real estate developer. I never heard of it, never heard of that, but I figured I'd put myself out there, went to an interview, got hired. And that was kind of what transitioned me into the real estate world. And I did really, really well, hundreds of millions of revenue, you know, of dollars in revenue over my eight year or so career. kind of did a lot of throughout that did my own real estate deals and and um created then created the gaming thing um about four years let me back you up just a question so what do you think was one of the keys to your success in a brand new industry you know you were in it eight years you said you did all this success i mean was it all like the chart all up into the right i mean just all easy going like what did you have to did you study a lot what helped you become successful in industry you had no clue about i think in everything i've ever done i spend a lot of time understanding the industry and the people around the industry so that it's not just like it's wild because nowadays you you really can find out anything you ever want to know um whether it's true or not you know you can find anything you ever want to know um online and i i started doing that when Ask Jeeves was the thing before, you know, it was Google, you know, once that, that idea or that concept of, oh, I can find this somewhere came out, that was, that was everything. And so I would, I would just, I would Google everything. And I, knowledge is like something that I really crave. So I read a lot, I read a lot of books. Never read a book until I was like 28. But since then, I read, you know, six, seven books a month easily. And so anyways, yeah, that was kind of the key thing is just when I get into an industry, I really, really want to know it inside and out. So it wasn't just that I studied the real estate market. I studied the financial market. I studied the economy. I studied the industries outside of housing, like lumber industries. You're an active learner for sure. Yes. It's funny because when we say this a lot on this podcast, but you hear it in personal and financial development is you've got to be curious and you've got to be an active learner. And I think people sometimes feel like they're too busy and they don't realize the value of that because obviously success leaves clues. And if individuals like yourself are learning and evolving because they're so eager to do that, that's a big reason for your success. But I think it also, from what you told me earlier, it's probably another reason that you went into gaming because at the end of the day, your curiosity and your exposure to people and things like that is what put you out there to be aware of things. So tell us a little bit about what took you that transition into gaming, because I know, you know, people hear all the time. It's like, I want to make money gaming. And you think, oh, my gosh, like that's not. But nowadays we're talking legit. Right. So what was the transition point? And were you thinking to yourself, oh, man, is this even a possibility or were you like, I got this? What was the transition? Yeah. So the transition, I went in studying the market. I saw how cyclical it was, how it was like so many ups and downs. And it got to a point where I just kept telling my wife, like, I have to have something else because what I won't do is go backwards. What I won't do is depend on this one industry that I know eventually is going to take a turn for the worse. And when it does, I don't want to be left holding the bag, as they say in you know, the stock market. So I, you know, started a trading company, then started like, I had all kinds of different businesses that I was trying pouring money into and trying to get to work. But none of them really drove me, none of them really, it was like, I would try something because I knew I needed to try something. But eventually, there was something that just clicked. And it really was when I started the gaming arcade idea and research, and I started really diving into it, something clicked. There was something so different about it that it was clear not only that there were serious needs in the industry, but that the industry was like, it was broken. like like uh something was was clearly broken and you didn't know exactly what it was but i gotta back you up for a second because i think people um need to really understand the point you just made and that is you know people a lot of times number one are so busy living their life that they're not looking and they're not trying to prepare themselves so that's the kind of the first point i really like that you made and then the second is they they sit around and they say i don't know what I want to do. I don't know. And what you're saying you did is you just started trying things. You just, you're doing trading, you're investing, whatever you were trying things. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, at least ones I've met do the same thing. Like they dabble into things, they try things and, and, and then they find it because the question I have for you is you didn just wake up one day and go you know gaming would be a good thing to do I leaving real estate and going to gaming right You doing things And do you feel like you would have even come across it if you weren just out there looking No absolutely not I mean at the end of the day I was very successful. I mean, I mean, like very, I, you know, bought a nine bedroom house and driving a Porsche and there was absolutely no reason for me to have anything outside of that, you know um and you know people would tell me that all the time you know like what are you doing can't you just be happy with what you have and it was hard to explain because there was just that drive that that like this isn't it i don't i don't know why but it's not it you know i'm gonna ask you it it doesn't sound like you weren't happy with real estate because you seem like the kind of guy that's probably happy doing whatever you want to do but you felt that need to continue to to diversify is that a safe bet to say okay yeah it was just it was it was more that like I want to I want to continue to grow if I don't I'm