Back in 2010 Madison Wickham and Ryan Young were just two guys three years removed from having fun, studying, and doing a little partying like anyone else does in college. The two of them were a big part of the Greek life but little did either of them expect to create an incredibly successful comedy niche on the internet.
The two then collaborated on an idea that would become a new subculture online. It’s name is TFM or Total Frat Move. The website is a satirical look at Greek and college life consisting of both articles and commentary from students and staff of Wickham’s company, Grandex.
On the site you’ll see such posts like “Turns out Obama and I do have something in common. We both love spending my dad’s money. TFM.” TFM symbolizes that it’s a “Total Frat Move.” And adding to that are photos of fraternity and sorority parties, merchandise, videos, and a whole lot more. We had a chance to interview TFM’s founder Madison Wickham recently and we asked him ten questions that he was happy to answer. Here they are…..
Tell us about what you did prior to TFM….
My background is in front-end web design and development. Prior to starting Grandex I bounced between entrepreneurial endeavors and the corporate world.
How did the idea for TFM come about?
Back in college, Ryan and I used to talk about the glory and absurdity of Greek life and how no one in the entertainment industry has been able to capture it authentically. There is a very specific flavor of satire that exists among this group and it’s the perfect foundation for a comedy brand. Three years after we graduated from college Ryan called me with the idea for TFM. It was the perfect, simple format to capture this unique genre of comedy. We spent the next week talking in depth about the idea, then we hammered out the initial website in about 3 weeks.
What were your initial strategies for growing the site?
The plan in the beginning was to keep the content simple and optimized for sharing on social media. We were targeting a very specific niche audience initially, so it was fairly easy to pinpoint these people on Twitter and Facebook. Twitter was definitely responsible for the majority of our initial traction.
Tell us about your apparel business. What are you plans for that?
Rowdy Gentleman is a men’s clothing brand that we launched through our media properties. We have always viewed our content sites as customer acquisition channels verse simply page views to sell ads against. RG is a brand independent of our media brands. We were able to accelerate it’s growth and avoid large marketing spend by promoting it through TFM’s outlets. RG is now at a point where it very much stands on its own, with its own dedicated team, office space, social media following and mailing list, and a growing network of over 150 brick and mortar retail partners. The plan for RG moving forward is to 1) Continue to create awesome products 2) grow our online presence and 3) grow our brick and mortar presence.
How do you monetize your sites? Does it come more from display or apparel sales?
We monetize our media properties three ways.
1) Ad sales and sponsorships – This is a small part of our overall business, though we see a lot of opportunity for growth here. We’re focused on a strategy to nurture this area of our business to make it a larger part of how we monetize.
2) Merchandise via Rowdy Gentleman – as I described above.
3) Strategic partnerships and extraneous projects – We are coming across an increasing number of lucrative partnership opportunities where we are able to combine resources with a strategic partner to achieve a common goal. There are also extraneous opportunities, like the TFM book, that we consider to be outside of our core day-to-day business.
Do you have any new sites in the works?
We do not currently have any new sites in the works, though we have ideas for additional content sites that we plan to launch at some point in the future.
How much monthly traffic do you get?
Currently, we receive about 20M visitors per month across our 3 content sites.
What is your favorite website on the internet and why?
My four favorite sites in no particular order are: TotalFratMove.com, TotalSororityMove.com, PostGradProblems.com, and RowdyGentleman.com, though I may be bias. Excluding my websites I’d probably have to pick gmail.com as the website I frequent most, though it’s definitely a love/hate relationship. As for content sites, I love BusinessInsider.com right now. I think there content strategy is genius.
What do you see for the future of TFM?
TFM will remain the authority on collegiate comedy and entertainment. A bold statement, but this is the goal.
What advice would you give to someone beginning a new website?
Have a clear idea of what it is you are trying to accomplish and know your audience.
Thanks for your time Madison!
Here’s a pic of the founders back in college
Images provided by Madison Wickham
