Reflections on Building 100 Thieves

Friday was my last day at 100 Thieves, a company I helped Matt ‘Nadeshot’ Haag start 4 years ago.

This was an incredibly hard decision, and I’ll share more on why and what’s next sometime soon.

But today, I simply want to take a bit of time to reflect and be grateful for this incredible ride.

The journey began when I met Matt through our friend Blake Robbins, who insisted that I meet this YouTuber who was trying to build a new esports team with Dan Gilbert. I was skeptical.

After weeks of follow-ups, we finally got dinner. As we wrapped up, Matt asked, “so, do you want to work with me…?” Neither of us really knew what we were doing. And he didn’t know it then, but I was sold.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t know much about Matt. Despite his wild success in the CoD world and on YouTube, I was concerned he would be all talk and little substance.

I was fortunate to work with two incredible early-stage investors early in my career at Lowercase Capital: Chris Sacca and Matt Mazzeo. One of the most important things I learned from them was to bet where the deck is stacked in your favor — where you have unfair advantages. And most importantly, when the founder has that little extra special quality that makes you want to run after them.

I’d been paying attention to the esports scene and it was clear there was an opportunity for a strong brand to emerge. Most teams built their audiences off of either winning, star players, or both. Anyone who has worked in or loved a sports team knows that both are fleeting.

Matt presented something unique: an incredible audience rallied behind him and his journey combined with a desire to actually build something bigger than himself.

This is tremendously hard for creators to do. The notion of giving up near-term selfish opportunities to try and build a brand is much harder than it looks. It takes a relentless commitment to the long term and a near-irrational ability to put the bigger dream above personal wins.

After meeting him, it was profoundly clear to me that this wasn’t a side hustle for Matt. This was it. He had a vision to bring his audience on a journey with him, return to the competition that formed him, and establish a brand that was actually more substantial than “Nadeshot.”

And that probably would have been enough, but Matt dreamed bigger: he thought a gaming brand could be a lot more than anybody considered back then, and that gaming was just as culturally important as music, sports, or anything else. We didn’t know exactly how we’d do it, but Matt’s early ideas about building an apparel brand and working with entertainers alongside competitors made me realize this could be something special.

And so we set off. When I joined 100 Thieves, I was not yet 24, the company didn’t exist, and it was just Matt, a logo (and a failed CoD team… shh), the founding investors, and an approved franchise application to Riot Games’ League of Legends league.

At the time, we had a loose idea of what could be possible and a big vision: to build the gaming brand Matt always wished he could be proud of.

But we also had a lot of work to do. In late November 2017, we had to figure out how to field a League of Legends team, find them a place to live and work, make content about them, and make an esports jersey that didn’t suck, all before the season started in January. Those were long days, but some of the most memorable.

We got through that, somehow, and even managed to make the finals of our very first split. Then, we made the World Championship in our first year! Little did we know how hard it would be to get back.

We made a documentary about that team called The Heist, led by the creative forces that are Gabriel Ruiz and Logan Dodson. 100T content started strong and didn’t slow down.

We convinced Jason Ton to leave the mothership that was Riot Games and join John and some kids to build something new. I still remember Jason’s first day, where our head of HR (yours truly) had to show him an excel sheet with everyone’s info and social security numbers. I texted Matt that I thought Jason was going to quit by the end of his first week. Fortunately, Jason believed in the vision and was able to forgive our early incompetencies.

We found a diamond in the rough in Julia Wu who has probably touched every single public-facing 100T output since early 2018. I think Julia might care more about this brand than Matt or I do.

We spent that spring trying to make a hoodie that we’d actually want to wear and that teased at the idea: “hey, maybe gaming can actually be cool!” Six months in, we sold out of our first “drop” in about 10 minutes.

We followed through on Matt’s entertainment vision, convincing established YouTube star NoahJ456 and a rising streamer named Valkyrae to take a risk on us before we were even a year in.

By that November, we’d built something real, and the esports and gaming worlds had started to take notice.

