Website: Sporting Connections

Interview With: Oscar Boult

Is their more then one founder? If so, who are they?

No, I was the only founder of the site. The site was originally launched by a developer in Dec 2006 after 3 months of planning. The developer did a runner when he realised the complexity I was looking for and I lost a fair amount of money. Not to be deterred, I went through 3 more developers and another 6 months of hassle (but fortunately not much more money, I had learnt the hard way) before finding my current developer. The first developer left the site in a basic but disfunctional state up on the internet and over the year I have seen several copycat sites. I officially relaunched it in October of 2007

What is your background and qualifications?

Having travelled the world for over 13 years and participated in so many different sports I have been lucky enough to meet some wonderful people. I noticed that one of the hardest things to do when you are trying to get involved in a sport is meet other like minded people to participate with you and at your level. It occurred to me after driving down to Brisbane for a game of golf with friends down there that it would be wonderful to be able find golf partners up here on the sunshine coast. When I started thinking about how to do that I realised that with all that modern technology out there, there was no way I could just look up someone who was interested in a game of golf…. or tennis, or going kitesurfing etc.!!!

The site is a culmination of my desire to provide a place where people can get together online for the purpose of getting out and being active; sport is the great equaliser, there is no requirement for conversation or getting to know someone immediately when playing a sport, friendships are built through a mutual enjoyment of whatever activity is chosen… hence the party line “Building friendships through sport”.

My background was as a personal trainer and gym instructor before moving into IT project management. I have no qualifications or idea regarding websites and other than designing the entire site and coming up with the idea, my developer does all the work.

What does your website do?

It is a free community site that lets you search sports profiles of the people around you and worldwide who are interested in joining you to play sports of every kind; you are also able to find training partners, sports teams (or add your own team and look for team mates) or sports communities, coaches and personal trainers. Once you have a team registered you can add team mates to your online team and players from all around the world and locally can find you easily. You are able to use an online notice board for your team members to communicate and as the team manager can email all team members via your team message system. The site also allows you to add sports events for free so people can join you for things like a game of football down the local park. The featured team for the month gives a good indication of how it works: http://www.sportingconnections.com/component/option,com_teams/task,teamhome/access,1/id,204/Itemid,57/

How do you generate revenue? If through ads, what ad network do you use?

I don’t currently generate any revenue. I am waiting until I hit 5000 users before using any revenue makers

How have your marketed your site?

I have been in the local papers and been contacting sports clubs and sports societies on the internet and by phone and just cold calling

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

All self funded

What type(s) of technology do you use?

We use Joomla

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

I think that sport is moving the same way as everything else nowadays….to the internet! I feel that in the future joining clubs and meeting people for sport will be mainly done via the internet

Website: www.sportsmatchmaker.com

Interview With: Ken Zrike

How many founders does Sports MatchMaker have and what are their names?

The Sports MatchMaker® (SMM) concept and design was founded by two brothers, Christopher and Kenneth Zrike, as an outcome of a non-profit youth athletic academy they also co-founded. The Zrikes are among a group of partners in their company, Phoenician Industries, which has controlling interest of the Sports MatchMaker project.

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

The Phoenician partners combine diverse backgrounds and expertise in various fields, which have included profit and not-for-profit endeavors.  In the early 1990s we founded a non-profit school in Japan and a sister boarding school in New York, for instruction in language, computer science, Web development, and Internet marketing.  These educational and athletic activities specifically speak to our qualifications to conceive, design, develop and run SportsMatchmaker.com.

What does your website do?

In addition to the standard virtual online social networking features, it has proprietary features to allow members to find people who have specifically requested to play any sport, any activity, any game, any hobby on any date, any time, anywhere, and join matches with one-click.

• You want to play a sport, activity, game, hobby, or even just go to a party or other social event with compatible player(s) tomorrow after work.
• You search SMM for people who have requested to do this activity on that day and time via our Match Request™ system
• You view their personal page/pics and, with our one-click match join™, you can join such a Match, which puts your face and profile link on the Match Requestor’s Matches page and sends out a notice of your “join” via email and/or text message to the Match Requestor.
• Then with our one-click accept/deny™, or “keyword” text message response, the match requestor accepts/denies your join request, which returns to you via email and/or text message, and all is recorded on all user’s Matches page.

If former, you have a confirmed match and the same goes for couples and teams (if traveling, set up matches in destination before you leave).

But let’s say you don’t have time to search for Match Requests, but don’t want to miss out on any healthy competition or fun?

