Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback wanted!

[CamInBoise]

So as I have said in previous posts, since stumbling upon this website my mind has been working overdrive on finding my niche to the fastlane (its like a mental illness) :groove:
Here is my idea, all feedback, concerns, ideas, etc are welcome.

I am considering building a website that is tri-fold. The focus of the website will be young baseball player's development (ages ranging from young little league players up through college baseball players). The target audience of the website will be coaches and parents of young baseball players as well as high school and college athletes themselves.

The first aspect of the website will be a micro blog written by me. I have played baseball for 15 years, and coached for 7 seasons (coached and played from the time I was 15 until now). I am also working on getting my NASM personal trainer certification. The content of this micro blog would focus on training, technique, and nutrition to optimize baseball skills. In addition to these entries I am considering writing an E-book for coaches to purchase that explains how to run efficient effective team practices.

The second aspect of the website would be a forum for members to discuss all things baseball. Topics would include things like strenght and conditioning for baseball players (could be broken down into strength and conditioning for hitters, pitchers, catchers, infielders, and outfielders). Game day strategy, lineup strategy, situation specific defense and offense strategies. Injury rehab and prevention. I am also considering allowing users to post training logs, stats, videos and things along those lines like bodybuilding.com does.

The third aspect of the website would be an online baseball superstore. The focus of this store would be products that are designed to improve baseball players in some fashion. For those of you who have been exposed to baseball you know there are a myriad of products available for sale in this area. I have two original product ideas in mind that I would develop, manufacture, and sell on this part of the site. I am also considering selling others products here. This is one area I need some help on. Would it be best for me to buy others products wholesale and re-sell them here? I have read a little bit about drop shipping, would this be a possibility? Any ideas/feedback would be great here as I am very green when it comes to online sales and business. I am also thinking about developing a clothing line that has my business logo on it. Items for sale would include hats, warm up gear, rain gear, sweats, and perhaps baseball bags (large heavy duty bags used by ball players to lug all their equipment to the ball park, hopefully before long these bags will be full of equipment purchased from my store)

Marketing/ Driving traffic to my site-
The first way I would advertise my site is buying ad-space on local little league, high school, and college home run fences. This would directly target my target audience locally. As a personal trainer I will also offer personal and team coaching sessions where i will utilize the products I talked about above. While doing these training sessions I will be adorned in gear that has my logo on it was well as the url to the website. I will probably also develop a catalogue that has all or some products available and hand these out at training sessions.

In addition to this method of locally endorsing my product I hope to drive traffic to the store with fresh, exciting content weekly in the mini blog. As I said above this would include training tips, nutrition tips, and other baseball related content written by me.

So, like I said, this is my fastlane idea in its infancy. Let me know what you think in regards to whether this is fastlane or not. Ideas on how to market the site, opinions on the e-store I am considering, and any other feedback you guys might have.

Thanks in advance!:yourock:

 

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

[rocksolid]

Just off the top of my head, how about selling advertising space on the site for local little leagues and softball teams. The problem with Baseball is that it is a seasonal sport. You might not do well during the winter months unless you can think of a reason to have people come back to your site.

 

[TC2]

Cam:

That sounds a brilliant idea. Targeting the player in any sports are a good niche to me.

Looks like you are building a community for players and maybe for fans too.

I don't think you can build the whole community all at once. So pick the most profitable one to start with.

Here are few ideas I will add.
1. Allow fans to order the signed poster from the players. You take commission.
2. Career consultation for players to change lane
3. Player fan pages
4. Rating system for each team or their coach

To me personally, there are lots things you can throw in, but find the most profitable one to start with. If you can get press directly from each team, you will also become a great resources for people find most up-to-date sport news, which will bring more advertisers.

That's for now.

 

[CamInBoise]

Looks like you are building a community for players and maybe for fans too.

I don't think you can build the whole community all at once. So pick the most profitable one to start with.


That's for now.

This is a good point, I definitely can't build the entire community at once (Rome wasn't built in a day either Here are my questions, as I have never built a website please by patient with me.

1) Is the first step to buy my domain name? If so, is there a better resource than just buying it from godaddy.com. I have searched their site and found a name I want to use for a price I am wiling to pay. Besides purchasing the domain name I believe I also have to pay for hosting as well, is this correct? If so, what is the hosting price based on (number of hits, size of my page, etc.)?

2) Now that it is painfully clear that I don't have any experience building web pages, would it be better for me to pay someone to build it for me? Or should I start digging into books and websites and learn how to do it myself?

Again, thanks for all your guys' help and input.

 

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

[TC2]

1) Is the first step to buy my domain name? If so, is there a better resource than just buying it from godaddy.com. I have searched their site and found a name I want to use for a price I am wiling to pay. Besides purchasing the domain name I believe I also have to pay for hosting as well, is this correct? If so, what is the hosting price based on (number of hits, size of my page, etc.)?

