A Meeting with Portland State University

Despite the fact that Riverside’s course has been closed for about a week, I have had quite a busy last 7 days both working on some swing changes and having a few logistic-style meetings.

I participated in, or a better description may be that I was the subject of, Portland State University’s “Capstone Program” this semester. Capstone is a senior undergraduate class that spends an entire term examining a few small businesses and building a business plan for these. The class breaks into groups of 8 and these students research one business and present their findings as a final presentation. Yesterday the group focussing on The Dan Plan presented a handful of adjuncts, professors and me.

It was fascinating to watch. They had dug deep into my website, read papers on Deliberate Practice, perused all of the articles that have run on my project to date and in general were spot on about what my intentions and goals are. At times it felt a bit personal as they analyzed my progress and estimated the chances of making it onto the PGA Tour. They even interviewed two long-time Tour golfers about their experiences both from a practice standpoint and about securing their own finances while trying to make the Tour. (unfortunately they signed a confidentiality agreement with the Tour players so I didn’t get to know who they were.)

They broke down my project into 4 categories.

Strengths: Client’s Passion, 1/2 way to goal, Family Support, Blog/Website reach, Support of Team, Statistics for 2+ years.

Weaknesses: Lack of Funds, No real product of service, Lack of business focus, Tentative Speaker, Handicap currently is 4, Lots of Travel Required

Opportunities: Outside Sponsorship, Grants, Publishers/Producers, Private investor, Crowd Sourcing.

Threats: Another person doing the same thing, Likelihood of completion, Golf pros opinions, Tax implications for donations, Weather in Oregon.

That was their SWOT analysis and I think they hit on some good points, although I don’t totally agree with everything, but when you have an outside group break down your “business” you aren’t always going to agree with all points.

After this, they went into a few of the aspects and then took time to present what they thought was the best potential way to support the project through the second half of the 10,000 hours. Through their research and interviews, they basically surmised that due to the competitive nature and large numbers of people trying to make the tour and looking for private and business sponsorships that that route was not the way to go. They presented that while the project can have a few revenue streams when completed (book, documentary, public speaking, so on) that during the final 5k the best way to support the project to the point where I can financially finish the best bet was on crowd sourcing.

Before I go on, I want to say that the point of me chatting with PSU and the point of the project is not now, nor has it ever been, to make money. If I was interested in making money I would have stuck with a job from the get go. Unfortunately, though, there is a cost in pursuing something like this and it is important to be proactive in order to accomplish goals. I like to analyze different opportunities and see if there is something that I am missing that could be a potential source of growth.

Back to PSU. Their conclusion was that by growing the traffic on my site I could get to the point where the cost of the project is completely covered by revenue supported by ad clicks. What they suggested was to use a website like Hubspot (which I had never heard about until yesterday) to drive more traffic to the site. It’s an initial cost of $500 and then $200 a month to use this service, which is a lot of cash for me. That’s more than half of what I spend monthly to be a member of a golf course where I can practice and play 6 days a week.

I will do some research on this service and comparable services and make a decision some time in the next couple of months.

It was a great presentation and there was much more to it, but those were the highlights. If anyone runs or is starting a small business in Portland I would recommend checking out the Capstone Program. Brain power is always a good thing.

3 Responses to "A Meeting with Portland State University"

Dave Petersen says:

December 11, 2013 at 8:33 pm

I understand that it is necessary to get some investors to fund the start up costs, and there may be some critiques, which you need to address, at least in your own mind, even if you don’t agree. However, PGA golf is essentially about playing golf for money. It’s like pool. You need to fund the game by winning other people’s money.

I’ve played music for years, and seen lots of reason’s for doing it, but if you’re going to be a professional musician, sooner or later you have to sell tickets. Even if you are a side player, you have to be able to say I can do the job of generating a performance that sells tickets. A pro-golfer, has to win real money, from tournaments and side plays. That’s part of the 10,000 hours.
3foot1 says:

December 12, 2013 at 5:47 am

For what it’s worth, I’ve clicked on the site much less frequently as your daily log updates have become much less frequent. For those of us who may be following you for vicarious reasons, knowing what you do EACH DAY is a way of connecting with you and the plan. To log in and see nothing for a week or ten days is discouraging. Your multi-month hiatus from posting your handicap was even more frustrating – and I’ve been a fan from the two-month mark. Anyway, I hope the approaching halfway point will re-energize you and your commitment to the site. I trust you daily remember the first steps of the journey, putting for hours in the rain… Kinda like my handle: 3 foot, 1 putt.
Aaron says:

December 13, 2013 at 1:45 pm

Hey Dan, I think you could build traffic more effectively to this site by just posting more blogs (like every day updates or at least four to five times a week). Also, perhaps weekly videos. Maybe don’t spend so much time editing, just put up a few minutes of raw footage of you playing, talking, or just even what you’re having for breakfast that day.

I think, like some others have commented, your seemingly dwindling posts and updates have started to lose some of your fans, even the dedicated ones. If you pay a lot of money to some internet company to funnel traffic to this site, it will be even more important that you update consistently and with interesting and revealing content.

In all honesty, there has been a major shift in this blog, in my opinion.

There’s been a distinct lack of energy, a lack of disclosure of the various ups and downs in a timely fashion. As a result, the immediacy and intimacy of it has been lost, and makes reading less enjoyable. How can we cheer for your highs if you never allow us to truly experience your lows? You discuss your lows as being in the past, when you’ve already started to get past them…

If this is going to really work, you’ll need to start being much more candid and forthright. You don’t OWE us that, but you will need to do it if you want the readership, support, and money that comes along with it.

I gave you money a long time ago, but then I stopped because I didn’t feel that you were continuing to put forth the same effort to connect with the audience any longer. When your interest waned, so did ours (this can also be seen in the lack of comments on your posts).

I know this is a highly critical comment, but please take it as its intended. You’re hitting a difficult point in this project, but you won’t get through it just doing business as usual or paying some internet guru to drive traffic to your site. You’ll get it by going back to what you were doing in the beginning that worked, and letting your audience into your world.

Best of luck.

Aaron

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