• You simply invite all your friends into your Player’s Network™ (like friend’s network), and select each person for whom you want to receive automatic notices via email and/or text message, whenever he/she submits a Match Request™ to play.
• So, it’s Friday afternoon and work is almost over: Briiiiing, you get a text message that informs that someone in your Player’s Network™ wants to play racquetball after work at a particular club. You respond immediately with “join” on your cell phone. This action is integrated with our SMM web site, so that response is just like you clicked “join” on the site. You soon get a message back that you have a confirmed match (SMS will be plugged in as member numbers increase).
• Depending with whom you’re playing, maybe an after game drink in the clubhouse will be in order! The rest is in your hands.

But let’s say you want to know EVERYONE that makes a Match Request in your chosen sports/activities whether or not they are in your Player’s Network yet?

• So you use our Match Request Notification form to key in all your criteria of the types of people you want to play with: age, gender, location, sports, level of ability, marital, days of week you can play, times, etc.
• Then whenever ANYONE makes a Match Request™ that matches your criteria, you will receive an automatic email notification and/or text message with details.

Guess we better leave it there for now…visit site to learn more.

When did you launch?

January 1, 2008 (with one press release The site is up and open to all, but we’re really just beginning to market openly.

How do you plan on building community?

SMM is an event-based social network, so it builds community offline as well as online by letting users easily set up single or group matches offline. e.g., You get on and search for a beach volleyball game in Hawaii next weekend. You find a group match for 20 players. You get to see each who has joined the match already, look at their pics, view some personal pages, and then decide you’d like to get in on this community, so you join. Show up at the beach, and you’re expanding your community in healthy, exciting ways! Of course, everyone you play with can be invited into your Player’s Network™, too, so now your expanding your online community.

Most sites have a problem that until a critical mass is reached, the site benefits are non-existent. SMM is different in that even if there are only 100 members on the entire site in your geographic area (in deed, you may have invited them on), and you get them into your Player’s Network™, then you can be notified whenever any of them makes a Match Request™. You can start joining in and soon you’ll be playing more tennis, golf, hiking, cycling, going to poker parties, tailgate parties…the list is endless because, users suggest activities to be added.

Each member, therefore, has an incentive to build his/her Player’s Network™ since the quality of his/her lifestyle is directly proportional to the quality and quantity of his/her Player’s Network™. In addition, as the site membership grows we will turn on our already developed video upload and player for personal use on personal pages, but also in our contest area. Best sports bloopers, rad tricks, etc. will be fun to watch, and user will compete for prizes. The same goes for blogging, collated by every sport/activity/game/hobby in our list. The SMM desktop Instant Messenger (already developed) will be plugged in shortly allowing members to dump their Player’s Network™ into their IM, as buddies. This way we can keep track of everyone in our network when they are online and chat.

What types of marketing will you do?

Just about all types are planned.

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement?

By way of our e-commerce educational activities, we’ve reviewed many case studies of young talented students developing exciting, cutting edge site features and services, while consistently neglecting the more mundane business requirements of analysis/planning/developing/integrating of the crucial monetizing features (and patenting of all aspects of the technology/methodology, if possible).

In the early years of a commercial Internet, some may remember that a large segment of the Internet community hated the commercialization. The Internet soon became known as the great equalizer. In fact, for years the “little guy,” that knew what they were doing online, were kicking corporate butt, since they routinely tried to apply brick and mortar business practices to cyberspace. If you understood the prevailing Internet culture, you could attract more visitors than large business, in those days.

Since those early years cyberspace has changed drastically, of course. Seems the little guy still comes up with all the great ideas, but get any traffic and the giants are now waiting to gobble you up or outplay you with their massive advertising reach. So why then, if the very root of the Internet culture was to enable the little guy, do we hear some railing against software patenting? No form of protection is perfect, but Sports MatchMaker® was conceived for youth philanthropic purposes, and in reality we’d be negligent not to protect it’s potential with patent filings. Conceiving and developing an idea, only to get squashed by giants, precludes ingenuity and creativity.

Our planned and developed revenue streams include:

• Advertising in our Player’s Guide™, which is a fully automated “pay and post” directory (similar to online Yellow Pages). Members can search the guide to find facilities at which they can play, eat, shop, etc. All advertisers in the Guide will be eligible to also have targeted advertisement show up on the SMM pages. If a male user searches for a match with a single, intermediate, female, skier, 25 yrs, in Aspen who is a real estate agent, etc., then the user can expect to see ads for ski equipment, ski shops around Aspen, ski resorts, local restaurants, flower shops, real estate agents, etc.
• Sporting Goods/Nutritional Shop Onsite: A packed SMM database collated by all the usual demographics and the sports/games/activities/hobbies each member plays, their level of ability in each, their frequency of play and even how many confirmed wins they have in each competitive sport, is a powerful resource for sales. e.g., For golfing members who opted in to receive discounted goods of interest, would receive notice of a golf ball clearance sale, etc., etc.
• Web site Optional Services: Although we hope to keep SMM a free site while under our control, we will offer some extra services, such as the Match Request™ SMS Notification Service (for those not in your Player’s Network™), for a fee.
• Ancillary Services:
  • a packed SMM database is the foundation for our planned tournament service, since we can advertise tournaments directly to all tennis players, golfers, etc. throughout the world. Golf courses, tennis clubs, etc. can bid and host the tournaments, as that is their business, and SMM advertises the event, handles registration and fee collection on site, and provides awards.
  • the database also allows for our planned travel and adventure tours…e.g., we can advertise, “run the rapids of South America” to all serious rafters, or “play the best courses of Scotland” to all golfers, and these can be for “singles” or “couples.”
  • the nature of some of the SMM ancillary services make footage collection simple and cost effective for spin off reality TV shows

Who is your ad provider?

Not quite there yet.

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

First round funding has been via self-funding and Family & Friends investors.

Are you looking for more funding?

Yes.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

Our core feature – automated date/time/facility specific Match Request™, Match Search™, one-click Match Join™, one-click Match Deny/Accept™ system with SMS integration enabled.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

In Bill Gates’ keynote speech at CES 2008, he made his own prediction, “The second digital decade will be more focused on connecting people. It will be more user-centric.” A tougher prediction is how will social networking evolve?

Since Friendster appeared in 2002, we have seen the rise of the giants MySapce, Facebook, Orkut, Bebo, etc. As their core design is to facilitate virtual social networking, they have naturally been categorized as “virtual social networks.” For many busy folks past adolescence, we now understand it’s cool, but are left feeling there is more to life than “virtuality,” we crave reality. So now we see the trend toward “reality social networking” (event-based) with the appearance of sites like Dodge Ball, HeyLetsGo (going.com), Eventsbot, etc. Most of those sites are designed to facilitate the announcing/creating/advertising of public events such as concerts, festivals, sporting events, workshops, conferences, etc., while helping individuals attend those events together.

That’s a real trend toward the use of virtual tools to enhance real-life social networking, but doesn’t yet truly speak to the individual need. Online dating services ushered in the social networking boom, and they speak to the individual need, since they are designed to use virtual tools to help individuals get together to fill a passionate need. But, singles dating is just for one segment of society and one aspect of life, thus the need for a more comprehensive social networking. The big question is how will comprehensive social networking technology help individuals get together physically to fill everyone’s individual, passionate needs, including dating?

In other words, what can compare to the online draw of sexual passion, and successfully launch the new era of “reality social networking” for everyone? Our market research years ago revealed the #1 answer was SPORTS. After analysis of the most popular sex sites at the time vs. an equal number of the most popular sports sites, we found that online sports sites had almost a 3 times better traffic rank and 2 times better reach, cumulatively. We also discovered that there are easily over 100 million “frequent participants” (plays specific activity 25 – 52 days per year) of sports, activities, games, and hobbies in the USA alone. For just sports, males average a 54.4% participant rate and females a 46.2% participant rate, revealing that females participate more than they care to watch or read about sports. The average age of all “frequent participants” of sports is about 32 years old, which is quite high, showing the breadth of the full market.

With clarity on what people are passionately doing offline together, the issue is how to design and develop virtual social networking tools that would facilitate and enhance their abilities to do it, and even encourage others to get off the couch and into the game. Sporting, active, health conscious people are passionate about what they do, and that passion, we believe, will be the starter fluid needed to usher in the global use of a new technology to “revolutionize the way we all stay fit, play and meet people” in reality.

Our prediction: look for “reality social networking,” which includes virtual social networking tools to overtake “virtual social networking,” which tries to add “reality social networking tools” – and the largest of all will ultimately be controlled by a major sports entity.

STN’s Take:

You can tell Ken has some great experience and real passion for this vertical. He and his brother have built all the proper tools to have a successful social network. We definitely think there is a need for an online system for people to find people to play sports with. It is really just a matter of people finding and using the system instead of using an evite or email.

Now that Sports MatchMaker is built, how do you get people to use it? Our first suggestion would be to build a Facebook Application. Then find friends, family, and people on Facebook and get them to use it. Another idea would be to track down organizations or companies that plan small sports events that could use the system. Our last suggestion would be to eliminate the long winded front page. If people want to read about all the extra options they should have a link for that. A social network front page should be simple and convey what the Social Network is all about in a few lines.

(Update: 1/21/08: Sports MatchMaker has a new Facebook App that can be utilized here: http://apps.facebook.com/sportsmatchmaker/)

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.

Website: www.x3mpeople.com

Interview With: Oleg Gustol

How many founders does have X3M people have and what are their names?

