What I Did On My Summer Vacation

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What a summer! The We are Network has begun to blossom as we’ve gone from one channel to three channels to seven in less than a year… with more on the horizon! Here’s a bit of a breakdown of how it happened…

My name is Bob Rombach and I’m the creator of the We are Network. My family and I moved back to our hometown of Grantsburg on August 24th, 2017… basically one year ago.

When we made the decision to move back to the place we called home (even though we’d been in Illinois for the past five years) I told my wife, Renae, that I would fire We are Grantsburg back up. (I had started wearegrantsburg.com in 2011 in which I blogged and posted audio replays of the games I did on WXCX radio, with their permission of course). I knew people enjoyed it and since I hadn’t given up the Facebook page I created back then, I had a built-in audience of around 200 people leftover from that. A nice start. Maybe within a month or two I could crank out some good content and maybe push 300 followers.

Well,  2,228 followers later, and nearly three-quarters of a million minutes of our videos watched, it’s safe to say its popularity has blown my mind.

With the excitement growing in Grantsburg, I began believing that the dream of expanding to the entire conference could become a reality. And much sooner than I had anticipated.

I sat down with the Burnett County Sentinel editor, Jonathan Richie very early on to do an interview about my new business. During it, he asked me where I saw this business going. I hesitated before I spoke, because I have learned to be careful with my dreams, goals, and ambitions. Not because I was afraid of telling Jonathan himself, but because I knew it would soon become public. In fact, he was the first person, besides my wife, that I told my dream to. And, of course, it was public soon thereafter.

We started “We are Siren” during the basketball season and added “We are Luck” for the spring sports. We had a lot of people start following those new ventures, too and the decision was made to move forward with the expansion over the summer. Now we have seven “We are’s” in the mix after adding Unity, SCF, Webster, and Frederic to start this fall.

The biggest challenge has been finding the right people to help make this work, and I’m so glad to say we’ve had some tremendous people step up to help make this a reality. They type of person I look for need these characteristics, in this order:

1. Love their town. Their town is the best. Others are great, but theirs is number one!
2. Know their people. Community starts with families and I want people who are plugged into their communities and its families.
3. They believe in what we’re doing. 
4. They’re knowledgeable in the sport they’re covering.

I believe in community. I believe that each of our communities has its own heartbeat and personality. I believe that ought to be celebrated. 

I am beyond excited with what is happening and how well received this venture has been by everyone. We are trying very hard to put out excellent content. We are somewhat limited by things like technology, internet availability, and experience. I hope we can make up for those things with enthusiasm, excitement, and a genuine love of our communities.

Thank you to everyone who has allowed us to touch your life in some way through this. I love hearing about grandmothers in Florida, or Arizona, or Michigan who can see their grandkids play or perform because of this. I love hearing from our service men and women who are able to experience a little bit of home while they are away. I love hearing from people on Main Street who were at the game but rewatched it later.

I believe we’re only getting started as we close in on the anniversary of our first live stream (which I share below) from September 22, 2017. We’ve already come a long way from that first stream and I’m excited to be on the journey with you.