We were lucky to catch up with Paul Shepard recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Paul thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

I began my esports passion in college as I became more aware that there was such a thing as competitive gaming. I threw myself 100% into it and trying to be provider for my community. I spent a time as a Collegiate player for our University’s League of Legends team as well as being an officer of Public Relations for my student organization.

After I graduated I learned more about myself, and how my passion was to give back to the community, and become an advocate of developing esports in the Las Vegas area via community service, charity streams with other grassroots organizations and small businesses, and donating my time and money providing events for people of all ages to enjoy gaming. I was even working towards opening my own brick and mortar LAN center cauld BET ON BLOCK GAMING. using elements of my hometown, and my passion of gaming to create my brand, as well as turning the phrase of “bet on black”.

However in the planning phase of my establishment Covid-19 ravaged the word and pretty much put small business, especially LAN centers out of business. Video gaming culture in Vegas was, especially the social aspect was put to a grinding halt. This would persist for years. However as time passed and people began to heal, so did the idea of esports and gaming. People wanted to come out, and host events of old. When that happened I got back in the saddle again, but had an epiphany! Instead of operating a LAN center, why not use my skill set to it’s full potential. There are so many communities, small business, and organizations that could utilize video gaming and esports, but just hadn’t realized the potential of the demographic. With my years of experience, and keen sense of logistics planning I wanted to give back to the community in the best way possible. I wanted to be the tool that would build the bridge to our segmented gaming communities and come together as well as rekindle the importance that esports and gaming provided. With this though I pulled the trigger, and revitalized BET ON BLOCK Gaming. I then became the event planner and logistics consultant that I am today working with anyone in the Vegas area in the pursuit to make Vegas the Esports pinnacle it should be. I also now host a month Esports tournament series called Monsoon Mayhem where players come and test their skill in highly competitive tournament brackets for a large assortment of fighting games.

Paul , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

BET IN BLOCK Gaming was founded on the principle of helping bridge the community together in the pursuit of a unified esports scene to make Vegas the pinnacle of esports that it should be. What I do as an Event Planner and Logostics consultant is that I work with non-profit organizations and small business by helping them create their own esports video gaming events for the community, as well as work on non-profit initiatives to provide scholarship tournament opportunities for high school and college students so that they can continue their high education careers using their unique talents and passion for gaming.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Our audience is still growing, but we are getting there. Not only is BET ON BLOCK Gaming on social media, but our event brand of Monsoon Mayhem will soon be on live television broadcast via Roku TV and Amazon Fire Stick.

The key to building social media is a breakdown of three key factors:

1. Consistency – be consistent with your posting schedule. Your audience will want and expect a sense of normality while they are scrolling, and if they are expecting news from you it’s good to have a reliable time frame on your end to provide it.

2. Content – Keep your content on topic to your brand. Don’t pivot what your normal content is to anything random. Your audience is expecting a certain content from you and you need to stick with it. Also keep it as easy to process as possible. I recommend doing short videos, graphics for information, and link info to any additional websites if need be.

3. Positivity / Fun – keep your content fun, interesting, and positive. People scroll through social media as a means of escaping from their current situations or the mundane times of life. People are always looking out for a reason to be happy or excited. Be that for your audience by showing fun replays, hilarious clips from events or streams, posting future content that they can be excited to participate in.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

What helped extremely in building my reputation was being unapologetically myself. There’s no reason to pretend to be something you’re not or what you think people want you to be. I had an extremely difficult goal in my mind to be the person that brought our gaming communities together and ending the tribalistic way business in esports and gaming because of Covid-19’s lingering impact. That is to this day my goal and I always go about accomplishing it in a positive way where everyone wins together. So call it naive, but I see it as my purpose and will accomplish this one day.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @betonblockgaming
• Facebook: Betonblockgaming
• Twitter: @psf_95