addicted to progress like addicted to it it's like if I don't see progress I really struggle in life if I if I'm not progressing in some way and so like I even had it's to the point where I have this know a lot of people know this, but I have a game that I play daily because it's a progress game. It literally just, it gives me, it's 10 minutes a day, first thing in the morning, but it gives me that little bit of progress to know, okay, I've accomplished something. And then I move on with my day and I accomplished stuff outside of it, but it just gives me that, like, that, that, I don't know, that, that feeling like feeding the addiction. That dopamine hit or whatever that need to fulfill, right? Because, man, I hear you there. And I love that point you made because, I mean, people a lot of times we breeze over stuff like that but you know being happy where you're at i'm telling you if more entrepreneurs could get addicted to progress rather than destination they would be killing it and you literally have a game you do every day like as a ritual to kind of give you that little hit of progress that's cool i'm gonna have to get more details on that too but but that's so that's something you do every day so you feel progress but you've recognize progress. So you're out doing all this stuff and you came across gaming. And I guess the question I have is, did you notice it fit within your passion or did you notice the opportunity in it first? What was it that attracted you to it? It was the opportunity first. At first, it was the thought that, oh, I can create this and it's something that I love. And maybe, you know, because I had done so many other things and all of them were like, oh, this is something I like. Maybe, you know, maybe this is it, you know. But with this in particular, at first it was that. But very quickly, I had the University of Mary Washington put together like a research piece. and I remember they're they're reading it to me and explaining like the the niche that that uh or the industry and how um you know this is the average this is the the market and it was like at that time it was like 150 billion dollars and you know all that stuff like that and the average gamer plays 24 games a year and I'm thinking to my I've been doing research already and then they hit me with that and i was like hold on how many like 24 games a year and i was like well every other gaming competition is one game how on earth like why would you why would you do it that way if they're if you're playing if they play 24 games a year and there's 2.5 billion gamers out there that are playing on average 24 games a year why would i pigeonhole myself into one game like that doesn't make a lot of sense so i started yeah and i want to i want to make sure because you you you talk this language but and this is important listen if you're listening to this podcast i want you to hear this um it's very important to understand the mindset of what he's talking about there's a billion dollars in the esports type industry 250 billion in gaming but how many total gamers did you just say there's how many 2.5 billion 2.5 billion gamers and most of them when you say play one game you mean there's just one core game that they stay gaming on right the all of the businesses that are trying to create a community they play one core game all the gamers play 24 got it so it's like even the industry isn't feeding the gamers you know what i mean it's like it's it's a backwards um concept they'd be like creating a basketball league that only dribbles there's no shooting involved you know what i mean it's kind of like what are you doing there's other parts of this that are not being included. And all of these gamers, and this is like anything in life, most people, they're all just in it. And they don't think about those kind of things. You, however, are going through the lens of opportunity, problems and solutions. And you see that you're like, wait, why would you just play one game? Why not 24, like go out there? So, okay, keep going, because the opportunity got really deep and you really took action on the opportunity. So what did you do so uh and and i like that you said that because it's a thing i always say is henry ford's quote if i would have asked the consumer what they wanted they would have said a faster horse and that's really all there is to it they don't know what they want they don't know like they're doing what's put in front of them not realizing there could be something better for them um and so anyway so i i so i i look into that research and then i started thinking like okay let me look up every other esports platform and i i dove deep i mean i went so far into it and was just like really like breaking down okay what are these platforms doing how are they generating revenue how are they and it was like so blatantly obvious like oh they're not they're not making money they're not they're not really as successful as even they try to portray themselves to be They're not like, you know, they have these massive communities that they don't really own and they know it. And the question is, there's a video game, NBA or Madden 2K22, right? Madden 2K22, 2022. How long is that game going to be good for? How long is that community good for? Right. Because you're seeing the communities were forming around a game. Right. Got it. Or loot. It's short loot. it's like okay so I build this whole community and then a new game comes out because the developers don't care about my community they're not building it for my community they're building and there's only one person making money the game the game right like yeah yes and so I I kept I just kept like kind of driving into that research and realized like okay there's literally no other there's no community or gaming industry or gaming league or anything like that that focuses on anything outside of one game not one not a single one and i'm like how can i be the only person that's thinking like this so then i um i started researching more of like the the the developer side to see okay what are their rules and regulations around the game itself um and i realized okay so if i don't advertise or have