OleOle: Viva Futbol!
OleOle is a social media site for football with100% fan generated content. It started in late 2006 by CEO and Founder Doug Knittle. The site features news, opinionated blogs, wallpaper, a wiki-style history section of every team and player, photos, forums, groups and more. OleOle has even had breaking news that was not available anywhere else from some of their bloggers. It is quickly becoming the place to go for accurate information for the passionate football fan. The entire idea is to bring football to the fans in a way they would never get it. It personalizes football so fans can follow their favorite teams and players.
The official OleOle launch was in early May and now have close to 60,000 users around the world. They had 2.5 million visitors in June, who were mostly European. Their traffic is 12% US based, but most of it is outside the US. They are in over 215 countries each month, with some of the biggest traffic coming from the UK market, Brazil, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
A big inspiration behind OleOle comes from Knittle’s frequent traveling. He mentions how football is the biggest sport in the world and no one else is exploring this opportunity. With the explosion of social functionalities occurring globally, he wanted to take all of these factors and expand on the potential.
When asked what some of the biggest challenges are, Knittle and Tom Kuhr, Chief Marketing Officer, mentioned getting it right culturally. Fans are passionate about this sport and if it is wrong, they will hear about it. The scope of the site is enormous and doing it across ten languages is a challenge, but all teams and players are represented. Simplifying the site for the fan has also been a challenge, as it includes almost 6,000 professional teams.
Knittle appeared to be optimistic about revenue sources and growth and cited sponsorships, advertising and merchandise as potential opportunities. The sponsorships would be similar to what FIFA does and include big brands like Visa and MasterCard. Their focus is currently on driving traffic. They are making acquisitions and have already bought several leading UK blogs. They are expecting their traffic to eventually be in the tens of millions.
As far as an exit strategy, their focus is to first build a solid company and it will fall into place.
They are an obvious acquisition target and are hoping to choose between a sale and an IPO.Knittle previously started Razorgator in 2001, which is the leader in hard to get tickets. Its’ revenue was at $200 million when he left. Prior to this, he ran ticketing agencies, as far back as 1977. Kuhr has a background in software and internet. He has worked on product management and marketing for startups and high-tech companies, with heavy emphasis on the international side. This has lent itself well to OleOle as it is a multicultural company.
Visit OleOle.com to check it out for yourself.
