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.
Founder and CEO of Vator, a media and research firm for entrepreneurs and investors; Managing Director of Vator Health Fund; Co-Founder of Invent Health; Author and award-winning journalist.
All author postsReuben Katz presents his achievement-based network for developers
Read more...
Bambi Francisco Roizen
Rebeccan Lynn and David Hornik are guests host on Vator Box
Read more...
Bambi Francisco Roizen
A look at an ad solutions to help publishers monetize outbound links
Read more...
Bambi Francisco Roizen
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
One of the challenges that faced the original Cavallere was that our content covered too broad a subject matter, and therefore, there was not enough consistent posting in each subject area to draw returning readers. After evaluating our situation as well as meeting with a few successful bloggers, we determined that it was time to change the face of Cavallere, and create what is soon to be Cavallere - The College Media Network.
The Cavallere Media Network will consist of one central hub site, which will provide readers with the latest videos and stories from the daughter sites, and the daughter sites which will be highly targeted to a specific niche market. The first two sites to launch after the hub (currently http://www.cavallere.com/tv), will be www.thecollegeconsumer.com which will review a wide variety of products that can be found in a male college student's dorm room, and www.skullcrushers.tv, which will focus heavily on providing free fitness programs that can be completed easily in a typical college gym as well as diet and supplementation information, all from a college student's point of view.
Though these two sites have our immediate attention, we will expand the media network by actively recruiting bloggers who's current content is in line with the Cavallere mission - to provide college men with the information necessary to improve their current situation and make the transition from college student into what society deems adults as smooth as possible. In exchange for providing content on a regular basis, Cavallere will provide the blogger with a site, domain, technical support, hosting, advertising and a percentage of the advertising revenue from that site.
Joined Vator on