High School Students Start Video Game Tournament Hosting Business
Category : News
Aaron Estrada and Victor Cruz, seniors at High Tech High Chula Vista and San Diego Center for International Trade Development (CITD) YEP participants, recently launched a video game tournament hosting business. Seniors at High Tech High are required to complete a “Senior Project”, which is the culmination of the students’ personalized academic endeavors. Students are encouraged to select projects that are in harmony with their personal goals and interests. Aaron and Victor, who were both interested in entrepreneurship, decided they wanted to start a business around their affinity for gaming as their senior project. Their senior project advisor, who was familiar with YEP, recommended they enroll in the program and take the online business training to learn how to start the business and write a business plan. After completing all lessons of the online business training, Aaron and Victor wrote a business plan for a video game tournament hosting business they named Green Mist Gaming. Their business model consists of hosting video game tournaments for teams of players of popular role playing and combat strategy video games. Green Mist Gaming charges a fee to players to enter the tournament and also sells food and refreshment. Cash prizes are given to the winning teams. Since they had already written the business plan for their senior project, they decided to use it to enter the YEP Business Plan Competition and their plan wasselected as one of the top three plans.
As part of the services available to them through YEP, Aaron and Victor were able to meet with a CITD Business Advisor and get assistance with fine tuning their business plan and discuss start-up specifics including permits and licenses needed, business legal structure, marketing, and more. The pair then launched their business shortly after and held their first tournament on May 25th at a venue in their high school that they were able to secure at no cost. Their first tournament was a success, hosting a tournament centered around the video game League of Legends. Aaron and Victor plan to pursue college degrees while continuing to work on growing their business.