Interview with TJ Exclusives Founder and CEO, Jacob Bresina

Could you introduce yourself? 

My name is Jacob Bresina I am 34 years old from Wisconsin, USA

When and how did TJX start as a company?

TJ Exclusives actually started in June 2021. Me and my brother Tim originally started the company making gaming mouse mods that gamers could easily install on many of the popular gaming mice, that dramatically reduced the weight of the mice for gamers. We still produce those mods today and they sell great, but we have moved much more into making new never before done surfaces on mouse pads that are tailored to specific types of fps games.

What is the job of the CEO of an Esport Gear company?

To understand what the gaming community really wants by listening to professional gamers and casual gamers alike, and bringing to market new never done before and innovative products. And always looking for ways to make things more cost effective for the user. And Engaging with communities for each gaming title. Never staying comfortable and researching new ideas everyday. 

TJX is a growing mousepad company, how has been the journey so far? 

The Journey so far has been incredible, unbelievable amounts of hard work, but so rewarding to gain the trust of gamers, and to work with such amazing talent. Especially since competitive FPS gaming has been my main hobby since I was 12 years old.

What changed for you as a person since the company foundation?

I would say my overall happiness for life. To be looking forward to Monday and looking forward to getting to work and honestly a lot of times upset when your day is done, is a feeling not really heard of that much. I am so blessed, it takes a lot of hard work, but so blessed. I absolutely love what I do and my only regret is that I didn't do this sooner in life.

What are the main differences between your mousepads and the rest?

Oh there are many differences with our pads. We are the only ones right now to offer a hard industrial ceramic surface that does not wear out (not just tempered glass). We also have created the world's first control hardpad perfect for Valorant and tac shooters, the Cerapad-KIN; other hard pads are all built for speed. 

Although we do offer a speed pad as well with the ceramic surface. We also are the only hardpad company to offer 5 sizes of our pad which really helps with gamers specific needs and budget. And you can personalize each pad with your gamer-tag or logo or really anything you want. Which again is the first for a hardpad. And at the end of this January we will be launching 3 new color options as well Green, Pink and Blue.

How did you come up with this idea? What inspired you to create mousepads and join this industry knowing you are the only one on the market with ceramic mousepads?

What inspired me is that I used to work in Ceramics Processing and machining for my Family's business Technical Products INC. I helped create ceramic parts for many companies including Nasa, Lokheed Martin, GE Medical and many more. They are still in business doing well, But I was never really happy with what I was doing with my life. 

I always loved gaming and trying to create new things because I was not fully happy with what was available from esports companies. So after working with high end ceramic materials and understanding their properties and what you can achieve with them it gave me the idea to bring ceramics into the gaming world, the Cerapad. I created the first prototype Cerapad on a whim and once it was done and I tried it out I knew I had something unbelievably special and needed to get it into other gamers hands. 

I believed in this product 100% from the start otherwise I would have never brought it to market. The ceramic really creates the best tracking surface I ever tried with the thousands of ultra fine ceramic particles per square inch. gaming sensors love this pad. But even more impressive was its control and stopping power that has never been possible before with gaming hard pads.

What's the process behind creating a Cerapad mousepad?

I really don't want to go into too much detail here as there is so much trial and error and so many learning curves and 1000’s of hours of research. But I will say there are a lot of processes and time that go into each pad from the coating, the straining of ceramic and final surface treatment to get them to have the glide and feel that they are known for. And I am very proud that these are all handmade by me and my small team here in the USA. We take pride knowing we do not outsource or have other 3rd party companies that we rely on. It's nice knowing we are in full control of these pads and not at the mercy of a factory.

Are you planning to create and sell other esport gear in the future?

OHH YESS! We want to create many more surfaces for our Cerapad. We have many ideas for our own Gaming Mouse as well and can't wait to start on that. And Also our own gaming skates for the bottom on gaming mice. And so much more!

What's the work routine of a CEO?

Waking up early, and being there to handle wherever I am needed the most for the company. Something I learned early on is I believe a CEO needs to be hands on and be part of all the operations and oversee production and engineering and design. To me a CEO’s biggest job is to earn the respect from everyone in the company and be the hardest working and being supportive of the team. Tim and I are the main engineering team as that is both our strongest quality but we help everywhere from building the website to helping gamers, making the pads and shipping and being very active on socials as well.  

What's your favourite game?

Don’t laugh! But my game that I have the best memories of and that really got me started in competitive fps games,  I know this makes me sound old is Call Of Duty 2. It only first came out on PC in 2005. I used to play more hours a week on that game than I care to admit. But right now its hands down Valorant. The gunplay is perfect to me and the community is so supportive and nice to work with and the talent of some Valorant players is absolutely crazy.

Are you playing CS-GO, Valorant or any other games in your free time?

I play Valorant almost every night. I am highly addicted to that game.

If yes, with which mousepad are you playing with?

I am not saying this to support my product, Because as a gamer I will always use what gives me the best performance for each game. But I have not since I created the Cerapad-KIN switched to anything else. I absolutely love this pad for Valorant.

What are your short and long-term ambitions with TJX?

Short term is getting our pads in as many players' hands as possible and gaining their trust as an esports company, as we are still very new with this mousepad, not nearly enough gamers have heard of us. Also sponsoring more players and gaming organizations and putting on tournaments and doing prize pools etc. 

Long term? Be one of the best and most trusted names in Esports. Having the best products with the highest quality in the industry. From Hardpads to gaming mice and keyboards to whatever we can bring innovation to gamers.

Is there anything else you would like to say?

Thank you to all at EsportsDriven.com for this interview. And thank you to all our supporters and gamers, professional and casual alike that use and trust our products, you give us so much drive to better ourselves and our products. We hope to gain more and more gamers' trust everyday.