In this Vator Box segment, we take a look at a content site for young males. Richard Jalichandra was our guest host, once again. While at IGN, Jalichandra was integral in the acquisition of AskMen. So, we thought Cavallere, a site offering tutorials and advice for young males, would be a great site for Jalichandra to evaluate.
With me as always was Vator Box regular Ezra Roizen, digital media investment banker.
Here are the highlights, observations, and advice we had for Cavallere.
– The pitch seems very earnest. While Chris Cameron, co-founder and VP of marketing, got his points across, though he lacked details about the business strategy. Nonetheless, we agreed that we’d take a second meeting after his pitch.
– Novelty – Targeting a male audience with male-oriented content has obviously been done before. But there’s always room for improvement.
– The site is a bit like GQ meets Family Circle.
– Don’t raise a lot of money at this stage. Too much money creates overhang. And, it takes a long time to build an audience. If Cavallere executes well, it will be highly valuable as there are many companies interested in this demographic. That said, the number of sites targeting this demographic is in the thousands. Many of these sites are focused.
– Cavallere appears to be broadly focused. It needs to consider being more targeted and owning that niche.
– Cavallere needs to figure out whether it’s going to be an aggregator of content, like Digg or an AllTop for young males, or if it’s going to be a site for original content. Then, it needs to understand what kind of mix it wants.
– Cavallere’s “ask” content is useful and probably an area to focus on.
– What young males want isn’t exactly something that Cavallere is providing. Cavallere is creating “clean” and “admirable” content. What they create and aggregate appeals to the better nature of men. Unfortunately, that’s not always what sells.
– The most popular male sites showcase more salacious news and a lot more visuals. Sites like AskMen.com, Spike.com, GQ, Men7, Maxim, Break.com, Heavy.com, and even Fark.com have a lot of visuals, and are very suggestive. The core audience (young males) is in an hormonal stage. So, Cavallere needs to understand that.
– SportsbyBrooks is a great example of successful niche blog.
– Cavallere is a great name. But Cavalier might be even better. At the moment, Cavalier.com appears to be parked domain name.
– Understand what young males want. Typically, it’s advice about girls and sports.
