NZXT PODCAST - #180 - Bryan de Zayas (New Sr. Marketing Director)

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

On this week's episode of the NZXT Podcast... We have our new Senior Marketing Director, Bryan de Zayas, with us to talk about marketing, NZXT, and some spicy questions! Follow Bryan on X! https://twitter.com/BryanDezayas Catch the replay at twitch.tv/NZXT!

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 180 of the NCC podcast, the official podcast of the NCC community. His podcast square live every other Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on the official NCC Twitch is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcasts, Google, Apple Podcast, Spotify, SoundCloud. So I get used to that. My name is Mike and with me as always is Ivan. Hi, Ivan, how are you doing? I'm doing fantastic, Mike. Happy early Easter. I'm excited for today's show. We have a very special guest. It's actually our new boss. But before I introduce them and get into that, I do want to make one quick announcement, and that is for all the people who are tuned in live right now on Twitch.tv slash nzxte. We are giving away a poochie plush mascot. If you don't know who poochie is, you're missing

out. It's a cute little adorable friend here. Mike's going to show him on the screen. Yeah, if you really want to win one, just stick around to the end of the show. Mike's going to give out a secret word to give you a bunch of bonus entries for your channel. to win one. So stick around. And without further ado, I will introduce our special guest for today. It's Brian. Brian, welcome to the show. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Super, super pleased to be here. Don't lie to us, Brian. All right. Fine. I'll tell you about it later. All right. All right. So yeah, for those who are not Mike and Ivan, who are you and what do you do at NST.

Yeah, so I'm Brian. So I lead up global marketing here at NZXT. What that means is kind of multifaceted, right? It's a little bit of community influencers, PR, the marketing spends, you know, what we do across, when you see things and visuals across Amazon or even some things on NZXT.com. really it's kind of all encompassing from that perspective and really making sure that we are doing the things we need to to grow the NZXT brand and bring, you know, bring more people into the community. That's a very important job and we're happy you're here. Before getting to NZXT, what did you do?

Yeah, you're asking me questions, so I tell people how old I am. That's what's going on here, I've been I see. But actually, so before joining NST, I actually have a lot of years in the gaming and tech space. So actually joined Alienware back in 2003, much smaller company at that point than what some of you may know today. But during those, during that time period, you know, had just a ton of different opportunities and experiences from traditional marketing to product marketing. product management for a while, and really throughout that time, helping grow the Alienware Brands through all kinds of different efforts. I'll tell you, though, one of the things that was kind of a common thread

throughout all of my career and something that's very important to me and brought me, honestly, to NZXT, and I'll talk about it here too, is community. You know, gaming, I've been a gamer in my entire life, into technology my entire life, but really what makes it interesting to me is, yeah, the games are fun, but is the community, right? And it's a super, super relatable community. Folks are actually willing, and able, and want to help each other. And so, you know, for me, all during my time at Alienware, it was really, how do you cultivate a community? And so kind of fast forwarding to today, Ivan, one of the things that really drew my attention to NZT was a community, seeing what you all

were doing. Honestly, Ivan and Mike, seeing how the community was reacting with you all, seeing what's happening across social media and just the awesome experiences people were having. And so, you know, gaming and lots of marketing in my past, but community was one of the big things that actually drew me to NZC. Nice. Well, I mean, I guess other than community, was there anything else that you were excited about? Like, is there anything that you saw from NZXT

that, like, made you excited about joining? Yeah. So, I mean, number one kind of starts with products, right? So the products, cases, the core components inside are outstanding, right? I actually had the luxury here last weekend to build up my first NDXT rig, so it's pretty amazing to get hands on and actually build one up. But products, Mike, is right at the top of that. A couple of the things that, as I was going through the process of interviewing, right,

talking with Johnny and the other leaders across the organization, you know, one of the things they kept emphasizing to me was the culture inside the company, that the culture is very much a a customer, community first kind of culture, wanting to help each other, really collaborative, and it was really about the team pulling on the same direction and wanting to grow a brand that they care about, right? And that carried a lot of weight with me.

And obviously, you know, the intent and want to grow the company and grow the brand, you know, to really game everywhere, right? And so when I hear that from the executive team, coming in, you know, you never know. You're coming into a new role. You're coming into a new company. You hope all those things are accurate.

You hope all those things are real. And, you know, four weeks in, just talking to Ivan about the amount of time, today is actually the end of week four. Could we lose them? I think so. Uh-oh, we lost them for a second. Is Discord crush? I think it might have.

I'll message him. But in the meantime, I guess Brian honestly has been really awesome with kind of introducing me and Ivan and pretty much like getting to know us as people, which is really really fun. Me and Brian actually had a really fun talk about

how he got into what his favorite games are and stuff like that. And I don't know. I feel like when you have someone that's an actual gamer becoming a... Oh, there he is. when you have a gamer that is becoming like an actual director, it's awesome. Like it's someone that actually has

experience and actually love for gaming that's coming in. Welcome back, Brian. Yeah, thank you. Apparently, I'm not, I can lag out too, so that's, that's on me, my apologies. Oh, you're good. You're good.

Oh, it's okay. Welcome back. I guess I'll just ask a question so we get back on track here. I really actually am curious. What cool stuff did you work on while you were at Alien Over? Because you were there a really long time. So what sort of stuff are you doing there?

