“For Gamers. By Gamers.” - Find out how this “Marvel” turned a startup into a global brand!

Monday: MicroBusiness and Marketing Marvels FROM THE DESK OF MILES EVERSON: Happy Monday, everyone! We hope all is well in both your personal life and work life. Let’s start the week strong with an article about one of our “Marketing Marvels”—outstanding professionals in the fields of business and marketing. Each Monday, we highlight these people’s experiences, contributions, and impact on their respective industries. For today’s issue, we’ll be talking about a gaming industry icon. Continue reading to know more about this “Marvel” and how he led his company to success. CEO, MBO Partners Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute

“For Gamers. By Gamers.” - Find out how this “Marvel” turned a startup into a global brand! Min Liang Tan: Co-founder of Razer Throughout the years, the gaming industry has experienced a massive uptick in popularity. With millions of people playing games on a daily basis, it’s only natural that most, if not all of them, would look for peripherals for their gaming devices. Since there’s a huge market for this need, multiple brands have competed amongst each other in the gaming peripherals segment. One of the firms that continue to thrive in this highly competitive space is Razer, a company specializing in the development, design, and sales of hardware and software products catered to gamers. As of 2021, Razer has earned more than USD 1.6 billion in revenue. As of 2022, the firm is one of the 3 players occupying a total of 25% of the sector. What enabled Razer’s continued success in the gaming industry? The answer to that question can be attributed to the leadership and business strategies of one of its co-founders… Min-Liang Tan is the CEO and Creative Director of Razer. He graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor’s Degree in Law. Despite having a background in the legal profession, Tan left his law career to pursue a job in the gaming industry. It was his fondness for playing video games that led him to work with Robert Krakoff, a general manager for Razer, in developing the Boomslang, the world’s first gaming mouse released in 1999. Initially, Razer was created as a subsidiary of an entity known as Kärna LLC. However, the firm stopped its operations in 2000 due to financial issues. In 2005, Tan and Krakoff re-established Razer as an independent company after acquiring its branding rights with the intent of developing high-end gaming peripherals for gamers. The company also adopted the motto: “For Gamers. By Gamers.” After the success of its gaming mice, Razer started to design and manufacture other gaming peripherals such as keyboards, headphones, controllers for consoles and personal computers (PCs), webcams, microphones, speakers, and chairs. Eventually, the firm launched its own line of gaming laptops. More than a decade after its founding, Razer remains to be one of the most popular gaming peripherals manufacturers despite facing competition from brands like Asus, Steelseries, Logitech, and Corsair. In May 2022, Razer became a private company, with a valuation of USD 3.2 billion. So, what were the strategies Tan used to steer the company he leads and co-founded to success? Targeting the right audience and market segment In the late 2000s, gaming wasn’t the entertainment juggernaut it is today. Despite that, thousands of dedicated gamers played on consoles, handhelds, and personal computers (PCs). Of the three segments, there was a gap in the PC market for peripherals such as keyboards, mice, and headphones dedicated to gamers. Tan seized this opportunity by creating such peripherals. Once Razer’s initial product offerings became profitable and popular enough, it started selling equipment for multiple gaming platforms. By focusing on the right audience and market, Tan turned his company into a brand that consumers actively patronize despite the presence of other companies offering similar products. In one of his talks, Tan said this strategy turned his company from a startup to a global brand: “We focused on a niche, we built on a niche, we made sure we built the very best product and services for the niche, then we scaled and scaled. While we were scaling, we were focused on doing the best we could and maintaining our edge.” Increasing brand awareness through esports Aside from focusing his company’s efforts on targeting the right audience and market, Tan dedicated himself to building brand awareness. Instead of relying on ad placements across multiple social media platforms, he took advantage of the emerging popularity of esports during the 2010s to expand the firm’s reach to audiences. How? By providing professional teams and players with gaming peripherals for use in both official tournaments and livestreams! Through this tactic, gamers all over the world saw their favorite gaming personalities use Razer equipment, further enforcing the idea that the firm is the go-to brand for gaming hardware. Increasing profits through diversification Despite the immense profitability of his company’s core products, Tan further expanded his firm’s offerings in an effort to open up additional revenue streams. Today, the company offers a payment service for gamers through Razer Gold, a virtual credit gamers use to buy video games and in-game content. Additionally, the firm has a financial technology (fintech) arm that provides offline-to-online (O2O) digital payment networks and online payment services in Southeast Asia. Aside from the points discussed above, Razer is successful because Tan values the importance of actively engaging with customers. He said: “This is one of the things I find mind-boggling; that such an opportunity is always engage your customer, 24/7, all the time, which many companies out there aren’t doing. We are always constantly talking to the user and going to where the users are, we also built our own channel to make sure that our messages are always being transmitted to the users out there.” The result of this? Not only did Tan turn Razer into a global brand, but he also made it into a company that enjoys the devotion of a loyal customer base! Until now, he’s one of the most recognizable figures in the gaming industry. Hope you’ve found this week’s insights interesting and helpful.     Stay tuned for next Monday’s Marketing Marvels! Marketing is a fast-paced industry. Every day, lots of changes are happening (whether expected or unexpected) and influencing how consumers perceive a brand or business. Learn more about Al Ries and “Positioning Marketing” on next week’s Marketing Marvels!