2) Now that it is painfully clear that I don't have any experience building web pages, would it be better for me to pay someone to build it for me? Or should I start digging into books and websites and learn how to do it myself?

Again, thanks for all your guys' help and input.

I always get the domain name first. It's like picking a brand name. It's getting harder and harder to find the right domain. Once you find it, reserve it. The downside is that I end up holding so many domains that I don't have time to use them for good.

Personally, I only use GoDaddy for registering my domain name. They are the only company I know will broadcast your new domain in less than 2 hours. I even have few domains got indexed by Google 6 hours after I set domain and web hosting.

I always start with shared hosting. It's cheap ($4.99/m - $24.99/m) and easy. Once you have decent traffic, you can move to a VPS (virtual private server) ($30+/m) or dedicated server ($150+/m).

I have been happy with my current shared hosting company AnHosting and MidPhase for 4+ years. They are not the best, but they are pretty stable and flexible so far. Well. I got it FREE after all.

I am cheap. So I will try to do everything the most inexpensive ways.

There are few things to think about when you pick the hosting. It's pain in the neck to switch hosting company like I am having now.

1. Do you need to host multiple domains.
2. Do you need SSL certification for each one of them so you can process Credit Card transaction securely?
3. Do you need to run cron jobs (the scheduled task on server) Ex. Sending mass email, update database, etc.

I will explain why I ask.

Be aware of this. Most shared hosting companies support only 1 static IP in order to use SSL. You can't even buy more. So if you expect to run more than one domains with SSL, you should go with VPS or Dedicated server. I am having the pain right now to move one of my site.

If you do need Cron jobs. Many well known hosting companies only give you 5 Cron jobs for the entire account. That sucks.

BTW, Anhosting and MidPhase is the only hosting company I know allowing you to use SSL on non-primary domain on your account. Most of the shared hosting companies require you to either register the domain with them or use the primary domain to get SSL. Double check on that before you signup. It's nightmaire to move primary domain.

There are great people in this forum who can help you develop your site though. List what you need to accomplish and post here. You can, at least, get some feedback from them.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Fastlane. Yes. I think the idea is has great merit and you can actually model yourself off of established companies like "bodybuilding.com". You can go even further and create a Little League social network. It has a great residual potential and exit potential. Will it be easy? Of course not but that is what makes ideas and execution two disparate entities.

As for the revenue model, I think there are other rev opps there too ... like uniform sourcing and stat keeping. You could charge each league a fee to keep statistics for the entire aggregate of players. This way, kids can login and track their statistics, just like the big leagues! And then, this DRIVES traffic so ad revenue becomes very salable.

As for starters, yes, you can register the domain name at GoDaddy. Just make sure you pick a good name as it is one of the most important decisions you will make. You might need to find something on the secondary market. Don't be afraid to buy here; you could get a great domain name for just a few hundred dollars it's well worth the expense.

As for how to make the website a reality, that really is a personal decision. You only know your strengths and weaknesses. Some people might be able to teach themselves and do it in a quick fashion, while others simply don't have it within them. I know there is great power in knowing how to program yourself, however it does come with a price -- -- the learning curve can consume a lot of time. To determine this you might want to look into open source platforms such as Drupal.org and Ruby on Rails. Both these systems would be capable of doing what you propose.

 

[buckmajor]

That is awesome bro. As least you have a website plan, as for me I am still in my room waiting for my website plan to magically appear to my head and hopefully not like...:smx4:

 

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

[MJ DeMarco]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

I changed the thread title, there are a lot of baseballer's here who might be able to chime in.

 

[rocksolid]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

If you decide to have somebody build the site you can always use rent a coder.

 

[CamInBoise]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

Fastlane. Yes. I think the idea is has great merit and you can actually model yourself off of established companies like "bodybuilding.com".

That is actually exactly what I was thinking! I have been a huge fan of Bodybuilding.com, and actually grew up not far from where Ryan DeLuca grew up.

I absolutely love your revenue ideas for the site. Implementation would be a challenge, but if it wasn't challenging than any undisciplined schmuck could pull it off right?

I have a couple of questions regarding implementation.
Should I buy a domain, get it hosted, and put the site up ASAP and add content as I go? Or do you think it would be better to spend a couple of months intensively developing content/articles for when I launch? (keep in mind this is not a cop out to not do anything, but a time I will spend working my butt off to ensure there is a good amount of solid substance when I launch)

 

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

[TC2]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

I have a couple of questions regarding implementation.
Should I buy a domain, get it hosted, and put the site up ASAP and add content as I go? Or do you think it would be better to spend a couple of months intensively developing content/articles for when I launch? (keep in mind this is not a cop out to not do anything, but a time I will spend working my @ss of to ensure there is a good amount of solid substance when I launch)

All I can say is it's never too early to put your site up! Your web site will never be ready and will never be perfect. Without real visitors come to test it out, you will never know what will it will turn out.

