This Week at Overtime Media! (Thanksgiving Edition)

By Overtime Media

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We did, and we have a lot to be thankful for - surviving a year as a start-up, terrific support from friends and family, and users who enjoy our service. A sincere thank you to everyone who has contributed along the way!

This week at Overtime Media Reece discussed being agile in the office and also announced Joe's focus shift to business development - and through Reece's post, Joe announced that our next stop is the gridiron. We're looking forward to working with football coaches through spring-ball, to spread HomeField to a new market for next fall.

We also made some headway on a partnership that we are very excited about. We can't release any details as nothing is official yet, but things are looking good for a certain group of coaches out there...

This is official, however - Overtime Media road trip! We're heading South to present HomeField to the IMLCA Clinic in Baltimore December 11-13. We're looking forward to catching up with all the coaches who tested HomeField for us all fall. See you then!

Big News from Human Resources

By Reece

Ok... We don't actually have a Human Resources department. It's more like self-governance by community - the community being the three of us. There aren't many lines that haven't been crossed, but when someone does 'cross the line' we usually keep them in check with a good jab at their ego or threaten to damage their person or property - y'know, the usual resolutions for three 25 year old guys. We are often asked by others in the start-up community if we, the founders, still get along after a year now. Despite the constant threat we pose to one another's physical and mental well-being, we get along great!

Back to HR... Our company was structured a year ago with a CEO (me), a CTO (Dan), and a CNO (Joe). [For those who don't know, CTO = Chief Technology Officer or Chief Geek and CNO = Chief Networking Officer or Chief Schmoozer.] We all play our parts, but we're very interdisciplinary. For instance, I'm just as happy working on site design as I am calling coaches and investors. For the most part, Joe has been laser-focused on 'Sales' - calling coaches, doing demos and turning them into users. He's done a great job and it's given us an awesome beta group to test HomeField.

But Dan and I realized recently, that Overtime Media needs to look at the bigger picture now. We've been so focused on our users at the individual level, and now we need to build the network and that means signing up entire leagues, divisions, etc. At the same time, we need to develop our relationships with our customers to be certain we are providing the best level of service for them. What we need, is a Business Development department.

I would say that if we could afford to hire a biz dev expert, we would... but I'm not sure that's true, especially when the best candidate is already doing the job. That's Joe. The kid loves talking to coaches. He loves HomeField and he loves when they love HomeField. Who better to step up to the challenge of systematically developing a customer pipeline than the guy who already knows the customers inside and out?

So, Overtime Media Inc. is proud to announce that Joe is no longer the CNO, but our President of Business Development. Sure, he's the President of a country with population - zero, but this is a chance for him to build the department in line with our goals and beliefs as a company.

We are excited to see what he can do for us, but probably not as excited as he is at his new position. We presented our offer last week, but we made him wait out the weekend to accept - despite his need to start spitting ideas at us right away. Patience, Grasshopper.

In keeping tradition with our smart-ass internal communications, Joe's response yesterday:

Yes, I accept. I appreciate the opportunity. I would like to thank God, green tea, running first thing in the morning, and eggs with peanut butter.*

Step 1: Analyzing this fall, (ie: what we did right, what we did wrong, what we didn't do fast enough) and applying it to football for the spring.

That's right, barring any major changes, football will be our main focus for the spring.

You hear that football? Joe's coming for you. WOOOOOT!!!

* - Joe has me to thank for eggs on peanut butter toast. Great power breakfast. Try it.

Agility in the Office

By Reece

Lately, we've been working on our pricing for HomeField and among the factors we consider is the value we provide versus the current solutions. Today, I came across this article comparing the costs of 'Software As A Service' - or SaaS - and Licensed Software. HomeField is a SaaS. It's software, but you don't buy it in a physical sense - rather, you pay for the service. We think it's the best way to go for any business - here's why (from the article):

• Hardware costs: You have to either buy machines or add your software to existing servers and manage them. If it is a mission-critical application, you will probably need dedicated machines and back-ups.
• Additional software costs: You will most likely need an OS, application server software, a database, monitoring software, etc...
  
• Implementation costs: In my experience, the implementation costs associated with a behind-the-firewall solution are always higher than those of a SaaS application. There is simply more to do. You will either pay consultants or use your own valuable resources and time to worry about installing software, integrating it, building servers, configuration, etc.
• Maintenance labor: If you have in-house software, there is going to be some level of effort required to keep it happy. Your IT people will need to take care of it, which will keep them from doing more value-added activities.

