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The Making of FSRU- Part 3 |
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Weeks went into months as the text and specs
of the website drew to completion. Business contacts provided six capable
bidders to build and design the site. I was concerned with building
impressive headers to each sport as different web design capabilities
were required to build the baseball homepage, football homepage, basketball
homepage and hockey homepage. The rest of the specs were not complex for a
capable designer. The site specs required an upgraded attached
email with a mailing list. The mailing list button on the homepage could then
accumulate email addresses without any administration. The site specs also
explained an impressive array of site buttons in a link on the homepage
footing called Free Link to FSRU, and it outlined a required chat room. Between Christmas and New Years, 2001,
the complete site specs were emailed out to the 6 referred bidders. The
entire site outline was a package of 66 files: 60 text and 6 specs outline.
The first big mistake, not including an administrative panel, was made right
at this point. It was a cost saving measure which cost a bundle and it was
added two years later. The bidding and negotiations aspect of the site were
completed in less than 10 days and FSRU.com was in design. Because it was a
baseball website, I decided to have it built in the United States, Arizona to
be specific, rather than the lesser rates offered to have it done in
Pakistan, or India. Within days all the text files were
downloaded and up on the site, the housing was built and all the headers were
up except the sports homepages. I was sending change this, fix that, emails
after each view and the site was going up pretty fast. A marketing plan was
formulated which had the site in Baseball Weekly (2”x 1” advertisement),
Baseball Digest, WFAN660am Radio (2 spots per overnight because it is very
expensive), GoTo.com pay per click (now overture.com owned by yahoo). The
entire key was to get the first leagues filled in the first year. If the site
got off the ground, it would survive. If not, the site was dead. My last and most impressive marketing
tool was my email list. A fairly sizeable list of people I had played with,
or was playing with, over the years. Many of which were Joe Blows current
customer base. He was still blowing too, and providing lots of tough talk. A
perceived favoritism to the guys playing multiple leagues became the talk. He
was also playing teams for sale and making very good trades (something this
site never did). But I did not have too much time for listening to the
banter. I was working. And Joe was about to get a wake up call. Because Trouble Was Coming…. BIG TROUBLE !!! |