Yeah. So when I started there, you know, I was obviously super early in my career, right? And so I remember it was, you know, coming in, I think it was a marketing specialist role. And it was literally day one. And the first thing I was asked to do was go write a press release. And at that point, I had no idea what a press release was, right? And I tell you that story because I think it's indicative of just kind of throughout my entire career where I have had a ton of opportunity to kind of figure things out along the way and kind of apply my interest in gaming and passion for gaming and tech

and figure it out kind of approach to things there. But, you know, to answer your question, Ivan, on what kinds of cool things I worked on. So I worked on the first Alienware predator chassis launch. So that was back in 2003. So kind of the first infamous or famous, I should say, design that Alienware came out with. That was custom for the company. And really all of the desktop design since that point, worked on launching them. You know, a couple that stand out to me.

So we had a couple of small form factor products. One called the X-51, one called the Alpha. And they were super innovative, super distinctive type of products that, you know, really helped to bring new ways of thinking to the market. I'll say one of the most, and this is one of the products that I actually purchased for myself, was we started launching laptops, the first initial kind of laptops that Alien were launched were these big, beefy desktop replacements more than actually a laptop, right? And so seeing that come to fruition, those are things that have never kind of been done in the past. So those first off and worlds first are always the things that stand out to me as the most interesting.

And I'd say probably later on to bring kind of time lapse forward, if you will, a lot of the partnerships and relationships built throughout gaming, right? So relationships and partnerships with companies like Riot Games with Team Liquid, other e-sports, partnerships, like NBA 2K League when they were kicking off and things like that. And so, you know, things that could really connect back to helping give maybe a better experience to the gaming community. I'll give a better experience for professionals to get better at their craft and then just having amazing products. Like those are just a few that kind of stand out to me during my time there, Ivan.

I guess did you try using chat GPT when they asked you to write that press release and you didn't know how to do it? Not back then. That was way before a chat GPP. I was just chat GPT and I was doing Google searches and seeing what a press release was and how these things were written. That's funny. Sorry about that. I'm just trying to fix this up real quick. But first we kind of want to go into marketing for a lot of people here.

and that will kind of want to get into marketing. Like, I got a marketing degree, and I honestly love every aspect about marketing from social media, PR, advertising, stuff like that. You kind of want to go into the marketing field so that if there's people that are interested in the field like us, we kind of want to show them like the ropes and the ins and outs of it. So if we want to start like a personal thing,

like you have like a pivotal experience in your career that kind of shaped how you kind of approach marketing now, especially here in the tech industry. Yeah, you know, a pivotal moment. I'll tell you one of the things, you guys are going to be sick of me saying the word community, but one of the, I'll say where really, what really kicked off for me, I'll say, as a key moment for me fundamentally as a marketer. you know one of the really cool programs that I was I was involved with was land center kits so hopefully hopefully you all know what a land party what a land party is

right you all know land centers I'm sure but land parties right so back in the day people bringing all their PCs or consoles or whatever might be to a friend's house or you know wherever because multiplayer was not like it is today right Right. But you get a group of friends. You bring your PCs together. And one of the things that you could do back in the day was the metaphor online. And what we would do at Alienware is send out a packet, a land party kit to you with, you know, a banner or this or that. Just some cool stuff for you to kind of decorate your land party with. The number of kits that we sent out was amazing.

and it's because of back to the whole point of community, right? Like people are getting together to have fun and play games together and have that camaraderie. And through that process, Mike, is one of the fundamental things of like what really stuck with, stuck with me throughout this time is how do you, how do you elevate what people want in a community and help them achieve that? whatever that is, right? If it's just getting together and having a good time or if it's more than that, right, how to tweak your rig, whatever that might be. To me, that's fundamental at all we do, right? You can spend money, you can write a great press release.

My first one wasn't Ivan, but write a great press release and all these kinds of things. But at the end of it, it's people that are passionate about something. And we get the luxury of working in a space where people are passionate about gaming, which is pretty cool. It does make time go by faster at work when you were passionate about it for sure. I agree. So, yeah, as a marketing leader, you know, how do you stay ahead of these trends that are going on in gaming and technology? I just ask chat GPT. No, I'm kidding.

I do use chat GPT, by the way. So if you all don't, I highly encourage you to go and try some things out if you haven't. So I'm a big, I listen to a lot of podcasts. So podcasts are a big way for me to stay in tune with information. I listen to as many AI-based podcasts as I can. So a couple of them like, some of the more popular ones. for sure, but Hard Fork is a real popular one. I listen to that one pretty religiously.

So anything AI is where I tend to focus, and why I focus on that is so much technology that kind of filters to our day to day, right? Think of the technology in your phone. Think of the technology, obviously, in PCs and so on. But it starts, it first starts with the crazy, quote unquote thing, right? It starts with rocket ships. It starts with building generative AI, right? And all the things that are needed and technology and engineering needed to develop those technologies, they start filtering to day-to-day life.

Right. And so, you know, it's pretty famous story of how we've been able to get to, you know, full-blown. what used to be a desktop powered PC, right, in your cell phone is because of the tech that had to be created to send people to the moon, right? So I follow, so anyways, that's why I listen a lot to AI because that's kind of the next frontier of where technology is going. It's kind of here today, but there's so much more going to happen on the AI front.

And so that's how I stay in front of trends, and how I try to stay in front of trends. I would love to be better at it for sure. But yeah, and by the way, I'll ask, if there's any podcast recos that talk about technology, I'd be super down to check them out. So if anybody has them on the stream, please do drop them in there because I will check them out.

