Today we’d like to introduce you to Mario Kroll.
Hi Mario, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m a first-generation immigrant, who arrived here from Germany at the age of 11, speaking very little English at that time. Fast forward a couple of years and I was fluent. I struggled a bit with traditional school, dropping out in 10th grate, but ended up joining the Army in 1990 during Desert Shield, as a paralegal. This is where I learned a few key facets: greater self-discipline (I had none prior); things are constantly changing (for the better or worse) and you can certainly quit stuff you don’t like, but there are real-world consequences. I also learned to type, as we had to hit certain typing speed goals each week to be given civilian clothes, which determined whether you were stuck on base for the weekend or went out into nearby Indianapolis with your friends.
I finished my time in the Army in 1995, obtaining my GED and completing my first two years of college part-time at night. I still didn’t love traditional classroom learning, but I had developed the skills to stick things out. I ended up getting a Computer Science degree from the University of Maryland and found a job in web development, which I took to like a fish takes to water. Mind you, this was in the 1990s, when the WWW was brand new.
In 1995, I started my first “company,” a gaming website called Wargamer. It was the perfect fusion of my love for video games (especially strategy, historical, and military-themed ones) and my newly found skills in web development. I continued to maintain a full time job during the day and on nights and weekends, worked on the website, growing it to about 1 million unique monthly visitors (before social media was a thing).
During this time, my family and I moved to North Carolina, initially to Fort Bragg (my wife at that time was still on active duty), while I commuted to a technology job in RTP. When our son was born, my ex-wife decided it was time to leave active duty and we moved to Holly Springs.
Fast forward a few years, and I ended up working for BDO, a large accounting firm, in Washington, DC. When a change in US law (Sarbanes-Oxley) a couple of years later, made it impossible for accounting firms to audit clients’ financials and service their technology needs, I was given a choice of working on financial audits or leaving the firm. I chose to leave. I had decided a few months ago that it was time to sell Wargamer.com, so I attended what I thought was my last gaming tradeshow, E3 in Los Angeles. As part of my earn-out, I helped sell advertising for the site for a year post-sale. While at the show, I had my best ever ad sales performance — it’s amazing when you only focus on one key things rather than juggling a dozen things.
While at E3, I met a local Cary-based video game publisher called CDV Software Entertainment. I guess I did so well selling them ads on my website that they started considering me for an internal role. Six months later, I was hired to help with PR and marketing, mainly to travel to journalists across North America, and to show them the games we were working on for press coverage. I loved it and was good at it. The bonus was that CDV’s parent company was a German publisher, so my growing up in Germany while also understanding North American culture was quite helpful.
I quickly got promoted and ended up running all of business development, PR, and marketing for the publisher’s US office. A few years later, I was recruited by another German publisher, Kalyso Media, which asked me to close down their existing US operations in Baltimore and reboot them from scratch. I was there for four years a VP, North American Publishing, heading up North American and Asian sales, licensing, and marketing. Unfortunately, I found myself on the receiving end of a layoff right before Christmas 2013. I had been interviewing for a while and had made it quite far with noteworthy video game companies. However, as I reflected on taking a marketing role with gaming platform Unity, I decided I didn’t want to go back to working for someone else again, so I started my own thing.
That’s how, in January 2014, I started UberStrategist as a video game PR agency. I say agency lightly, as it was just me for the first year or so. I then hired my first employee, and it was just the two of us for a couple more years. In the interim, we’ve grown significantly. While down from an all-time high of 30 worldwide, we are now at 20 team members across six countries. We work with (and have worked with) video game and tabletop gaming companies large and small, including Atari, Bungie, Tencent, Lilith, Gamigo, HoYoverse, Nightdive Studios, and many others. Along the way, we made the Inc. 5000 two years back-to-back. We’re now headquartered in Cary, NC, and have a small office there, although we only have three employees in the Triangle area, including me.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Early days there were certainly weeks where I had to take money back out of my personal funds to cover payroll, which was very stressful. And being responsible for up to 30 people’s livelihoods is quite a bit of pressure that those who have never done it will not fully appreciate.
We’ve also lost clients we thought we’d have forever and didn’t win proposals we poured our heart and soul into.
Our highs were, surprisingly, during COVID, because we had always started as a remote-first company, and a lot of people were staying indoors playing video games. The last couple of years have not necessarily been kind to our industry, affecting service providers like us.
I also had a long way to go to figure out how to hire the right-fit candidates and be a true leader to a diverse team.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about UberStrategist Inc.?
ÜberStrategist Inc. is a multi-award-winning PR and marketing agency focused on providing its entertainment and technology clients with the highest level of service. A recipient of multiple Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 5000 and Inc. Power Partner awards and an MCV Award Strategic Partner of the Year Nominee, we are one of America’s fastest-growing privately owned companies and among roughly 250 global firms highlighted for consistently helping their clients grow and achieve success.
Proudly veteran-owned, we celebrate, encourage, and commit to diversity in the workplace. Most of our leadership positions are held by women, veterans, and LGBTQ+ team members. As we firmly believe that our role is to leave the world in better shape than we found it, a significant portion of our proceeds supports charitable causes.
We focus specifically on serving companies within the video game and entertainment space, including a significant tabletop (roleplaying games and board games) group. We support our clients with public relations, influencers, events, and select paid media placement.
Having been able to win Atari as a client almost ten years ago was a personal highlight, as I had grown up playing games on the original Atari 2600. When we signed Bungie (and when they expanded our scope to include an additional game and additional territories), that was another big highlight, both highlighting our industry reputation and our ability to deliver on promises we make to clients.
Until recently, nearly 100% of our business has been word-of-mouth and referral-driven. I’ve since supplemented it with more structured outbound marketing and hired a fantastic head of business development who happens to be based in Reykjavik, Iceland, one of my favorite places in the world.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Not that I can think of right now. If things come up or my initial info spawns clarification or question, please let me know.
Pricing:
- We typically work on a retainer model, but also take on clients on a project basis. Pricing is always determined for each client uniquely, based on their goals and level of effort we think it will require
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.uberstrategist.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uberstrategist/
- Twitter: @uberstrategist
- Other: @uberstrategist.com on BlueSky
