We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Andrew Cooley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Andrew below.

Andrew, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

One of, if not the biggest, risks I’ve ever taken was going full-time into esports.

In 2011, I received my degree in Financial Planning from Texas Tech University. However, in my senior year, I also started my first company, State of Mind Gaming, that was designed to be a professional esports organization – I really wanted it to become known as “Dallas’s” team since I was born and raised here and likely will never leave.

My parents gave me about six months to work on the company and, as you can surmise based on where I am today, it didn’t really pan out for a long list of reasons. Two large reasons though were that 1) I was trying to raise funding in an area of that country that wasn’t known as “innovative” then and historically focused on oil and real estate and 2) I was a bit premature on the timing of people caring or listening to what esports was and why anyone should care.

After the six months, I begrudgingly went and put my degree to work and began working in the financial services industry. I did that for about the next five years and found a lot of success in doing so. I was making good money for my age and could have stayed on that path for life and been set. You see, when I was younger, all I thought mattered was wealth and, as many people think, that should directly translate to your degree of happiness. So, in theory, I should be elated at this point… wrong.

I remember waking up one day, realizing that I had no sense of accomplishment. My career wasn’t really providing a positive impact on anyone’s lives, and I wasn’t being true to who I am and what I love doing. For months I was depressed and worked to try and figure out what I wanted to do.

Sometime in November of 2015 I remember seeing that Mark Cuban participated in an esports tournament. To everyone else, this just meant that an esports tournament was able to bring in a high profile celebrity for visibility. To me, this meant that people were starting to listen.

In 2016, I decided that it was time for me to move back full-time into esports and be relentless. I resurrected my organization, attended events, built and coached teams, worked on web design, solicited for fundraising, tried out for Shark Tank, networked as a highly introverted person, built marketing campaigns, and worked on sales and sponsorships. I worked about 16 hours a day, every day, and I couldn’t have been happier because it never felt like “work” to me. I failed, again.

Through this journey though, I met Chris Chaney, Founder and CEO of Infinite Esports & Entertainment. Chris and I shared the vision of what esports could, and should, really be. In 2017, I was in the first wave of hires at Infinite Esports & Entertainment. Life can be quite a roller coaster though, right? Well, as is the way of the roller coaster, I was at the top of the hill, so it was about time to come down.

Infinite had a lifespan of about a year before a large internal conflict occurred which resulted in the majority of the company being laid off. I was heartbroken. The silver lining is that I learned countless lessons through successes and failures at Infinite, but most importantly I 1) got to work with one of my best friends and future business partners, Andrew English and 2) learned what really mattered the most to me in esports – player and coach development.

After the layoff, Andrew English and I sat with our heads down trying to figure out what we wanted to do next. Our conversations always revolved around our passion of working with players, teams, and coaches. Months went by and we realized that the only “logical” thing to do was to build a company that focused on doing exactly that, but doing it the right way. We co-founded Esports Performance Academy at the end of 2018 and have been growing the company steadily since then. We’ve been taking risks and setting ambitious goals for ourselves and will continue to do so until we see our vision become a reality.

Overall, I think the last decade of my life has been one risk after the next. The irony is that I actually perceive myself as a very risk-averse person but, as they say, love makes you do crazy things and I have loved esports every day since I first learned what it was 21 years ago.

Andrew, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on your journey to where you are and what you do?

Whenever I was 12, I had a friend jump in Ventrilo (think early 2000s Discord) and ask if I was “going to watch the match.” I remember being confused because I thought he was referencing some football or basketball game. When I asked “what match?”, he sent me a link to connect to a Counter-Strike server and watch what was considered one of the most high-profile matches in the industry. For those Counter-Strike veterans out there dying to know, it was SK Gaming vs. eoLithic.

For about the next decade I spent my time as a semi-pro/pro competitor across Counter-Strike, World of Warcraft, and Left 4 Dead. I was working to play League of Legends professionally when that whole transition to the financial services industry took place that I mentioned earlier.

After “hanging up my mouse and keyboard” so to speak and retiring from competing, I transitioned to coaching and management while concurrently working in financial services. I gathered a lot of information, lessons learned, and expertise from my time as an independent in esports, as well as the financial services industry, and layered that on top of my time spent as a player.

Today, we operate coast-to-coast working with school districts, universities, cities, private organizations, and individuals to provide them white-glove service as it pertains to their journey in building esports programs and player development. While we offer a lot of services to our clients, at our core we offer esports curricula, individual coaching, tournament administration, camps, and the first high-performance holistic esports coaching certification – we even have some neat technology we’ll be announcing later this year.

What I believe sets us apart from others is our attention to detail, genuine care for the industry, holistic approach, willingness to adapt as necessary, and legitimate decades of industry experience from multiple perspectives.

I think what I am most proud of is the great people that surround me on this journey that help make the brand what it is.

–Our partners at Vudu Consulting, Nyle Rogers and James Balandran, have been there to help guide us and enabled us to scale and innovate like we always wanted. They don’t just help EPA grow, but they help each member of our team grow as people.

–Our advisory board, Ken Bangs and Chris Chaney, have always been there anytime we need them. They are always willing to put in the time to answer questions and ask us the hard questions.

–Beyond that, the staff at EPA is relentless. They aren’t there just “for a job”. We’re transparent with what we want to build and they want to achieve that vision themselves and work tirelessly to do so.

–Last, but certainly not least, are our clients. We have the pleasure of having some of the best clients people could ask for. They go above and beyond for their students/children and just want what is best for them. Our clients are essentially part of the family of EPA and we are able to work with them to provide a safe, healthy, and engaging opportunity that teaches transferable life skills in an engaging format. Without them and their trust in us, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Sadly, the issue I’m going to address has occurred several times throughout us trying to build and grow EPA.

Whenever you have pure intentions and just want to build something great, people will look for an opportunity to take advantage of your expertise and use it for their benefit. From AAA game publishers to professional esports organizations in our backyard to former clients, we have had people try to steal our intellectual property, our approach, and/or our clients from us.

Any time it happens, the moment you discover it happening, or hear about it from an existing client that they are being poached (we appreciate your loyalty), it is always gut wrenching. Some occasions are met with tears, some are met with anger but either way, it still hurts.

There were times where it made me want to give up and quit, but cooler heads prevailed in the following day(s) and I always reverted back to three mantras 1) We can’t let the ill-intentioned people win or there will be no good ones left 2) If they lack the creativity on their own it won’t get them very far without us and 3) If they are trying to steal from us, we must be doing something right.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Comically enough, I met Andrew English through Reddit of all places. I was 25 or 26 at the time and was considering going back into competing. I made a post on one of the League of Legends subreddits stating what my goal was and the type of teammates I was looking for and Andrew responded. Now, as fate would have it, while I was posting on the global platform that is Reddit, Andrew happened to live 10 minutes away from me.

We ended up practicing together for a few months, but I was washed up and old by pro standards and was under too much pressure trying to run State of Mind that I just couldn’t do it. After that, Andrew ghosted me and didn’t talk to me for quite a while because he was practicing with other people.

A few years later, we reconnected and I brought him on board to work for me at Infinite and then we moved on to cofound EPA as I mentioned earlier. It is a pretty crazy story to reflect upon, but him ghosting me has become a pretty great joke between us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://epa.gg/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epa.gg/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EsportsPerformanceAcademy
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/esports-performance-academy
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/EPA_Official