Look­ing for a job is very com­pet­i­tive. If you are only apply­ing to jobs online you will encounter sub­stan­tial com­pe­ti­tion. At MediaJobs.com our objec­tive is to make it as easy as pos­si­ble to find a job at a great com­pa­ny and with the least amount of competition.

At MediaJobs.com we have estab­lished our mis­sion of Find­ing the Great Com­pa­nies First. In keep­ing with our mis­sion we have cre­at­ed this inter­view series with some of the newest star­tups in the New York City mar­ket area.   We encour­age you to learn about some of the newest com­pa­nies and think about what might be a good fit for you.

What is the name and loca­tion of your com­pa­ny and who are the founders?

Sports Media 101 Inc locat­ed in NY, NY was found­ed by Dan Ben­ton and Pieter Van Iperen.

How did the idea for your start-up come about? 

Dan and I had worked togeth­er on Sports Media 101’s pre­de­ces­sor Giants 101. We saw first-hand how fans had stopped fol­low­ing gen­er­al sports jour­nal­ism and were crav­ing spe­cial­ized deep team and sport knowl­edge from a jour­nal­ist who was also a fan. We saw the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take the neu­tral­i­ty out of sports arti­cles and pro­vide fans with a deep­er dive into the teams they love. It was pro­fes­sion­al fan jour­nal­ism. Ear­ly on we described it as sit­ting in a bar chat­ting with your favorite sports writer about the team they fol­low – not write about, but love the way their Dad taught them to.

Of the key peo­ple involved what is everyone’s expe­ri­ence and background? 

Dan was a long time sports journalist/editor and pub­lish­ing exec­u­tive. I had run sev­er­al tech relat­ed star­tups. Sharon our COO was a 15 year busi­ness executive.

How do you see your com­pa­ny cre­at­ing val­ue or dis­rupt­ing an exist­ing market? 

Sports Media 101 has two crit­i­cal points of dis­rup­tion. We are the only sports jour­nal­ism com­pa­ny out there that cre­ates pro­fes­sion­al arti­cles from jour­nal­ists who tru­ly love the teams they write about. Sec­ond, we are a tech com­pa­ny at heart and are dis­rupt­ing the way jour­nal­ists learn to write online, the way media makes mon­ey online and the way fans inter­act with jour­nal­ists online.

When was the busi­ness found­ed and how are you being funded?

We offi­cial­ly launched in 2011 and incor­po­rat­ed in 2013. We have been boot­strapped through invest­ments from our founders.

If so by whom are you cur­rent­ly fund­ed by?

We are cur­rent­ly self-funded.

What is the cur­rent size of your busi­ness, num­ber of employees? 

That depends on how you count. We have a hand­ful of full time employ­ees. But we have 100’s of jour­nal­ists writ­ing for us.

If you are seek­ing fur­ther fund­ing, how much and for what pur­pose will the new funds be applied?

We are seek­ing 1M in our first round to add to our full time staff and increase mar­ket­ing efforts of the brand.

What is the prod­uct and or ser­vice you are providing? 

We pro­vide up to the minute obses­sive in depth sports cov­er­age on a team by team basis.

Explain how you are seek­ing entry into your marketplace. 

We have grown by leaps and bounds through syn­di­ca­tion deals, social media pro­mo­tion and dig­i­tal opti­miza­tion. We are a sports news com­pa­ny with a tech com­pa­ny under the hood, which places us in a unique com­pet­i­tive position.

What seems to be the biggest strength of the team so far? 

Our resilience. Hav­ing built oth­er star­tups, it’s nev­er a sim­ple straight line. Piv­ots are nec­es­sary and change moves quick­ly. Our core team’s abil­i­ty to adapt, adapt and adapt again while main­tain­ing our under­ly­ing vision has got to be it. We are a tough bunch.

What was your great­est “Ah-Ha” moment to date? 

I would say this is recent. We real­ized that the way online media func­tions and makes mon­ey today is dat­ed and made sense 15 years ago around the time of the dot com bub­ble. But since then the indus­try has slid the way of news­pa­pers and no one has cracked how to make ads effec­tive cou­pled with online media. The dig­i­tal spend is dom­i­nat­ed by search. But we have cracked it and its working.

What was the fun­ni­est thing that has happened? 

It has to be any­time I give Dan good news. Dan is a prag­ma­tist so con­vinc­ing him things didn’t go our way is a pret­ty sim­ple task. So pre­tend­ing to have bad news when we have good news gets a pret­ty good reac­tion out of him. I am sure he would dis­agree with my answer though.

If you can only do one thing in your indus­try what would that be? 

I am torn at this point. We love sports — that is why we do what we do, but I think this new type of online media mod­el may be the most impor­tant thing we do.