If I put up my site since day one I had the idea, I already made twice the profit.

You don't have to show everything. People do thing like this.

1. One page landing page with a logo and attractive description of the site
2. Beta test or invitation to collect email
3. A poll
4. A screen shot of your competitors web site and some text about why they suck (Not the best way to start though, but it generates buzz)
5. A temporary blog about your niche and have someone to enter the content.

It's never too earlier to SEO your web site.

At least, you can track the hit counter, and traffic and see what your visitors' intention.

 

[andviv]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

Feel free to contact Palmeratech for your web site development.

Contac Us | Palmera Technologies, LLC

About the business model... Doing product reviews and having links pointing to affiliate sites also helps (check this as example: http://www.compositebatsblog.com/ it was my first affiliate site when I was learning how it works)

 

[TaxGuy]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

I changed the thread title, there are a lot of baseballer's here who might be able to chime in.

like me

It's ironic because after I went up to you at B&P saying that I gave up on watching pro sports b/c I didn't see how it was going to benefit me, the lightbulb went off during Bill's presentation and I realized how much I've learned in the last few years in being a "student of the game" that not only helped sharpen my own game(I currently play in an adult hardball league :coolgleamA, but can help benefit others.

Cam- it looks like we have very similar ideas and I have been trying to use the 30 Day Challenge as a tool to find answers to these same questions such as- "what domain names would work best?", "how will I drive traffic?", "what type of content/layout should I have?", etc, etc.

A great resource for info is to read up on Bill's(snowbank) info on Bluefire poker and how he was able to recruit a top pro for his site on poker lessons, I even had a brief discussion on the similarities in poker and baseball and the strategy involved.

As far as recruiting talent, there is info in the book "The Four Hour Work Week" about not only how to have a professional approach to getting media attention(much more powerful and cost effective than advertising), but to get the attention of top pros and celebrities to endorse your product, which seems to be the formula for a lot of the top training aids, including one that I bought, the "Hit A-way" endorsed by Reggie Jackson and Derek Jeter.

 

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

[CamInBoise]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

That's funny, i had a "Hit-a-way" in high school. Problem was, I "hit it away" I literally knocked the ball off of the cords that attach it to a poll, right through the neighbors front window. What a pain in the butt But other than that experience it was a great product.

 

[TaxGuy]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

yea not the best design, but like the product du jours such as Snuggie and Sham-Wow, it was a marketing success :smxB:

To add to this- be aware that now more than ever there will be a demand from parents/coaches/etc to teach their kids the right way to play the game with not only the cloud the whole Steroid Era, but the big news about Manny yesterday and of course that guy who is returning to the Yankees lineup today.

In fact I got some inspiration from the Dustin Pedroia story on E:60 last Sun, even though I hate the "Sawks", his story is worthy of a fastlane success story on these forums :coolgleamA:

 

[CamInBoise]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

So I am a little concerned this afternoon. I have spent the last few days browsing the web for sites similar to what I have been working on launching and found the following one that is pretty similar to what I had in mind.

Online Baseball Community & Team Website Builder | Eteamz

They have their instruction set up in articles listed by topic. I have been considering doing my instruction portion in more of a blog form, to allow my personality shine through the site. Offering more than simple instruction, but more of an online coach/mentor vibe. Additionally, the above mentioned site does not have any e-store. Which in my mind would constitute a large portion of my revenue once I got the site up and running full steam.

What do you guys think? Now that I have identified a niche I like and have some ability in, do I just take stock of the competition and find ways to add additional value to the product I have in mind? Any thoughts on ways I could add this value?

 

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

[TaxGuy]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

do I just take stock of the competition and find ways to add additional value to the product I have in mind?

precisely! remember Bill Gates didn't invent the computer, Henry Ford didn't invent the car and most recently, Mark Zuckerberg didn't create the first social networking site, but what they all have in common is they took an existing idea and not only improved on it, but made their brand the can't miss item!

for example the book "Every Business Is A Growth Business"(I picked it up at the Thrift Store for 80 cents ) shows the example of the #1 company on the Fortune 500 list, Wal Mart, when Sam Walton developed Wal Mart, Sears was the market leader and they laughed at Walton's idea to develop his mega-stores in mini-markets.

in fact I'd be interested to know who is the top dog in instructional material, Tom Emansky is the first which comes to mind and since they've been using the same infomercial for his product for about 20-25yrs(lol) they've saved a lot on marketing expenses, but as you know the game has changed and as such fresh material is always needed, not to mention despite not being a great success the WBC is globalizing the game and a great product can be used to develop talent in the new European and Asian markets that are starting to embrace baseball, not to mention the booming South/Central American market :coolgleamA:

 

[CamInBoise]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

Today is a monumental day! You are all looking at the proud new owner of

www.elitebaseballonline.com

I feel like this is a huge day for me. This is the first time I have bought a domain, and the first time I have taken any concrete action on pursuing a business dream of mine. Now that I have taken the first step, its time to begin scaling the enormous learning curve of building, and running a successful website.