There are two – Oleg Gutsol and Ruslan Doroshenko.

What made you start X3M?

X3M People started from my idea that there are many people sharing the same passion for a particular sport or activity but they are disconnected, and they would like to connect to similar-minded people. Then, in February of 2007 I joined forces with Ruslan Doroshenko to launch x3mpeople.com site.

Ruslan is everything to do with technology on this start-up – setting up servers, dealing with hosting companies, providing guidance in terms of development.

I set the direction in which we are going and also do coding, mainly due to the lack of human resources at this stage.

What are the founders background and qualifications?

I am a former developer and integration department lead of Instaclick. This is where I met Ruslan Doroshenko, who is currently a senior systems architect there. I have quit my fulltime job at Instaclick to dedicate myself fully to X3M People.

What does your website do?

X3M People serves as a connection with the people who enjoy certain sports and activities, who like to travel and discover the world, and those who simply would like to know what is out there that they can do. X3M People offers user profiles, picture galleries, personal messaging, people search, activities, locations and adventures search. It aims to be the social network and the information resource for active people and thrill seekers.

Last week we rolled out a Facebook application – X3M People which offers x3mpeople.com functionality over the popular social network and in the future will be enhanced with all the new features of X3M People website.

When did you launch?

We launched a private beta in May 2007 and a public beta in September 2007.

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

Building a community always takes time. So far we had some challenges in terms of getting our message out there, mostly due to limited budget for marketing. At a certain point – once the service we offer gets viral, these will diminish.

What types of marketing have you done?

We leveraged some existing social networks out there, SEO, paid advertisement.

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

At this point – no.

There are no plans to having paid subscriptions in the future – we believe that the service should be free for everyone to use. The main goal is to make it useful for people.

Our ads are AdSense at this moment.

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

X3M People was self funded from the start, but we are looking for investors now – both angels and venture capital.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

The favorite, the main, and the most useful is the search by activities and locations. What cool stuff you have done, want to do, or can do and where you can do it.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

The site is built using PHP/MySQL, hosted on a mac server.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

This is an interesting one. I see internet technology blending seamlessly with every aspect of our lives in the next 10 years. Just take a look at how things like iPhone, free wifi networks, Open Social, Facebook, RSS and many others transform our perception of what is possible. Our lifes and our activities, including sports, will be reflected online – it will be quite transparent.

Any advice for a young entrepreneur looking to start his own website?

If you think you got a great idea, a killer app in mind, the next big thing – just sit down and do it! You will need some technical background of course, but this is just the base – the rest is your creativity, your ability to challenge the ordinary, your hard work and passion for what you are doing.

STN’s Take:

X3M is a very easy to use site.  The design is nothing to write home about but it is extremely simple and we can navigate through the network pretty easily.  Like 99% of the social networks startups out there though, there needs to be more people and content.  We really like the “Adventures” part.  It shows cool new stuff or trips that people have done.  As more people get on there it will be a great tool for people looking for new adventures to do.

My only suggestion for X3M is to try and form strategic partnerships.  It is nearly impossible to start a social network without an underlying base of people.  Maybe if X3M had some type of partnership with a rock climbing association or snowboard association that could help their membership a great deal.  Waiting on your network to go viral is not a good business plan.

Website: www.thefanyard.com

Interview With: Rick Perreault

How many founders does The Fan Yard have have and what are their names?

TheFanYard.com was founded by Rick Perreault, Justin Stacey, and Blake Butterfield.

What are the founders background and qualifications?

Blake Butterfield, FanYard Community Manager, is an avid sports writer and blogger, with several years in customer support with Bodog Entertainment. His customer support experience coupled with his thorough knowledge of football makes him ideal for day-to-day communication with the FanYard user base. In addition to maintaining the FanYard blog, Blake writes daily at the Fannation.com where he maintains a very popular blog.

Justin Stacey, Director Product Development, has 15 years experience in interactive media. He has developed a thorough expertise in user interface design and usability issues for a variety of interactive digital media, as well as a solid understanding of software development technologies with a focus on AJAX and Ruby on Rails. Justin has created innovative web-based solutions for such high profile clients as Bodog Entertainment, BC Lotteries Corporation, CTV News, Ipsos Reid, and Nortel.

Rick Perreault, Company President, Rick began his career in interactive media in the 90s as a Web Designer/Developer. This led him to Bluezone as a Sr. Interaction Designer where he lead a variety of news and sports related projects for web, Interactive TV and mobile. He then lead the sports initiative at Rainmaker Interactive as a User Experience Strategist. This landed him at Riptown Media/Bodog Entertainment as a Creative Director where he grew and lead a team of product designers, developers and creative marketers and spearheaded the development of a variety of successful online gaming and entertainment properties.