And a few more reasons why from us:

• Access Everywhere: HomeField is available through any web browser. You can log in from work or from home. There's no software license that says 'you can only use HomeField on one computer.'
  
• Instant Upgrades: Every time we add a new feature or fix a bug - you'll have it on HomeField, instantly. There's no need for the download, install, reboot cycle with traditional software updates.
• Storage & Backup: Since HomeField is not just SaaS, but provides storage as well, you can rest assured that all of your data is securely protected. If your hard drive crashes, we've got you covered.

Really, it's all about agility. With our software on the web AND your media stored in 'the cloud,' your operation is entirely agile. You're not tied down to one machine or location; your processing power and data can be shuffled around to the people who need it - your coaching network and players - with effortless agility.

So be an office linebacker, like my man Terry Tate...

This Week at Overtime Media!

By Overtime Media

This week at Overtime Media... the phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing. Lots of unanswered calls this week had us baffled. Isn't it the off-season? Even fall ball is over, right? Doesn't matter... For college lacrosse coaches, everyday is a contest apparently. Right now in particular, is recruiting season. A conversation with a D1 coach revealed that there are tons of high school juniors already committed! So in the season of official visits, everyone's busting their ass to get the best players...

That being said, we still got a hold of a bunch of our users to informally ask for their support. See - we're working on a deal with the coaches' association right now, and we want to demonstrate to the powers that be that HomeField is what the coaches need/want/can't live without... So, Joe's made some calls and here's just a few examples of the awesome responses we heard.

And I quote...

"This is a no-brainer, absolutely put us on there."

"Without question, my kids LOVE it."

"Absolutely, put me down!"

"Put us down! Definitely."

Thank you to those coaches, and everyone who's given us such great feedback! We really appreciate it (and keep it coming!).

We also had a Board of Director's meeting yesterday. For a change of scenery, we met on Joe's couches, instead of at his kitchen table. Amazing what it did for our discussion... We are now inches away from officially choosing a law firm to represent the company, and we're psyched about it. (Yes. We are excited about dealing with lawyers. It means Reece doesn't have to draft our own legal documents anymore.

Finally, Dan has pretty much been M.I.A. and that's fine with us. Once in a while... OK... often, he disappears into a pile of code and resurfaces a while later with a great new feature or update completed. I'm calling him out right here, because I can't wait to see the results.

This Week at Overtime Media...

By Overtime Media

This week flew by! It all started out with Reece's move into a new apartment on Monday and his ensuing riff on the Accumulation of Things and Storage of Said Things. With the new location, we held 'Team Day' - our weekly day to work together - on the Upper East side for the first time. Since Time Warner Cable is apparently in no rush for Reece's business, we were forced to steal wireless internet, huddling together near the window where the connection was best.

We still got the work done that day, and shot off a partnership proposal to the Intercollegiate Men's Lacrosse Coaches' Association (IMLCA) for the 2009 season. It makes perfect sense for us, as well as the teams and coaches of the IMLCA. The idea started when a few of our users began urging us to come to the annual convention to pitch HomeField as the standard for their league, and we're grateful for that encouragement. We're now trying to make HomeField the standard for the entire divisions and are offering a great deal for the first year of paid service. More news on this as it develops...

Though it's a bit old, we finally got around to reading a post from the Official Google Blog on the future of search. In it, Google reflects on their first 10 years in business, as well as what's next. It got us thinking, what advancements will be made in sports media in the next 10 years? As is already happening, we think we'll see all content - videos, reports, stats - move into the cloud and be entirely searchable. We'll also go out on a limb here and say that we'll eventually see RFID's or similar chips implanted in players' equipment - tracking devices that can overlay meticulously specific routes and the actual game footage. Imagine that? As a coach, you could track your players' movements on the field and get reports with all of the relevant stats - where they are on the field, number of touches, how much possession time each has, etc. - all instantly available on your computer. Call me crazy, but my dad used to say that we'd see the flying car before too long... and he just may be right.

Finally, we celebrated an important birthday over the weekend... ours! Overtime Media Inc. is 1 year old as of November 15. Dan may debate the date, as he believes we didn't really get started until he quit his old job last January. Regardless, the past year has been full of baby steps and giant leaps, and we're really proud of what we've accomplished so far. Thank you to our early investors, the friends, family and general counsel along the way, and of course, thanks to all our fantastic alpha and beta users who have been so vital to our development. Here's to year 2!