
'We sold our home to build a social network' - timoth
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39744294
======
scarface74
A few things:

1\. An "idea" is nothing. An "idea" is not a competitive advantage. If it does
take off in even the slightest, Facebook will just copy it, throw resources
behind it and crush them.

2\. What is their "unfair advantage"? From what I can tell none of them are
developers, designers, or have a network of people that they can leverage in
the industry.

I, like most other people here, have what I think is a great idea for
business. I'm not going to quit my relatively well paying job for it or risk
my family's well being for it.

I'm going to talk to people I know in the industry I'm targeting, I'm going to
personally use my skill set to develop the web site and the backend on nights
and weekends and host it on AWS.

After I do the first rough design using Bootstrap. I'm sure I can scrounge up
enough money to find a real designer to do high fidelity mock ups that I can
use to make a presentable site.

The most realistic case is that it will turn into a little extra income. Worse
case, I'm out of a few hundred bucks in AWS hosting cost, spent some time
getting better at a few technologies, and I have a portfolio of well designed
code I can show when I'm interviewing.

------
system16
I work for a mobile design and development agency. We get many inquiries from
clients with zero budget and a "million dollar idea" that is doomed from the
start. When they hear the cost, that's usually the last we hear from them.

Looking at the app, I really can't believe they spent this much creating it.
My immediate reaction is it's a bad outsourcing job with clipart purchased
from Fiverr. Also, the screenshots and App/Play Store presence is just awful.

------
lexo
I had to check the date to see if this wasn't published April 1st. Someone
should protect these people against themselves.

Why did no one at the bank said "this might not be the best idea" when the
family told they wanted to sell their house to finance the new social media
revolution?

~~~
tpatke
I think this is the trouble with being an entrepreneur. You are crazy right up
until the moment you are proved right. At which point, the idea is ‘obvious to
everyone’.

Of course, most ideas fail. Most entrepreneurs are just proved crazy.

It is a lonely existence where even other entrepreneurs are unsupportive.

These guys have a nice PR piece on the BBC. That will give them a big
temporary boost in traffic. Maybe not so crazy?

~~~
user5994461
There are some business which are known to fail miserably.

Like, when you want to lend money to open a restaurant in some places, a
reputable bank should be able to tell you that xx% of restaurants go bankrupt
within the next 2 years.

~~~
collyw
Like the already saturated social media market. What can a new social network
do that can't be done already on Facebook?

~~~
bshimmin
...or, if it isn't already being done by Facebook, can't be developed and
rolled out incredibly quickly to a billion users if they decide that they like
what you're doing and want to do it too.

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superplussed
Come on, this is just a blatant PR piece. Lot's of people do lots of things to
fund their struggling startups, but very few get a full article plus
advertising photos on the BBC. Well done guys, kudos, but come on there is no
story here.

~~~
Toenex
Unless my google-fu has let me down, the father is Perry Hughes a music agent
who used to represent Salford born pop-operatic tenor Russell Watson (British
mums love 'im). Sounds as if the pair had an acrimonious split and according
to this article ([http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-
news/watso...](http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/watson-
what-have-you-done-for-me-lately-1127538)) Russell had to pay out big.

So I'm guessing Perry has a few connections and can get some PR when he wants.
Perhaps 'selling one of the family homes' doesn't provide the same punchy
headline.

~~~
nunez
so maybe they sold ONE OF their homes as a funding vehicle and this article
made it seem like it was their ONLY home?

if that's the case then that sounds much more reasonable (though still kind of
weird; why put your assets on the line when cheaper capital is available?
especially if you're well connected and can obtain it?)

------
ccozan
I pity them; gone are the days when someone could pitch "a social network for
X" and an investor would raise and yell "shutup and take my money".

These days, whenever I go to a pitch contest and some poor guy starts with the
social blah blah, the jury starts yawning and the participant is quickly
dismissed: no one really could explain the business model behind his social
network, besides mentioning ads.

