Japan

It`s funny where life takes you isn’t it?

One minute I am dreaming about making a big internet sports business the next thing I am in Japan.

Well the trip to Japan was all in the aid of developing the business, you see Marcelo our chief information officer and creator of all Navsports great functionality has moved to Japan.

One would say that distance when it comes to developing an online business is no problem, but I say unless you can talk eye to eye then things are sure to fail.

Marcelo is married to a fantastic woman and her parents just happen to live in Japan, Marcelo told me months before that he was moving, so I had plenty of time to organize a business trip with Navsports other director Mark (my brother).

We arrived on November 21st for a ten day trip. It turned out to be a great journey. Marcelo and his wife Telma chaperoned us all over Japan, without Telma`s grasp of the Japanese language we would have seen only a quarter of what we saw.

We travelled daily, using the super efficient local rail system and the awesome bullet trains (270kms hr) for longer distances to places like Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto, Hamamatsu and Tokyo.

At night we would work on the site.

We achieved so much in Japan, getting the site online and strengthening our friendship.
I must tell you the things that really stood out for me was the amount of vending machines (they are everywhere), the amount of restaurants (again they are everywhere) the urban sprawl (not much open area) and the most striking thing was how polite and respectful the Japanese people are.

I will never forget my trip to Japan; it was really special made even more special because of the people I shared it with.

Bye for now…Stewart

Dodge Ball Tournament for Charity

Back in 2005 Tony Destefano (owner of Body WorksLife Gym) and myself put together an awesome event. We put together a fancy dress dodgeball tournament with imported sanctioned dodgeballs from America all just for fun and now on February 8th 2009 we will be doing it again this time with the help from the Rotary Club of Wetherill Park and Navsports. The ultimate fancy dress dodgeball tournament and all in the aid of Breast Cancer research.

Music, BBQ and lots of fun await all participants and spectators.

Keep tuned as more details will be available of the coming months.

Check out the photo below from our last tournament in 2005.

Close to launch

So here we are after months of hard work at times very frustrating and at others very rewarding. Navsports is less than two months away from launching what is going to be the " Ultimate sports community for news, organisations, teams and friends". That tag line was critiqued by Jason Peck who has now become Navsports North American media contact and sports marketing consultant. I met Jason who lives in North Carolina through http://www.sportsmarketing20.com/ a sports digital think tank. With Jason`s experience and knowledge I believe we have the right man for the job.

Over many months Navsports has been refined and continues to be refined by a dedicated team, no one person can claim ownership of navsports it belongs to all the hard working people like Marcelo, Derek, Kirrily, Ash, Spencer, Kyle, Alfie, Matt, Dean, Mark, Wendy, John and many more volunteers. These are the people that have made Navsports grow from an idea to a reality.

So what ever happens when we launch if its a huge success or not, I want to say thank you.

Keep tuned cause navsports is coming soon.

Stewart

BRW top 100 Australian websites

Last week Dean and I went along to the BRW top 100 Australian web 2.0 company luncheon.
Nice wine and posh food and some very passionate speakers.

What did I take away from the luncheon? I took away the feeling that 99% of all web companies in Australia are struggling and that they are having to go off shore to find any VC firms that may be interested in their venture.

Speakers included Sean Aylmer - Editor-in-chief BRW, John Butterworth - AIMIA CEO, Duncan Riley - CEO The Inquisitr, Malcolm Thornton - Investment Director Starfish Ventures. They all spoke about the online state of innovation in Australia and all concluded that there are many Australian companies willing to have a go no matter how many barriers are in place.

I suppose thats the Australian spirit, no mountain is to high.

From my experience if I did not have such a great supporting wife and a successful business outside of Navsports I would have packed it in a long time ago. Passion is one thing but cold hard cash is by sure a major driving force of the worlds best entrepreneurial ideas.

