Alexandru Ion – Passion, Mistakes, and Success in Esports and Business

Discover Alexandru Ion’s journey, entrepreneur and founder of Nexus Gaming, navigating passion, mistakes, and success in gaming and business.

Alexandru Ion is an entrepreneur whose skin is hard to wear. On one hand, you have the business you’ve always wanted. On the other hand, you have to make it work.

C&B: How would you describe yourself in a single sentence to make people who don’t know you yet curious?

Alexandru Ion: “It’s very hard to be Alexandru Ion.”
I am a person for whom mistakes have mattered far more than success. I don’t consider that I’ve reached the threshold of “success” yet, but I believe I’ve made many mistakes along the way. I don’t think I’ve ever had a moment where I could say, “I’ve made it, I’m successful,” but I have had many moments where both I and the business had to evolve, adapt, and learn from certain situations.

C&B: If we were to look at a narrative thread of your career or business, what were the key moments that defined you?

Alexandru Ion: The difficult moments in this journey have defined me far more than the good ones. The first key moment was on May 1, 2015, when I acquired Nexus Gamer’s Pub and officially became an entrepreneur. The second remarkable moment was in August 2015, when we opened the gaming hall on the upper floor of Nexus and shifted from HORECA towards other recreational activities. The third remarkable moment was sometime between the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016 when we founded the esports team Nexus Gaming for the games Counter Strike GO and League of Legends, initially as a marketing engine for the physical location on Regina Elisabeta street.

Afterwards, there were almost three years of trial and error in which we tried to build a sustainable business under the Nexus umbrella. We hadn’t managed to stabilize or create a profitable business and were caught off guard by another crucial moment in Nexus’s history in 2018, when we had to leave the University location and move to the new headquarters in Tudor Vladimirescu, where we had to start over in August.

At the new location, we experienced slightly more stability, from August 2018 until March 2020, when the pandemic hit and we had to stop all offline activity. Shortly before, I had pitched the video production business on Imperiul Leilor, a televised moment where I think we received some sympathy from the business community.

The most defining recent moments for Nexus were in 2020 when we clarified the business direction as an influencer agency, event organizers, and broadcasting company. For the past five years, we have only been scaling and refining what we started during the pandemic.

C&B: What has been the most difficult moment in your journey so far, and how did you overcome it?

Alexandru Ion: Definitely the pandemic. It was a difficult moment for pubs as well as gaming halls, so you can imagine how challenging it was for a hybrid of the two. We overcame it through a moment of “we have to do something because we won’t survive otherwise.” That’s when we opened the business lines for video production and event organization, focused on gaming. We observed the general trend that people were spending more time on online streaming platforms, and we took that risk. We retrained people, bought the necessary equipment, and the Nexus Gamers Pub space became a hub/studio for online events during that period.

C&B: When did you realize that esports could become a serious career, not just a passion?

Alexandru Ion: Like any video game enthusiast, I discovered this by seeing what was happening abroad toward the end of the 2000s. Even back then, there were competitions, large events, and fans of the phenomenon. For me, the most important thing was the idea that I could do what I love—play games—at work. That’s what drew me in and still attracts me to this field.

C&B: If you could change one thing in the Romanian gaming ecosystem, what would it be?

Alexandru Ion: I would like brands and commercial entities to understand that the gaming space is no longer a niche. It has an impressive fanbase, even in Romania, and a return on investment in terms of marketing that is better than traditional media.
Properly done gaming can be an aspirational activity, not just a way to “waste time.” It can be a driving force for the development of tomorrow’s youth.

C&B: If we met with your team or collaborators, what do you think they would say about you?

Alexandru Ion: Probably that I like to “troll” or they might even criticize me for “trolling too much.” In front of collaborators, I think I have a more serious image, but whether they are fully satisfied with working with me or not, I would like them to give me feedback, even negative, because we always want to progress with every action we take.

