[raiders72001]

So what's the story? Did SBR start as a one man operation? When did Billy the Kid come aboard? How many offices have you had and when was the move to CR? How many current employees are there and why is Dave being paid? Are you a BJ card counter and poker player? Here's your chance to brag.

[pags11]

I'd like to hear this story as well...

[raiders72001]

John- I promise this isn't a set up. I want to here the story.

[raiders72001]

Seriously- Let's hear the story. I'm not going to add to it or question it unless you don't answer then I'll give my version.

[SBR_John]

Well it all started a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

It started as a hobby. It was clear that in the late 90's no one knew the good books from the fly by nights, certainly I didn't. How could one tell? All the websites had a pretty girl and a player catching a pass.

The early plan was simple. Find the 6 best sportsbooks. By late 1999 I had a one page website done up in FrontPage, which I had never used, on one of those free hosting gigs. By early 2000 the site had grown to 3 pages and I was averaging 25 visitors a day... I thought to myself, I wonder if I could ever get to 50 vistors a day? So that was my new goal..

[raiders72001]

Any pictures of the original site?

[tacomax]

John, one of your better moves was employing a web designer.

[SBR_John]

This is about 9 months into it:

http://web.archive.org/web/200012041...ookreview.com/

[diamond]

Originally Posted by SBR_John

This is about 9 months into it:

http://web.archive.org/web/200012041...ookreview.com/

Maybe a bit cheeky John, but I am still eligible for those bonuses?

[isetcap]

Originally Posted by tacomax

John, one of your better moves was employing a web designer.

I'm dropping my girlfriend so I can go out with your site. She was so pretty when she was young and now she's just plain HOT.

Seriously, John, a hell of a product you put out here for us. It is appreciated by many, myself included.

[pier0]

I still want to know who was the guy with the glasses...

[raiders72001]

Pier- That had me fooled for a long time.

[raiders72001]

So how long where you a one man operation? Who were the first few employees and whn were they hired. I know Dave had to be a late addition otherwise SBR would never have gotten off the ground.

[bigboydan]

i remember all those things mentioned above.

piero, i remember that picture too.


raiders, it fooled me too for a while too, but i was a newbee to these forums way back when.


taco, i was trying to forget how god awful the site was way back when.

[pier0]

Originally Posted by raiders72001

So how long where you a one man operation? Who were the first few employees and whn were they hired. I know Dave had to be a late addition otherwise SBR would never have gotten off the ground.

Are you writing a business plan for your website that you ask all these questions?

[SBR_John]

The first real employee was not hired until 2004.

Seriously, my tax returns will prove this that I only made 16k to 30k a YEAR in the early years. Heck I thought that was good, I didn't complain. It was fun and I was eeking out a living. The major sites never crtitized little ole SBR and any mention was just a laugh and a long look down their very long noses.

By 2003 traffic from mostly word of mouth began to soar and the books were asking, very suspiciously I might add, how in the world we could be sending so much traffic.

I won't deny that I got lucky. I never knew that simply creating a list of the best sportsbooks would generate so much interest. I didn't squander or tried not to squander the gift of a lot of free traffic. When the money started rolling in I invested everything back into the operation. Today we continue to invest heavily in our mods, in our lines service, in new websites & offices and in investigation abilities and mostly in our people.

Thats about it.

[pags11]

I think that's a pretty sweet story...sure glad you decided to start SBR...