Letter from a founder

I didn’t start in a boardroom. I started delivering pizzas.

The first version of this dream wasn’t built with investors, consultants, or a polished business plan. It was built with late nights, borrowed desks, and more hope than experience. For two years, I literally lived in the office. I slept there, showered at the gym, and went without a paycheck because I believed that if we could build something meaningful for students, everything else would work itself out.

Looking back, I was completely unqualified to build a company. I knew almost nothing about fundraising, corporate governance, hiring, acquisitions, or scaling a business. I learned by making mistakes, a lot of them.

Some people came into my life who believed in me before there was much to believe in, and they changed my life. Others gave advice that looked smart on a spreadsheet but slowly pulled us away from why we started in the first place. Some lessons came from mentors. Others came from people I trusted too easily. I don’t regret either, because they taught me things I could not have learned any other way.

At first, none of that seemed to matter. The community was growing. Teachers were staying after school because they believed in their students. Schools were opening doors that had never existed before. Students who never thought they belonged anywhere were finally finding their people. Everything felt possible.

Then the dollars got bigger. The meetings got bigger. The expectations got bigger. Somewhere along the way, I found myself in rooms talking more about valuations, market share, growth targets, and exit strategies than students.

The strange part is that you don’t notice it happening. It doesn’t happen all at once. It happens one “reasonable” decision at a time. One compromise, one quarter, one board meeting, and one conversation where someone tells you, “This is just how business works.”

For a while, I believed them.

Part of me felt trapped, not because anyone forced me to stay, but because I slowly convinced myself that this was simply the price of building something meaningful. I was wrong.

Going through all of that changed me, not because I became a better businessman, but because I finally understood the kind of leader I wanted to be. I’ve been to what I jokingly call “the belly of the beast.” I’ve seen how easily a mission can become a metric, how a community can become a market, how students can become “users,” and how teachers can become “accounts.”

None of that happens because people wake up wanting to do the wrong thing. It happens because, little by little, the mission gets buried beneath the pressure to grow faster, raise more money, and satisfy people who were not there when the dream began.

It doesn’t have to be that way, especially not here, especially not for schools, and especially not for students.

Esports was never the goal. It was always the excuse to change a student’s life. A game can teach leadership. A tournament can teach resilience. A club can teach communication, accountability, teamwork, creativity, and confidence.

Some students will compete. Others will become broadcasters, designers, programmers, photographers, event organizers, club presidents, and leaders. Some may never play a single competitive match. Every one of them deserves a place to belong.

That is what this has always been about. Not building better players, but building better people.

I wasn’t trying to build the biggest esports company. I was trying to build the organization I wished had existed when we started. That is what Scholastic Gateway is.

It is not a do-over or a redemption story. It is simply another chance to get it right.

Will Scholastic Gateway make money? I certainly hope so. A healthy business means we can continue serving schools for decades. But money is fuel. It is not the mission.

We are not building this to chase the next funding round, and we are not building it because we hope someone buys it. We are building it because we believe this community deserves organizations that wake up every morning thinking about students before spreadsheets.

If we ever reach a point where making more money means making things worse for students or schools, I hope someone prints this letter, walks into my office, and reminds me why we started.

Hold me accountable. Hold our leadership accountable. Challenge us when we drift.

This community does not belong to us. It belongs to every student who found confidence because someone believed in them, every teacher who stayed after school because one student needed a place to belong, and every parent who watched their child finally find their people. We are simply the next group fortunate enough to serve them.

If, twenty years from now, no one remembers Scholastic Gateway, but even a handful of students remember what scholastic esports did for their lives, I will consider this a success.

Scholastic Gateway is not our finish line. It is simply our next chance to get it right.

We are not asking the community to trust us.

We are building a company that deserves it.

— Mason Mullenioux
Co-Founder, Scholastic Gateway