Anyone Into Mixed Martial Arts?

[dbmasters]

I am just now getting together a site with my content management system (a sort of "test site") as a partnership between myself and my MMA instructor to support the MMA scene in the upper midwest USA and everywhere else in the country eventually.

http://www.midwest-mma.com/

[ljmyers]

It looks neat Dan, "Tough"

[dchakrab]

I've had similar ideas for a while, Dan. I start putting together a basic site for my martial arts instructor (hapkido, judo, tkd, and kendo) a year or so ago, but quit when he stopped paying me. I noticed then that there are almost no real resources for martial arts in the midwestern united states that have the right search engine optimization...tons of people domain prospecting and using redirects etc to try to grab competition, plus PPC.

If my martial arts instructor had had a little more vision at that point, I'd have done something similar with him. My idea was to create a portal site with fresh, updated content resulting in organic search engine listings, selling advertising space, reviews, and gear. My crappy test site was ranked for "chicago taekwondo", "chicago hapkido", "chicago judo" and a ton of related keywords with almost no effort on my part, leading me to believe that this would have worked really well.

Good luck to you, Dan...I'm hoping it's a successful venture.

Dave.

[dbmasters]

Thanks. It's actually worked out quite well, I am constantly getting inquiries from fight promoters around the country to list their events and gear manufacturers looking for free ads (ain't gonna happen :-)...the forum is slow to take off, but the traffic and interest is building.

We (instructor and I) also have a few other ideas cookin too, luckily for me I guess, my instructor is very non-technical, but has a really good vision, and knows I am technical, so together I think we are going to accomplish a lot.

[dchakrab]

Sounds like a great partnership. Wish mine had been more responsive. My instructor owns Bear Brand, which used to be the largest importer and retailer / wholeseller of martial arts gear in the US (clearing easily over a million in sales every year, he's been around since the 60's). He doesn't even have an ecommerce site up yet, and screwed me over on a contract to go with a templated ecommerce-in-a-box solution at $500 / 6 months (I was asking $1500 to develop the site with around 1,000 catalog items...very reasonable, I thought). No hosting...just stuck on the provider's servers, at $500 bi-annually, without ftp access. He's also lost several employees through creative misunderstandings that resulted in their not being paid (I was one of them).

With that kind of limitation his business resurrection hopes are dead before he even begins, even though he's in a position to run an incredibly successful business again. There's something about the Korean business model that doesn't translate well into the current business climate, where collaboration is more profitable than cut-throat competition with anyone and everyone.

Oh, well. </rant>. Good luck to you, Dan...there's a fairly large niche in that market at present, and that site is in a prime position to fill it. Mix paid advertising, pro bono nonprofit advertising, and e-commerce and you've got yourself a winner.

Oh, and seed the forums. It's shady, but it works...critical mass is the only thing that gets a forum moving. You could also have free advertising for schools that have students post (maybe one free ad run for 1k useful, on-topic discussion posts).

D.

[dbmasters]

Hey, just some cool related news, the MMA event "Konquer the Kage" was in Eau Claire, Wisconsin this weekend. Our gym had four fighters go, and all four came home victorious...an undefeated night for the American School of Martial Arts!

[GeorgeM]

Sounds like a great partnership. Wish mine had been more responsive. My instructor owns Bear Brand, which used to be the largest importer and retailer / wholeseller of martial arts gear in the US (clearing easily over a million in sales every year, he's been around since the 60's). He doesn't even have an ecommerce site up yet, and screwed me over on a contract to go with a templated ecommerce-in-a-box solution at $500 / 6 months (I was asking $1500 to develop the site with around 1,000 catalog items...very reasonable, I thought). No hosting...just stuck on the provider's servers, at $500 bi-annually, without ftp access. He's also lost several employees through creative misunderstandings that resulted in their not being paid (I was one of them).

With that kind of limitation his business resurrection hopes are dead before he even begins, even though he's in a position to run an incredibly successful business again. There's something about the Korean business model that doesn't translate well into the current business climate, where collaboration is more profitable than cut-throat competition with anyone and everyone.

Oh, well. </rant>. Good luck to you, Dan...there's a fairly large niche in that market at present, and that site is in a prime position to fill it. Mix paid advertising, pro bono nonprofit advertising, and e-commerce and you've got yourself a winner.

Oh, and seed the forums. It's shady, but it works...critical mass is the only thing that gets a forum moving. You could also have free advertising for schools that have students post (maybe one free ad run for 1k useful, on-topic discussion posts).

D.
I'm sure that Dave, being the IT/Internet Guru that he is, now recognizes that (given the robust archiving of Google et al) his rants in this and various other forums have a half-life rivaling that of Tritium. Yes Dave, your complaints regarding certain employers will outlive both you and any of your spawn (should you get that lucky).

It shouldn't really matter though, while Dave disses former employers like Nirman, as well as others who have utilized his "services", he shouldn't have to worry about this tarnishing his reputation or credibility. I mean, he purports to represent or work on behalf of reputed IT entities and non-profits, but in reality he's just wanking away in front of his keyboard, dispensing vitriolic missives towards those who are indefensible against his attacks...

[dbmasters]

What the hell was THAT all about?