So, does anyone know how this sports social network is going to earn money?

~~~
MichaelBurge
> So, does anyone know how this sports social network is going to earn money?

If you offer a free fantasy football game and a million players use it, you
could probably gamble on sports using the data.

~~~
vidarh
The bookies will likely still have better data than you, so I doubt gambling
using the data would be a good idea.

But e.g. using the data on the teams people have put together and marketing
real bets on their real matches to those players and playing on it accordingly
(" _your_ player is playing a real match - show your support here", coupled
with e.g. "in game" trophies if you win) might b an option.

------
ealexhudson
It would be interesting to see how many of the startups that got really huge
had an initially negative reaction on HN. We know that most startups fail,
that means GDX (the subject of the article) will probably fail, so all the
negativity is really just a statement of the bleeding obvious.

There is a big chicken-and-egg issue here, in that they need to get a large
number of users on the site in order to make it somewhat self-sustaining. That
pretty much seems to be what is happening now - yes, this is a PR puff piece,
that means they're serious about growing the site.

If there's an interesting enough niche, people will come to this. I remember
seeing boxrec.com in the very early days; it was still a server under
someone's desk and had a handful of users - but the guy who set it up knows
boxing inside out. We don't know the background of this family, but I don't
think this is just a "let's set up a social network!" hail mary.

The play-by-play looks genuinely interesting, and we know people want to talk
sports in real time. They use Twitter for this (poorly), and Facebook, but
it's not a venue for hard-core sports fans. If they can bring together
detailed play-by-play across a variety of sports, and enable people to talk
about it together, and maybe bring in streaming / commentary (maybe this is
phase 2), this is a very interesting proposition. Building that kind of
audience would be massively difficult of course, but also clearly very
valuable. Bet-in-play is _huge_ , and that's just one aspect.

I wish them luck. I hope they're not as all chips-in as described, but it
feels to me like an interesting idea that should create a valuable product.

------
retrac98
Seems kinda selfish to risk your family's wellbeing for the sake of your
business dream.

~~~
remline
If they are all active in the family project as implied, then I think their
children have a high chance of being notable and employable whether or not
they make a dent in the market as a startup.

It seems like they are giving their children a chance in life that is a little
less morbid than waiting to inherit half a house.

~~~
celticninja
Or perhaps the parents are setting their children up to have to support them
in their dotage as they no longer have a home of their own, putting further
strain on their children when they may already be facing a difficult economic
future. There are ways to do this and selling the farm is one of, if not the,
worst ways.

~~~
remline
Many parents of that generation leave important jobs to be unemployable,
maintain their unrealistic costs of living until or beyond retirement age and
leave their children with nothing but complications.

That there might be better ways doesn't mean they are as bad as the average.
I'd take 4X at these odds at 10X the average UK salary (even if 2 of them
might be short careers) and a possible business over a less than certain
chance of 2 mediocre UK employee lives with not as many family obligations.
But each to their own.

~~~
celticninja
"many" is unquantifiable but it suggests lots, I don't see that being the
case. In the UK house prices tend to result in the parents downsizing to
afford retirement and/or end of life care. I'm not saying they should let the
kids inherit the house, I'm just saying that they could have ensured that
their children did not need to support them when they may be trying to buy
their own home or start their own families.

------
LeanderK
Well, that seems drastic. After reading the article i am not convinced. They
don't have the one big argument why one should use their app. Just being a bit
better in something is not enough when building something like this (though i
don't think they are actually better, just look at their app [0]). I use
onefootball and it works fine, i don't even use most of it's features
(especially the social-media ones)!

[0][https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.gameda...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.gameday)

------
dustingetz
> Russian investor

What path does one take to find themselves in a conversation with foreign
investors?

~~~
scandox
Sit at the smaller bar in a very high class London hotel (usually there are
two - one intimate and one grand). Wear a good quality suit - no tie. Make
sure you're impeccably clean (manicure), but not too tidy. Strike up casual
conversation with absolutely anybody who seems up for it: so anyone who is
alone and any couples whose conversation is flagging. Always be ready to
suggest a glass of champagne. There's no need to lie but always imply you're a
guest of the hotel.

Over time you'll get good at measuring people's potential. Rich people in
these contexts are always bored. They're always looking for something to play
with. Either shopping or investing - or a mix of both. It's intimately
connected to their social relationship with the supplier.

It's a lot like being on the game.

Disclosure: I have never done this - however I grew up knowing someone who
made their very good living in this way.

