Ultimately, every fantasy company has to decide what kind of software solution it will use. For a site that is purely article-driven, using a common blog format like Wordpress is an easy choice. But, if you want to do something more complex like host fantasy football leagues or create analysis tools, then it is not so cut and dry and will probably require some custom programming.

I came across a discussion on the Fantasy Sports Executives LinkedIn Group where Adam Becker of Fantasy Fiddler asked for Box Baseball:

Whatever budget you think you’ll need, triple it at least.

From Nick Scalise of ProvenPlays.com:

Find you content provider, find a partner and keep it simple out of the gate.

From Ngozika Nwaneri of PASPN:

When building a fantasy game you have to figure out your target audience and what about your concept will keep them engaged as you build a fan base around the game.

In addition, I would add that once you know who you are targeting, it is important to keep that customer in mind. If you are struggling with a feature or a display, find someone that is in that audience and have them test it out. Do not lose focus of your audience as you go.

Anything you would like to add to this discussion?

It has been a long while since I have really had fun with fantasy football. After focusing on the fantasy industry so intently for the last three years, I think I burned out on it. I posted twice in September. Yeah, that’s a pretty sad number, but I needed to step away from it for a while. Now, I am focusing on playing the game. That is something that I have not done since the 2005 season, and wow, is this so much fun again.

Over the last few years, I managed five or six teams at a time, and most of the teams were put on autopilot. I drafted the guys that were supposed to perform, cut players as I went, and made waiver wire pick-ups as teams needed them. However, no team really got the full attention that it deserved and/or needed. I did it because I was supposed to, not because I wanted to.

Now, with just two teams in two different friend leagues, I am having a blast. The message boards are full with friendly, yet biting banter over waiver wire pick-ups, trades, and whether Michael Vick is worth a shot. The interaction with friends, crunching numbers (I am an engineer at all), and predicting what is going to happen is what lured me into this industry. I actually worry about my teams winning and losing

I got into the fantasy business because this was fun for me. Somewhere along the lines, it stopped being fun and was about a business. This site has had too many starts and stops in its short life, but that is just part of the process. Determining what I really want, what I want this site to be, and how do I get there. Fantasy sports are supposed to be fun, and I’m going to make sure it stays fun for me.

When I’m having fun, you’ll have fun, since this means there is a lot of great content about to start coming at you.

Starting a new business is always a difficult task. With that in mind, from time to time, I will go on a tangent where I talk about an issue that is on my mind. I want these to be open discussion pieces, so, please feel to comment and add to the conversation. Here is the first installment of the Start-Up Chronicles.

Today, I am talking about single points of failure. In case you are not familiar, a single point failure is when one part of a system (or business), when it stops working, can cause the entire system to stop working. When I worked with rockets, this would be something like an engine nozzle. If an engine nozzle cracked, there was a very good chance that the engine would fail, which would cause the rocket to fail (think: Kaboom!). On a blog, like this one, it is having only one regular writer (me). This past week, I probably did five different things to improve this site, but I never found the time to post a new article. This is bad. Writing articles was on my mind, it just did not seem like as big a priority as the immediate issues I was dealing. With people coming to the site regularly, there needs to be regular content, and I failed. Without regular content, everything I have done to promote the site is wasted.

There are many ways to prevent single points of failure. The easiest way is with redundancy. If you can afford to have two of something, then you should do it. For my blog, the easiest way is to hire another writer to ensure there is a regular stream of content. Something that I should have done when I launched. If you know someone interested in writing for me, have s/he contact me at derrick@fantasyethos.com.

Now, if we are talking about my rocket engine nozzle example before, sometimes redundancy is not practical. You probably are not going to have a second engine nozzle. In this case, what you need to do is make sure that nozzle never gets damaged. Everyone who comes near it is trained on how to move near it. The nozzle is inspected for damage every time it is moved. Maintaining the integrity of that nozzle is of the utmost priority for everyone. In terms of this site, until I am able to get someone else producing content, this might mean stockpiling articles so that if I am unable to write a new article that day, I will still have something to run.

Unfortunately, every business will have its share of single points of failure. I want this site to be something big, I know this site will be something big, and how I overcome and mitigate these single points of failure will be essential to the long term health of the site.