What does your website do?

TheFanYard.com is a sports social network with a purpose. All our activity is centered around having members make predictions on who they think will win a matchup and by how many points. FanYard then aggregates all the predictions for each game and publishes the Yardstick – the community consensus of who will win and by how many points. This is significant because outside of the individual expert opinions, there is no tool that sports media can use to quote the favorite as predicted by Fans. While some media use the point-spread as an indication of the favorite, this is both inaccurate, as the spread is set to split the betting public in half and not an indication of the favorite, and controversial in the US, because of its relationship to sports gambling. FanYard hopes to become the definitive barometer of public opinion on predicting the outcome of games.

When did you launch?

TheFanYard.com launched as a public beta on August 28th of 2007 with Pro and College Football and have since added NBA and Collage Basketball.

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

It’s been mixed. Those who are using FanYard use it a lot and have developed an active community, but we’ve yet to get the traffic needed to build critical mass. Additionally, because of the unique nature of what we are doing, many people have commented that they think FanYard is somehow related to sports gambling or fantasy football, a perception that we need to address. Truthfully, we are still very early in the game so ask me this question again in a year.

What types of marketing have you done?

Very little paid marketing to date as we have focused on PR, blog and forum posting, and some PPC on sports sites like ESPN. Our resources have been focused on user experience. It is our thinking that once we have our users on mass inviting their friends, we’ll know that we’ve achieved a point in which our product is ready for mass market and we will then look at investing resources into marketing initiatives.

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

Our ad provider is RallyAd. We have additional revenue streams planned for the future.

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

We are currently founder funded.

Are you currently looking for funding?

Yes

What is your favorite feature on your site?

The Yardstick. I like to check the site before the start of each NFL game and see what the Yardstick is. Provides some extra excitement for me while I’m watching NFL, especially on the occasions where the Yardstick turns out to be dead on.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

We’ve developed the site using Ruby on Rails and AJAX.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

I think technology is moving us closer to “my interest on demand” and sports will no doubt benefit. We are already seeing more and more niche sites like the FanYard that are highly focused on one topic or purpose. I think this has been made possible by the likes of MySpace and Facebook having successfully gotten millions of average people involved in some sort of online activity. Now those people are going to seek out communities focused on very specific topics of interest.

STN’s Take:

This site has an amazing look and feel. If we are looking to create a new site, we know we are coming to Justin and Rick first. The User-Interface makes the website very easy to navigate through making your picks and updating your profile. We like that they take a consensus of everyones picks and give what the site thinks each team will win by. At first we thought these numbers would be close to the point spread but they really aren’t.

There are some things we would do different with the site. First, we believe the point system favors luck way too much. If one picks the points exactly right you get 100 pts and if you pick one point off, you only get 10.  We know a decent amount about picking games and people who in general can pick pretty close to the points should be rewarded more then someone who picks right on every once in a while. Second, we believe the Yard Stick is biased because of all the people that are predicting the points on their favorite teams.  We have friends that always pick their team no matter what. The best way to take care of this would be to require each person that signs up to choose their favorite team in each sport. Then when figuring out the Yard Stick just throw out each person’s favorite team prediction.

All in all we believe The Yard Stick has solid potential and for anyone who likes to pick games but doesn’t like the gambling aspect, this is a great site to use.

 
Website: www.sportme.org

Interview with: Dani Warshager

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

Sportme has 7 founders and their names are:

Dennis Kirschner

Kai Hansen

Philipp Hartmann

Mario Jung

Tobias Johann

Dani Warshager

What are the founders background and qualifications?

We have a solid mix of practical experience and knowledge that makes our team stand out from the rest. The team has a distinguished educational background from the European Business School and University of Applied Sciences in Germany; Carleton University in Canada and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile. Tobias has his PHD in entrepreneurship; Philipp has a degree in finance and strategy; Kai is accomplished in management and marketing; Mario is an ex-pro football player and knows the ins and outs of sports, Sascha is a marketing and PR Guru; Dennis is an IT wiz kid and I am skilled in international business and am a serial entrepreneur. Together the sportme team is made up of the perfect recipe that enables the community to successfully grow.

What does your website do?

Sportme is an innovative sports network that assists grass root and semi-professional sports clubs, teams, individual athletes and fans to interact online and share their sporting experiences with one another. From football to archery, netball to bowls, sportme offers everyone involved in sports the chance to share their exploits with others in the sporting community.

Clubs, teams and individuals can create custom profiles and use the development functions to keep up to date with their sports schedules; coordinate practices, matches and tournaments and find local teams with whom they can compete.

