John Anthony
Contributor
Hey there, everybody! So I'm just finishing up MJ's Unscripted (fantastic) and I had read Millionaire Fastlane years ago when I was just a outside sales guy aspiring to become an entrepreneur someday.
Anyways, I thought I'd introduce myself. My name is John Anthony. I was somewhat forced into entrepreneurship after a series of companies I worked for just couldn't executive on their strategy. Unemployed with no opportunities in sight, I decided to create my own.
First company ended up getting a ton of press, grew it to almost $700,000 in sales by the time I decided to stop (National Association of Bubble Soccer). I was featured on Shark Tank, Good Morning America, ESPN, Telemundo, and a few others.
Reason I stopped is because post-Shark Tank made me realize a few things:
1) Ok..now what? Does this really have potential to become a billion dollar company and have the right elements to scale? Probably not. I saw overwhelming evidence that bubble soccer was really just a really long fad that I was helping propagate. The biggest tell was that of the 65 franchisees I created throughout North & South America, practically none of them ever had a repeat customer, which told me that there would come a day when everyone will have tried the sport and you don't want to be holding inventory when that day comes, so exit now.
2) Revenue was overwhelmingly focused on equipment sales. I prided myself on the amount of product development that went into the equipment, but it was a Catch 22: the more product development I did to make the equipment better, the longer it lasted and the less my customers bought over their lifetime (increased product quality reduced LTV, what a horrible relationship).
3) I was burnt out with it. I wasn't growing and the market was not growing fast enough either. From my research on how every major sport became a viable through history, they all did it through league play. Unfortunately, franchisees were more focused on private events than league play, which for the short run is good for their own cashflow, but for the sport and market as a whole, is detrimental because it positioned the sport as one-time experience. I had no control over this, no matter how much I incentivized or mandated league play within the organization.
After three years, it was a really cool experience, and I learned a lot about market dynamics that you just can't learn in business school. I also learned the power of cloud computing from my experience with the Tank Effect. I became fascinated by the fact that you can literally spin up an entire data center for an hour and scale back down when you're done. You literally have access to computing power that just was never previously available without building whole data centers for millions of dollars. So I deep dived into cloud computing (AWS) as well as what I'm really passionate about, technology, and specifically, the Internet of Things.
Anyways, that's part of my story. This post is long enough. As for what I'm doing right now, I just finished building a predictive maintenance system powered by internet connected devices (SaaS) and also do mobile/web app development and cloud migrations to AWS in the meantime. Things are going good so far and I'm much better positioned. As for my technology stack, I listed all my languages, credentials, etc. in my profile. Happy to be of help to the community, and a special thank you to MJ for being such a trustworthy entrepreneurial influence in a world full of bullshitters.
Anyways, I thought I'd introduce myself. My name is John Anthony. I was somewhat forced into entrepreneurship after a series of companies I worked for just couldn't executive on their strategy. Unemployed with no opportunities in sight, I decided to create my own.
First company ended up getting a ton of press, grew it to almost $700,000 in sales by the time I decided to stop (National Association of Bubble Soccer). I was featured on Shark Tank, Good Morning America, ESPN, Telemundo, and a few others.
Reason I stopped is because post-Shark Tank made me realize a few things:
1) Ok..now what? Does this really have potential to become a billion dollar company and have the right elements to scale? Probably not. I saw overwhelming evidence that bubble soccer was really just a really long fad that I was helping propagate. The biggest tell was that of the 65 franchisees I created throughout North & South America, practically none of them ever had a repeat customer, which told me that there would come a day when everyone will have tried the sport and you don't want to be holding inventory when that day comes, so exit now.
2) Revenue was overwhelmingly focused on equipment sales. I prided myself on the amount of product development that went into the equipment, but it was a Catch 22: the more product development I did to make the equipment better, the longer it lasted and the less my customers bought over their lifetime (increased product quality reduced LTV, what a horrible relationship).
3) I was burnt out with it. I wasn't growing and the market was not growing fast enough either. From my research on how every major sport became a viable through history, they all did it through league play. Unfortunately, franchisees were more focused on private events than league play, which for the short run is good for their own cashflow, but for the sport and market as a whole, is detrimental because it positioned the sport as one-time experience. I had no control over this, no matter how much I incentivized or mandated league play within the organization.
After three years, it was a really cool experience, and I learned a lot about market dynamics that you just can't learn in business school. I also learned the power of cloud computing from my experience with the Tank Effect. I became fascinated by the fact that you can literally spin up an entire data center for an hour and scale back down when you're done. You literally have access to computing power that just was never previously available without building whole data centers for millions of dollars. So I deep dived into cloud computing (AWS) as well as what I'm really passionate about, technology, and specifically, the Internet of Things.
Anyways, that's part of my story. This post is long enough. As for what I'm doing right now, I just finished building a predictive maintenance system powered by internet connected devices (SaaS) and also do mobile/web app development and cloud migrations to AWS in the meantime. Things are going good so far and I'm much better positioned. As for my technology stack, I listed all my languages, credentials, etc. in my profile. Happy to be of help to the community, and a special thank you to MJ for being such a trustworthy entrepreneurial influence in a world full of bullshitters.
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