Since those early days, we’ve continued to build. We have about 100 employees, 20 creators, almost 50 players and coaches, multiple teams across various games, a half dozen trophies, all kinds of channels and content series, the best apparel brand in gaming, a laundry list of internet-breaking moments that are hard to believe happened, and most importantly, a community that trusts us to keep pushing forward.

We even managed to win that elusive LCS championship a few months ago, which felt fitting for me knowing that my departure was coming. We won a few other trophies along the way, too.

It’s hard to build a public brand on the internet. You live and die by the latest release or result, and little of what you make is remembered more than a few days later. At times, it can feel like a rat race of impermanence.

I always try to remember that all of these things we do and make aren’t actually what 100 Thieves is. They matter, of course, but they are the inputs of what we really are. At our core, 100 Thieves is an identity brand and community that says it’s ok to love video games. The permanent thing is that story and that sense of belonging, and when the content or the wins or the drop fades into memory, that is what stands.

I shared a note with our team on my last day, and the final section emphasized this point. I thought I’d share it here:

100 Thieves is the people All of you, our team, our players, our creators, and our community. That’s all this thing really is. A logo doesn’t mean much without the people behind, around, and in front of it.

Brands around the world are trying to become more and more human. We have an amazing advantage here: our fans care so deeply about the humans that make up 100 Thieves. Their relationship with our brand will always be stronger when it’s connected to a favorite player or creator, or when they get to see inside the process of this amazing group of people behind the scenes building.

Nothing feels better than when we’re described as a family, whether that be the creator group or the entire company. A culture that is human led will take us very far. Treat each other with kindness and remember that you get to work with some of the most incredible people in this industry.

The “product” of 100 Thieves is this group of people, all running in one direction, making amazing experiences for a community that only wants more. It’s easy to get caught up on just the outcomes: the announcement video, the successful drop, the championship at long last. But the parts I remember most of this journey were the long days alongside many of you, pressing ahead, even when we didn’t know exactly where we were going or if it would work.

Stay the course, enjoy the journey, give a lot of yourself, and you’ll get amazing things back.

I’m really proud. Sure, it’s just entertainment, it’s just video games, it’s just a brand. But I also believe stuff like this matters. We all find joy in little things like TV shows, twitch streams, winning (or even losing) sports teams, friends to relax and play games with. And I think 100 Thieves fills that role for a lot of people. I think we’ve made a lot of people smile in the last four years, and hopefully even helped them meet new friends or make the days a little easier.

I’ll always love this brand. And better yet, I’ve never had more confidence in what we’re building and the team we have doing so.

There may be easier, more lucrative, or maybe even more fun jobs. But there is no more fulfilling work to me than running in one direction and trying to make something new with the right group of people. That’s what I’ve taken away from this experience, more than anything else.

And so, as I’m keen to recite, onwards! I’m enjoying the journey.

Finally, a few thanks:

To Blake Robbins: My guardian angel, to the extent you can have one of those in business. Thanks for being a confidant, encourager, and most importantly, for bringing me into this thing in the first place. Never doubt your conviction: you are usually right before the rest of us.

To John Robinson: As Matt is quick to share — I didn’t technically fully commit to this thing until I made sure that you were likely to be along for the ride. I was coming off a string of incredible career mentors, and I knew I needed that here. Thank you for being our rock, for making us better, and for relentlessly putting one foot in front of the next. I’m so glad our team has you at helm. The future is bright.

To Jason Ton, Gabriel Ruiz, Logan Dodson, Julia Wu, Eric Sanders, Ibrahim Eljeilat, Matty Lee, Jacob Toft-Andersen, Joseph Jang, and so many more of you who’ve made this journey worth it: Thank you for putting up with my chaotic energy, arguing back, and being damn great at what you do.

To Noah, Rae, Courage, and all of our incredible creators and players I’ve had the privilege to work with: Thanks for being the lifeblood of all that we do and making this brand come to life.

And finally to Matt: Thanks for being a brother, first and foremost. Thanks for inspiring me every day and for trusting me to build this thing you love so dearly alongside you. Thanks for making a lot of long days so damn fun. You’re on your way too, and you’re doing great. Slow down, you’re doing fine. Keep enjoying the journey, my friend. And don’t forget: when you are excited about something, there is no one more infectious in the world.