Members can also communicate with their sports peers, develop friendships with other sporty people and promote themselves and their groups via the internet using Sportme message boards, sports forums, blogs, calendar and photo/video sharing functions.

When did you launch?

We have 2 Sportme versions, 1 in English and the other in German. The German site was launched in July 2007. Since the launch we have been experiencing successful results and decided to launch the English version in October 2007. Both versions are the largest in its category and continue to grow strong.

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

Building a community is an ongoing adventure and we need to continuously modify it in order to meet the needs and desires of our members. I would not say that it has been easy nor difficult rather I would say that it has been a great experience. We have received excellent feedback, the people love it and members are always inviting their friends to join.

What types of marketing have you done?

We have implemented various on/offline campaigns of which benefit our members and support a good cause. Some of the projects include: Athletes Against Racism, Grass-Root Team Sponsoring and the sportme Charity Project.

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

We have not implemented any revenue streams as of yet. However, we have developed non-invasive income generating methods that will benefit both Sportme and its members. These will be initiated in the New Year.

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

Each of the 7 founders has participated in funding the company and we are also supported by a few Angel Investors.

Are you currently looking for funding?

Our eyes are always open for new investors and we are happy to present to them the Sportme community and all it has to offer.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

I am a fan of our ‘Exchange Jersey’ feature. It is similar to a poking function but we made it specific to sports. Our members love it and it’s a way to break the ice and initiate conversations with new people.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Sportme uses the most modern Ruby on Rails technology.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

The combination of sports and technology is fairly new, however, together it provides a true benefit, on and offline. Sports are a part of the daily lives of many people and with the introduction of technology it enhances the users experience and sports lives. I believe that the online sports industry is still in its infancy and we will see some spectacular things happen within the next few years.

STN’s Take:

Sportme is a great social network for any person that is international. It is a very robust system that has many Clubs, Teams, and People to be a fan of. One can tell that the founders have a great attention to detail as there are many things to enjoy. As Dani said the exchange jersey function is very cool and a great feature.

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.

Website: www.picktastic.com

Interview with: Tim Sears

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

Picktastic was founded by two longtime friends and sports enthusiasts; Tim Sears and Brandon Corry.

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

Tim and Brandon both have extensive backgrounds in Software Engineering, particularly within the context of the web.

Tim works in product development and consulting for a web agency in Portland, OR called ISITE Design. There, he specializes in mid to high-end content management system implementations for a variety of clients, as well as custom websites and applications.

Brandon has a background in Software Engineering for startups before the bubble burst earlier this decade. He is currently based out of Seattle, where he writes software to provide cross-platform accessibility for mobile devices.

What does your website do?

Picktastic empowers sports fans with a way to back-up their sports-related trash talking by challenging them to prove they can predict which teams are going to win. They are able to up the stakes of their picks by wagering points they earn from successful picks against other members who pick against them. Over all of that, though, it provides a community where casual and die-hard sports fans can interact and compete against others.

When did you launch?

Picktastic lauched on October 30, 2007.

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

Both, really. We’ve received a lot of great feedback from our community, and they have been very enthusiastically responsive to the direction we’re taking the site. Many of our features have been very effective; what’s difficult is now determining which of the many ideas on our plate will help keep users plugged in the most.

What types of marketing have you done?

Our culture has been very grass-roots, and our marketing strategy has reflected that as such. We’ve relied a lot on word of mouth, as well as features to help our users spread the word about our site. Since our site is so young, many of our campaigns are still ramping up, so much of our future strategy will depend on how successful our smaller kickoff campaigns go.

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

Currently, our primary revenue flow is from advertising. We are using Google AdSense, and will be gradually adopting other models of advertising going forward. Our primary focus in these early months is growing the community, though. Call it a luxury of being a self-sufficient startup.

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

100% self-funded. We are both highly creative and resourceful entrepreneurs, and have been able to achieve our initial goals without outside investment.

Are you currently looking for funding?

We are not actively seeking funding at this time, as our 6 month and 1 year milestone projections don’t require it. Given the right circumstances, though, we would consider it.

Do you use point spreads? If not, why?

