My detailed introduction and my current idea.

[Jeff Noel]

I feel the need to introducing myself again, since I'm now an INSIDERS.
If you have any question, I'll try to be as transparent as possible.

I'm Jeff. Jhean-François is actualy my first name (you could translate that to John-Francis), I'm 25 years old from Quebec, Canada.

I've been an avid, big time gamer for a long time in my life. Missed most high school parties because I would be gaming 80 hours per week. I still play video game 3-4 hours daily, although I'm far from the skill level I used to have. I'm 100% in the expert level with computers. I've been an IT Tech in businesses for about 5 years and a web developer for 3 years.

I am an analytical person. I think a lot in general and I analyze most situations. I do not believe in God, I believe in people. Miracles are either coming from random occurences or hard work.

That's also my weakness. I'm not blindly taking risks, I always assess the situation before acting. This means I need to be in control. I cannot control things I do not know about, which is my problem entrepreneur-wise. If I know what are the odds, what happens if I do X or Y, then I'm able to take a decision with more confidence. I used to have a superbike (2 years) and I never went 180mph (300km/h) even though it had the capability of hitting 200mph(330km/h), because the risk was just too much. The bike helped me bring more risky situations in my life though, which is something I liked.

I always read more on things I do not master, unless they are deemed useless for me. When people used to ask what words meant during lectures/dictations (?) in class, I would just write the word, there's no use for me to know what it means, I just need to know how to write it.

I need to realign my focus. I'm trying to make my girlfriend's business viable right now, while also trying to start a business on my own and working my slowlane job. She's into social media/online presence coaching (oriented towards SMB owners) and I love finding things to improve about her website and business in general.

There's a lot I could talk about, and a lot I left aside. If you want more details, please ask.

------------------------

My business idea right now (I'm not sure if I should just make another thread about it?):
Improvemystats.com
purchased domain name and hosting. Installed WordPress for the blog part (adding valuable content for viewers)
I started writing blog posts and wrote down notes for my coding structure towards the whole levelling system of the website.

I want to establish an online training/coaching hub for gamers. The final objective is to be a hub for multiple video games with esport potential (Fortnite being the first one), where players can seek coaching and replay reviews from better players.

At first, the base service will be free (it will always remain free), which is being able to upload your replay and have someone better than you review it and give you feedback.

Eventually, there will be several options to pay more to obtain access to a better coach (pro players and full-time streamers). People will be able to define their objective:
-Become a better player in public games.
-Become a better competitive player.
-Become an esport-level player.

Each type will have access to different coaches, with the better coach costing more.

You earn points for reviewing replays and giving feedback. Points are added if other people approve or vote for your feedback. The points system will give you access to charge for replays and sign up as a coach, to offer paid coaching (per hour). The platform would keep a percentage of the hourly rate and a percentage of the higher-level replay review flat fees.

People want to get better, people are always looking for tips online. A lot of gamers dream of meeting - even online - their esport idols, Improve My Stats would make this possible, for a fee.
The free service would ensure that everyone can get better without a dime, while people seeking to become serious competitive players could pay to access profesionnal gaming tips and reviews.

For Fortnite, the coaching would let the customer play with their coach in Playground mode (private match) and in Duo/Squad matches where the coach can teach and review the techniques live, with the player.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[jon.M]

That's a cool idea, Jeff. I like the incentive system you've got in mind for making people review replays for free. What makes you think this idea is a keeper? As a gamer yourself you obviously have knowledge about the wants and needs of the gaming community. Is there any other way you're looking to validate the concept?

Looking forward to seeing you here on the inside. Read some of your previous posts and you've already added value to this forum.

 

[Jeff Noel]

What makes you think this idea is a keeper? As a gamer yourself you obviously have knowledge about the wants and needs of the gaming community. Is there any other way you're looking to validate the concept?

The majority of high level players is kind.
In multiplayer games in general (excluding toxic communities like Call of Duty), most high level players get bored at some point and start helping others. They can start running guilds, clans, etc, but you often see random acts of kindness in massively multiplayer games (World of Warcraft, or games where players can exchange items).