a a focus in my community on any particular title then i don't have to worry about the licensing because we're not we don't have to focus on paying you to license your game i don't have to worry about um even like if i'm bringing in revenue if it's not because of your game and it's because of my league instead now i don't have to worry about that so i was like okay so i need to think of something like that then i researched every pro league in history the UFC, the NFL, the NBA, the MLB, how did they begin? And what really, you know, set them off? What really caused the explosion? And like, how did they really build what they built? Because if you think basketball now, you think NBA, right? Yeah, NFL, NBA, MLB. You think that, right? And so even UFC, I mean, you think about it, like nobody knew what it was. And now it's like, ah, everybody knows, right? but it wasn't always that way right and i grew up watching the ufc and i was just i never watched a ufc match in my life right but i was so into the business of ufc because i i always would watch the tap out guys i don't know if you ever like oh yeah and they're going to every game and that's how they built their full like um brand is just by going to all the matches and having tap out on it and so um and so i went what led you to build the uel right like basically i figured out how to guilt build my league and I didn have to worry about licensing I didn have to worry about that But are you saying you patterned what you did off the successful track record of what these other major leagues have done? You didn't go out and say, how do I create the UEL? You went out and said, how did the NBA? How do I create a new sport? How do I build a new industry? Because NBA is its own industry. They own the basketball. If they change a rule, what happens to basketball yeah everyone changes it right yeah NFL changes a rule what happens in football and everything changes and that's that is an industry that is controlled right how often do you get to control an industry not often but I can tell you esports is not controlled by anybody and why because it's never changed past the one game and you don't own the game so you don't own the industry and no single game owns all of the other games and developers can create new games whenever they want. And so there's no way to really control it without controlling the people around it. But there's a shift you did, which is, you know, you saw an opportunity, which like you said, if you ask these most people, they would tell you what they want. Yeah. But you saw an opportunity. But I feel like from what we've talked about, you shifted your paradigm, not to say, how could I do more? How do I create an industry? How do I create it? That's a paradigm shift that you've done consistently. And I tell you, man, it was just all easy going, no brain damage. You just started this thing. People started knocking down your door and it was all easy going. Yeah, right. No. Yeah. I mean, so when I first came up with the concept, um it was very much a shift of um i i i'll take ufc as an example the way i had to shift people's brains was before ufc you had boxing jujitsu wrestling um all these different uh we'll call them genres of fighting there were all these different genres of fighting that um were successful on their own um they were doing okay they didn't need the ufc um per se but somebody came in and said, I'm going to redesign fighting because fighting as a whole was never actually like nobody ever thought of it, which is weird to say, but they didn't think, oh, let's do a fighting tournament. Right. So I was like, OK, well, why don't we do the same thing? Let's do a gaming tournament. It's not about a game. It's gaming. And so we took the genres of gaming and there's five major genres, fighting games, sports games, shooting games, racing games, and strategy games. Those are the five major genres in gaming, right? And so I combine them and I say, the games are irrelevant. These are the genres of games that we play. And so when someone asks, oh, what game do you play? Oh, well, we play 33 different games around these genres, right? And that's it. We don't ever have to talk about the game because the games are relevant. But was that shift? Well, first I had to convince people. Yeah. How did you make that shift? Because usually in marketing, I'm a marketer. The last thing you want to do is try to get people to change what they're thinking to want your product. That's the hardest thing in the world. So to make that shift is the genius, right? So what did you have to do? So and I'll say the reality of it is I spent three years with everyone telling me that I was wrong three years where every single person I came across would say it's never gonna take right it's not gonna work it's never gonna happen like you just need to do it the way everybody else is why don't you just do it this way you know um because I was I was building a community but the entire community was telling me you're doing it wrong you know what I mean so it's like just that constant like and so this this last year I haven't had a single person tell me I'm doing it wrong not one not a single they never do they never do one to great success man it's like come on oh now you're all best friends y'all thought it was gonna work all along right right what did you do though like is it was a person are you saying it was persistence or did you come up with something And so what I did was I really focused on first building a community of people that just enjoyed gaming. And gaming has never been seen as an art form, but I see it as an art form. It's a form of expression. When you sit down and you play a game, you're expressing yourself. You play the game a certain way based on how you express yourself. and the esports environment as it is does not allow any form of expression every single rule down to the very minute details are is in a rule book that you have to live by so you have to play the game is this way it doesn't count or you have to do it and so i opened it up and said no we're just playing the game express yourself in this game how you how you feel fit how you want to play the