Eric Siu struggled in school until video games taught him teamwork and strategy. He applied that mindset to his marketing agency Single Grain, rebuilding it multiple times over 14 years until it worked with Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb.
This is how playing video games changed my life and grew my business. When I was growing up, I was a big disappointment to my parents. It's not their fault because I almost got kicked out of high school and college. I was bad at sports, terrible at dating, and people thought I had nothing going for me. Literally, that was a quote. Eric, that guy had nothing going for him except for one thing: video games. Be it Diablo, World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike, Quake, Defense of the Ancients. I made sure that I played with the best teams in the world, and I made sure that I always did the best that I could. Soon I was able to weasel my way in into becoming one of the cool kids. And people were only interested in hanging out with me because I was one of the more elite players. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I was contributing to something bigger than myself. That's when I made a decision. I'd gamify my life and build my businesses the same way. So I bought Single Grain, my agency, for $2, and I treated it like a video game. I failed twice, rebuilt it 3 times, but every single time I made sure that I stayed in the game. I kept playing because the name of the game is to stay in it long enough to actually become lucky. 14 years later, that $2 purchase became a company that works with amazing brands such as Amazon, Uber, Salesforce, Airbnb, and more. And not only that, it is becoming a generational company that is focused on building tech-enabled services for the marketing industry. Follow for more real stories from my 14-year business journey.
