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Weekly UpdatesErica Boeke describes herself as a dreamer. "I'd always had a slew of ideas in my back pocket that I wanted to do on my own," she says.
She had a lucrative job running a 25-person marketing department at Condé Nast's Gourmet magazine. But after 12 years with the magazine publisher, she decided it was time to harness her experience for her own projects. The result was Gameface, a website and book dedicated to the female sports aficionado.
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"I'm a huge sports fan, but I'm a girl," she says. "Sports for me was a way for friends to get together and to bring in other elements I love: cooking, hanging out with friends, creating great, themed events." She describes it as "pulling all of my lifestyle interests together through the prism of sports."
Boeke's research led her to a Yankelovich report revealing that 45 million women tune in to NFL games every weekend. As a marketing professional, Boeke saw the potential in such a large, untapped audience. "I thought 'Why is no one speaking to this big group of women?' "
A Sports Fanatic's
Entrepreneurial Advice
Erica Boeke has learned a lot about running a business in the past year and a half. Here are some of her tips for would-be entrepreneurs:
Get your team together. "Fairly recently, I looked around me. I've got the lawyers, an accountant and volunteer staff, and all these people committed to the project. When you truly believe in it, that's contagious to people," she says. "Maybe they don't want to jump off the ledge themselves, but they want to be a part of it."
Focus, but be flexible. Be ready to move a project, such as T-shirts, online quickly when the opportunity presents itself.
Be kind to yourself. "We struggle with hearing these negative voices [in our head]. Silence those negative voices.
"I can't beat myself up. I don't have a staff of 25 anymore. It's me and two other volunteers."
Keep networking. Being an entrepreneur is isolating. "That's why I keep on top of hitting these networking events, so then you don't feel like you're alone in your home office." Boeke attends a regular women's networking group in New York City. "Make sure that you're not alone," she advises.
She and Deborah Baer had co-authored the humorous books, Blue v. Red and Red v. Blue, so she already had a literary agent to work with, she says.
At the same time, she pitched her website design to a former colleague with a web company. "You can't afford me," he told her. But he liked her concept, so she gave him an equity stake in the company, and he pulled the initial website together in six months.
By July 2007, Boeke had sold her book, Gameface: The Kick-Ass Guide for Women Who Love Pro Sports, written with co-author Chris De Benedetti. She launched the website in September 2008, when the book came out, and she and De Benedetti went on a 10-city book and website tour.
"Instead of launching a website and not having anyone hear about it, I had a book to rely on, and it's been incredible in terms of getting the press," Boeke says.
"It didn't give me a ton of money, but it was another way to have income coming in so I could keep on working on the other end of the project, which was the website." Boeke also spends two or three days a week doing freelance work for various magazines to keep the money rolling in.
Despite her marketing background, Boeke knew it was best to hire a PR team to roll out the book and the website, as she knew she couldn't concentrate on all the business details and do the marketing, too.
She hired Sarah Hall Productions Inc. "In one week, I was on Cosmo radio on Sirius, Maxim radio on Sirius and Martha Stewart radio on Sirius." She's parlayed that into a once-a-month appearance on Cosmo radio.
Don't Discount
the Female Sports Fan
Meet today's female sports fan. She digs the Super Bowl for the on-field action--not just the halftime show. She tailgates days before the Daytona 500. And she buys her favorite players' jerseys and team apparel. The numbers below speak for themselves. The information comes from a 2008 Yankelovich study, except where otherwise noted.
- Forty-two percent of women say they watch soap operas on TV regularly or occasionally, but 62 percent say they watch sports on TV regularly or occasionally.
- An estimated 46 percent of the NBA's fan base is women.
- The NBA sold $100 million in merchandise for women in 2005.
- The 2008 Super Bowl drew nearly 20 million women viewers ages 18 to 49, representing about 44 percent of that age group who watched the big game.
- More than 1.2 million people now play NASCAR fantasy games and 33 percent are female, according to research released April 2007 by the Fantasy Sports Association.
- During the 2006 playoffs, the NBA launched a marketing campaign that capitalized on women's need for information and personal connections. The result: Female viewership increased 33 percent on male-dominated ESPN.
- Forty-six percent of all Major League Baseball-licensed apparel is purchased by women, according to the MLB.
She also has a group of writers posting new articles on the website, all currently working for free. "I tell the writers, 'I can't pay you now. But I am going to pay you based on the number of viewers you bring back to the site.' "
Traffic on the site is only in the thousands so far, but the numbers are growing. And Boeke's already adding a new revenue stream: T-shirts.
For the tour, she created a T-shirt with "gogameface.com" on the front and "I watch sports like a girl" on the back. Co-writer De Benedetti's shirt says: "I dig chicks who dig sports." "People went crazy over these shirts," she says, and as soon as the tour ended in October, Boeke made more, which are now available on eBay.
The site and the Gameface brand will continue to evolve. Current plans include travel partnerships so readers can book trips to sporting venues, as well as the sale of marketing statistics.
"We're gathering a lot of data from these women, and I'm finding out how many games they're going to and what their buying habits are," Boeke says. "I think that's going to be important information to the various leagues and to the people who are marketing to these women."
Being an entrepreneur isn't for the faint of heart, Boeke says, but her friends say the satisfaction shows on her face. "To put myself back in this position where I'm learning new things, and I'm putting myself in uncomfortable positions where I don't know what I'm talking about, has been such an incredible growth experience," Boeke admits. "Asking people that you don't know for money to invest in your idea has got to be the scariest thing I've ever done. But the most fulfilling," she adds.
"I definitely don't have a stress-free life, but it's a different kind of stress. And I have control over my destiny, where before I felt like I was beating my head against a wall."
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