game is is the right way and eventually of course we'll get you know the people that are playing and winning, doing it a certain way. And so most people will follow that. But then eventually somebody comes around and defeats them and does it a different way. Right. So I had to convince them first that gaming is an art. It's an art form. It's a form of expression. And there's nothing wrong with expressing yourself differently. That was tough. You really just, it's tough. But what you did was you really tapped into ultimately what they're going to love the most, right? because structure and rules you know in discipline is good i'm not saying guys listen discipline's good but structure is the greatest enemy to growth because you're so confined into what you think you don't even you don't even realize that are you kidding me there's a better way to do this so you're saying you were just persistently letting them express themselves over yeah and and i think that that focus allowed them to feel like they were somewhere special even if they didn't understand it or believe in it fully um and i can i can say like until like i said about a year ago they didn't believe in it um but now i do believe that everybody believes in it you know what though i would i would say but but during that time they loved it it's not that they didn't love it it's kind of like yes well if if i ask you in hindsight now it's like hey man let's charge 10 bucks for cups of coffee and we'll make a, we'll make a place. People can come hang out. You'd be like, bro, you're up in the night. It's like Starbucks. Hello, you know, or the dollar shave club. Hey, let's go start a company that, you know, we can charge a dollar for a razor. And you're like, dude, you'll never make any money. Sold for billions of dollars. So, so persistency is good, but I think you tapped into human nature and it sounded like you were playing the end game. I mean, you weren't like, all right, we got to get into this thing, selling merch, moving some products, getting things so you're pretty patient if you waited three years right it was never about the money it was like you know initially we charged people to go pro but then once they went pro and then we only had 14 pros season one we're on season seven now um with the competition is for a hundred thousand dollars we do three hundred thousand dollars a year um but um the the um the idea was it was never for the money. So once someone made it into the pros, they never paid another dollar. Since then, they've never paid another dollar. And that was because in my head, it wasn't about the money. It wasn't about like, it really truly was about changing a narrative around gaming, but also giving people an opportunity to do what they love and actually get the money that is deserved to them. Because even now, if I am a streamer and I have a community of 100,000 people that watch me, that game does not pay me to play their game. They don't. They don't do it. It's funny that you said all these people are like, that's not the way to do it. And yet, so the way you're doing it where you make no money is the way to do it? Like, people just don't think what they're saying coming out of their mouth. And, bro, you did a phenomenal job because I will say you went into this, and correct me if I'm wrong, But you went into this, you were looking at opportunity, but you weren't greedy and short-term focused. You were looking for a way to do it. You tapped into community. And the most important thing I wanted to kind of hit here, and I want you to validate this or tell me if I'm up in the night, you didn't know what this was going to end up looking like three, four years down the road. Like, you just started. I mean you had some ideas right But if you had waited to figure out how you were going to be able to convince people to do something you had the whole plan all put together you probably wouldn be where you at right yeah yeah and that 100 right i just just i went for it um and i i never looked back like i i had so many kind this this this is honestly the first time in my life this has ever happened where I truly told myself, like, I would die for this. Like, I would really, truly die for this. Like, this is something that I will do until, right until the wheels fall off. I will go down with this ship, like, and that form of commitment, I've never really, outside of my marriage and my kids, like, I've never had that, you know, in any type of, like, any business or any, like, you know, things outside of, you know, like I said, the people in my life, of course, but things I've never really had that. And I think like what I've, what I, what, what I've built has turned into a person in my life. Like, you know, they say it's your baby, right? Yeah. It's your baby. You know, you did, you, you, you moved forward. You, you're addicted to progress, right? We got that. But I, but I feel like you discovered a couple of things that are pretty common to entrepreneurs and successful people that I've met, which is you ultimately aligned with your unique talent, meaning things that you were doing great, but you love doing. So that is something that aligned for you. And you also were just willing to say yes, and then figure it out. And so using those character traits, I'm going to ask you this question. Do you see this industry and what you're doing, and maybe this is why you're so passionate about it do you see it being much bigger than it ever is going to be like you say the nfl of esports right how big a vision do you have for this it'll be bigger than the nfl nba mlb combined like combined big vision man yes um i mean there's what 400 million people that play football right 200 and something million that play basketball or something like that 2.5 billion gamers and it grows every day new generation they all play games right and so it's going to be bigger than all of those you can play football virtually and you can play basketball but how many NFL players when I can give them a contract big enough how many of them will leave to play in my league instead because they just enjoy video games I have NFL players that play in my league now so like