Aaron Lee has operated one of South Florida’s leading marketing agencies for 20 years representing some of the nation’s best-known brands, served as president of the region’s top entrepreneurial organization and as an officer with the group’s global business network; but his latest venture, and the one he expects will be the biggest, was inspired by his son’s love of a game.
Lee has launched PYTHOS, an innovative esports platform, along with co-founder Hector Rosario to tap into the rapidly growing competitive segment of the $200 billion video gaming industry.
PYTHOS is designed to provide a turn-key solution for a community or organization that wants to offer a competitive youth esports club, much like a traditional youth sports experience. PYTHOS is a social network, online learning portal, league manager and membership solution all rolled into one and specifically designed to help young people develop the skills and experience for a career in gaming. PYTHOS also will help run a local club and provide direct access to professional esports players and experts.
PYTHOS will soon kick off leagues with several South Florida municipal recreation departments, and has many other deals in the works with schools, youth sports organizations, private clubs and other groups.
“This isn’t just a hobby anymore. It’s a multi-billion-dollar business already and growing exponentially,” says Lee. “There are more than 500 million esports players and viewers worldwide, and experiences like the COVID-19 pandemic are going to make these numbers grow even faster. The bottom line is that young people are quickly shifting how they want to consume entertainment and esports is an experience that they can directly relate to.”
Lee’s partner Rosario is a gaming champion, and Lee himself currently is ranked in the top two percent of Call Of Duty players worldwide, but where did he get the inspiration to turn gaming into his newest business venture? His son, Matthew.
Lee was concerned about the time Matt spent playing video games as a pre-teen and teenager. Like with many parents, it was a frequent battle, nagging to get Matthew off the game screen to study or sleep.
But at age 18 Matt quickly became the world’s top-ranked EA Sports Madden player, and is now known in the industry at Mattstergamer, a top player, coach, commentator and content producer.
Lee used his broad entrepreneurial and marketing experience to help further develop Matt’s branding, and then hatched the idea with Rosario to form PYTHOS.
Lee founded iluma Agency in 2001, and has led the marketing firm onto the Inc. 5000 Fast Growing Companies list four times, building national franchise brands and boosting rapid expansion of companies such as Orange Theory Fitness, Massage Envy, PROSE Nails and more.
Lee also has served as president of Entrepreneurs’ Organization South Florida, one of the world’s largest EO chapters, as well as on the EO Global presidents council and as a director for EO’s U.S. East Region. EO is a network of leading entrepreneurs with 14,000 members in more than 60 countries around the globe.
EO SOFLO has more than 250 members who run businesses with about 10,000 employees and more than $2 billion in annual revenues in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
The group highlights peer-to-peer learning and experience sharing for members, as well as fostering South Florida’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and overall economy through partnerships with area schools and universities, support of incubators and accelerators, and other initiatives.
“EO has been a huge part of making iluma successful over the years and helping the development and launch of PYTHOS,” said Lee, who joined EO in 2011. “You just can’t put a price on the relationships and then having access to the insight and support of other entrepreneurs.”
“Aaron has been one of South Florida’s leaders in boosting our region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, and he continues to give so much time back to our EO chapter and the organization globally,” said current EO SOFLO president Jason Loeb, founder of Sudsies dry cleaning company. “It’s happy irony that he’s now following in his son’s footsteps with his newest venture, and were sure he’ll make PYTHOS a phenomenal success, as well.”
For more information on PYTHOS, visit www.pythos.gg.
For details on EO SOFLO, visit www.eosoflo.com.
