What began in 2011 as a blog updating its readers on all things going on with the basketball team Miami Heat has grown into multiple successful sports publications, and it's all thanks to CEO and founder Brad Ahn. The creation of Heat Nation was the turning point within his life, and since then, Brad has dedicated countless resources to ensuring elite content.
On top of Heat Nation, Brad has four other publications: Dolphin Nation, Cavaliers Nation, Lakers Daily, and Ahn Fire Digital. The latter is the biggest of all, as it covers all teams within the NBA and NFL, for a total of 62. That much coverage would be tough for anyone, but Brad has trained his team of experts to become more than capable of consistently providing the latest and greatest updates.
They're currently able to generate a reach of over 10 million pageviews across all of their platforms, a number that has doubled in less than a few years. With such an accomplishment, it's obvious Brad will soon become a leader within his industry. Not many entrepreneurs are able to stand out amongst the competition like Brad has, but when they do, you should pay attention.
His process of scaling has been worked on and tweaked since the creation of Heat Nation, and it's the same one Brad has applied to each of his companies. It hasn't failed him yet, and he'll continue to use it and share it with others throughout his entrepreneurial journey. For Brad, having a successful business is only half the reward, while the other is being able to see the positive feedback from readers.
Despite the vast achievements Brad and his team have earned throughout the last decade, they've also run into their fair share of issues to deal with. One of their biggest roadblocks to date followed the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where millions of Facebook users had their personal data leaked without their consent.
The response by Facebook was an extensive algorithm update, which had a terrible result on Brad's company. It ruined its advertising and organic reach, which forced it to turn to different avenues, like establishing itself on other social media platforms. Thankfully, this negated the loss from its reach on Facebook and has skyrocketed its popularity.
Despite the toughness of the situation at the time, Brad took it in stride and used it as a learning moment for the future. It helped him scale the following publications and come up with systems for avoiding failure in the future. Like any entrepreneur, Brad is always learning new things that benefit his business, and he won't ever stop stressing the importance of knowledge.
Moving forward, Ahn Fire Digital has big plans for the future, and it's only a matter of time before it becomes the biggest sports publication brand in the industry. If Brad and his team keep up the work they've been doing over the last decade, then they'll become the next Bleacher Report in no time.
