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Matthew Gunnin
Co-Founder/CTO at Leg Up Learning
As a life long gamer and having started my first company, and sold a year later when I was 15 (to a NY law firm of all things -- long story) I've always had the "itch" to solve problems and build great products for decades.
Made a short-term stint as an engineer lead out of college, but in 2010 the itch became too strong after noticing a significant opportunity in esports. The following year I launched Leaguepedia intending to make an impact in an industry that was just getting started. Built for the community, by the community, Leaguepedia quickly grew to become one of the largest esports websites in the world after surpassing 10 million monthly users within the first six months. Two years later, I sold to Curse, where my team and I stayed on for another year, building their esports division.
Fast forward to 2014, I left Curse, to join one of the early front-runners in streaming, Azubu. With an excellent team that I worked with at Leaguepedia, we overhauled and rebuilt the Content, Product, and Marketing divisions. Part of our strategy was establishing a new leading information resource for all of esports, which led to the launch of Esportspedia. At Azubu's peak, 60% of the users came from Esportspedia.
Following Amazon's acquisition of Twitch, and the limited industry know-how from the executives at Azubu, I left to join Unikrn as their VP of Product. It was the final piece of the puzzle to understand the long-term opportunity and gap in the esports market.
In 2017 I began applying to every startup accelerator and incubator I can find; it only took one meeting with Quake Capital to know I had found a home to get this startup (albeit, just an idea at the time) off the ground. After spending six months in NYC, we found our next home in Boston at MIT PlayLabs, when Esports One began to go from an idea to a product.
In early 2018 I moved Esports One to LA, where an idea formed many years prior, was now a company. Since then, we have built out a first of its kind, Fantasy Esports platform that utilizes real-time computer vision atop years of data insights that are all collected and stored in-house. We are on pace to support 100's of thousands of users by the end of '20 with the ultimate vision for the future of esports viewing set to launch early '21.
I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for the many advisors, mentors, and employees that believed in me along the way. So if you are someone that's just getting started with making your vision a reality, don't hesitate to reach out. I'll do whatever I can to support your journey.
