Myskatingmall.com logo
Thank you for checking out the Myskatingmall.com blog! This is where I (Ryan Jahnke) will be sharing all the news about the ongoing development of this fantastic site. It brings me great encouragement to hear from many different people who are getting excited about this site. (ALMOST as much as I am:-) If you feel that Myskatingmall will benefit the skating community, please spread the word! There are no corporate sponsors for this site. It’s just me shoe-stringing this site together with the assistance of Jump Start Focus web design and the 30 or so volunteer beta team members. The beta group is helping to guide the policies and features of the site. If you would like to lend a virtual hand as a beta team member, just shoot me an email at Ryan@myskatingmall.com.
Myskatingmall has been in the making for over a year now. I want to use this post to share how the idea was developed. The idea was sparked by an off-handed comment from my father. We must have been discussing something dealing with the plethora of skating outfits in my closet from past seasons. He said something like, “There should be a website to sell all these things.” That was the seed planted in my head. It grew when I started observing many skating families struggling to keep up with the expense of our sport due to economic challenges. At that point the vision for Myskatingmall was still small. I thought it could be a site just for the sale of gently used outfits and equipment to help reduce some expenses for skating families. Who wouldn’t want to make some money from the closet of nice skating outfits that most of us have collected!
The last piece started coming together through my volunteer work with U.S. Figure Skating, I noticed skating clubs were also hurting financially. Luckily, I was able to meld these observations together into what many people feel is a very timely idea.
I began fleshing out the ideas for Myskatingmall.com last September during a “Systems Analysis and Design” course that I was taking at the University of Colorado. At that time, I was thinking of calling it Myskatingcloset.com. It was actually Paul Wylie who suggested I pick a “bigger” name like Myskatingmall.com. After that course finished, I developed a business plan and presented it to U.S. Figure Skating. My original idea was to give the idea to USFS so that Myskatingmall.com could become another revenue stream for USFS, similar to IceNetwork. From being a past athlete representative to USFS’s Board of Directors, I knew it was part of the organization’s strategic plan to diversify revenue streams by 2010. I wanted to help USFS raise money for athlete programs which are very dear to my heart. I benefited from many of them during my 21 years of competing! USFS was very supportive of the idea but decided not to fund the project due to budget constraints. At that point, I had to decide whether to stop or proceed on my own. After much thought, I came to the realization that Myskatingmall is not just a good idea, but one that is needed. The vision of Myskatingmall is to support the skating community. I am fully committed to making that a reality.
Ryan Jahnke
2003 World Team Member and PSA Master Rated Coach
