Nigel Eccles - How FanDuel Became A Fantasy Football Empire

We’re back and today we are talking with Nigel Eccles, the co-founder, and CEO of FanDuel and now, in the same role with the app Flick. Listen in and you’ll hear us discuss how FanDuel originated, the differences between dealing with the government in the U.S. and Scotland and what the company went through when dealing with the legislature (to their mutual benefit). We also talk about how they were able to build traction and get the word out, especially to a targeted audience that is used to playing fantasy football within a specific time frame.

We dive into Nigel’s latest venture, an app branded specifically to your community that allows you to talk directly with your audience and where you own the data.  We also talk about the benefits of dealing with venture capital and why you may actually not want to go that route, as well as monetization techniques for your content. When you’re done get more insight about building an amazing business with Robert Farrington and Ryan Levesque.

“We said, what if we took that game and we made it faster, and we are going to have the game last a day. Then, we said you don't have to go and find a bunch of friends, you can actually play with anyone. And instead of just playing a ten-person league, paying $10 to win maybe $100, why don't you play in 100,000 person league where you can pay $10 and you can win a million dollars.” - Nigel Eccles

Some Topics We Discussed Include:

• Why working with the government to set rules is actually a good thing
• The beauty of being able to play fantasy football after the season begins
• The right and way and the wrong way to approach venture capitalist funding 
• Yet another way podcasters can communicate with their audience and even monetize the show
• Who you should go to to get your idea validated 
• Going into a new venture without knowing all the ropes
• Why paid content is still attainable even in this wave of the “make everything free” internet and how to approach that with your audience
• And much, much more!

Contact Nigel Eccles:

• @NicelEccles On Twitter

References and Links Mentioned:

 

• FanDuel
• Flick
• Zero to One by Peter Thiel
• Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It by Scott Kuper 
• The Lean Startup by Erik Ries
• What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture and The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
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• Today’s show is co-sponsored by both LinkedIn Marketing Solutions and by Easy Webinar and Casey Zeman.  Casey has put together a 25% off deal for our listeners. Be sure to check them out as they have live webinars, hybrid webinars, automated webinars, and social media functionality, everything you need for webinars in a single platform. 
• Text the word “COMP” to 38470 to get the notes from this episode! They are free, but be quick because, after a couple of weeks, they’ll go away (or go to HustleandFlowchart.com/comp) if you are on desktop
• How The CollegeInvestor.com Gets 3.5 Million Visitors Per Month - Robert Farrington
• How To Choose The Perfect Business For You - Ryan Levesque