‘Make people happy’: Everything FlyQuest CEO Tricia Sugita has done derives from one goal

A young Tricia Sugita walks into kindergarten with her backpack in hand and excitedly runs to her desk as class begins. Her teacher then asks each student the age-old question asked to any young kid: what do you want to do when you grow up?

Tricia opens her journal. Excited, she scribbles down two things off the top of her head.

“I want to be a flower teacher when I grow up, and I want to make people happy.”

It’s an aspiration that is centered around making the world a better place and an overarching goal that has motivated her work ever since then.

Fast forward many years later, and a grown-up Tricia Sugita is now the CEO of FlyQuest, an esports organization competing in the prestigious League Championship Series. At FlyQuest, she has combined her passion for gaming with her natural love for nature in a way that is true to herself.

But in between those years, there were a number of roadblocks that challenged her. This is the story of how Sugita overcame pain and hardship to create a career that is authentic to her childhood dream to make people happy through nature.

Turning pain into beauty

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Before she was the FlyQuest CEO, Sugita was a streamer for Twitch in its early days under the alias, MegumixBear. She developed an online community where people would watch her play various games including StarCraft and League of Legends.

Life was fine until one day, she received heartbreaking news.

“One day, I had found out that my dad had been diagnosed with cancer and only had three months to live,” Sugita shares. “It was really hard to do things properly for a while. When you fear losing someone you gain a completely new perspective on your purpose and your overarching goals for things.”

She recalls the dark period of time when she was told her father only had three months to live before being dealt another blow. Her mom was diagnosed with cancer too.

Settled in front of her computer streaming to her viewers, she tried her best to use games to cope with tragedy in her life. That is when she came up with an idea to host an event centered around doing her part to support a charitable cause.

“Any donations you guys are making. At this time, I'm 100% going to use it to do a meet and greet where we make hundreds of Ikebana arrangements,” she says.

“I contacted Arcadia, which is this park that has a hospital within walking distance and asked if we could drop off these Ikebana flowers and hand them out to patients dealing with cancer or scoliosis, and when accepted, I felt genuine happiness.”

Tricia’s event had 40 people show up. It wasn’t nearly as many as the thousands of people who watch FlyQuest today, but this day still stands out as one of Sugita’s happiest memories because of the significance behind it all.

“Back then, you didn’t really see people doing stuff like this. I got to meet a lot of my fans.” Sugita says. “That day, I just wanted us to come together as the gaming community. And we had everyone come from different facets. Whether that be Starcraft, League, Dota and the list went on.”

That day, Sugita had people from all walks of life and around the world fly in to enjoy each other's company.

“I had people from Norway and Germany fly out just to meet me and support this event that meant so much to me,” she says. “It still is one of the happiest moments of my life.”

A moment that transpired from sorrow and pain, this event is one that stands out to Sugita because of how she saw people come together for this one event that meant a lot to her.

Facing adversity at FlyQuest

When she first joined FlyQuest in 2018, she faced a different set of hardships, this time centered around negative community reactions around the org’s brand identity.

“To be honest, our original logo sucked,” Tricia says candidly while laughing. “A lot of the criticisms around our first years in the LCS were that we lacked identity, and I agreed with those criticisms.”

Yet, even through these tough years early on, this ultimately is what led to her realization that if she were to find success with FlyQuest, it would need to be through an identity that could resonate with her values.

“This lack of identity made us want to start our Go Green initiative,” Sugita says. “Ultimately, I did an inner dive into what my overarching goal was, which was to make people happy and for everyone to showcase greatness.”

Photo credit: Riot Games

Through this project, Sugita has transformed FlyQuest into an organization that’s all about promoting environmentally friendly practices in gaming. They have created various campaigns and community activities that promote saving the world, because it is something that she holds dear to her heart.

“We only have one planet, and if we don't take care of our home, then it is going to be destroyed,” Sugita says. “That is what the Go Green initiative is about and that is why I really wanted to incorporate this into FlyQuest because nature has helped me see light in very dark times of my life.”

With a brand that feels true to her, Sugita has taken criticism and difficult moments in her life with stride and persevered.

From dreams to reality

Once she was a kid who walked into a classroom with a dream. Now, Sugita walks into the FlyQuest office and gathers the FlyQuest team and tells them to close their eyes and imagine this.

“When you are walking through Los Angeles, you can see the sidewalk, but no matter what, the roots of the trees still break through. No matter the roadblock or challenge, it will always persevere.” Sugita says.

Like nature and its harsh conditions, there will always be things that throw a wrench in your path. Oftentimes the dreams we had as kids get beaten down by life to a point where we can lose track of the initial values that made that goal so important to us. Sugita has never lost track of that goal.

“No matter what happens in my life. Whether that be losing your father, getting diagnosed with scoliosis, or whatever life may do to break me, I want to make sure my intentions never change,” Sugita says.

“Nature holds such an important part of my life because of how much it inspires me to be great. Nature is harmonious, flexible, beautiful, and graceful.” Sugita passionately shares. “But at the end of the day, it is strong and can persevere through anything.”

No matter the situation or issue at hand, Sugita is ready to handle any obstacle thrown in her way because she understands that feeling after moments of hardship.

Now, she is looking to lead FlyQuest to their first LCS championship, while staying true to their brand identity.

Photo credit: Riot Games

“Sometimes, people misunderstand us and think just because we plant trees that we don’t want to win, but it is not like that at all,” Sugita says while laughing. “In 2020 we were back-to-back finalists and went to Worlds. But we want FlyQuest to mean something much more than just winning LCS titles. We want our brand to be something that people who have had hardship in their life can relate to and for people to showcase greatness because everyone has it in them to make someone’s day.”

FlyQuest just wrapped up the LCS 2022 spring split with a record of 9-9 and are going to the playoffs as the No. 5 seed. They play again on April 10, when they will begin their quest to represent North America at the Mid-Season Invitational.

Lead photo credit: Riot Games