but how do you know when I can when I can cut them a check big enough will lead because they're like, I don't want to do this to my body. That is real stuff. I got to ask you this because I'm sure people are listening to this. They're going, man, I've got to find a niche like that. There's got to be something. But I think something that helps a majority of people because they're stuck is how do you make it through three years of people telling you, no, no, it's not going to happen, not going to happen. And you're just like, yeah, I'm sold on this. What's something you do daily, weekly? What do you recommend to people that maybe feel like they've got something that they're passionate about, but they're just here and know everywhere they go? What did you do? I wish I could. You're wired that way? Are you wired that way? Or do you also? No, I'm not. I've started and ended so many businesses within a three, four, five, six month period, like so many times and this by far was the hardest one I've ever done it was the hardest journey I've ever had I started the business idea the concept we um locked down a location for the first um first arena um and my business partners the day before signing the the lease backed out two of them, two out of six of them. And then after signing the lease about a month later, another two out of six. And they wanted, they sued me for their original investment. And I had to pay that back. And then, and so, and then I, you know, my job gave me the ultimatum of if you do this, we're going to fire you. And then, so it's like, I've never had so much adversity in anything in my life. but I've also never felt as much peace in anything I've ever done, like ever. And I think I can, I can attribute that. Like, I think, you know, God has given me a lot of strength and I think that I've put my head down and just trusted that what I know to be true is true. Um, and And it's funny because you have those same common characteristics that I think people got to realize, and I say it all the time, it's like success leaves clues, guys. If you're listening to this, you've got to pick, you got to read between the lines of aligning with things that you're passionate about, getting started even if you haven't, you don't know how it's going to come together, active learning, lifetime learning, right? But I feel like there's a level of resolve that you've had in your life, meaning you made the decision and you're just committed to doing it. So many people, I used the term earlier, but they dabble. I really would love to try this. I'd love to try that. Things get bad. They shut it down. They go to the next thing. We're all like shiny object entrepreneurs, right? But this definitely seems to be a project, a topic, a focus that you're resolved and committed to do. This is what you're going to do and you've made that decision, right? Yeah. I was losing $150,000 a year for three years. wow that's a commitment man a commitment was your wife like what in the hell are you thinking man yeah yeah i had to have a good support structure because there's no way you keep doing that and you you come home at night and feel like you can make it well i mean luckily i made a lot of money but like it's still like just money that was it just felt like for a long time it felt like it was just going out the window it was just like you know and people didn't appreciate it either so it made it that much harder but you gotta have a when you have a big enough vision though those things don't stop you it's people that don't have a big enough vision I mean I mean let's be honest like the NFL v sports were bigger than combined NFL NBA and MLB like that's a pretty big vision that'll take you through some obstacles and so not unless I know we're short on time and I want to respect your time as well um one of the things I loved about when I first met you you know and we talked a little bit as I said you know what what can we do to help you and you're like brother i just want to you know promote the brand get it out there like everybody hasn't asked and you didn't and that was awesome so even with that said man we want to do everything we can how can people follow you where can they find you help us understand where's the best way they can support and get connected because i guarantee we got a lot of gamers listening as well so yeah for sure um so you can follow us on all uh social media and our website is the same as well at uel esports or uelesports.com so uel just like the shirt uel esports.com and then uel on all social media um we're on every single one instagram is probably our most updated or discord if you are looking to become a player um which at this point it's not super easy to become a player but if you got the skills then um you can definitely do it hey if you got the if you got the dream and you want to develop the skills to do it but you said there's jumping through hoops but man there's nothing like 300 grand a year put out there to kind of motivate you. That's good. That's good, too. Well, listen, man, I appreciate you sharing some of your success nuggets. I know that people are going to be listening to this thinking, I don't know, man. And then, you know, years from now, you can go back and say, remember when I said the NFL of esports and I got it on recording. Now let's do this. So I know those people are going to I know people are going to learn a lot from just your message and your commitment, your your consistency and things like that. So I do appreciate it and hopefully have a lot more things. So thank you so much for joining us today, for sure. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This has been great, really, seriously. Oh, man. No, definitely. Well, listen, everybody, as always, like and subscribe to the podcast. If you do me a favor and share the episode of Mean the World to Me, it'll get more out there, you know, getting the inspiration and motivation they need to create your best life. So do me a favor, do that. I look forward to talking with you more tomorrow. Once again, my name is George Wright III. Been here with Titus Walker on The Daily Mastermind. Have an amazing day. Talk with you soon.
