XSET thriving two years after being founded on diversity and inclusion

Comfort or change?

It’s an age-old question that many ask themselves when tasked with tough decisions that can impact their future. For some, the stability and consistency that comfort provides can alleviate the harsh realities of what can happen when risks don’t pay off.

Before choosing change over comfort, aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners must consider that one out of every five businesses fail in the first two years.

Two years ago this month, former FaZe Clan president Greg Selkoe was faced with that tough and arduous decision to start something that might not pan out.

Now, he’s the CEO of XSET. He looks back at the past two years building up XSET from nothing into a passion project with the goal of not just creating an esports organization but taking a stand for something that matters to Selkoe: inclusion. Selkoe’s decision to make a change from FaZe Clan to XSET was driven by a passion to create comfort for all types of people.

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Build a brand that starts with inclusivity

Selkoe’s vision for diversity and inclusion stems from years of inclusivity during his early years as an Anthropology major at Rollins College, which was then followed by studying city/urban community and regional planning at Harvard University. That passion for inclusivity grew even more when he started up Karmaloop, a company that was built around these ideals.

“Karmaloop was all about inclusiveness and having different racial groups being united that share values and ideals,” Selkoe said when asked about where his passion for diversity and inclusion stemmed from. “We were all similar. We all felt the same because we had a similar outlook on everything. Yet, at the same time, we came from lots of different backgrounds.”

This was something that he wanted to recreate at XSET. Selkoe’s core values revolved around that same feeling of inclusion he had at Karmaloop.

“Diversity and inclusion was something that I felt was not as much of an active push at FaZe Clan,” Selkoe shared. “I definitely wanted to recreate that feeling we had at Karmaloop with XSET because it was something that mattered a lot to me.”

Now, two years later, XSET has an expansive and diverse group of representatives and esports athletes playing under its brand, where the values are all shared with each and every member.

Three of the org’s five content creators are women: AshleyBTW, Fluctra and Avori. One of the two male content creators is Black: Dabier. One of the org’s co-owners is a Black woman: Erin Ashley Simon. Latino musical artist Ozuna is an investor and content creator for the org, and, most recently, XSET added Spanish tattoo artist Ganga.

“We want anyone whether that’s endemic, nonendemic, or anyone in general to feel like XSET is a home to them,” Selkoe said. “We’re not going to have any pushback from anyone on our team saying that they don’t support the LGBTQ community or racism because we actually walked the talk and want to bring people in that reflect our values.”

Although Selkoe is proud of what XSET’s brand values are, the ultimate goal of diversity and inclusion does not stop with just XSET. Instead, he hopes that this push will inspire other esports organizations to follow suit to make esports more inclusive across all organizations.

“The way we deal with it would be very different from other groups because we are coming from a true belief in fun gaming, but also the fact that we need to have gaming bring people together,” Selkoe said. “Our goal is not to show that we’re better than anybody else, it is just the right way to be. If we help influence other folks in the industry to follow our lead, then I think we’re doing what we set out to do.”

Pushing through the tough realities of being new in esports

Photo credit: Riot Games

For Selkoe, the past two years have been a wonderful journey of exceeding expectations and wholeheartedness building a project that resonates with his own values. Still, he understands the tough realities of the early years as a new business.

“It’s hard, even if it’s a good brand, even if it’s a good idea, a lot of them just don’t make it two years,” Selkoe said. “I think it’s amazing that we are here at this point of two years, but we know there is a lot more work that needs to be done.”

These harsh realities are something that Selkoe has always maintained in the back of his mind and why the organization has been intentional with every move it makes.

“There’s been a lot of concern about the long-term profitability of some of these gaming orgs and how they make money. That speaks highly of the XSET team. Our employees, our teams, and everything else,” Selkoe said. “We know that we aren’t going to have access to tens of millions of dollars to get to where we want to be. We need to do it in a way that is built on the fan engagement and have them be the part that steps up in the marketing as well.”

Yet, even with these hurdles to overcome, XSET has quickly skyrocketed as a budding esports organization with over 125,000 followers on Twitter. Earlier this month, XSET announced they had secured $15 million in Series A funding.

The org’s esports teams also are rising to new heights. XSET’s VALORANT team was one of two North American teams at the VALORANT Champions Tour’s Masters: Copenhagen tournament and will be in Turkey in September for VCT Champions 2022. In August, the XSET’s Rainbow Six Siege team will be in Germany for the Berlin Major.

“Esports is only growing more rapidly every six months. The content piece and the lifestyle piece, the merch piece, and all the other stuff is going to be incredibly profitable in the long run,” Selkoe said. “We’ve done all that on a fraction of the money that I spent on FaZe Clan or anywhere else.”

In his final words, Selkoe highlighted XSET’s reach compared to some of the more established esports teams. He spoke with confidence about the future of XSET because the organization’s values and identity.

“XSET is not as big as these other organizations, and we don’t have the money that these other organizations have,” Selkoe truthfully shared. “We haven’t built everything that we want, but we have a great team of partners that all share the same vision. We haven’t built everything that we want, but we are doing great things and I am confident in us all to do great things in esports.”

Lead image credit: XSET