Building a Business Online

Building a Business Online

The compelling story of how an avid hunter and techie built a business and launched www.bowhunting.com

By Jay Anglin

MUSKEGON, Mich. (August 14, 2024) – Hunters might remember when the internet was just starting to hit its stride, and outdoor pursuits were right there from the beginning. With hunting and fishing forums popping up right and left, the hardest part of checking in was waiting for crummy dial-up connections to render a website.

In a matter of years, some websites flourished while others quickly languished, some vanishing altogether. It didn’t take long to see some developers were in it to win it, however, while others were literally phoning it in. And speaking of phones, very few people had any notion of how important they would become for producing and viewing content in only a decade or so with the introduction of smartphones.

Some big players long ago left the ever-evolving constraints of making a living off the outdoors via the internet, but not everyone. Todd Graf, with the help of his colleagues, have been in the game for a few decades now, and with a lot of hard work, and a little bit of luck, they’re still pumping out much needed quality hunting content on multiple platforms.

“I had a knack for computers. When I graduated from college it was kinda cool because email was just coming up to speed, as well as wide area networks, and the internet was born. It was a big deal,” said Graf, who has been based in northwest Illinois from the beginning. “People wanted to get networked, and they wanted to be on the internet and have all their locations communicating to each other. I could put that all together for them, so that’s how it started.

As a passionate hunter and diehard entrepreneur, Graf saw the internet evolving and realized it was the “new frontier”. He wondered if he could somehow leverage the internet for something related to hunting and decided to start buying domain names. This escalated quickly, and he eventually owned over 2000 hunting-related domains. Graf’s passion for anything whitetails also fueled his desire to launch his first website, whitetaildeer.com.

“I really didn’t know what direction this was going, but I love whitetail deer hunting and wanted to do anything I could to be in that world. At that time, I wasn’t so much thinking about being in the industry, but more wanted to be able to do something that is what I love to do, and have it connected to my daily life,” explained Graf.

“Back in those days the hot thing was bulletin boards or forums as we know them today. Just a cool deal and opportunity to get into the industry. I built my first website whitetaildeer.com and boy oh boy, you know, six-months later I would have never believed it was possible to receive thousands of emails from people reaching out, saying things like – ‘there just isn’t lots of stuff on the internet for deer hunters like us, so this is great.’”

Graf starting to connect the dots together and leveraged his Marketing Degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth (as well as his passion for deer hunting) and began creating homes for hunters on the web, and at the same time developed relationships with manufacturers like ScentLok so they too could get involved with this next frontier.

“ScentLok is a brand that anyone who is passionate about hunting whitetails and wants to get closer to them knows. Hunters obviously appreciate how good the whitetail’s nose is, and ScentLok does a great job of giving you that extra edge. At the end of the day, every time you can get one step closer, it’s an advantage. It’s been a great relationship for us.” added Graf.

Being fortunate enough to build successful hunting-based websites before the dot-com bubble burst worked out very well for Graf, who eventually sold them, with the goal of developing a more focused web experience.

“The domain name I really wanted was not in my portfolio, so I reached out to the person who owned it, who turned out to be a woman in Canada. I got her on the phone, and we started talking. I told her I was interested in buying the domain name and I’d pay a fair price for it,” Graf explains. “She’s like, ‘I don’t know if I want to sell it, I’ve had so many people reach out to me over the years wanting to buy this thing. You know I really like it for me and my daughters,’ and I’m thinking, this is kinda bizarre. You don’t often meet a woman with couple daughters that bow hunt who want to keep a domain name like that. It was strange, right?”

“So, I started to talk with her a little more and I said, ‘hey, I tell you what, I’ll give you five-thousand dollars for it.’ And she says, ‘oh are you serious?’ ‘I’m thinking, shoot, did I just offer too much.’ She scared me with all that talk of other people inquiring, but back then people just didn’t get it yet. And she says, ‘Okay I’ll do that.’ I’m thinking, ‘where am I gonna get five-thousand dollars.’”

Graf ended up buying the bowhunting.com domain, but he kept his mouth shut until the purchase was done and legally had the name before asking one big question. “When it was all said and done, I said ‘Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, why did you have this domain name in the first place?’ And she says, ‘Oh, it’s simple, my daughters and I just love collecting bows for our hair, and we’re always out hunting for bows’. And that was how I was able to acquire the name and how bowhunting.com came to be,” he said with a bit of a laugh.

“But as we’ve all seen with digital media, the world is changing, and things are always moving in this business, too. In the old days, all you needed was a great domain name. We’ve been able to evolve over the years and stayed in the game by having good quality social media accounts, a high-quality email list, and of course, a successful YouTube channel. It’s crazy how this stuff is ever evolving.”

“With the benefit of the internet and social media, staying relevant in the outdoor industry may seem easier than ever, but at the end of the day the cream rises to the top,” he concluded.

It is there where you will find the result of decades of focus and determination, including bowhunting.com and Bow Hunt or Die on YouTube.

ABOUT NEXUS OUTDOORS

Nexus Outdoors, headquartered in Muskegon, MI, USA, is a leading worldwide designer, marketer and distributor of performance, hunting and casual odor-controlling apparel, footwear and equipment under the ScentLok Technologies®, OZ®, Blocker Outdoors®, Whitewater and Tree Spider® brands. It also owns American Range Systems, manufacturer and distributor of the world’s strongest and safest bullet traps. Nexus Outdoors is the only company with access to all scent-controlling technologies, including their patented Carbon Alloy™ and Cold Fusion Catalyst™ technologies, which provide superior success in the field. ScentLok and Blocker Outdoors are pioneers in the hunting industry, which many credit with creating a market focused on superior scent control to get closer to big game.