We don’t use point spreads in the interest of appealing to a broader demographic of sports fans. While most fans are likely familiar with how spreads work, we set out to create an environment where users could contribute content freely and easily without having to overthink things. We found through our alpha testing that even without spreads, picking very well for a week of games can be quite challenging. For example, since the start of our alpha testing last August, only one user has picked a perfect week of NFL games.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

My personal favorite is the Friends Leaderboards. Like our standard Leaderboards feature, which allows you to compare and contrast your accuracy against other users by different sports and time ranges, the Friends Leaderboards gives you a much more personal view of how you’re doing by ranking you up against your friends list. It also makes it easier for you to brag to your buddies about being the best.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

We built the site using ASP.Net 2.0 / C# on SQL Server 2005. On the front-end, we’ve separated presentation and content with XHTML and CSS and are using prototype and moo.fx for some of the AJAX and animated effects you see throughout the site. Also, if you look closely, you’ll notice we’ve done some pretty wild stuff with transparent png’s to achieve the color-coded effect for different team-specific elements.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

I think we’re really beginning to see the birth of the mobile age. Internet users are demanding their content to be delivered more timely, and mobile devices are the most eligible vehicle for that. In the not-so-far future, we’ll begin to see mobile content in sports switch to be much more about collaboration, and less about simply information retrieval.

STN’s Take:

Picktastic is a great-looking site. The User-Interface is very easy to use. We really like the fact that when you make a selection it is automatically entered without you having to actually hit a submit button. It is much better than a lot of the sites we use right now for our picks. We thought it was really interesting how Tim discussed why they don’t use point spreads for their picks. You can tell they have done their homework. The site is a great place for the casual fan to have a place to see how well they pick.

We have two suggestions. One would be to build in a private function so people that run pick pools can do it right through the site. The “Friends Leaderboard” option may work, but I think they should set up a more formal option that says “set up private league” or something like that. This would allow them to gain a much larger user base. The second would be to build the exact same system with spreads so people have a choice. As a casual better gets more involved with picking games, they start to discuss spreads more. At least that is what happened with our friends.

Website: www.sportstwo.com

Interview with: Mike Scwartz, chief architect of Sports Two.

How many founders does Sports Two have and what are their names?

SportsTwo initially had 5 founders, I’m not sure some want their names published. We’ve acquired about 6 other WWW sites and merged the content and member bases into S2 along the way, and some of the administrators/owners of those sites now have a similar role with S2.

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

I am chief architect of the site. I manage the servers and write and install all the code. We have a CMO who focuses on driving traffic, looking at acquisitions and mergers, sells advertising, SEO optimization, and general look/feel of the site.

We have two community managers who run the community and build the individual forums and drive traffic. We have a very tight staff of moderators, global moderators, and administrators who each have years of experience in their roles.

We have a content guy who focuses on database driven applications and presentation of statistical information.

Our other founder is an angel investor. Yes, we’re looking for more investors and investment.

What does your website do?

S2 is a 2nd generation Sports WWW site, centered on the community. We don’t see the site as a message board, but rather as an application delivery mechanism. We categorize our applications in one of three categories: community, content, and applications. Community would be the focus on the users and their generated content (e.g. message board, wiki, blogs, etc.), as well as other social networking components. Content would be news feed (NOT RSS!) acquired content displayed in the form of a news/information site. Other content we have include a sophisticated NBA salaries database (and programs to present this information) and a historical stats database. Applications would be in the form of our Pick Em contests ($100/week prizes for NFL and NCAA Football, so far), an online trivia game, and a soon to be released private messaging system. We have numerous games planned (including Fantasy Sports) to augment our current offering.

When did you launch?

We launched the last week of May. We currently have over 20,000 members, nearing 2M posts (user generated content), have over 1.2M sports articles (from our newsfeeds), and typically have 120+ people online during peak periods (out of about 4,000 unique IPs daily).

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

There have been some very interesting aspects to how we’ve built our community. We have members from about 6 WWW sites that we acquired and merged into the S2 platform, so we were able to get our software, presentation, and URL in front of thousands of people in short order. The merging of sites into S2 has not been without issues, and there has been some (expected) attrition in the process, but those who have left right away tend to come back and join the community as time passes. We have thousands of members who found the site through search engines and other marketing programs we have run, as well. The most interesting thing to me has been how well all these diverse people with interests in different sports have come together and mixed as a bigger community at S2. We have some outstanding people that I’m proud to have met through the site.

What types of marketing have you done?

Some of our owners also own other sites, so we’ve done some advertising on those and we get a good amount of traffic that way. Our search engine placement is outstanding, and we get a significant amount of traffic from people looking for things like “football forums.” We trade links with other sites, and we get a lot of traffic that way as well. We’ve occasionally bought advertising as well.

In spite of these traditional internet marketing techniques, our best kind of marketing has simply been to promote good content and discussion – the content generated by the users demonstrates on our home page that we’re so active a community that anywhere you post you will get a quick response. Our staff deserves a lot of credit for engaging people when they join the site.

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

S2 has been entirely funded through advertising revenue and owner contributions. We use a variety of ad providers, and have done sponsorship deals.

