It's Friday, and that means it's Peak Q&A time.
Every Friday we feature someone in the Canadia tech, finance, or startup space doing something cool and pick their brain to get practical and actionable tips and advice for the rest of us.
This week we are featuring Marius Adomnica, an esports, tech, and video games lawyer at Segev LLP to get his take on these emerging industries.
By the way, do you have a question you want us to ask future Peak Q&A guests? Or do you know someone who'd make a great guest? Reply and let us know!
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
Marius Adomnica: I'm an esports, tech and video game lawyer at Segev LLP in Vancouver. I also write an esports/gaming law blog The Patch Notes on the side.
What's one book that has taught you a lesson that you apply to your daily business life? What's that lesson?
MA: Elon Musk's biography by Ashlee Vance, specifically the description of how SpaceX was founded. Even though SpaceX was a huge endeavor - literally a company that builds rocket ships - the book made it look like starting the company wasn't something that Elon spent years planning ahead of time. Instead, it seems like he basically threw himself into it and figured things out as he went along. He started with not much more than a basic idea (and a few tens of million dollars in seed capital, fine), got a bunch engineers together, and they just sort of solved problems as they came up.
Maybe the book exaggerates things, but I think that's generally a good lesson. Ultimately, the only way to see if something is going to work, or if you can do it, is to go out there and try. Time spent planning things meticulously ahead of time, or wondering why people smarter than you haven't figured out a solution to the problem you're trying to solve, is often time wasted. I think just having a bias towards action and the basic willingness to go out there and try things is a far bigger contributor to success than almost anything else.
I would add that while this sounds great on paper, like most people, I probably don't live by this principle as much as I should. I do think it's something everyone should strive towards a little bit more, and that the world would look pretty different if more people did.
What evening and/or morning routines do you have that set you up for success?
MA: This isn't really a morning/evening routine, but the biggest one I'm trying to work on is focus. Recently I've started to feel like at work I spend more time trying to figure out how to prioritize different things I have to do, and jumping between tasks, than I spend on actually getting anything done, so I've been trying to stop letting myself get interrupted.
When I work on something, the plan now is to just focus on that one thing and finish it without letting something else intrude unless the building is on fire. This is, of course, one of those things that's easier said than done, and I'm still trying to get it figured out, but I think in the long term it will lead to a much more productive (and less stressful) way to work.
What are you involved in outside of your company? As in mentoring, boards, volunteering or other activities? How do you recommend others engage in activities outside of work and how do you give and get the most out of them?
MA: I'm on the board of a few non-profits and industry groups, like the Vancouver Esports Association. Before COVID I also tried to run or help with physical events relating to esports or tech whenever I could. I also try to stay involved with the community by generally being active Twitter, Discord, etc. and helping out with community projects in any way I can as they arise.
I would say the best way to approach off-work stuff is to go out there and do things you'd be doing anyway. If it feels like work, you're not going to get much out of it. For example I run a weekly poker night (held online now), which is part an excuse to get people in the community together and part an excuse to play poker.
What advice do you have for students or young professionals who are trying to position themselves in a competitive job market. What can they do to make themselves stand out?
MY: This is probably not the most original advice, but network, and try to be able to show some kind of activities beyond school that show you'd be a good fit wherever you're trying to get.
It's honestly pretty hard to stand out. For the past few years I've been of the lawyers that reviews student applications at our firm, and one thing that struck me being on the other side of things is just how many applications you have to sort through, and how easy it is for them to just sort of blend into one.
I was surprised that grades were almost never the thing made me want to interview someone. Instead the deciding factor would almost always be one of two things: (1) if I met them before at some kind of event and got along with them, or (2) if they did something unusual that stood out and showed they were interested in the firm or would be a good fit. This could be anything from starting a company on the side, working somewhere interesting, or just some kind of interesting life experience.
What's one app or another piece of technology that improves your productivity and you couldn't live without?
MY: I'm not too big on productivity apps - my life at work is basically organized entirely through a Word file containing a list of things I have to do, that I update 10 times a day. That's probably not a very good tech lawyer answer, but honestly I think it's all you need. A lot of the time simple is better.
In terms of technology I couldn't live without, I would say it's the general communications ecosystem of Twitter/Discord/Reddit/Linkedin etc.. I know people have some issues with some of these apps, and I see their point, but I think on balance they're a really good way to keep up with what's going on both in the wider industry and locally, as well as engage with people, and I'd feel a lot less connected to the world around me if they were gone.