~~~
vidarh
My first startup was funded almost that way. One of my co-founders was a navy
officer that had a thing for putting on a suit and sitting in fancy bars
ordering black russians, and on one of those occasions while we were
consiering where to get funding, he got talking to a recently returned long
time expat who was wealthy, bored and looking for somewhere to invest. Two
weeks later we had the cash in hand.

This was someone who knew nothing about our area. We were starting an ISP and
he had never had a computer on his desk (this was '95...) - he'd always had
secretaries to do "that stuff"; to him it was pretty much a game and a gamble
based on getting on well with my co-founder that evening in a bar.

------
neogodless
I had a marketing client/photographer have me build a web site for local sport
clubs. They updated the site with scores plus thousands of photos of the
athletes. The idea was to sell the photos to fans and parents. It was a decent
idea, but I think they priced the (digital) photos too high, and the amount of
work for the return just never surfaced.

This doesn't sound like an organic growth social network, and I feel they are
misjudging the ROI on all the investment of time, effort and money.

------
paulajohnson
I can imagine an app for managing small amateur sports teams, Little Leagues
etc. Club secretaries take a lot of time on this work and its pretty
thankless, plus they have a modest budget, so something that charges a $50 a
year to host your team data with easy to use tools for booking matches,
managing email lists etc could be a viable business. But I wouldn't call it a
"social network".

~~~
beaconstudios
there already are companies in this space though. In the UK we have Pitchero
(FD: previous employer of mine) who provide a pretty great service for small-
to-medium-sized sports teams. I'm sure there are similar offerings in other
countries.

------
nabaraz
Not to denounce their work but the website and app looks pretty terrible. I
would imagine they would have enough funds to hire good developers after
selling their house and cars. The article also talks about a funding from a
Russian investor.

I was really interested in knowing how and where did they actually spend
money. I dug further:

\- They have 100-500 installs on app store.

\- A good amount of their twitter followers are spam with most of their tweets
with keywords such as giveaways and contest.[2]

\- Their play by play commentary is coming from performgroup.com. I would
think this would be their highest cost.

\- Their site is hosted on aws.

[1] -
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.gameda...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.gameday&hl=en_GB)

[2] -
[https://twitter.com/GamedayXtra/followers?lang=en](https://twitter.com/GamedayXtra/followers?lang=en)

What could be the significant cost here?

~~~
MarkCole
I imagine the major costs are their living expenses. They've sold their house
and cars, but still need somewhere to live, they'll still need to travel and
of course eat.

Additional costs could be through marketing, not sure if they're doing paid
ads? Or simply the costs of travelling to events and investors to pitch it?

Despite being based in Manchester they seem to have registered their company
('GameDay Xtra Ltd') in Gibraltar. I assume as some sort of Tax Dodge? Or do
they incur some other benefit by having an Ltd in Gibraltar vs in the UK?

~~~
joaodlf
Registering your company in Gibraltar is a common practice when it comes to
gambling site companies in the UK. They could eventually try to dip into that
market.

~~~
MarkCole
Ok that actually makes sense, owning a sports social network it seems a
logical step to go from there to allowing people to bet on the sports.

~~~
mirekrusin
If they go for online-sport-betting site, at least they are consistent in the
sense that they just put their whole family life on a single bet.

------
jlebrech
I think the only way to pitch a social network would be for it to be the
product and not the customer base.

Who would pay $1/month?

But then if you can freely share anything you could rival netflix?

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Edmond
doesn't sound all that crazy...already I like their homepage summary better
than what I get from the bbc sports section or espn...also this could prove
valuable experience for the kids even if this doesn't work, their subsequent
attempts might.

------
osteele
I clicked on this expecting a metaphor where home == society.

