How Brandon Byrne ,CEO Of Opera Event Raised $8M To Build A Technology For Influencer Media?

Brandon Byrne is the CEO of the startup Opera Event, a platform for social media influencers. Opera Event is a technological solution for influencers to aggregate, grow, and monetize.

Before Opera Event, Brandon was the CFO for Team Liquid and served as an executive at Curse, a PC technology and media company that was bought by Twitch.tv. He is also an advisor on the UC Santa Cruz board for games and playable media.

An avid gamer, Brandon still plays World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Civilization, Xcom, Ark, and Diablo III.

Brandon has a bachelor’s degree from Pepperdine University in Business Management.

In an exclusive interview with AsiaTechDaily, Brandon says:

If I could do anything again, I would focus on adding serious people to my advisory board. People who have experience raising and know what VC groups will look for. Convince them first. Once you do, they will connect you to VC groups. We had an advisory, Minard Hamilton, who jumpstarted our fundraise because he could do introductions to people who could invest. First, we had to convince him it was a good idea. Then we got the introductions. We waited a long time to find Minard, and I wish we had done it sooner.

My advice is to build as strong a team as you can, share the ownership, and remember that giving people a vested interest means you can get them all rowing in the same direction.

I think the thing that I would change would be to focus on your network. Whether it’s your time in college, your first few jobs, or even through friends and family, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. Get mentors, help mentor people who are coming up behind you, and set time aside to meet your peers or even competitors. Your network is the most important asset your career will have.

Read on to know more about Brandon Byrne and his journey.

Please tell me about your personal background, and What motivated you to get started with your company?

Brandon Byrne: I grew up in the LA area but was a big-time gamer my whole life. Going back to the Atari 2600, I love the community. I was in a college class when a professor stated, “the most important decision you will make toward your happiness is choosing the right spouse. The 2nd most important will be having the right career. Take the time to apply to five companies that you would love to work for that have NOT advertised a position.” I did and wound up with a job with Curse, one of my dream companies.

What is your current main product, and can you share any previous product pivot story to the current product?

Brandon Byrne: Currently, we have SaaS software that helps our customers to manage their influencer or community members programmatically. We initially started with a strategy to help influencers to monetize their channel. Still, we realized that many of these content creators weren’t able to make business decisions about their channels. Instead, we built tools that aggregate content creators together on teams and connect them to revenue. It was a needed pivot that has led to our Series A investment being closed in March.

How much money have you raised in total so far? When was the recent funding round?

Brandon Byrne: We raised a total of around $8m, and the most recent was a $5M Series A that closed in March.

How have you attracted users, and with what strategy have you grown your company from the start to now?

Brandon Byrne: We create software that helps esports teams and community teams grow and manage their larger teams programmatically. We haven’t needed a lot of help growing as the teams take care of the supply-side growth. As for the demand (sales) side, we have a sales team and a BD infrastructure, and we are working with most of the big game publishers in the world.

Which has been the best marketing software tool for the growth of your startup, and why?

Brandon Byrne: We use several 3rd party tools, but honestly, the best software we use is our technology. Practicing what we preach has helped us make the product better and make us a lot more efficient.

What do most startups get wrong about marketing in general?

Brandon Byrne: I think that marketing, particularly in the gaming space, is incredibly esoteric. You’ll get a lot of advice here, but the key to marketing is to be plugged into your space and talk to people who are embedded there. One other thing, once you get institutional investors, lean on them hard. We didn’t just take money from our investors. We demoed the product for them, and they helped us improve the product, improve the pitch, and once it got there, they were happy to introduce us to their network. It’s a great place to start.

If you’re a B2C business, this will be a lot different. But for us, these tactics have been incredibly successful.

What were the internal decision processes in determining when to begin fundraising, and what were the logistics for this? And how many investors have you met so far, and how did you meet these investors and which channels worked best for you?

Brandon Byrne: Fundraising, if you haven’t raised before, is tough. The first thing you need to do is build a team and get them to invest their time. If you cant get smart people on board for free or for less than they are worth, you will have problems raising money. Secondly, friends and family or angel round are what is next. I didn’t have a family with resources, so it was all about my business network. I went to friends, mentors, and others to scrape up some initial startup cash. I was fortunate that my partners opened their network too. We were able to get going.

Once you have traction, the fundraising process becomes a war of attrition. I pitched 140 VC and angel groups as a part of the process. As a first time CEO, I wasn’t used to the grind that comes with venture fundraising. The one piece of advice I would give here is to understand you are going to be bad at the process until you get better—the first 50 pitches, you’re likely to get laughed out of the room. Insist on feedback and work to get better. I must have made 250 decks. The next 50 are a flat NO, but at least you aren’t getting laughed at. After 100 pitches, you start to get better. You begin to think like a venture capitalist, and you have heard all the questions and objections. Often, the objections are there to see how you respond to them. Assuming your company has stayed alive this long, the next 50 pitches will be the one that gets you a seed round.