Nice. So what do you think is a common myth about marketing in the tech industry that you would like to debunk. A myth in the tech industry from a marketing perspective. Maybe I don't know if it's so much a myth, but I'll say a conversation that that comes up a lot is within marketing. And I don't know this is tech, Ivan, but just marketing in general, that there's a separation in when you're doing things that are like awareness-based,

marketing efforts and something that is more about driving demand-based marketing efforts. And that those things, you know, are not related that, hey, you know, you need to go spend money just to go drive awareness, but that does not impact your bottom line. You know, I think, I think that's one of the misconceptions in marketing overall, right? is there's these two paths and two different ways to think of marketing. But I don't think there's two ways. I think there's absolutely one way that you need to be thinking about how do you bring more people into a brand and showcase to them and help them make the right decision

for themselves as you're going through marketing. So, yeah, that's a big one to me because throughout my career, you know, what I've, And I've been guilty of this plenty, right? It's just lessons learned transparently. Like, oh, let's go do a whatever. Let's go spend a lot of money and do an event as an example, right? And events are freaking awesome. And we transparently need to get to do some of those events here at NSXC.

But if you just like do one event and you don't think about how can you bring that community along the process, the people that are there to learn about your product, to then, hey, is there an incentive to buy your product? How do you showcase to people how to build a PC if you've never built a PC? Things like that, like walk through an entire process as opposed to just, I'm going to put a booth out and walk away. It has to be the whole funnel, if you will. So anyways, I don't know if that's, it's not so much about tech, Ivan, but marketing is, that's one of the marketing focus one.

I think that's a great answer. And Mike, I hope you wrote that down so we don't forget what he just said. You got it. Already on it. We put together those marketing plans. I guess to kind of go along with that, since, you know,

we talk about, like, events and just putting out a booth and, you know, making sure you're just going, like, okay, here's a booth.

Don. What, what's like a, what, how, how would you approach trying to, like, how would you approach,

especially like, our audience, you know, very tech savvy, very gamer-esque. How would you approach, um, marketing towards,

this specific audience. Yeah, it's something I've given a lot of thought to it. I'll tell you one of the, I think NZXT specifically is really well positioned to go do this. And here's what I mean. You know, obviously, you both know it, and I've just started to get introduced to it, but what is our company vision, right?

It's really anybody can be a PC gamer, right? Like one of our goals as a company, And Johnny talks about this all the time is how do we enable anybody to be a PC gamer, right? And so when I think about marketing approach, whether it's an event or a press release, press release, I didn't think that was going to be the theme, but it turned into a theme, press release or whatever it is that we do, we need to start with what is that upper level benefit for what it is that we're trying to accomplish, right? And so when I think about what NDXT brings to the gaming space,

you know, we bring for people that are hardcore tech DIYers, right? You can buy the best parts from us from Case all and everything kind of inside, right? But not everybody wants to do that, right? I know, I'll speak for myself. I used to do that a lot. You know, I built a, like I mentioned, I built a rig over the weekend, but it had been like 15 years since I've built my own rig, right?

I had gone to that part or said, you know what? I don't want to do that. I want to buy my products, right? So you have gamers that are all different stages, right? I want to build my rig. Maybe they'll build them forever, and that's awesome, but we've got solutions for you. You don't want to build? Okay, cool.

We have the pre-bills. If you just want to play games, you're not super techie. Okay, that's awesome too. We have the solutions for what is in a pre-built, so it just talks on our website. How many frames are going to be able to get on Fortnite or whatever it might be, right? And we even have options for subscription with our flex options. So, Mike, to answer the question, right, like, the approach that we take for events, for social, for anything that we want to go do, should start with, all right, what is that message that we're trying to deliver and what is that that we're trying to bring to the gaming community? and I think NZXT has a super unique value prop

in being able to help anybody become a PC gamer. I mean, with all your experience, I mean, for especially people in marketing, creativity is top. Creativity, staying creative and staying up to date and trendy and always creating is very tough. So with your years of experience, how do you stay motivated to, you know,

get this marketing and figure out these different aspects of all the stuff? How do you avoid burnout and how do you stay motivated? Yeah. So, well, for me, I think one is genuinely, this might sound, well, it'll sound whatever, but I get to talk about games and I get to talk about tech every day, right? Like, to me, that is not in any way boring or monotonous. Like, technology is changing all the time, you know, without divulging information.

Like, we're already talking about what the next gen products are going to be, right? And not just our products, but the parts that go inside of boxes as well. And what are we going to be doing to go announce those products, launch those products? And those products every time year on year, gen over gen, gen, they get better and they get better. better, right? And so me personally, I find that super exciting. Like that doesn't, that doesn't bore me at all, like to talk about what is the next case evolution that we're going to go do. How are we going to go of all fans? How are we going to go of all, you know, our cooling solutions? Things like that that actually excites me. You know, maybe that can dub me whatever that is,

but I find that super exciting. And then I get to layer on top of that, you know, talking about games. talking to game developers, talking to game publishers, talking to e-sports organizations, because what do they want, right? All these companies, publishers, devs, e-sports organizations, you name it, just companies in general, right? They want the best products that they can get their hands on too, right? And so it really is a perfect marriage in the space of gaming being a passion and technology being a passion.

