Website: www.efans.com
Interview with: Stephan Maric
How many founders does Efans have and what are their names?
eFans has one founder and my name is Stephan Maric.
What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?
I’m 25 years old and from Croatia. I’m a huge sports and music fan. I have an BA in Business Administration from Barcelona Business School and I also did a professional designation in marketing at University of California, Los Angeles.
What does your website do?
eFans.com is a revolutionary social network for sports fans. It is based on networks made up by teams and athletes from all over the world. Following such an idea every team and athlete can create an online community and connect with fans. There is already more then 1,000 networks including Tiger Woods, Manchester United and Maria Sharapova. You can also create personal pages, team and athlete pages, share photos, upload videos from YouTube, get latest news, live scores, post blogs and obviously meet fans from around the world.
When did you launch?
We launched on September 13, 2007.
How do you plan on building your community?
We plan to build our community using different types of marketing and public relations.
What types of marketing do you utilize?
eFans will mostly use Guerrilla marketing, have a team of people that is going to be present at some of the most famous sports events worldwide. With that we’ll also focus a lot on online marketing.
Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?
We just had first ads on our website which is very significant. Our providers are Google AdSense and AdBrite.
Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?
It was self funded, I mean I had to borrow some money from my family and friends to make eFans happen. I hope I’ll pay them back soon:)
Are you looking for more funding?
Yes, we are looking for investors. We are pretty close to finalize a great deal with one of the best VC’s in the world.
What is your favorite feature on your site?
My favorite feature by far is that users can enter networks of their idols and favorite teams. It’ something new and I love it. To be connected with all Ronaldinho fans was always my dream.
Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?
Great question:) I think it will just get better for us, sports fans. With websites such is YouTube, eFans, ESPN and Sportstechnow for sure the future looks great.
STN’s Take:
eFans is a well designed social network. We like how it is centered around teams and athletes. All sports social networks should pretty much be designed that way. Any options you could ever want for a social network are there. You can blog, add videos, discuss sports in the forum, and so on. It looks like when Stephan did his initial push of the site, people joined and it made some traction but the site seems to be a bit stale now. Like we have said in the past, when you build a social network these days, unless it is completely unique and different, you need to have an underlying network of people to help make it viral. A sports social network is definitely not unique and different.
A few suggestions for Stephan. The first is to eliminate the full page pop up Adbrite ad. Once we created our account, it was the first thing we saw. We can not stress this enough. Full page pop up ads are terrible when you are trying to build a user base. The second suggestion would be to have a spot for people to import contacts and invite people when they are signing up. People are more likely to invite there friends when they sign up then after.