My mate Mark Chen from Sportslogic sent me an ebook called Good to Great by Jim Collins, I have started to listen to it and it makes a whole lot of sense and is helping me put a lot of things into prespective.

Running a great company is about the people in the company and acquiring great people is a very hard thing to do, finding passionate people with a vision of what can be is hard.

I have come to realise that it takes time, I am glad I have hit hurdles (big ones at times) and some times encounted huge set backs. The vision I have had for Navsports right from the beginning has changed. It has evolved, it had to to have any chance of success and I realize know that its not always about the product but about the company you keep the people you bring along for the ride. Having people that share your vision and get excited about the possibilities is what makes Navsports great to work on, any more from here is just a bonus.

Stewart

Making Meaning

So the other day I came across a video of Guy Kawasaki, Guy was at Apple computers in the early days and help build the company into one of the prominent industry leaders of the day.

But these days Guy heads up a venture capital company called Garage Technology Ventures.

The video focused on his book "The Art of the Start". One of the many great points in this video was this rule for successful entrepreneurs.

Make Meaning

Focus on making meaning, not money. If your vision for your company is to grow it just to flip it to a large company or to take it public and cash out, "you're doomed". Kawasaki says that great companies are built around one of three kinds of meaning:

1. Increase the quality of life. Make people more productive or their lives easier or more enjoyable.

2. Right a wrong. A variant on the above. Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

3. Prevent the end of something good. Preserve something classic or historical. Save the whales.

I believe that Navsports follows this rule and it was great to know that what I am trying to do with Navsports is all about the three points above.

The rest of his video was equally insightful and I pick up some great pointers.

The status of Navsports, is that we are moving ahead swimmingly. Great progress and features are being developed every day.

We are heavily using Ajax throughout the site to maximise the users experience and I must say that this technology is really cool.

Well back to work for me.

Stewart

Top Contributors

The members of navsports are the ones that make the site great. Without their contributions every day the site would not be growing and have the wonderful content it has.

So with that said we have just launched a new feature recognizing the top contributors to navsports.

On the homepage you will find a new section which shows you the top members by "comments" (last seven days), "submissions" (last seven days) and the all time "navpoints" leaders.

More great stuff is coming, our aim is to offer a unique product which is painfully easy to use.

We are constantly talking with national sporting bodies, local clubs and the people that play sport. We are implementing their feedback into what promises to be an excellent resource tool for community sports clubs, participants and fans.

Listening and learning is what I have come to realise as one of the most important things to success, so that is the reason after seventeen years I have finally made it to university, Sydney Uni to be exact.

I am studying web design and programming and gee coming from a sports management background this has been a huge eye opener. I have realised that I can create even better products to help grassroots clubs and anyone interested in sports to truly find out transparent info relating to all things sport.

Back to study for me, bye for now.

Derby Day

I had a great day yesterday at the lawn party for the Royal Randwick Derby Day (Sydney).

It was a suit and tie event with about six thousand people and some great race day races.

Once you got in it was free food and drink and as the day got on you can imagine six thousand intoxicated people.

The site development is going well but without outside investment its slow. Marcelo is great and passionate about making navsports work, he has the technical skills to implement the design Kirrily created for the site late last year.

Members are steadily growing and providing valuable feedback.

Thats me for today, bye for now.

Cameron Mooney AFL star joins Navsports

Well we finally wrap up filming and editing the promotional video with Cameron Mooney an AFL player and team member of the 2007 grandfinal winners the Geelong Cats.

Cameron is a great amassodor for Navsports as he really believes that promoting grassroot sports is an excellant cause.

I have just sent out press releases to the major print, radio, and tv outlets in Victoria letting them know about the online promo with Cameron Mooney, you can view it here http://www.navsports.com.au/video/navtv.php?video=1206336173.flv

With many things happening with the development of the site including me enrolling at Uni studying webdesign and programming. Things are really looking up, Members are increasing daily and the online sports store is trading well.