And so that's kind of what drives me, right? learning about the new stuff, Mike, but also how do we make connections in with other industry partners to just deliver an awesome experience, man, to gamers. I find that exciting. So what do you do when you start to feel stuck or when you feel like you're lacking some creativity? Honestly, when that happens, because it obviously does, right?

It's not every day you wake up and I'm feeling the most creative or whatever. I don't think, here's the other part of marketing, right? And I appreciate you guys talking about years of experience, but to be super real, it's about the organization and the people, right? Like, I did not have a singular creative, like, oh, this was a thing that Brian did, and it's all him and blah, blah, blah, right? It's an experience that you're embedded with all the people around you, right?

And so I've been to your question, like, when we're looking for creative ideas, I don't think it's a person sitting in a room just, oh, I'm going to get creative. I think we need to be getting together, brainstorming what it is we're thinking about doing. How do we get creative with it, right? I'll give an example. I was on a call with last night. I've been, you may have been on it. I can't remember quite honestly. But we're talking about an event in the future without, again, without divulging anything.

And the conversation was riffing about layout and product and samples and what are we going to be talking about and things like that. I think it was just one person in that meeting trying to get creative on what it looks like. I don't think it would have been the best solution, right? We had about five, six folks riffing and coming up with the ideas on the call. So, you know, when I'm not. feeling my most creative or I can't figure something out, that's fine because most of the time it's not me by myself anyway. I try to rely and I work with our team to go do that. I was actually in that meeting. I was just like 30 minutes late for some reason.

I didn't know what it was. It was just really late and then I just totally spaced out and I was like, oh shoot, there's a meeting going on right now. But yeah, I was there. So before we start getting into the nitty-gritty of your current role, I have one last question for you about your experience. Yeah. All right. It's a doozy. A doozy, okay. If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

And it could be about marketing or life in general, just one piece of advice that you would give a young Brian. I would say, I would say, don't, don't ask for permission as often as I did. Just go do it and you're going to learn something along the way. You know, early Brian, I think this happens to a lot of people early in career, right? This is just an experience thing. But, I mean, I would tell you guys the same thing. Like, there's a line, right? You have to have to have enough.

You have to know what the risks are, right? But there's times where asking for permission to go do something, like, hey, oh, I want to go start up a program or I want to try to talk to this organization to strike up a deal or whatever it is. What I found is most people want to talk about the things you have done and are in progress versus the things. you say you want to go do. And so I'm very much in the mindset of, let's just go do it. And if it's successful, awesome, let's go do more. If it sucked and there's going to be plenty of things that we do that suck, cool.

We're going to learn and we're not going to do it again. But, you know, I'd say that's one thing that I'd go back and tell myself. I'd tell you guys, I'd tell everybody listening is don't always ask for that permission. It's okay to just go do it. and if something's wrong, that's fine. You just do it better next time. Do you hear that, Mike? We have a good excuse now.

If we ever get in trouble for anything. I see this friend that's happening here. I see what's happening. You guys are just that. We're just taking notes. All the blind loopholes. Yeah. I want Mike to make that a Twitch clip,

so we have that in our back pocket. Brian told us not to ask permission. When I call it to ask a question, not even going to answer. He's going to drop a clip. It's like, I got it. I see. Yeah.

Hey, we have, we had the big man's, we had the big man's word. So there you go. You do. Let's do it. For sure. Let's just go doing it. All right. So now let's go ahead and transition over to Ed 16, you know, the whole company,

you joining, everything like that. So we're going to kind of go through kind of how you kind of came about. And I guess we'll start off like, what's been like the hardest and the easiest part about becoming our new senior director? Yeah. So, well, I'm going to start with the easiest part has been you all. So the people within global marketing, our partners across sales and across all the organizations, the welcome has been amazing.

Like genuinely, everybody has been more than nice. It's welcoming, open to conversations. like difficult conversations immediately about, you know, you ask me good and bad, like, what's working, what's not. You know, sometimes when you have your first conversation with somebody, it's really hard to outline, you don't know each other, right? You're outlining what works, what doesn't, where do we need to get better? But I'll tell you the people inside of NZXT have been amazing.

When I say welcoming, it's very, it's felt like a it's very familial it's it's felt like you know hey um warm embrace if you i'm trying to find the right analogy but it's very much felt that way it hasn't been the stiff arm right um so i'd say that's the best part for sure um i'm not going to say there's been a bad part because i don't think there's been a bad part i'd say where we have opportunity um it's another one you can clip later i don't like to talk about bad i talk about bad i talk about what are the opportunities we have because again we can learn from it um i genuinely think the opportunity uh the biggest thing that we have is we can um uh go grow this brand but go reach more and more

people um you know we know that nzxte follower base and community is loves this loves this brand um that is super hard to get to like ridiculously hard um you know if you just go across and I'm not going to rattle off brands, but even if you think outside of tech, right, think of how many brands are actually loved brands, right? Whether it's a small group of folks or a large group of folks, there's not a ton. There just isn't like, you know, you're not going to be able to rattle off 200 companies that are just beloved brands, right? And I mean, you guys can tell me, but I feel like we've got a community, NZXC as a community

that is that has a that has brand love for this for this for this for this line right and believes in what we're striving for every single day to go do so um i think that's the opportunity is how do we go how do we go tell that story broader and show more people what we're about to to to um to build out the community and now that you're here brian what is your number one goal as the head of global marketing. The number one goal. Besides being on the NG60 podcast. I mean, this is, of course, you had that layup for me and I didn't take it. That's my vibe.

