Website: www.iroto.com

Interview with: Elliot Schor

How many founders does iRoto have and what are their names?

2 Founders. Elliot Schor and Joshua Wolf

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

Elliot has an undergraduate degree from the University at Albany and a MBA from the University of Miami. Elliot has worked in different capacities ranging from investment banking to automotive strategic planning.

Josh has an undergraduate degree from Binghamton University and a MBA from Baruch College. Josh has worked in various technology capacities at prestigious technology firms.

What does your website do?

iRoto is a free independent social network for fantasy sports players. Members can enjoy typical social networking features and numerous other innovative and valuable features unique to iRoto and specifically built for fantasy sports players.

When did you launch?

September 2007

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

We are very pleased with iRoto’s membership growth. While registration is open to the public, our current focus is not on building the community quickly. We are using this exciting period as a time to listen to our early members to find out what is really valuable to them. Once we feel we have features that will be valuable to fantasy sports players, we will focus on growing the community.

What types of marketing have you done?

We have done a minimal amount of marketing. This is part of our overall strategy of first making sure we have the features fantasy sports players value. We do this by listening to our members suggestions and recommendations. When we feel we have the features that fantasy sports players truly want, we have an innovative marketing attack waiting to be unleashed. Having said that, we do have an advertising deal in place where we will appear in major baseball and football stadiums across the east coast. Additionally, we have done some interviews and press releases, but that’s about it.

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?

We have no other revenue streams at the moment but we have others planned for the future. One thing we will never do is charge people to become members or charge for “premium”services. We currently use Google as our ad provider.

Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?

Self-funded

Are you currently looking for funding?

No. But we are open to having informal meetings with potential investors.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

The iRoto Rep is my favorite feature. The iRoto Rep is a unique ranking/points system that ranks each member of iRoto based on their community involvement and their fantasy sports integrity. Virtually all your activity on iRoto is considered in your iRoto Rep. The iRoto Rep has many practical applications for all fantasy sports players. Players need to know that the stranger they invite to join their league is reputable and won’t ruin the league. The iRoto Rep solves this problem by being able to research someones fantasy sports history. Additionally, how do you know that the stranger you’re taking advice from on some random message board knows fantasy sports? The iRoto Rep ensures that your getting advice from credible people as you can go back and look at how their previous advice has turned out. Finally, the so called fantasy sports “experts” rarely hold themselves accountable for their predictions and recommendations. At iRoto, we believe anyone can be an expert and we give you the opportunity to prove it with the iRoto Rep.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Mostly Web 2.0 technology. Soon, we will be have new features that use some Web 3.0 technology.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

I believe in the future, everything about sports will be much more interactive than today. From the way we watch sports, to the way we keep track of our favorite teams and players, to the way we interact with other sports fans, technology will play an ever increasng roll in the equation. The fantasy sports industry will be strong contributor to the merging of sports and technology by using innovative methods to increase the connection between the fans and their favorite sports, teams, and players.

STN’s Take:

I can understand that Elliot is not focused on building a community yet but it seems to me that they may not have a good enough user base to get enough feedback about their product. I logged in and created an account. There is a good amount of tools to create content and communicate that look great but there really isn’t much content. I believe that in order for a site like this to succeed they need to have good fantasy content with player updates and I don’t know if they can expect the community to do that for them in the beginning. The IRoto rep feature could be great but its not really feasible until 1000s of people are using the site. They need more of an attraction then being able to post a blog and have a profile about fantasy football. You technically can do that anywhere. Right now they are basically a message board.