I have my idea, I have my niche, now I have my domain. Time to begin developing an outstanding product that takes online baseball instruction, motivation, supplementation, and networking to a whole new level.

I wanna say a quick thanks to everyone who has been pushing, prodding, and cajoling me to action instead of sitting back pondering ideas. Come hell or high water, success or failure, at least I can say I tried, and at the very worst this whole thing will be an inexpensive class from the school of life.

 

[TaxGuy]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

did you get that idea from Market Samurai?

I ask b/c "elite baseball" was one of the good niche keywords that had under 30,000 competing pages and 800 searches a day, so not only a good name, but good keywords.

 

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

[CamInBoise]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

No, I liked the name, typed it in godaddy.com, it was available, so I bought it. Maybe a little brash, but I am focusing on action, instead of ideas. So I will run with this, if it works out then that is awesome, if not then I will learn everything I can from it.

 

[TC2]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

wow.. Love that domain name. Nice pick.

If you think it will work out and it will work out. Make it a serious business.

 

[TaxGuy]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

pardon the baseball pun, but here's the stats

keyword(s)
"elite baseball"
average daily searches- 487
SEOT(Search Engine Optimization Traffic aka # of daily clicks for a top ranked site)- 204
PBR(phrase-match/broad-match search ratio)- 55%
SEOC(SEO-Competition, # of competing pages with phrase)- 41,900
AWT(Adwords Traffic)- 2
AWCPC(Adwords Cost Per Click)- $0.62
AWCTR(Adwords Click Through Ratio)- 0.41%
OCI(chances that a search is from a potential customer)- 89%

definitely an all-star for keywords and since it's in the .com URL, makes it that much easier to rank high, but I'll let one of the e-biz experts explain the next steps as I am still stuck at the "analytical" phase, but after reading this thread know that I need a sense of urgency, like a team trailing 3-1 in the bottom of the 9th w/ 2 outs, no runners on :smxB:

 

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

[buckmajor]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

pardon the baseball pun, but here's the stats

keyword(s)
"elite baseball"
average daily searches- 487
SEOT(Search Engine Optimization Traffic aka # of daily clicks for a top ranked site)- 204
PBR(phrase-match/broad-match search ratio)- 55%
SEOC(SEO-Competition, # of competing pages with phrase)- 41,900
AWT(Adwords Traffic)- 2
AWCPC(Adwords Cost Per Click)- $0.62
AWCTR(Adwords Click Through Ratio)- 0.41%
OCI(chances that a search is from a potential customer)- 89%

definitely an all-star for keywords and since it's in the .com URL, makes it that much easier to rank high, but I'll let one of the e-biz experts explain the next steps as I am still stuck at the "analytical" phase, but after reading this thread know that I need a sense of urgency, like a team trailing 3-1 in the bottom of the 9th w/ 2 outs, no runners on :smxB:

WOW! That is mean.
How did you find out this information?

 

[TaxGuy]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

Market Samurai, it's one of the tools from the 30 Day Challenge, a 30 day series of activities geared towards finding a niche idea that you can turn into an online business.

 

[buckmajor]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

Market Samurai, it's one of the tools from the 30 Day Challenge, a 30 day series of activities geared towards finding a niche idea that you can turn into an online business.

True, so that's how you did it. Thanks a lot though, something to keep in mind in the future. You have the full version to attain the info cause the trial version only gives the keywords.

Oh well, I guess I will have to wait until I get more income :shruggie: because it cost a lot to download the full version.

 

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

[MJ DeMarco]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

You might want to check this out ... could be a good way to get started by buying an existing property.

HomeRunPlay.com Baseball League & Team Management Website System Service Provider

 

[Luke12321]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

$4000, not a bad price for a set already built....

Nice find MJ!

 

[TaxGuy]

Re: Possible Baseball Fastlane plan in its infancy, feedback want

That is very tempting, but it just feels like I'll be able to work harder on a site that I have brainstormed myself and put in the elbow grease to get started.

It's similar to the business I ran which was essentially a franchise and I didn't put in the effort I would have if I would've built it from the ground up.

Either way, rep+ for the idea, hope someone from here jumps on it :smxB:

 

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