C&B: What is the most important decision you have made that changed your trajectory?

Alexandru Ion: I oscillate between two very important decisions: 1. the initial investment was very hard, to start this whole madness and risk a fairly large amount of money. 2. the decision not to go alone as a sole partner, the decision to dilute myself and go forward in a team, with the risk of divergent visions that could jeopardize the business.

C&B: How did you build your leadership style or the way you make decisions? Was it a natural process or learned?

Alexandru Ion: It was a combination of my personality, which some might call “eccentric,” and the knowledge I accumulated by studying and working in multinational companies. My leadership style is unconventional and disruptive, as anyone who has worked with me can confirm. On one hand, there’s Alexandru Ion, the troll under the bridge, with humor and a laissez-faire attitude; on the other hand, there’s Alexandru Ion, the businessman who studied the market, the phenomenon, and the gaming industry for years. You never know which one you’ll get—it depends on the gravity of the situation.

C&B: What does “professional gaming” mean to you, and how have you redefined it in Romania?

Alexandru Ion: Professional gaming is a complex phenomenon with very specific characteristics. I don’t think I’ve redefined much; I haven’t reinvented the wheel. What we did instead was realize that a round wheel was needed in an industry where most wheels were square or completely missing. Of course, we drew inspiration from best practices abroad, studied events and campaigns that worked there, and then adapted them to the Romanian market as best as we could.

C&B: What does a typical day look like for you now, and what moments of the day bring you the greatest satisfaction?

Alexandru Ion: When you’re Alexandru Ion, days are anything but ordinary.
From Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., I hold a Senior Leadership role at a renowned delivery company. I wake up at 8:55 a.m. to catch the 9:00 a.m. daily call with my boss (I sleep until the last moment because the night before I was gaming like a true gamer until 2 a.m., sometimes 3). In 5 minutes, I brush my teeth, get dressed, and teleport into my car to reach the office by 10:00 a.m., though I don’t always make it, much to my shame. Often, unforeseen situations arise: files to complete, emails to send, urgent calls, or my 3-year-old daughter wants to play a bit before I leave for work.

Then calls, meetings, lunch, calls, more meetings, and around 6:00 p.m. I leave Promenada for Nexus, as 9 hours of work is never enough. If you want to succeed, you have to work at least twice as much, so I prefer to go to Nexus to handle something for the company or, in the worst case, play for my own enjoyment. Some days I go to the gym at 8:30 p.m. for a one-hour workout, but most days I stay at Nexus until midnight or later, either in meetings or gaming.

C&B: What values or principles guide you in what you do, and how do you apply them day-to-day?

Alexandru Ion: I’ve always appreciated smart, hard-working people with a touch of madness. I like to think I fit this pattern myself, but more importantly, I’m confident that I’ve managed to surround myself with such people.

C&B: How did the idea of starting this business come to you, and why did you choose its name?

Alexandru Ion: The initial idea was simple: I wanted to be able to play at work. I wanted my business to be a playground, both for me and for clients. I didn’t choose the name, but whoever did probably drew inspiration from a very popular game in 2013 called League of Legends.

C&B: How do you see the evolution of the esports scene in Romania over the next five years?

Alexandru Ion: We’ve started having increasingly large events for some games, which excites me. The next step for us, as well as for the domestic competitive scene, is international events. At these events, the best teams in the country will compete against internationally renowned teams, with hundreds of thousands or even millions of fans.

C&B: If you were to give a message to people following your example, what would it be?

Alexandru Ion: Don’t risk more than you can afford to lose and understand that when you most likely will lose, it’s an expensive lesson to be learned, then move on. Do research, educate yourself, don’t blindly trust your own beliefs or ideas, and surround yourself with people who can give constructive criticism and offer a fresh perspective.

Alexandru Ion shows us that success in esports and business doesn’t happen overnight. It requires passion, adaptability, learning from mistakes, and a constant drive to grow.