After a seed round, it gets a bit easier. Your institutional investor has a stake in you and wants to help. They can do introductions to other groups, assist in finding customers, and helps you to focus on what is important. Most importantly, make sure you maintain a relationship with the VC’s that said no the first time. You never know who could lead a series A.

What are the biggest challenges and obstacles that you have faced in the process of fundraising? If you had to start over, what would you do differently?

Brandon Byrne: It’s a tough question because I believe that the process is just as important as the outcome. It’s not about what they teach you. It’s about what you learn about yourself. I am not sure that shortcutting that process would make me a better CEO.

The biggest challenge is not being good at something (fundraising) despite spending most of your career being good at what you do. Its a humbling experience but an incredibly valuable one. Never forget that this is not a task you can abdicate to someone else. You are the CEO, and it’s your job to secure funding for your company.

If I could do anything again, I would focus on adding serious people to my advisory board. People who have experience raising and know what VC groups will look for. Convince them first. Once you do, they will connect you to VC groups. We had an advisory, Minard Hamilton, who jumpstarted our fundraise because he could do introductions to people who could invest. First, we had to convince him it was a good idea. Then we got the introductions. We waited a long time to find Minard, and I wish we had done it sooner.

What are your milestones for the next round? And what are your goals for the future?

Brandon Byrne: This is Silicon Valley. Anything more than a year out is science fiction. 😊 We have an opportunity to get to break even as a company, but I am not sure that is the best path for us. I think we are over a year away from another investment.

How do you plan to expand globally?

Brandon Byrne: We are already global. We have teams in over 50 countries, and our teams speak 34 languages. We are excited to be working with one of our investors, Atlas Ventures, based in Singapore. They are helping us expand our customer base into Asia as we speak.

What are the most common mistakes companies make with global expansion?

Brandon Byrne: I think it’s a mistake to do it before you are ready. You need to make sure you have product-market fit and that your primary market strategy is going strong. Moving globally is rarely easier and comes with a host of compliance and tax issues. Wait until the company is ready.

How do you handle this COVID-19 outbreak situation for your company’s survival in the future?

Brandon Byrne: It’s a big problem. We are in the gaming space, so we haven’t been hit nearly as hard as many companies have. However, collaboration is harder, conventions, where we do a lot of business, is harder, and you want everyone to stay healthy. There are some opportunities in an environment like this. I believe that staying focused on your goals while being flexible on how you get there is the key and ensuring that you take care of the people on your team. I realize it’s a bit cliché, but ensuring your staff’s financial security will pay benefits in the future.

What are the most common mistakes founders make when they start a company?

Brandon Byrne: Choosing the right co-founders and focusing on the right priorities when your companies start. As a new CEO, you’ll be pulled in a hundred different directions, and you can’t get to everything. A great book to read as a part of this is “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries. It’s a bit of a bible at our company, and everything we do is based on the “build, measure, learn” philosophy. It’s an excellent place for a new CEO to start. I also recommend “Venture Deals” by Brad Feld to begin to understand the legal framework associated with fundraising.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? And What advice do you have for someone who is interested in doing similar things like yours or in a similar direction?

Brandon Byrne: I have gotten so much good advice from my mentors and advisors. Minard Hamilton, Bill Grosso, Guy Costantini, and many others have been patient with me as we learned how to be a real company. One piece of advice that I felt was excellent was the idea that I shouldn’t shoulder the burden of a startup alone. Make sure to share both victories and failures with your co-founders or team. They will not take it as personally as you, and they can help you to do something about it, such as upgrade the product or restructure your sales funnel.

My advice is to build as strong a team as you can, share the ownership, and remember that giving people a vested interest means you can get them all rowing in the same direction.

What are the top-three books or movies (TV series) that changed your life and why?

Brandon Byrne: I mentioned two books already that I found vital to my career, “The Lean Startup” and “Venture Deals.” I also read “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” and enjoyed it thoroughly. Sometimes you feel alone as a CEO, and the book helped me realize that what I was going through was not unique to me, but rather a rite of passage for the startup CEO and an immensely powerful learning process.

How do you keep yourself motivated every day?

Brandon Byrne: I have friends who have put money in my company. I have friends that worked for me for free for a while, and one angel got his father in law and brother invest in the company. There is no way I am going to allow these people to be let down. They showed tremendous faith in me, and I’d just as soon cut off my arm than fail these people.

What are the one or two things that you would do differently to improve your life if you could go back to 10 years ago?

Brandon Byrne: I think the thing that I would change would be to focus on your network. Whether it’s your time in college, your first few jobs, or even through friends and family, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. Get mentors, help mentor people who are coming up behind you, and set time aside to meet your peers or even competitors. Your network is the most important asset your career will have.

You can follow Brandon Byrne here.

https://twitter.com/OperaEventCo

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