So the number two goal, we are, I think it's about, it's about expanding. I talked about a little bit earlier about kind of what the brand vision is that Johnny has really set out for the company. of anyone can be a PC gamer, but is really showcasing that. I've been to the world because we're so known for cases and coolers and the core kind of components, right? But there's so much more to NZXT than that. And that is exciting.

And to me, goal number one, over the next several years of how do we do that authentically and showcase that all the things that we're actually doing are super authentic and designed and made for gamers. You know, we're not just, I don't know if this is a curse show or not, so maybe I'll stop. But it is, we're not just putting stuff inside a box. We're not just, you know,

we're not here just throwing whatever we can at a product line. We're innovating, we're driving change, you know, and it's not just, again, inside the box. it's with keyboards and mice and headsets and, you know, mics and across the board. And so we're so much more than cases and coolers that that's number one for marketing is I want gamers around the world to know that we're a hell of a lot more than that. Yeah, I agree. And I really, I'm really stoked that you love community so much because, you know, my whole goal

with working with our community is not even to so much just sell them on our product. It's really to help them and try to build relationships with them and just be there for them if they need us. And like in the chat right now on Twitch chat here, there's people asking questions like, you know, does NXT reply to DMs? And other people are saying like, yeah, they respond to me. And there's even someone that said Mike and I should get a raise because we do such a good job on social. and I agree with them, Brian. You should give us both the raise right now after the show. I know you guys clips up.

I can't reply right now. We almost got him. We almost got them. Yeah. So the reason I bring that up is because I think all three of us agree. You know, community is literally probably the most important thing when it comes to marketing because without your community, you really have nothing, right? So I want to know, I want to hear it straight from the source here.

You know, what is your plan to integrate all this community feedback that we're getting into our marketing strategies? I mean, you know, the, I'll tell you what, I think. The way that I think we should approach this is kind of back to the creative question. Like, I would want to learn and hear from you guys. You guys have been at the forefront of engaging with the community. for a long-ass time. And so I don't want to assume things about the community that I just don't know, right? Like transparently, right?

One community is not equal to another community, right? And so there's nuances that need to be considered as we go through. Like, I think there's, so that's the first part, right? So me coming to NZXT and saying, we're going to go do it this way, I think that would be a pretty crappy approach because you guys are experts and have built up the community to what it is, right? So I want to sit with you guys and say, what's right? Like, let's go and how do we enable that? I think there's some universal truths, though, that carry over, right?

So like the NDST community is in a lot of different places. Every community is a lot of different places, right? It's not just on Discord. It's not just on Twitch. It's across all social. What's the best way to engage across those communities, across those platforms? Does the NZXT community want a single place to go? Maybe they want, you know, again, I would love to hear this.

feedback, right? Like, how does everybody that's listening to this want to engage back with NZXC? And let's go meet those needs as opposed to saying, hey, this is what we're going to go do. Like, that's kind of my approach. I have it. And I want to learn. I want to understand. I want to hear all the feedback. And then go build it together, quite honestly. Yeah, but we have an assignment, Mike. I'm going to flip this. I'm going to clip this right now. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no, turning on us. So I guess, you know, you did talk about, you know, figuring out how we can engage with the community and make sure that their needs and their wants are heard.

But is there something that you personally want us, you know, me and I, and as a social team, is there anything that you want us to do? Anything at all could be, you know, something that we probably can't do to somebody like, oh, yeah, just go ahead and do that. Is there anything? Well, I mean, the first thing was get on the podcast. So there we go. There we go.

All right. So that's one. I took the layup that time. Anything that I would want you guys to do. You guys already do this. And in the time that we've worked together. But I want you to be the voices of our fans, of our community, of our customers, back into the company. I've seen an in I've seen an experience where sometimes that ebbs and flows right and having that

always on kind of flow of information is vital I know I sound like a broken record saying community and fans and all that kind of stuff and it can come off and sound like oh you know he's saying that marketing guy but what we're actually doing is serving a community what we're actually doing is creating products and experiences and solutions for community of gamers whether it's one person or whether it's you know the world's population of gamers um and so i think why i think community and social platforms and that engagement is so important is you have to have a pulse on what people are telling you and have to have a pulse on are you actually serving a community or not so that's what i would ask you guys to do is like continue to push the company

push me but push the company on hey guys this is the feedback that we're hearing from our community we're doing something right or we have an opportunity to go do something better um that's kind of my my ask to you guys and honestly commit to the folks that we're talking to and listening here We want to hear that feedback, whether it's good, whether it's an opportunity to improve, whatever it might be. Speaking of the people who are here, what message do you want to share with the NZC community as you're stepping into this role? Yeah, I'd say I'm sure there's many different reasons why each of you is following. engaging with the community, right? I'm sure Mike and Ivan are a big reason behind that,

that personal connection. Maybe it's the tech. Maybe you love the products or whatever it is. What I'd say is keep letting us know what it is you expect from us. You know, is it something around games? Whatever it might be. What do you expect from us besides a free case and free PC? We know you guys want free cases and PCs.

