Reflections of Fortune Hunter TeamPages
By Mario Cywinski | March 31, 2009
Last month we briefly profiled Mike Tan, president of TeamPages.com, just before he was to appear on CBC's Fortune Hunters. We spoke to Tan again after his appearance on the show to see how things have changed since.
"At the filming of the show, we had just launched our subscription-based model and relied mainly on advertising revenue. Since then, we have seen subscriptions steadily grow," said Tan. "With the launch of our league and club software, our subscription revenues have been doubling every month since January."
Tan also mentioned that just before the show aired in February, TeamPages closed an additional round of financing from their investors and local Angel investors.
While on the show, Tan received advice from experts Leila Boujnane, founder & ceo of Idée Inc. and Evan Carmichael, founder of evancarmichael.com. Since his appearance, Tan took their advice to heart in an attempt to help the business.
"We worked hard on increasing our conversion rates to our premium subscription package, storage space for photos being one area. We are finding that coaches and parents on TeamPages love to share photos, so a lot are upgrading to premium package for additional storage space," said Tan.
Boujnane and Carmichael also suggested that Tan find a marketing partner. So far he has found coaching and parent educational sites to cross promote with, he hopes to find a large marketing partner in the spring.
However, Tan also realized that he did not need to spend a lot of money on marketing, as long as he could was focused on keeping his customers happy and costs low.
"Instead of spending a lot of money on marketing, we focused on listening to our community and improving our product. As a result, a lot of our customers have turned into our best marketers and TeamPages has started to grow virally through word-of-mouth within the youth sports community," said Tan.
After the show aired, TeamPages received a lot of exposure. They have also been interviewed by CBC Radio, the Fox, CKNW, and the Georgia Straight. "Since the showing our phone has been ringing off the hook with teams and leagues wanting to use our service," said Tan.
Tan next goal: to one day be featured on Fortune Hunters as one of the companies that have made it big.