Session #1 “Ask Mike”
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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