From Slappy:

With regards to reverse splits….will an athlete ever reverse split themselves OUT of your portfolio. For instance…if I own 10 shares of BABE, and that equates to .00001% ownership of BABE, and he reverse splits to 5, then to 2.5, then to 1.25, then to .63 etc. If I understand this correctly, my percentage of ownership will continue to be .00001% no matter what happens…I guess the question I pose, is will this player ever reverse split themselves into a position where they disappear from my sportfolio?

Yes and No. Fractional SOIs are not displayed in your Sportfolio and cannot be traded. They are maintained in your account so that if they split to create a full SOI they will re-appear in your Sportfolio and be tradeable.

From IceHockeyRef

Are you still only giving a free $10 to the first 10,000 signups or has that been extended?

We decided to extend the seeding program campaign as so many users were coming through viral sources. It remains a limited time offer.

From Selanne00008

If my question were to be so lucky and get picked, I’d like Mike to elaborate a bit more on advertising. I feel this is defiantely the key to what has been hurting the market the past full week.

When does he expect advertising plans to come to launch? Any specifics sites he is aiming at publicizing at?

We have a number of market campaigns planned some of which are beginning to roll out. The viral growth has been amazing. We are growing for the long term and want to ensure that we can service all the folks coming to the site well.

from brokerboy

will the deposit limit grow as the membership gets bigger. and will the split price be increased in time?

The answer to the first question is NO. The cap on transfers into the system is self imposed. OneSeason is for the fun and entertainment of sports fans, we want to ensure that people are here for these reasons only. The cap is set at a reasonable annual entertainment budget. We do not currently have any plans to increase the split price but are monitoring activity closely to determine the best system. The purpose of the splitting mechanism is to make the system expand or contract as appropriate and allow all users to participate. Splits do not affect percentage of ownership or Total Value.

From inthegame22

What’s the difference between onseason, and another Sports Stock Market allsportsmarket.com , That tanked a few years ago

I am not familiar enough with the model you mentioned to comment on the differences. This is an exciting time in sports entertainment when people are creating lots of different things.

From Kontra

Can you ask him if he thinks that the current valuing of SOIs should be changed? Maybe to include the last 10 prices or to have a more comprehensive price adjustment…it would make more sense with the rising volume of trades and members.

We actually started out in beta testing using a share weighted average of the last 10 trades. In low liquidity environments this gets stretched out over hours and even days which did not seem to reflect an accurate picture of recent transactions. We are monitoring activity closely and want to move forward with the best system possible. Currently we are using a share weighted average of the 3 most recent trade executed to determine the implied Price.

From yurgewd

What are the current barriers for expansion internationally, specifically Canada, and when can we expect to see these issues resolved?

We did a great deal of legal research but at this point it has been focused on operating in the United States. There are also a number of payment processing, tax, currency and language issues that will need to be fleshed out prior to expanding into other markets. It is our hope and expectation to operate across the globe and we are moving as quickly as possible to do so. The first step is ensuring that we have a compelling, stable platform here in the U.S

From Slappy

Many websense and web traffic filter have blocked OneSeason stating it’s a gambling site. We all know it’s not, and my boss is even on OneSeason. Is there any way that this issue can be corrected?

We joked early on that we might need to determine our success by how many corporate firewalls block the site. I believe this is a matter of productivity not legality. We are based in San Francisco and domiciled in the United States. We believe that the operations of OneSeason are in compliance with Federal and State regulations.

From multiple Nation members

Regarding the IPO process, Is it entirely automated? Or is there input required from OneSeason, dictating current market conditions to figure how many of an IPO to issue? In the case of the Oden IPO the range of SOIs was 6000-12000. The actual number turned out to be ~8900. Do you know the actual number up front or how do you determine what the actual number will be as I am sure you had more than 12000 requests for the Oden release.

It is our goal to have the entire system automated and we are getting there. We want issuance to be scientific rather than art. As more operating data comes in we have to tweak the formulas and drivers to create the best system possible. Buy/Sell pressure, Account Composition, User Base, User Growth, Trading Activity, Requests as a % of Users, etc. are all potential inputs.

From Apackin

These ask Mike forums are great, I hope they continue. I have a question for him that I hope you can ask next time….

With every success comes copy cats trying to move in and steal some of that success. How does oneseason plan on differentiating themselves from the competition and always remaining one step ahead? Please give examples if possible.

Thanks and keep up the good work

We filed a series of provisional patent applications resulting in a final utility patent application with 22 claims relating to the Method and System of trading Synthetic Assets. Being first to market and gaining market share has proven to be a substantial barrier to entry in market/network systems (think eBay).We have a LOT of clean-up items and features to add. We are also of the opinion that ideas are cheap, execution is where real value is created. There is a huge opportunity for a more compelling platform in online sports entertainment. We hope to be the ones to provide it but regardless, as sports fans ourselves, want to see this exist.

