A Letter from a Shadow Banshee

My name is 1337PETE, aka Lil Automute

Growing up, I enjoyed playing all sorts of sports, before the internet was even half of what it is today.  I played some soccer and baseball in middle school, started skateboarding and doing pole-vaulting in highschool, but I was most fascinated with art and the emerging videogame world. 

When I was 13, my dad created a prototype for his invention: The Impact Control Wheel, which, I think had a big impact on why I seem to think a bit differently than most people.  Ever since this, I was always trying to innovate or invent something myself, which I carried into my competitive spirit.

After Highschool
From age 19-26 I tried out various jobs from supplement store, to sales, to banking, and light construction work, trying to figure out what might fit me best, but at night I was leading and building a Counter-Strike team with the goal of going pro in CS, participating in tournaments, streaming, and making some content here and there, but overall, most of my following/network got settled into more normal lifestyles and didn't want to commit to the pro gamer grind.  I kept going. 

College
My major was for business administration, as I thought that would be best to help me with building a business.  When I was in college, I created the Competitive Gaming Club at Meramec STL Community College, and hosted a seminar at the PixelPop event about the background of esports and the future of it to a very small audience of maybe 15 or 20 attendees.

Drop Out
At age 22 I dropped out of college because I realized my degree would not help me in the business endeavors I was most interested in.  I really don't recommend that for everyone, but I just realized that the piece of paper would not help me create my own business.  I'm definitely glad I went to college as it helped me gain perspective, clarity, and meet new people that I wouldn't have otherwise met.

Impact Control Wheel
When I was 23 my father and I had begun presenting this invention to the CEOs of multiple Lawn and Garden manufacturing companies, and at this point we had made huge improvements to the design, and many many prototypes.  There was much interest, but even more questions, as there was nothing like this on the market at that time, and no one had ever heard of us.

Quarantine
In 2020, during the COVID lockdowns, I had a big boy job as a professional banker.  It was a really nice job, and I think I was very good at it, but I felt my true calling was in entrepreneurial endeavors.  People would ask me about this invention stuff often, and I had a small following of around 2500 on twitch from counter-strike and smashbros melee.  Being in lockdowns, I tried to make the best use of my time and develop my art and music skills with the goal of expanding my reach as a content creator/streamer/pro gamer and trying to build an audience.  I decided to enter into the art world when Valve hosted the Dreams and Nightmares CS Skin contest.



Entrepreneurial Spirit
While I was working as a banker, I was kind of going crazy, between COVID doom, and how long it was taking to progress toward profit, I was finding it hard to be patient.  I was 26 at this time, and I had nothing to show for myself really, just a whole lot of skills and experience.  I did a lot of silly things, and a lot of innovative things to try to gain an audience built on authenticity and substance rather than status/money/hype.  Nothing seemed to help much.  I began to believe that I needed to commit even more to these ideas to push them to success in the good and honest way.  I started networking on the basis of collaboration and uplifting each other to achieve our dreams, and forcing myself outside my comfort zones.  I didn't want to be the reason things did not succeed, so I wasted no time and tried my hardest in every way.  At this time, I was planning so many things simultaneously, building two websites and marketing strategy for both projects, improving prototypes with my dad, and trying to be active in so many spaces at once, that I decided I needed to quit my job to put my full energy into all of this.

Equipment Exposition 2022
In the fall of 2022, we debuted the product to the customers officially, this time with a website, videos, and pretty graphics.  It was a good response, but not what I hoped for.  Turns out that real business takes a long time to build, and I'm glad I got this healthy dose of reality face to face.

Here is a picture of my dad, myself, and my Counter-Strike teammate Jevin

https://impactcontrolwheel.com/

Counter-Strike

Counter-Strike meant a lot to me.  All of my free time spent was pretty much focused on training and building my team/finding players/improving, but I also ended up making some highlight montage videos on some real gamer shit, they're on my website

Competitive History

Growth
I've been learning guitar for 6 months, Chinese for 4 months, and Japanese for 2 months, thanks to Duo Lingo and meeting people on VRCHAT, I think I've learned a lot rather quickly.  It's been really fun, and I have to give a lot of credit to all the awesome teachers that I keep meeting!

It has really struck a chord in me how friendly Chinese people are, and I want to carry this spirit into the world and share it with more people, as my last attempt to overcome the Shadow Ban