Is it possible to be motivated by your own site? CF had a great post (if I do say so myself) earlier this week about living your dream. I’ve realized, that while I’m happy and somewhat complacent in my current position, I do not have a basic enthusiasm for the subject matter or have any personal investment in the results of my labour. Nevertheless, I am grateful to be employed; a family member has spent the better part of six months unemployed and a close friend is struggling to find work after completing a prestigious masters degree in Europe. I am learning valuable business skills in my current position, so instead of complaining about my job I will spend my efforts developing alternate streams of income and future opportunities.
Flashback 12 months
Around this time last year (possibly earlier), I had an idea. I had spent a lot of time researching various Fantasy Hockey websites for a hockey pool that I run. Fantasy Sports, often called pools, are organized and run by fans who create their own ‘teams’ of real-life athletes and compete against their peers. Fantasy Sport websites facilitate these activities by providing a central user interface and compiling relevant statistics on a daily basis. Some of these services are quite interactive and offer countless features such as trading players between users, managing a salary cap and more. If a real life General Manager can do it, it’s probably re-created in a Fantasy League somewhere.
I belong to a special type of hockey pool, called a ‘Keeper’ or ‘Dynasty’ league. In these leagues, users are able to keep a set number of players year to year. Most fantasy sports websites operate on a year to year basis. Keeper leagues have grown in popularity over the past few years, but as of last year, there was only one site that offered support for this type of league, and it was expensive. This is what I wanted to create; a Fantasy Hockey website offering full support and customization for multi-year Keeper Leagues.
Spurred to action
Aside from purchasing the domain for my future site, and writing a few notes, I did nothing over the past year. This year, as I was paging through my favorite fantasy hockey guide, I noticed an ad. A new site has just started up, offering exactly the same basic idea as what I want to do! They are in beta phase for the 2011/2012 season, so this has motivated me to get started and take action. I’m pretty mad at myself for not getting this out sooner – I guess it was a good idea!
What’s next?
I know nothing about programming a website, but thankfully CF is now a senior level Computer Science student. We’re going to work together to create this site; I’ll provide the content and creative input, she’ll build the infrastructure. You might wonder, if this is such a great idea for a business, why am I putting it out there for everyone to see? I recently read an article by James Altucher, who noted that in order for a business to be successful, you have to have greater clarity for the vision than anyone else.
“If you believe in your idea, if you have enthusiasm for it, if you’ve built the knowledge and have confidence that you’ve built that knowledge, then you will always have more clarity in your business then I will.
A million decisions have to be made correctly in order for a business to succeed.
And that’s out of 2 million. If I make 49% of them correctly and you make 51% of them correctly, then you will destroy me.”
I know what I want to do and what needs to be done, so I have no issue telling everyone about it! It might also motivate me to actually get down to work rather than just talk about it.
Opportunities abound
On another note, I received my first invitation to a media/industry wine tasting! It feels great to be noticed and has renewed my passion for my wine blog. I don’t have a clear vision on how to turn this into a business yet, but I’m keeping my options open and making connections when and where I can. Look for a summary of the tasting next week at Tangled Vines.
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Anyone figured out how to add a few more hours to the day?
