Esports Venues, Festivals, and Innovative Partnerships with Sidick Bakayoko

Sidick Bakayoko from Côte d'Ivoire is the Founder and CEO at Paradise Game.

Our discussion included:

Sidick’s background including how he learned that being number one in a startup is a lot different than being #2 or #3.

Paradise Game

Paradise Game's mandate is to entertain, educate and empower young Africans through video games and esports.

• How FEJA: Electronical and Video Games Festival of Abidjan began
• Content creation as an extension of FEJA
• The value of starting out with a small event to gain experience and build credibility in the industry
• Recruiting partners for Paradise Game, including some that did not pay but added tremendous value
• Realistic time frames for developing live events

Ed-tech Facilities

• How esports venues were developed to become training centers
• Working with commercial real estate developers to get the best deal for space
• Working through the challenges of having many people tell you that that is not going to work

Content Creation

• “In order for us to create the future we need to figure out a way to put it in front of people”
• How creating a TV show created jobs and changed lives
• The challenge of getting an audience for an entire event, and not just the championship

Sponsorship

• How to recruit big brands to your project
• How Sidick landed a deal with Orange Telecom – one of the largest in Africa
• Explaining esports to brands not familiar with the industry
• Expected time frames for landing sponsorship deals
• What some of the top industries are who sponsor esports in Africa

Branded Pre-paid Cards

• Why Paradise Game decided to enter the world of fin-tech
• How the pre-paid card can unlock the gaming market
• How Sidick was able to have interns from the Stanford Seed program join his team

Mobile

• Is mobile the future of esports in Africa?

Olympics

• Should the Olympics include esports?

Episode Webpage: https://www.gamerschangelivespodcast.com/esports-venues-festivals-and-innovative-partnerships-with-sidick-bakayoko

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FEATURED IN THIS EPISDOE:

Mr Sidick BAKAYOKO is a technology professional with more than 15 years of experience in the areas of marketing and product development of technology solutions.

Sidick is the Founder and CEO of Paradise Game, an Ivorian company that intends to Entertain, Educate and Empower young Africans. Paradise Game’s vision is to engage and influence 200 million young Africans using video games.

Earlier in his career, He led the sales and marketing efforts of mobile value-added service provider DIGITAL AFRIQUE TELECOM (DAT) in 27 African countries, delivering several challenging multimillion-dollar projects from start to finish.

He also led the marketing efforts of the revolutionary mobile application ClickOVA alongside SCANBUY founder Olivier Attia in New York city. The application was in 2007, an innovation in the space for seamlessly backing up contacts, pictures, and videos over wireless networks.

He holds an Electronics and Computer Engineering Degree from the New York Institute of Technology in the USA and participated in the Stanford University SEED program.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbakayoko

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paradisegame_/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ParadiseGame.net

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ParadiseGame

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/SWnTRfubw7

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/paradisegame_

Paradise Game: https://paradisegame.net/home

Stanford Seed: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/seed

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PRODUCTION:

Creator and host: Tom Leonard (USA) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomeleonard/

Producer: Reginald Nsowah (Ghana) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/reginald-nsowah-09352929/ 

ABOUT THE SHOW:

Play Games. Create Jobs. Change Lives.

This is a show about how to build an esports business from literally anywhere in the world where each week we showcase the journey of esports entrepreneurs and others to learn how they solved a particular problem that everyone will ultimately face.

In Season Two our theme is “Follow the Money”.

I am your host, Tom Leonard. I have a background in entertainment marketing. After working with many amazing esports entrepreneurs from emerging markets, they inspired me to create a show to tell their stories so that others can be motivated to create their own esports business. Gaming and esports can create jobs tackling the problem of global youth unemployment. Creating jobs from playing games. What could be better than that?

Thanks for listening to The Gamers Change Lives Podcast!