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

Self funded and Angel Investment, and no VC. Again, we’d be very interested in raising money to add staff and features to the site faster than we’re doing now.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

My favorite feature would have to be the home page, though our game threads are a close second. The home page features a number of ajax “pagelets” including one that shows members hitting the site and/or leaving without having to reload the page – this gives a great sense of the community and highlights the members. The home page also features a list of the most recent activity, regardless of forum/area of interest, and that’s truly helped people meet one another – unlike traditional message boards I’ve seen. Our members tend to reload the home page to find active discussions, regardless of sport. It’s interesting to wake up and see that our European members have posted up a storm about Football (soccer), and by the end of the day the home page is full of NFL, NBA, and other North American content.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

The largest community on the Internet that I know of is Gaia Online. No sports site comes close to it in terms of community and user generated content, which is a shocker since you’d think Sports has a much broader appeal than Anime. Someone’s going to figure it out, and I think that someone is us I’m not talking about Brand, which is easy to create if you have 4 cable sports networks to promote your URL.

STN’s Take:

Sports Two is a solid website and you can tell by Mike’s answers that he is very intelligent. The site is structured pretty well and they do a great job building a community around each professional sports team. It seems like they have been very successful at getting new users by acquiring other sites and advertising on the partner sites. Mike talks about building the next great community but I just think something is missing from the site. All of the major networks do the exact same things they are doing. To get to the next level, they need to figure out a way to separate themselves from the pack.

Website: www.playcoed.com

Interview with: Mike Downey

How many founders does Play Coed have and what are their names?

Mike Downey, Geoff McFarlane, and Mark Lynn of Jet Companies

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

Mike Downey worked for five years in sales and business development for i-MediaWorld and TransUnion. In 2000 he founded Denver Sport and Social Club and developed PlayCoed.com as a social networking utility, quickly allowing the business to grow to 15,000 members in four years. In 2006 Mike sold Denver Sport and Social Club, focusing the company’s efforts exclusively on working with sports leagues and organizers across the nation to provide online registration and social utilities.

Geoff McFarlane played lacrosse at Syracuse and has a finance degree from the University of Denver. His mentors include Scott McFarlane of Avalara.com and Will McFarlane founder of Clarion Hotels.

Mark Lynn has an extensive background in private equity financing and business development.

What does your website do?

PlayCoed.com allows recreational participants and league organizers to quickly manage their teams, schedules, registration, payments, and communication amongst. In addition, players and participants connect with other players and teams.

When did you launch?

Alpha version launched in 2005

Beta version launched in 2006

Public version launched in 2007

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

We have been fortunate enough to have many years experience in organizing sports and working directly with players and team captains. That has translated into a strong connection with leagues on a national basis. Of course, nothing comes without hard work and a lot of hours listening to the needs of various organizers and participants and adapting our technology and offering to them.

What types of marketing have you done?

PlayCoed has done minimal SEM, and has focused mainly on organic marketing, relationships with league organizers, and we write helpful articles on our blog at http://playsportsleagues.com

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

In addition to advertising, PlayCoed charges league organizers a nominal 3% surcharge on all credit card transactions. We work directly with national and local marketing directors and / or agencies. Minimal Google advertisements also appear on the site.

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

PlayCoed has self funded the growth of the company through many hours of sweat equity, minimal capital calls from shareholders, and a small round of Angel Investment to the tune of $50,000. We have been fortunate to only invest $150,000 of our own capital.

Are you currently looking for funding?

We are currently evaluating partnerships and private equity, however it is not an immediate need for the business to grow.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

Our favorite feature is the ability for team captains to recruit “free agents” within their sport, division. Often times a team captain can find a star player who has recently moved to the area and is looking to get back into their favorite sport.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Php, AJAX, javascript, MySQL, DHTML, and Aurigm.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

We feel three years from now there will be one major player in recreational sports social networking , controlling over 75% of the niche marketplace, accounting for over one million participants worldwide and. There are many functions and features on the horizon that will help these players manage their recreational sports such as player membership cards, RFID technology, text messaging, and discounts on sporting goods and other sports specific products and merchandise.

STN’s Take:

Play Coed provides many great things to recreation organizers. Here is the list:

• Intuitive Administrative Menus
• Management Modules & Tools
• Post Events, Leagues, Tournaments, Trips, Classes, and more
• Accept online registration
• Automate Schedule Generation
• Post waivers and allow participants to agree to waiver online
• Post scores and statistics
• Cancellation notices & weather updates
• Financial accounting, budgeting, and /reporting tools
• Accept Online Payments
• Recruit, assign, and pay independent contractors / officials

I have a large amount of experience in this space. What Play Coed is providing to Sport and Social Club organizers is amazing, especially since they are only charging a nominal 3% transaction fee. In regards to participants, the Play Coed website is a great resource to find recreational leagues in your area especially if you are new to a community.