…this is a continuation of Part I of my interview with Rick Marini. SUPERFAN is a social entertainment site that allows users to become a fan of ALL the things they love including music, celebrities, TV/movies, sports, games, brands, etc. The site also incorporates social games, virtual gifts, site-wide Shout-Outs, and user-generated quizzes, blogs, battles, and more.

In this interview, Rick talks about:
- Why he’s back for more after his previous company sold for $100 million
- How the SUPERFAN vision came about
- How he feels about potentially competing in a space with monsters such as: Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter
- What big name celebrities are involved? Who’s on SUPERFAN’s Board of Advisors?

Kim Ngo: Okay, so what happened after Tickle?

Rick Marini: I stayed on with Monster until the December 2006. I took off 2007 to travel around the world. I hit 6 out of the 7 continents. I had an amazing time, learned a ton about the world, learned a ton about myself, and I re-charged. However, during my travels, I was writing the business plan for SUPERFAN.

Kim Ngo: Why didn’t you say, “I can stop working here.”

Rick Marini: At that point, still in my early 30s, I felt like I needed to contribute more. I built my skill set and experience over the past decade in the Internet and I wanted to apply that to a new venture. At the same time, I’m reading TechCrunch and seeing all my friends doing cool things like starting companies, getting VC funding, selling companies. For me, I really love building companies. When you have the ability to do what you love and make enough money at it, and live the life you want, that’s the ultimate situation.

I missed the start-up life while I was traveling that year. I knew when I returned, I was going to do something I was passionate about. SUPERFAN is built around the things that I love: music, sports, TV, movies, games, media, etc..   I loved running Tickle, but SUPERFAN is much more about what I love to do everyday, both personally and professionally. And it’s also cool because I get to meet some interesting people because of SUPERFAN including pro athletes, musicians and other celebs. We’re talking to several celebs right now that are interested in getting involved with SUPERFAN.

Kim Ngo: Who are your Advisors?

Rick Marini: We have several top-tier Advisors involved with SUPERFAN. Shawn Fanning is on our Board of Advisors. He’s the Founder of Napster and an Internet veteran.  Shawn also has a video game background with his current company, Rupture (acquired by EA).  Phillip Kaplan was the Founder of AdBrite, and he’s kind of an Internet celebrity from his days of founding FuckedCompany back in 1999. James Currier is also on the Advisory Board. James and I founded Tickle together in 1999 and James has gone on to found Ooga Labs and WonderHill which are both leaders in the social gaming space. Blake Commagere is our guru for social apps as he built some of the most viral apps ever on Facebook. Blake was in the office earlier this week helping us finalize our first app. I met Blake fairly recently and we totally hit it off. He is smart person and great guy and our personalities really mesh well.

MAGIC JOHNSON & RICK MARINI

It’s funny to have Advisors that are Internet celebs like Shawn Fanning and Philip Kaplan but I have also been meeting with other celebs.  I was just in LA for meetings with Magic Johnson and Dwight Howard.  I’m a huge basketball fan so that is exciting. It’s fun to connect with people like Magic and Dwight because they are excited to become Advisors to SUPERFAN.

Kim Ngo: Did this idea just come to you one day? How does that happen?

Rick Marini: I think every entrepreneur starts with a single spark that leads into a bigger idea, and then they may spend the next two weeks or two months getting it all on paper and coming up with a rough business plan. Most Internet entrepreneurs don’t actually create a full business plan. You usually put all your ideas on paper and then you start to talk to other smart people about the idea. In Silicon Valley, or anywhere around the world, if you think you are the first person to come up with an idea, you’re probably wrong. There are probably 5 other people doing something similar. However, execution is far more important than ideas. Ideas are easy. Execution is the real challenge.

You start with an idea and a vision but your product will change as you start building it. The site evolves as you get user feedback. Even just being in a room with smart people, things come out of the discussion about how to build your product. Discussions like that can really alter the original vision, for the better. Having 5 or 6 smart people in a room is always better than 1 person.

The spark may be a moment of inspiration or simply a solution to a personal problem that other people are willing to pay for. For SUPERFAN, I had that spark several years ago when a DJ friend of mine gave me a CD of Gnarles Barkley, several months before the song “Crazy” became big.  And I thought, I wish I could have shown the world that I was the first SUPERFAN of Gnarles Barkley.  People want to show that they found a band or movie or cool piece of content first and on SUPERFAN we have an archive of the Fan history so that they can prove that they are a tastemaker.

