We all heard it growing up. "You will never make a living playing those video games!" A few years, teenage millionaires and billion dollar forecasts later, people are beginning to change their tune about the esports industry. But there is one major question that still has people scratching their heads even in these industry boom times:

"How do I find a job in esports?"

Enter Gleetz.gg: the first professional social network for gamers, teams and talent alike.

The network aims to bring a LinkedIn style professional structure to the current wild west environment of esports employment.

We spoke with founder Marc "vazy" Berthold about esports, investors and advice for new talent.

Q: First off, in your own words what was the end goal you had in mind when you started gleetz.gg?

I have been in the esports industry for a long time now, as a player, as a team leader, as a team builder etc. I have always felt that something was missing, but I didn't know exactly what. I knew that it was really hard to showcase our achievements as pro gamers, but there was something else.

A few years later, when I saw that the same thing was still missing, I started discussing with Alex (Alex "Maxima" Berthold) and we understood that what was missing was the link between all the talent of the industry.

We had to spend hours on hundreds of websites to find the right information and we couldn't find new talented players outside the circle we had.

It was really tough to build strong relationships with sponsors and companies, so our goal when we first thought of gleetz.gg was really to be able to offer the whole industry a professional social network helping all parties to connect and interact with each other. Where each could find all they need, on just one platform.

We have seen esports growing and have grown with it, so we want to do everything we can in order to provide people with the best tools to enjoy their passion as much as possible.

gleetz.gg pitches their solution for the esports employment problem

Q: They say the wrong investor is as bad as a poor business model. When you first set out to find investors, how hard was it to find folks that genuinely understood esports?

That is absolutely true. Having the right investor, especially at an early stage of your company, can make it or break it.

There are a lot of sharks willing to enter esports which they see and believe to be the new Eldorado. But esports is not like this and it is definitely not our mindset. A lot of people think they understand esports and want you to believe that they do, but one meeting is enough to understand that the intentions are different.

Finding people who are ready to invest in esports and who can understand the market is a full-time job. It is really really hard. We were really glad to receive the support of the football club S.L. Benfica through KickUP Sports, as it gives us international exposure and credibility.

Sports clubs have often show willingness to invest in esports

We are currently raising 500 000€ and believe me when I say that, it is a very long process. For us, as a professional social network, we need to find investors who have experience in esports, but also knowledge about social networks.

That is really important and we will continue searching until we find the right one for this round. A bad decision at this stage can really ruin all the work and efforts done previously.

Q: Changing the topic from investors to consumers, are there any particular games that are getting the most engagement on gleetz?

Obviously CS:GO and League of Legends are a bit ahead due to the higher number of people playing these games. But we also have a lot of players from Rainbow 6 Siege, FIFA and more surprisingly, since the community is smaller, fighting games!

We are really happy about this because it shows that we manage to gather people across different communities on one platform and make them interact with each other.