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"Getting an actual hobby made no sense to me, but since my wife is right 99.99% of the time, I figured it was just easier to get one and then figure out why I needed it later," he adds.

Benedetto considered his options. "Tennis seemed too much like work. Golf? Too hot. Bare-knuckle boxing? I was too old," he admits, but the real estate veteran did have a number of unpublished poems lying around, written for his wife and new son, Christian M. Benedetto III, who was born on Mar. 31, 2008.

Rather than go the traditional route, Benedetto opted to put the poems online and build a blog, which quickly evolved into the website DaddyOutpost.com.He purchased the domain name for $57 and used godaddy.com's hosting and support package to help with the build out. The downside, Benedetto says, is that the site "looked like it was built over a long weekend by a guy who was just guessing."

This led Benedetto to enlist the help of a friend, Luigi Tartara, who owns creative agency Tritonic in Newark and also has a young son. Tartara agreed to build out the site free of charge in exchange for one-third of all future profits. Along the way, Benedetto received insight from Larry Dell, a friend who runs a communications company and the father of two adult daughters, as well as Bob White, a sales associate at his real estate firm, who is the proud father of seven.

Content now runs the gamut from original blog posts and cartoons to viral videos. But it's accessible to dads with children of all ages. "We're encouraging people to spend time with their kids--no matter how old or young they are," says Benedetto.

More recently, DaddyOutpost.com has partnered with the Family Groove, an online magazine and regional resource guide for parents and parents-to-be, on cross-promotional opportunities. "We have also talked to some people from CaféMom.com, an online forum for mothers that brings in around 500,000 visitors per day, about an affiliate program," he says, adding that the site will also unveil some big-name bloggers in the near future.

Tritonic adds three new pieces of content to the site each day, which Benedetto says will be the case through the end of 2009. In early January, the site launched a Facebook-style social networking component that includes a profile option and an area where visitors can post pictures of their children. There's also a job board available, and Benedetto reveals that the site will incorporate a poker feature in the coming months.

Benedetto's inspiration was driven primarily by a lack of options. "Back in August of 2007, shortly after we found out Suzy was pregnant, I started doing research about pregnancy, being a dad and fatherhood," he reflects. "But I found very little useful information in any one place."

According to Benedetto, there are no less than 30 publications in the US on plumbing, but there are almost none that deal exclusively with fatherhood. "Dads make up around 18% of the planet, so we have a great market," he adds.

Benedetto also plans to host golf weekends or one-day seminars that focus on fatherhood, but don't look for him to quit his day job anytime soon. "I have a real estate company and have been in the field since the 1980s," he says. "But we are having a good time with this project."

Though he's hopeful the site will create a revenue stream, Benedetto is currently focused more on content creation and traffic. "In November, we had around 2,500 total viewers and we will probably hit 10,000 in January," he relates. The site also picked up its first paying advertiser, Florham Park, NJ-based IT company Fast-teks On-Site Computer Services. Also, 3% of the site's gross will go to nonprofits, including the Boys and Girls Club of New Jersey, along with several to-be-determined organizations.

Instant Insights /

HSB Real Estate Advisory Services' Benedetto

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