How Delane Parnell Beat the Game at Its Own Game
Inc.|October 2021
He was the living embodiment of the American Dream, a tireless entrepreneur who fought his way from Detroit’s meanest streets. Then Delane Parnell faced the moment that would define his gaming venture—and his life.
By Kevin J. Ryan
How Delane Parnell Beat the Game at Its Own Game

The oldest child of a single mother, Delane Parnell grew up in an impoverished neighborhood off Detroit’s Seven Mile Road. His father was murdered a few months before he was born. His mother transported him from home to home as she bounced between jobs. Still, the young Parnell had a knack for business. By the time he was 17, he had parlayed a job mopping floors at a MetroPCS into co-owning three Detroit-area cellphone shops.

Seven years later, a chance meeting with a venture capitalist inspired Parnell to move to Los Angeles and found a gaming startup. His company had a name— PlayVS—but little else beyond office space at startup studio Science Inc. Still, he had no funding, no employees. Despite all that, his goal was nothing short of bringing e-sports to the highly lucrative and largely untapped high school market.

He was on the verge of fulfilling his lifelong dream— or failing miserably.

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