By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) ? When Baltimore Ravens linebacker Courtney Upshaw plays in the Super Bowl on Sunday, football fans will recognize him at once. But he isn?t quite a household name just yet.
That?s where fast-growing LockerDome, a sports-centric, social media website, comes in. It offers an online platform for about 1,475 professional athletes, brands, media personalities and other sports properties that use LockerDome as a hub to amplify their social media strategy.
?For an athlete, a LockerDome network is like a Facebook fan page on steroids.? said Gabe Lozano, LockerDome?s 30-year-old co-founder and chief executive.
Gabe Lozano is concentrating on LockerDome?s growth strategy and has no immediate plans for an IPO.And it?s paying off, too, for LockerDome. The company was founded in 2008 as a youth-oriented sports site. For its first four years, it made scant progress, with under 100,000 average monthly users. Then, sparked by Lozano?s meeting with Jim McKelvey , a fellow St. Louis resident who had founded mobile payments company Square, a light bulb went off and the company re-invented itself as a sports site featuring professional athletes.
In the past 13 months, LockerDome has exploded to reach an average of 8 million monthly unique visitors with more growth to come, executives say. They estimate that the company could boast 20 million monthly unique visitors a year from now. See 10 of the most unlikely Super Bowl icons.
How fast has the company grown? Consider that the St. Louis Business Journal published a piece in December, saying that LockerDome had hit the 3 million mark in monthly visitors. Two weeks later, the publication updated the results by noting that LockerDome had reached 4 million.
?Fifteen times this year,? the St. Louis Business Journal pointed out, ?LockerDome has set a new single week growth record. Each week, the startup?s user base grows about 14%.?
Like Twitter in its early days
Advertising-reliant LockerDome is Madison Avenue?s ideal, too. The core audience for its free accounts is comprised of 18-to-34 year-old affluent males, the very demographic that makes advertisers drool.
Regarding its financial footing, LockerDome announced that it has raised $3 million and Lozano said he expects to have added an additional $5 million by March 31 for a total of $8 million.
Clearly, Lozano thinks big. ?I see LockerDome now like Twitter was in 2008, when it started to explode and come on the national radar,? Lozano told me.
The sports-business industry has noticed LockerDome?s progress. ?What Gabe?s company is doing is phenomenal,? said Devin Lacerte, athlete marketing manager of Octagon, a sports, entertainment and lifestyle marketing agency. ?Garnering so many unique visitors in such a short time is nothing short of incredible.?
OK, so let?s down to the business that MarketWatch readers really care about: making money in the stock market.
When will we see the initial public offering?
Lozano, who has clearly heard the question before, laughs knowingly and deflects it, like a hockey goalie swatting aside a slap shot. He?ll only allow that it might happen someday, down the road.
Ravens vs. 49ers: The Super Bowl indicator
Baltimore Ravens or San Francisco 49ers: Which team is the market rooting for?
Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/lockerdome-is-facebook-on-steroids-2013-02-01
Java Gangster Squad school shooting Oscar Nominations 2013 oscar nominations C7 Corvette tom brady
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.