Question from JWebb

My question for Mike.

I was wondering how big he saw this site to go player wise? Does he see this site expanding to one day have the majority of players in pro sports? I feel as though that would add a little more of how one player does in a game etc. Just wondering. Thanks.

My hope is that we are successful in designing for a very broad audience. Sports are truly amazing in regards to bringing people together and reminding folks that we are all the same. Yes, I hope that in the future we offer the majority of players. I want you to be able to manage a stable of players that you may choose to use in all different kinds of applications.

From Nation member GoDJ416

Mike,

Can you pinpoint the time when you and the other guys looked at each other and said, “oh sh*t…this is going to work and work well,”? Can you describe how that felt?

From the very beginning of pursuing the idea this has been the most exciting and rewarding experience of our lives (definitely for myself and I think I can speak for DJ and the rest of the team). We still have a LOT of work to do but we believe there is a real opportunity to build something great. We hope that it is us but regardless we want this to exist and hope that others share our vision of the future platform and distribution channel for online sports entertainment.

From Nation member ZitoJ83

How far ahead is the actual traffic/user signup compared to your initial business plan? Have you had to revise your 1 Yr / 3 Yr / 5 Yr plans already due to them being low/inaccurate?

We had high expectations for the business but did not expect for the growth to come so quickly. I spent 2 years building and revising models for our company…they have all been thrown out this month as the assumptions are laughable.

From nation member Biggins

What happens when a users account is banned for fraudulent activity, not meeting terms of service, or other similar reasons. What happens to the available cash in the account? What happens to the SOI’s in their Sportfolio? IPOs?

We send big, scary guys to your house in the middle of the night to tattoo “You Suck” on your forehead. Banned users lose access to their OneSeason Account. Cash is held in the user account for an extended period of time and then used for maintenance. SOIs and IPO’s are dissolved (reduces SOIs Outstanding).

From eholl (OneSeason Nation Official Fantasy Basketball Commissioner)

Will users ever be able to withdraw money via paypal? If so will there be a wait time?

We would very much like to offer different ways to transfer money out of the system but honestly this is not on the top of our priority list right now. As to the wait time, this is a fraud prevention feature. Certain pattern recognition and distasteful activities are more easily flagged and discouraged with time…prior to the user taking their funds out of the system.

From Nation member creescalade

What is your reasoning for why we saw the market crash like it did on Tuesday following Oden’s release, when many people anticipated that the market would rise with the cash people had on reserve becoming free? And do you think we will ever see a positive spike again like the one we had in the days leading up to Oden’s annoucement, and do you think we will ever see a crash like we did following it?

I’m afraid I don’t have a very satisfying answer for this one. OneSeason is a virtual goods marketplace for the fun and entertainment of sports fans which permits willing buyers and sellers to transact (free market system). We do not participate in the system whatsoever, we only facilitate it. The system is very volatile in these early days which I suspect is caused by the market trying to get a handle on price discovery for something new and the rapid growth in the user base causing a “rising tide that lifts all boats.” Remember that Total Value (similar to Market Capitalization) is not reflective of funds in the system, it can fluctuate above and below due to the implied price caused by the most recent trading activity.

Question from Nation Member Hockplr10

I have heard that you have several advertising deals in place. I’m sure you are waiting to be able to handle the massive traffic it would generate, but is there any set time that these will hit the market? Also, wondering if you can be specific about where you will be advertsing?

We have prepared a number of marketing campaigns in order to acquire users but have held back due to the viral growth and performance of the system with the current user base/growth. Our marketing efforts will be focused online as we believe these are the most efficient and measureable conversion channels for our type of company.

FAQ from multiple Nation members:

What exactly has been the issues with traffic/latency, and what are the steps being taken to correct it, and ensure it won’t happen in the future?

We launched our site about 4 weeks ago. While testing is important and something we spent a lot of time/energy doing, it is impossible to replicate what live activity will be like in a test environment because you don’t know how users will use the system. Software application growth is very rarely as explosive as what we have experienced in these early days meaning there is usually a more steady curve to solve issue’s/problems. We are trying to manage these growing pains in a much more compressed time period. Our software looks more like banking software meaning it operates at a transactional level which is much different than a typical social network which would be easier to scale. We do not have a hardware issue as we have access to infinite hardware. Rather it is a matter of us getting smarter watching usage, discovering bottlenecks in the system architecture, breaking down the tasks and spreading them efficiently across the servers. We have made huge progress and will continue to do so.

send your questions for mike to oneseasonnation@gmail.com

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