RaceGate.com hits the ground running
By Dave Schwab
La Jolla Light
November 4, 1999
E-commerce entrepreneur Mitch Thrower has become the "Ticketmaster" of participatory sports online. The 31-year-old La Jollan has created RaceGate.com, a website for sport enthusiasts and sporting event directors that provides on-line registration and information on thousands of sporting events around the world, as well as numerous event director services. "You didn't used to be able to register on-line for an athletic event," noted Thrower. "Now you can register for marathons, triathlons, 5Ks, etc." Thrower said his new website experiences no "channel conflict," no overlap between different business modes, such as when a business modes, such as when a traditional business and its website overlap and sales are actually displaced among the two businesses rather than being increased.
"When I founded Racegate," said Thrower, "one of my big concerns was to find a .com that had no channel conflict. Race registration off-line was very inefficient. It used to take two or three weeks to register. Now it takes two or three minutes online with Racegate. We're really simplifying a process and adding value for consumers."
Thrower said race directors internationally wanted to get rid of their old sales channels.
It's (Racegate's) sort of a dream come true for an event director because it removes most of the hassle from registering an athlete," he said. In participatory athletics, there are some 310,000 sporting events that people register for internationally and, says, Thrower, his goal is to build another Ticketmaster for the online sports community in about 1/45th the time.
Thrower originally got the idea for creating RaceGate after completing several Ironman competitions and realizing it took longer to register for the event than it did to complete in it.
Thrower said his firm is also developing an Internet, data-based management system to help race directors manage the participants in their races.
"It (the database) will help them with their marketing, their data entry and the consumer transactions," said Thrower. "We want to build the world's largest participatory sports community on the web so you can find out about your race, talk about your race and your sport, and interact with other athletes about thieir training programs, how to do your first marathon, etc." A self-professed multi-sport fanatic, Thrower is scheduled to comlete in his 7th Ironman, a grueling competition where racers have to run, bike and swim.
Networking was key to Thrower starting his own Internet business. He said the first 56 phone calls he made when first getting started were to race directors, all of whom agreed with his proposition that a participatory sports website was a winning idea. "By partnering and working with people who were former race competitors, I was able to make this work on a grand scale, on a worldwide basis," Thrower said.
In "bootstrapping" your own business, Thrower said it's importnat to have a strong business model that culminates in revenues and net profits. "You need to sort of immerse yourself in the web," he confided. RaceGate is at 1020 Prospect St.
La Jolla Light
November 4, 1999
E-commerce entrepreneur Mitch Thrower has become the "Ticketmaster" of participatory sports online. The 31-year-old La Jollan has created RaceGate.com, a website for sport enthusiasts and sporting event directors that provides on-line registration and information on thousands of sporting events around the world, as well as numerous event director services. "You didn't used to be able to register on-line for an athletic event," noted Thrower. "Now you can register for marathons, triathlons, 5Ks, etc." Thrower said his new website experiences no "channel conflict," no overlap between different business modes, such as when a business modes, such as when a traditional business and its website overlap and sales are actually displaced among the two businesses rather than being increased.
"When I founded Racegate," said Thrower, "one of my big concerns was to find a .com that had no channel conflict. Race registration off-line was very inefficient. It used to take two or three weeks to register. Now it takes two or three minutes online with Racegate. We're really simplifying a process and adding value for consumers."
Thrower said race directors internationally wanted to get rid of their old sales channels.
It's (Racegate's) sort of a dream come true for an event director because it removes most of the hassle from registering an athlete," he said. In participatory athletics, there are some 310,000 sporting events that people register for internationally and, says, Thrower, his goal is to build another Ticketmaster for the online sports community in about 1/45th the time.
Thrower originally got the idea for creating RaceGate after completing several Ironman competitions and realizing it took longer to register for the event than it did to complete in it.
Thrower said his firm is also developing an Internet, data-based management system to help race directors manage the participants in their races.
"It (the database) will help them with their marketing, their data entry and the consumer transactions," said Thrower. "We want to build the world's largest participatory sports community on the web so you can find out about your race, talk about your race and your sport, and interact with other athletes about thieir training programs, how to do your first marathon, etc." A self-professed multi-sport fanatic, Thrower is scheduled to comlete in his 7th Ironman, a grueling competition where racers have to run, bike and swim.
Networking was key to Thrower starting his own Internet business. He said the first 56 phone calls he made when first getting started were to race directors, all of whom agreed with his proposition that a participatory sports website was a winning idea. "By partnering and working with people who were former race competitors, I was able to make this work on a grand scale, on a worldwide basis," Thrower said.
In "bootstrapping" your own business, Thrower said it's importnat to have a strong business model that culminates in revenues and net profits. "You need to sort of immerse yourself in the web," he confided. RaceGate is at 1020 Prospect St.