[thefreshmaker]

I had a brain blast as I was browsing the internet....

As you may or may not know, I play streetball/basketball and I have found a huge demand for a service that isn't provided by anyone. So as you do I saw this as a great oppertunity to make some money and provide a needed service.

You are probably wondering what the hell I am on about. Well, I think I am going to make a site that has heaps of instructional videos teaching the viewer streetball tricks.

How will I market this? Well I am very prominent in the world of streetball over the internet as a player and as a general contributer to a range of streetball forums. I have connections to some of the most respected players in the underground streetball community. This will help me because I will get them to appear on my site teaching their signature tricks and this will cater to them with a large amount of promotion/advertising for them and their team. Also I can exchange links with their teams websites and they said they would put my site in their signature on forums and alot of other contributers to the forums have also agreed.

Now the one thing I have to decide is if I want to just have the videos on a free to view page and make money off advertising or I charge the customers a one off fee to get access to a members only area where they can watch all the videos.

But what I am worried about is that my market is fulled with under 20 year olds and I think that not much of them will have access to a credit card.

Can anyone provide any advise of some sort?

[Will]

Sounds promising! If you are going to get a lot of traffic, due to the uniqueness of your site then I wouldn't worry so much about charging users, that could deter them as so many videos are free on the internet. I could see companies such as Nike being interested in advertising on your site because the street/basketball market is exactly what they are aimed towards with a lot of their shoes. If you are able to get prominant people dealing with your site, I think it could be a hit

[thefreshmaker]

Thanks for the encouragement man it feels good that someone with business experience thinks this is a good idea. Means alot.

[Austin_Wilson]

I'd say that with the huge prowess of Youtube, you'll be hard pressed to find people willing to pay to watch the videos... however if you start a site that features videos and a forum of discussion and ideas, and charge people to advertise on your site, I think you'll be much more successful. That's just my .02 and is based on zero experience.

[Will]

Originally Posted by Austin_Wilson

I'd say that with the huge prowess of Youtube, you'll be hard pressed to find people willing to pay to watch the videos... however if you start a site that features videos and a forum of discussion and ideas, and charge people to advertise on your site, I think you'll be much more successful. That's just my .02 and is based on zero experience.

Exactly. Like I said.

thefreshmaker: I am not experienced in business, but I do have some knowledge, and some common sense (I hope!). I have made some decent money out of my own small ventures, but am young like you (17). I get a lot of my information from this site and it's users, and look to making something big happen in the future, when I have a good plan of action. For more info on overall entrepreneurship, go to www.entrepreneur.com, it is such a good place for information on everything to do with the subject, im on it every day!

Good luck mate.

[visio]

Use youtube for sure. Yes being a big contributer to forums in your industry is a great idea, it gives you a reputation and then when you present something like this it has more value than a newbie posting it.

Make sure people don't steal them though.

[dosrotties]

Interesting, maybe you could do like a summer basketball camp or trianing camp, 500 bucks a person for a weekend or week with food room and board. super star coaching and community sevice to give back to the community with sponsors etc. Add a little paintball and other team work activities to diversify and some lectures etc. your sponsors can give away free products and shoes etc.

[thefreshmaker]

Hey, thanks for the advise and yeah I have decided that I am going to offer a free membership like you just sign-up with your e-mail like on this site and then I might start a e-zine with those people that sign up and people selling basketball e-books can sell them through the e-zine. What do you think of this idea? Oh and the e-zine will consist of interviews and new clips added.

[Francis Simisim]

For the 20 year old market, I doubt much of them would be paying. So it might be best to upload it on websites like revver.com or metacafe.com where you'll get money depending on the views of the videos. And the same as youtube, you'll be able to place the video on your website to get more views.

[Young Spark]

I would suggest instead of uploading them on YouTube and everything you get a dedicated server. Sure its a good idea to initially use YouTube but having a dedicated server allows you to post up the instructional video's without relying on YouTube's servers. As YouTube or any other video hosting network grows, there site's are sure to slow down. With your own dedicated server to host your page and video's, your video's are sure to be fast.

Also, don't just focus on advertising people like Nike and other streetball user's websites. Trust me, I watch And1 alot of the time and am knowledged of the whole streetball idea (hey, what businessman can't be.) So yeah, I suggest highly to also advertise underground hip-hop artist's and even get some hip-hop artist's interviews too.

If its one thing you should do, when your name gets huge (although I'll admit it'd be hard to really) - hold a 3-on-3 basketball tournament in the big name cities with each team having to pay $5 to enter. If you get 25 team's to join, that's $75... offer $500 first place price, $250 second place price and $100 third place prize. Yeah, you'll need some additional money for this, but seeing you as the sponsor at the courts will definitely get you some more visitors to your site (meaning more visitors will give the advertisers more view on your website and at the basketball court's.) Charge each advertiser to display their ad's at the event, I'm sure that'll cover the prize money and then some.

Just some of Spark idea's