We all know. We all know. But what else, right? Like, how can we get better, like, genuinely, you know? And maybe we should talk separately about what that looks like. Like, how do we have regular, you know, community feedback taken back into the company sessions or something? I don't know. But those are the kinds of things I would tell the community and ask is, like,

You know, that's what I would ask. Nice. You hear that, folks. Just let us know what you want. We'll relay the message. Yep. All right. So thank you, Brian, for answering all those questions about your experience in NST. We really appreciate it. And it is now time for my favorite part of the show. It is where Mike is going to just throw a lot of random questions your way. and we want you to answer these as fast as possible. You can elaborate on them if you want. Okay.

But yeah, take it away, Mike. All righty. I love this part. So we're going to go rapid fire. Say whatever you want. Explain however you want. But just first thought, just say it. How did you get into gaming in general?

Oh, man. So how I got into gaming was lots of Nintendo games. It actually went before that. You might not consider this a game, but I used to read a ton of Choose Your Adventure books, and that turned into word-based adventure, like Choose Your Adventure kind of text-based games. And then I just started tweaking hardware on my parents' PC back in the day,

trying to be able to play games. And yeah, just kind of continued on that way. That's how I got into it way back when I was a kid. I love it. So what games do you currently play? Yeah, so last night I played, played a few rounds of A-RAM in league. Not too much L-divers as much as I'd like.

But that's, I played league quite a bit. That's kind of the go-to game when I've got, you know, maybe half-hour, hour to kill, run a few one or two A-Ram rounds. I love A-Rams. So I guess we'll go on to the League of Ledger's questions. One. This is going to be controversial. I want some,

I want some, what is the worst role in league? The worst role in league. It's got to be jungle. I don't, I can, yeah, jungle's the worst.

You get no love. It's always your fault. Like, if a laner dies, oh, you weren't ganking enough, or you were too late, or you were too early,

right? It's never the laner's fault. Um, so jungle gets no love, even though they probably are the role that could be the most impactful to an entire game. But, man, you get bullied. Yes, yes, you do. And I guess what is the worst champion that you hate playing against?

And what is the champion you love play at? Oh, easy. Easy. I cannot stand playing against Pike. I hate them. I play primary. I'll do ADC and support backup, right? So the two secondary.

Pike, if I'm support, is my auto band. And Samira's my auto band when I'm ADC. So those are my two auto bands. My go-toes are Senna as support. And actually, she can play ADC now, but Sena. And I've been rocking more Caitlin ADC right now recently. Nice, nice. So you're a big whiskey guy.

What is your favorite whiskey? Yes. So Woodford Reserve is my go-to as often as possible. I'll take a need. I'll take it on the rocks. If it's got to be through an old-fashioned, that's fine, but would prefer just either need or on the rocks. So yeah, Woodford Reserve, short answers. That was actually perfectly answered. Which one do you prefer on the rocks or? I think it depends on the moment and what's going on during the week probably on the rocks um to dilute a little bit on the saturday probably neat nice and i and you're also a fan of cigars so uh what is the best cigar another another easy this is a layup for me um so pedron six but it has to be the 64 um 64th anniversary cigars.

And so they have they have the the stronger one, the lighter one. So Padron, 64 anniversary, the Maduro one, which is darker.

Fancy. What do you love about cigars? It is, well, typically, if I'm having a whiskey, I'll have a cigar

and vice versa, right? So it's almost a combo for me is probably one thing. it's just a way to unwind quite honestly. Like it is just the de-stressor, which is probably weird because I also work out, which should be a de-stressor, but it's like the opposite of it, I guess.

I don't know how to describe it, but it's just my Zen be able to vibe out and chill when I've got some music playing in the backyard and join a cigar and whiskey. Yeah, it's just a vibe. I think next week, Mike and I are going to start drinking and smoking on the podcast, see what it's like. We'll get some real odds right there. If we do it at night, I could join you outside. We do a night podcast.

That'll be kind of a fun one. We just talk about it, and then all the people come in and just talk with us. That sounds kind of fun. And that does some fun, by the way. I would be super excited for that. I just can't do it in my house. Is he an episode? After dark.

Let's ask the community if they want it. Do they want NXT pod after dark? And the Pope here in the chat brings up a good point. We don't need permission to do that. Just do it. No, we don't. Who's going to tell us no? Oh, what is your favorite product from Alienware?

Either something that you personally like or somebody that you work on. From where? Alienware. Alienware you said? My favorite product. it is nah I'd say it's the x 51 so if you search the x 51

it's like this small form factor box was uh was it mini ITX I think it was but that was so disruptive so if you search x 51 you'll see what product I'm talking about I'm going to show I'm going to show the stream right now wow

I don't have the stream up so anywhere honestly has some really cool design There's a lot that went into them, for sure, a lot that went into those designs and focus on, you know, upgradeability and things like that. For those that don't follow this account, it's called PC philanthropy on Twitter. They're like a huge collector of these old school alien work cases. They also have a lot of old school NXC cases. Yeah, they post a lot of these old designs.

and every time they show them, I'm like, man, these are actually like bonkers looking. They're like super futuristic and I love them. They're really nice. Yeah, I can't deny. The products are the design, the products are pushed a lot of limits for sure. They do. They keep the industry on their toes, right? So it's a good barometer for sure.

You're a big Disney fan, right? Yes. Big old is. All right. Favorite Disney film and then a favorite Disney ride. Okay, okay. So hold on. So the ride easy, that's Guardians of the Galaxy.

That's insane if you have. And I'm talking about the Guardians in Orlando. It's different in, it's different in L.A. Garden of the Galaxy in L.A. For Disneyland is Tower Terror, right? Yeah, it's like Tower of Terror. Yeah. But no, this one is like, I don't even know how to describe it.

