In 2015, I created a YouTube channel to release short films and sketches under. I didn’t have a name for the channel, but I knew that I wanted it to be personal to me. I was struggling a lot with self-doubt, I wasn’t sure I could accomplish what I had dreamed of. Then one night, I read a paragraph from “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway.

“Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?”

What I was searching for hit me, the name was Cruel Ocean. The world can be cruel and unforgiving like the ocean, but it can also be an amazing place where anything is possible. I quickly realized that it could be bigger than movies and YouTube videos. I wanted a team, eSports, and apparel. Fast forward to the present, we have our first drop in our apparel ventures, a group of content creators, that span across four countries. When I was looking at members, I wanted people that I could call my friends, and people who believed in Cruel Ocean.

As we look to the future, we plan to continue pushing ourselves, and expand even further. Each breaking our own limits.