EML Sports

I made the decision about 8 weeks ago to go full time on EML Sports and leave my secure corporate job. So today is that first day.

It seems strange after so many years to now go full time but the idea that this could work as a legitimate business has stayed with me, and I don't want to regret in the future that I never gave it a legitimate go.

In the last week or so I have been surveying current users to dig into their current views of the systems and what their needs are for the future. The feedback is a mix of good and bad, and not been unexpected.

The plan now is:

• make the system flexible enough it can be used across a wider range of sports
• administration to be much more self service. Until now most setup has required my involvement which is not scalable
• do some real marketing and promotion

The registration system had been used every year since 2011 for WA State titles and Australian Masters championships 2010, 2011, 2012 but not 2013 or 2014, and my involvement in the sport had declined. And it was still a single event system with each new event requiring editing of hard coded values in code and database as there was no admin side. It was likely the system would not be touched again.

In late 2014 I was contacted by the 2015 organisers and asked if the system still existed, and could they use it with some feature requests. Since 2009 a few things had changed. My larger scale web development skills had improved, PHP & code libraries had also improved and Stripe launched in Australia which made the payments side much easier for a small scale system. So I quickly built an improved version which for the first time was hosted under my domain name and not the club. This was the birth of EML Sports as a business name. It was a rushed choice and many years later I am still not convinced on it.

I still lacked the confidence there was a viable business here, so slowly iterated in my spare time as more of a hobby.

I built an online registration system as a favour to organisers of 2010 Australian Masters Championships in Perth. I did it for a few reasons:

• I hated the software that had been used previously. It was a very poor user experience for entrants
• as a challenge to myself

The system was well liked by the organisers and also got some nice comments from end users. Behind the scenes the system was put together quickly with no flexibility. There was no ability or expectation of other users.

I earned no money from the use of the system. All payments went to the Paypal account of the national club. Later the organisers asked for a version they could use annually for their state event. For this I did receive a flat license fee.

However I had young kids, was looking for financial stability, had not come up with a business model and was burnt by a previous attempt to build a business. So the system remained largely untouched form my side.