It's a roller coaster, but it's roller coaster, visual. I don't even know how to describe it. But if you search Guardians at Epcot, favorite ride, it's amazing. And it's a newer one, so it's always packed, of course. And it was movie, you said? Yes. So any Disney property or just like an old school Disney? Anything.

Any Disney property could be Marvel. I mean, it's easy. Endgame is, I think, the best of, I mean, it's the best Marvel movie that there is. And so, yeah, for me, that's an easy one. Do you remember your first email username? Or gaming username, too.

It's always fun to hear, like, what, like, either the Xbox generation or you're just like, oh, I'll just get to type of this random code. I, so I have, um, I've had the same, different like letter iterations throughout the years, but the same core of a gamer tag, gamer name, and it's dysfunctional. It's just been my gamer tag for forever. So sometimes, you know, if dysfunctional is taken, it's dysfunction or it's gotten down to like dysfunck, right?

It just depends on the game, on the length. But, yeah, and kind of how I got there with that name was I always enjoyed when I played games, trying to do them a little differently. So, yeah, so that's, maybe it tells me, tells you all a little bit about me too. Yeah, it was like dysfunctional, interesting. Very, very interesting. You chose that. Was there a re-sitting for it, or you just like, you just like the way it sounded?

I don't know. I've had it. I mean, it's been, it's been my gamer tag for so long. Honestly, Mike, I don't even remember,

like, how it started. I just, I know I play games differently, so I'm assuming that's kind of, um, where it came from, but man,

it's been for so long. So long. Can I remember? Mine was the Xbox, uh, Generation 1. It was Boulder Bird. Oh,

classic Xbox generation one. I didn't want once with numbers. I hated usernames with numbers. I hated usernames with numbers. at the end. So I was like, I just was like spamming the generation for somebody that was like original. And that popped up.

I'm like, I'm taking that. Older bird. It was. Good old times. Let's see. What's a crazy fact about you? A crazy fact.

Or fun fact. I don't know. I don't know if it's crazy. I mean, I've got, I got a tattoo on my back. I don't know if it's crazy. It's a,

of a bald bald eagle and but like in it's all black and it's got the initials of my wife and kids

in the feathers mixed into the feathers so the feathers are there but it's it's more tribal design than like realistic bald eagle

but yeah that's dope in fact so how long did it take you to finish a tattoo Oh, it's not that, it's not that huge or intricate. It was, it's all, so it's all black tribal. The letters are in there.

I was like, it was a day of four hours maybe, something like that. It wasn't too long. Not bad. Yeah, yeah. It's not a big, like, intricate. It's not like my whole back. It's like, you know, a little bit larger than your palm kind of on the shoulder blade. Yeah, yeah.

If there's something you wish NZXD could do, no limit. what would you want no limits um it's a good one I need time to prep for that I would say I want so I want

so okay so I want NZXT to be concerned this way I want NZXT to become known as a driving force within um either e-sports

well not either end. We're talking big, right? Yeah, no limit. A driving force in e-sports and a driving force with game devs. Like, I would love top-tier and all game doves to be creating and testing and working off of NZXT rigs as an example. And I say from e-sports, I'd love professionals to be better at their craft because of our

products. That would be dope, honestly. Everything's powered by NZXT at that point. Yeah. We're in all the subsets of gaming, you know, not just like, oh, we just, for people that are gamers, it's now those that are the highest level and also those that make the game. That sounds dope. Yeah. All in gaming.

I mean, that's, yeah, absolutely. I'd love to get there. And I'm bullish on that stuff. I think we have an ability to get there. It's not going to be tomorrow, but for sure, I'm super confident we can do that kind of stuff. All right. A couple more left. Do you have any injuries you obtained in a really dumb way?

Yeah, so my pointer finger on my left hand. So I play indoor soccer. And so one of the sides is literally a mesh fence, right? And so went piling into it. Got my finger stuck in the freaking fence. And as I pulled my finger out, I don't know what the hell happened to it, but couldn't move it for like two weeks. and of course I didn't go to the doctor, right?

So now it's been like four months, and now it's just back to normal. So that's a... So yeah, getting my finger stuck in a mesh fence while playing soccer. Indoor soccer, which is like 10 times faster, right? It's fun, though. Yeah, it is faster, but here's the trick to, Ivan.

You have to run less, so it's twitchy, but you don't have to run as far. I assume you call it soccer not football, correct? I mean, it depends if we're talking about the Premier League. Depends if we're talking about the Euros, right? So that's football. But if we're talking about, you know, here in the States, it's got to be soccer. So it depends what I'm talking with, honestly.

All righty. And the final question, my favorite dumb questions of all time. Is cereal a soup? Serial soup, no. Soup has to be hot. And if you have hot cereal, there's something different about you. Does it have to specify hot? You ask me, I think, I think soup is hot.

So like when you say, I've, so like if somebody serves you cucumber soup and it's cold, that's not soup. That's just cucumber juice. What are so cold soups? There is a cold cucumber soup. Oh, yeah. It's just cucumber juice. That's all that is. Are you going to drink?

Are you going to have a soup of apple juice? Is that, is that a soup? No, if you have apple juice and something in it, then I would count that as a soup. That's a whole different. Oh, gazpacho, yeah. Yeah, yeah. What about it called gazpacho? Okay.

