ASG Esports Facility celebrates two years
On Thursday May 25, 2023, All Systems Go Esports Facility celebrated its 2 year anniversary. CEO and Co-Founder, Devin LaPlume, answered questions about where the facility idea started, challenges they faced and successes they have experienced.
Q: Where did the idea of ASG Esports Facility come from?
A: I transferred from CCRI, which is a community college in Rhode Island and was going to school for fashion at URI. I was in like footwear and design, so that was my whole thing. I was collecting shoes, selling shoes. I was into streetwear, and all that stuff. My now business partner was down in Florida, in college, and during the summer, when we met up she said, “Hey, college isn’t for me,” it was like, kind of the same thing for me. I hated the party lifestyle, all the college stuff, right? I always wanted to know, how do I make millions of dollars every year? How do I live a life of the highest degree? You know what I mean? I don't want to do anything basic. I want to make sure I'm doing the most, and how do I get there. So I was always trying different stuff. She had this idea for building a place where people could go and play games. I played games, obviously, like I dabbled in stuff like always gaming grown up, but nothing competitive. We started learning about eSports, specifically, and then we started traveling to understand what eSports was, we started going to conventions and visiting different places to see what was out there. Then we built up a business plan and got the investment.
Q: What are some challenges you guys first faced when you were first working up the company coming up with a business plan and trying to get it rolling?
A: As soon as you clear one, there's just five on the other side. So like, the first one was, oh, yeah, we gotta get money to be able to do it. Once you build a business plan, you have to find the money once you get the money or you have someone who's on board. It's like, you got 10 different things to think about. Then it was how do we get a liquor license? All of a sudden you're looking at real estate – do you buy a building? Do you lease a space? Understanding that whole market. There's so many ways to just keep branching the further down you get. It's like a never ending cycle.
Q: Did you always want to expand with ASG Connect and ASG Consulting? How did those come about?
A: It just happened. About a year ago, we just wanted to grow in different areas. So it all happened naturally, both those companies, doing the extra things happened just by looking at what the opportunities were in the industry, how can we adapt?
Q: Any really mentionable highlights, rewarding accomplishments,milestones hit in the last two years?
A: It was our first ever tournament that we did here that we hosted. It was an Apex tournament. I just got into a relationship with Red Bull. I asked them if they would give us $1,500 for a prize pool, and they did. I thought we got like 60 signups, and we were like, wow, like, that's a good amount of players. I had built the bracket the night before, stayed up late, and slotted all 60 people in it. As soon as we unlocked the door, it's like 11am and the place started getting packed. I went into our software and somehow, when they were getting signed up, it was splitting into two different areas so half the people weren't even accounted for. I was like, oh my god, I built the whole bracket based on the 60, I don't even know how I'm going to run this today. I remember like, it was kind of like a moment of, wow, that was amazing that we actually did something like that. I just remember feeling, okay, you know, like we can do stuff like that.
Q: Is there anything you are looking forward to in the next year?
A: We are making a kiosk area like a merch counter, where we're doing partnerships with companies that are sending products, selling other company products, branded stuff and all that. So we're excited about that.