Validation process
Gamers
The first thing I'll do is design an "alpha" version of the website, without the functionnality. This will allow me to take screenshots of what it will look like once completed.

I will put the screenshots into a landing page (the only page that will be publicly available) along with details on what Improve My Stats' mission is and the features that will be included within the website.

The page will include a CTA to add people inside a mailing list so they're the "first to test the alpha version". Right below it will be a "Have an idea? Send us your suggestion or tell us what you think!" textbox to get ideas and feedback... and a little bit of spam along the line.

I will then promote the page on various Fortnite communities (Reddit is strong, Discord, etc.). I will also run Google Ads campaigns and monitor the amount of clicks and the amount of newsletter subscription I get.

It should tell me the general interest the public has towards this kind of platform.

Coaches
A lot of streamers and professional players have agents nowadays, or business inquiries emails. I will manually contact a couple hundred of them (and gaming associations managing multiples agents) to gather feedback on the concept and make a list of interested profesisonnal coaches.

Competition
PursuitGG
There's already a software called PursuitGG (Pursuit | Advanced Fortnite Statistics - SimilarWeb: pursuit.gg Traffic Statistics ) giving your general tips on how to improve depending on your gameplay, but their Fortnite offer just recently launched in Alpha.

They've became known to the public because of their main product, which is oriented towards Overwatch (another competitive game). They had insane growth in July-August, because they became the official analytic partner for over a dozen of teams in the Overwatch World Championship. They just recently lost all those partners because the developer of the game, Activision Blizzard, banned PursuitGG (which was a software reading the game's data live), even though the data gathered was only used AFTER the matches, thus not giving any unfair advantages to the players in game...

Still, this outcome just cannot happen to ImproveMyStats, since we are not aiming to develop a software tampering with games' data. We're offering a 1-on-1 coaching experience in-game along with on-site gameplay feedback from skilled players.

It's really easy for people to record their gameplay nowadays, and guides will be written to help them do that so they can upload the videos on the site. I have yet to decide where the videos will be hosted (tell people to stream on Twitch, use Amazon Web Services, YouTube ?) considering the files can weigh several gigabytes each.

Thank you for your kind words. I look forward to learn more so I can give back even more in the future.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

My business idea right now (I'm not sure if I should just make another thread about it?):
Improvemystats.com
purchased domain name and hosting. Installed WordPress for the blog part (adding valuable content for viewers)
I started writing blog posts and wrote down notes for my coding structure towards the whole levelling system of the website.

I want to establish an online training/coaching hub for gamers. The final objective is to be a hub for multiple video games with esport potential (Fortnite being the first one), where players can seek coaching and replay reviews from better players.

I like the idea.

The easiest way to understand the youth is that they've been taught to be comfort maximizers. To those looking to exploit this market, be you a games maker, a professor or university administrator, a social media mogul, etc, the rule you have to follow is: "how can I best aid and encourage young people in staying useless pieces of sh*t?".

As mentioned in another thread, any business that can compel young people to sit on their a$$ and continue to be worthless in the real world is a good business.

That might sound callous, but unfortunately it's the world we live in.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[GuitarManDan]

Welcome to the inside! I like the idea as well. Especially the component of giving away really high value feedback for free.

What are your thoughts on capturing emails in exchange for the free initial review (depending on their gameplay)? Could use something simple like MailCheat(Chimp) that's completely free up to 2,000 email subscriptions.

 

[Jeff Noel]

Welcome to the inside! I like the idea as well. Especially the component of giving away really high value feedback for free.

What are your thoughts on capturing emails in exchange for the free initial review (depending on their gameplay)? Could use something simple like MailCheat(Chimp) that's completely free up to 2,000 email subscriptions.

Yes, this is my objective.

The feedback service would require people to sign up (either manually or using their Facebook or Google account). The lightning-quick registration process would ask them for their consent to email them. I would be using either MailCheat(Chimp) or ConvertKit to build the list by importing the users' email addresses from my website.

The free review will definitely be offered, unlimited (one review pending at a time, per person) to anyone who signs up on the website.

Once the mailing list is big enough, I simply create a lookalike audience in Facebook and start pushing ads to people with similar interests than those who already signed up.