Kim Ngo: I know we talked about SUPERFAN a little bit, but can you give me your sales pitch really quick?

RICK MARINI & DWIGHT HOWARD

Rick Marini: SUPERFAN is a social entertainment site that allows users to express who they are by becoming a fan of everything they love in life. We also have a social game where users use a virtual currency to compete to become the SUPERFAN of their top Faves. As the SUPERFAN, the fan controls certain aspects of the “Fave” (favorite thing) profile page.

We have 10 different fan categories covering everything from music, celebrities, TV, movies, sports, books, authors, games, products, brands, places, schools: anything you can become a fan of, we have on the site.  Users can express themselves by becoming a fan of the clothes they wear, the music they listen to, the sports teams they follow, what they eat and drink, the stores they shop at, the schools they attended, etc.

The content on the site is extremely broad having all the fan categories but it’s also deep. SUPERFAN has quizzes about your Faves that fans can create and share and embed videos and photos. SUPERFAN is all about self-expression so we have blogs. We also have Battles where fans can put two of their Faves against each other such as Red Sox vs. Yankees or Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina. The database is huge so you can choose to Battle almost anything and other fans can vote on which Fave they think should win.

Kim Ngo: Are supermodels there?

Rick Marini: Yes, supermodels are in the database under the Celebs category. Supermodels have millions of fans around the world.

Kim Ngo: What about up-coming models?

Rick Marin: Yes but if they are not already in the database, then fans can use our Suggestion Tool to request to add new Faves.  Our Content Management Department reviews every suggestion to confirm it is worthy of the SUPERFAN database.  We are basically ensuring that the suggestion is legitimate and would be interesting to the SUPERFAN community.

THE SuperFan TEAM

Kim Ngo: You’re kind of going up against MySpace and Facebook, both BIG players. How do you feel about that?

Rick Marini: In many ways, we are taking a different approach from these companies.  I see SUPERFAN as an intersection between the fun and customization of MySpace, the efficient communication platform of Facebook, and the self-expression of Twitter. We’re not exactly competitive with anyone head-to-head.

Facebook “Pages” allows any fan to create a Page but the problem is that the popular entities all have multiple Pages. For example, Lil’ Wayne, the rapper, has over 200 different Pages on Facebook which kind of dilutes the value of any one page to zero because most of the Pages have like 3 fans. And then there is a single Public Page for Lil’ Wayne and that’s valuable because it has information about his tour but the problem is that the fan doesn’t have any control of the Public Page. But on SUPERFAN, the fans can control the Fave page and customize the color palette, background image and profile picture and there’s only one profile for each Fave. I think Facebook is an awesome site and I use it everyday, but in terms of Facebook Pages being competitive, we’re just taking a different approach.

With MySpace, they do a great job in music and pop culture but SUPERFAN has a broader vision across every fan category.

Twitter is not competitive at all, except that we are both about self-expression. Their service is very different.

TEAM SuperFan

Another key point about competition in social media is to remember the history over the past decade. The first social network that took off was Friendster. I’m very close with Friendster and on their Board of Advisors. But the reality was Myspace eventually overtook Friendster. Myspace was so big at one point that no one ever thought another social network could catch them. When these sites become viral, by definition, it’s almost impossible to ever catch up, unless something changes in the equation. Yet Facebook beat them. As of May, Facebook is bigger than MySpace both globally and in the US. No one ever thought that could be done, but Facebook did it. And then lately, Twitter came out of nowhere to steal the spotlight.

@SuperFan COMES ALIVE LAUNCH PARTY

So when people question if there is room for another social media site, I tell them to remember the history. Friendster got beaten by Myspace and Myspace got beat by Facebook, and now Twitter is making a real run. If you have a big vision with a seasoned team and top Board of Advisors, you can become the next MySpace or Facebook. I feel like we have all those things in place. It can be done.

By the way, for me to start another company, why would I go small? I’ve already been fortunate to have sold a company for over $100 million dollars. If I’m going to do this, I’m going big!

READ: Part III, Who is Rick Marini? >>>>NEXT