Meet David Burns | Founder of Baseball Jobs Overseas

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Burns and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Growing up, I always had an entrepreneurial spirit and desire to start my own business. Even dating back to when I was a small child and I would sit next to my dad at his home office and pretend to be a businessman while he worked. Fast forward to my mid 30’s, I was commuting to work (in Austria) by train for a total of 3 hours every day and would daydream about business concepts. These ideas always seemed good at first, but all fizzled out after putting some thought into the large financial investment it would require. I came to the conclusion that any business I started needed to be an online business, requiring little financial investment.

Then one day something stuck.

As a baseball player in the top league in Austria, I witnessed our club (Attnang Athletics) struggle to find professional players to import every year as there was no clear path to finding them. The challenge was that the level of professional player that fit with the level of play in Austria was one with typically little or no professional experience, often a college graduate. Therefore there was no agency representing these players and no clear and direct way to get in contact with such players. I also knew from my 8 years of playing baseball in Austria and in international European competitions, that teams throughout our league and other European leagues were importing such players. Additionally, it was clear to me that the awareness stateside that baseball even existed in Europe was essentially non-existent.

I had discovered a niche market and it was around a game I was passionate about. Now all I had to do was build a platform and get the word out.

It was almost a decade ago today (Dec 15, 2012) and I dove right in during a three-week break from work over the holidays. On January 1st, 2013, the website went live.

Early on it was a struggle because I decided to figure out how to build a membership website with profiles all on my own. In hindsight, I should have saved the money and paid a professional to do it. If I had, the business would have reached where it is today in probably half of the time. On the plus side, I learned a lot and my technical skills improved.

For two years I was grinding it out while working full-time job on the side, raising two children and continuing to play baseball. I didn’t earn a single dime in those first two years while I focused on developing my brand as the friendly Canadian guy helping young baseball players live out their dream. In 2015, I decided I had built a good reputation and it was time to monetize the website. It was an easy sell; get paid to travel the world and play the game you love.

That same year I monetized, I took a big risk by reducing my hours at work to part-time and taking a significant pay cut in order to focus on building the business. As the website revenue started to grow, I added my first employee in the summer of 2015. He was an import baseball player —and member of the website— playing for the Athletics whom I was also housing. His name was Jimmy and he was the perfect fit, a charismatic young man who possessed a passion for baseball and helping others. Soon after, I expanded to women’s softball and soonafter added another employee, a softball player who was also a member of my website traveling the world playing softball.

2018 brought the long overdue redesign of the website. It was the first significant financial investment and it paid off. The website has since taken off, allowing me to add an administrator and social media manager to the team.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I was working in a job that was not my calling and that I was not passionate about. I enjoyed the job, but there was a void. Once I discovered my business and decided to go for it, I was all in. I would come home from my regular job and work on business for another 6 to 8 hours. I would work weekends and holidays, grinding it out for two years. I think what separates me and others like me from the rest, is that we are not chasing the quick buck, we truly care about the people we are serving, are passionate about what we do and are willing to work long hours for nothing. I didn’t earn a penny for two years.

There were many challenges along the way. I had very little money to throw at the website, so I had to figure out how to build a membership website from scratch on my own with no experience building websites. When the website would break down, I would have to figure it out by Googling keywords until I found some conversation in some forum somewhere. I did all the marketing, administration and finance of the business. I was the business.

What I have since learned, is that I should have saved some money and outsourced much of the work, especially the work I did not enjoy. For example, I should have hired a professional to build the website and perhaps even hire a business consultant. By trial and error, I learned a lot, but if I had outsourced much of the work, I would have expedited the success of the business.

What I want people to remember, is that the business from day one was about helping others and growing the same globally. Today, I have a small team of employees who all hold the same values in business.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I am not sure this question is relevant to the topic. If you want this information, please follow up with me.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to give my dad a shoutout. It was his entrepreneurial spirit that was passed down to me and since the launch of my business, he has been the number one fan and supporter of this project. Secondly, I would like to recognize Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, the first business podcast I listened to that helped guide me through those early years. I would also like to give a shoutout to my team, especially Jimmy who has been with me since 2015, for going over and above the call of duty for our members and the business.

Website: https://baseballjobsoverseas.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baseballjobsoverseas/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSZSytBOhrQ0dKOVOQCrBKQ

Other: https://softballjobsoverseas.com/

Image Credits
Jakub Pláteník ( all PBT_Sobota tagged photos)