Would that be a soup? I think so. Oh, yeah, I think that works. that's okay. Yeah, I guess there's, I guess there's gradients to this. That's fine. But cereal is not in that at all. It's not a soup. I like what Mr. C-Lama just said. If you consider cereal a dessert soup, maybe. Is there, is there tears? Like, is there dinner soup? I've been known to have cereal for dessert. So yeah, I'm going with that, but I don't know I'd call it a soup. I'll call it a dessert. I don't know about a soup. Okay. Okay. Well, we'll keep

on the gradient scale then. Well, we'll say Sue mainly has to be hot, but there are subsets of it. Like a gazpacho right there is a great example. I agree, but cereal is not in that gradient. All right. That is the last, as a last rapid fire.

I'm going to go into some announcements real quick, just for everyone here. And then we'll go ahead and do so finding, final parting words from Brian, and then give you guys that code for the Fuji giveaway. Uh, so we just launched some new keyboards and mice. I have the function two right here. Uh, and then the lift two as well.

I'm using the ergo. Uh, available black and white. Uh, we got a full size and a mini tkL for the function. We have an ergo and a sim. So if you're right handed or you want like a symmetrical one, you can go for either or. Tons of stuff with like linear optimal switches, 8K polling rate, adjust wash you way should 26,000 DPI sensor for this, which is crazy. So if you guys want to take a look at that, go ahead and type

Estimation Point Function 2 or estimation point lift 2 in chat. Or if you're listening live nzxc.com and check up for referrals. We also just launched our brand new craft project with Starfield. We have a mouse, mouse pad, and case inspired by Starfield. Honestly, the case is pretty dope. I love the white with like the blue and the yellow and red. It looks so clean. So if you like the game and you're looking to buy a new PC,

we also have a PC for the Craft 2, Craft 12, Player 2, Craft 12 edition PC, estimation point Starfield in chat or take a look at n60.com. If you're looking to take a look if you're listening in. We also just launched a brand new N60 Flex subscription service where you can get a gaming PC for literally just $59 a month. So if you're just looking for a PC-4 short time, like you're home for the holidays, or you're an internship, or you're just, you know,

at college for like a couple months that you don't want to have to get a whole piece. Go ahead, take a look at estimation point flex in the chat. You can cancel any time, which is the good thing. You're not stuck with a subscription for a while. And if you hold it on for two years, you get a free upgrade.

Pretty dope, honestly. And then one of the final ones, we also are bringing back our wallpaper contests. We're currently doing one every month. We'll be doing a NZXT themed artwork So please, if you guys Want to take a look at it, go to

Discord.g.g.g.m. Discord. In chat, if you want to take a look at that. And if you win, you guys will win some dope stuff. Please, please, please read the rules Like no AI work. Make sure it's your own. And it can literally just be your creation. Have fun. It's for and fun of it.

If you win, you're going to get some dope stuff, honestly. And then I guess, for Brian. First, where can we follow you on social media, Brian?

Yeah, Twitter's probably the best place just at Brian's ice, so easy enough. That's the best way to follow me. Awesome. Ivan,

can you go ahead and get, all right, I actually have, oh, that right, you got the link. Perfect. I was about to roll it up right now.

Brian, do you have any last final words? Any parting words you want to give to the audience right here? Yeah, just you know pleasure to be here but super stoked to be here at n dxte and you know truly mean it like let us know your thoughts let us know what you think and you know we're

here for we're here for the ride I'm here for the ride and just want to make sure that we're serving you guys right so let us know how we're doing love it love it well I'll go ahead to give you guys the code word for the Pucci plush giveaway like we said as much point giveaway and chat. If you guys want to take a look, we're giving way one of these guys. We'll send you an email. And if you want to confirm the winner,

go ahead and check out our Discord. Discord.g.g. slash ZXT and check the giveaways channel for the winner. So does our way to say, thank you guys for joining us live. You know, because, you know, we love having people like Brian on the podcast and we love see you guys,

interact with us. And again, giving your opinions, like Brian said, giving your opinions, what we should do, what you guys want, what you guys want to see. Anything you guys want to do, does our way saying thank you guys. So the code word for the PG giveaway for 500 extra entries is BDZXT is the code word. For those that don't know, says Brian's last name has a Z in it. Ivan thought it was like, oh my God, wait, BDZXT. It works perfectly like Ivan ZXT right here.

It rolls right off the tongue. And I saw someone in the chat earlier say, Brian should change his name to Brian ZXT, but I think BDZXT is more clever. I kind of like the BDZ. I kind of like that, the BDZ. Yeah. It feels good.

I like it. He was born for this job. And Ivan, creation, so I love it. Well, thank you so much, guys, for joining us live. And we're more tuned in live every other Friday

at 10 a Pacific Santer Time on the official n60 twitch and don't forget to listen to previous episodes of apple podcast spot and sound cloud if you got any questions for us send an email to podcast at nzcc.com or just tag or dm us on nzxc on social media platforms we're always trying to respond to you guys there thank you brian for joining us and welcome to nzxx t and the nc 60 fam and we're excited to uh see what you want to do and see what you can do and see the awesome stuff that you're guys going to accomplish Awesome. Thanks for the welcome

and thanks for having me here, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you guys. Please. Remember, BDZXT is the code word for the Pucci giveaway. We'll see you guys soon. Join Discord.

Do everything. Bye NSY stuff. Have a good weekend, everyone. Happy Easter. Happy Easter.