I will keep you all upto date with the next developments in my next blog, some exciting things are coming to Navsports.

Bye for now
Stewart

New month - March

Things are starting to pick up, the navpoints have been implemented which means our members get get heaps more than just good sports articles, they can get shirts, hats and even movie tickets. Check it out just signing up gives you 2000 points.

The sports stars are very close to signing up as navsports ambassadors. I can not mention who they are yet not until we nut out their roles and responsibilities, but I must say the two guys we have coming in are top notch guuys and I am very happy they think we have a great product to help grassroots sports in Australia.

I also have to tell you we have made great improvements to our online shop, you can now get lots of different sporting equipment from dodgeballs to basketballs, check it out and the prices are very competitive.

Well back to work for me, bye for now.

Stewart

Moving forward

Ideas are one thing putting them into practice is another thing all together.

What makes a good idea in the first place, now thats another thing.

Well the things I have been working on are a combination of my ideas and borrowed ideas so hopefully at least one will work.

I have engaged a number of sports agencies to find like minded sports stars that are interested in promoting grassroots sports and to my surprise there are quite a few stars that are willing to get involved. So stay tuned as over the next month Navsports will be working closely with some well known sports stars to promote Navsports and in turn promote grassroots sports.

The other things in the pipeline is navpoints a rewards system for loyal navsports members.
For each action a member undertakes on the site, they will be rewarded with navpoint and then when they reach a certain level of navpoints they can redeem them for rewards such as shirts, hats, discounts of navsports shop, movie tickets and so on.

I great website that I have recently joined was Sports Marketing 2.0 http://www.sportsmarketing20.com/ the site is a great resource of industry leading experts in sports marketing.

Will add more updates next week and let you know who the sports stars are that will be supporting Navsports.

Stewart

Australia Day 2008

Watching the womens final of the Australian Open having a few beers and a BBQ is a great way to spend Australia Day.

Over the last few days I have been assessing the direction of the company and along with the revised IM I have decided to explore merging the two existing sites navsports.com and navsports.com.au the former being the club directory and the latter being the sports news aggregator. I will be looking to implement a few features that should keep people coming back time and time again.

The release of a new media release through the AAP network has been well received with many news outlets picking up the release.

New member registrations are flowing in steadily and the feed back I am receiving is extremely encouraging.

Well my steak is ready so by for now.

Stewart

So much to do

Gee I cannot wait to get venture capital, there is so much to do I get a headache just thinking of it.

From researching market sizes to editing the navsports tv show to constantly trying to improve the functionality of the websites and much much more its driving me crazy.

The number one priority is to get funding, indepth market analysis and finachial forecasting is what I am working on at this moment and will probably take me a few weeks.

Ok back to work for me...

2008 the beginning of something special

Hello everyone as my first blog for 2008 I would like to wish everyone a great 2008.

My last blog mentioned the birth of my my first child Riley, Michelle and I are so blessed its hard to describe. If the adventures of sports entreprenuer does not quite work out the way I hope it will then I take solice in knowing that my greatest achievement is my beautiful son.

I have to build a business for Riley to work in one day so I better turn the attention back to what this blog is really for, talking about the trials and tribulations of building the worlds best sports promotion company.

We, that is Matthew, Craig, Derek and Kristen have finally finished shooting the first episode of Navsports Tv for Sydney`s local community channel. The show is about promoting grass root sports and taking the piss out of current hot topics in sport.

You know the hardest thing is editing the first episode, we have plenty of footage but having never edited a tv show before and then coming up with something good is a hard task.

Something funny I said to the boys was what do you expect for a budget of $7.50 (thats what 3 bottles of water cost that I bought for the guys when shooting the show).

Well the community channel gave me good feedback so now I am re-editing the show, I am confident that the show will work and will help drive up our memebers on the site.

It's back to editing for me so bye for now. Catch ya next week as I hope to make these blogs a weekly occurance.