Lesley Eccles, founder of Fanduel, is in a good mood. The company has just raised a series A funding due to its success in the market. Time for an update and interview with Lesley:

So, what's the update on the company?

We are transforming the fantasy sports industry in the US. There are 30million people who play fantasy sports each year and there has been little in the way of innovation over recent years. Our game, FanDuel (launched in July 09) takes the traditional way of playing a season-long fantasy football or baseball game and shortens it into just one day. It's a completely new way of playing - fast and a lot of fun.

The company behind FanDuel is Hubdub Ltd. Originally based in Edinburgh, we've recently opened an office in New York in addition to our San Francisco base and now have a staff of 15 people and a turnover this year of over $2m.

And your role?

I am co-founder and Marketing Director. We do a lot of online advertising and social media campaigns and have established the partnerships with many of the large newspapers in the US.

Why another round of financing?

We raised $4m in a new round of funding in September this year led by Piton Capital in London and our existing investors, Pentech Ventures and the Scottish Investment Bank. We had raised $1.2m in January 2009 which we used to prove the initial concept and get to the point of product-market fit. Now we want to use this round to scale up the product and the team.

How was it to go after funding again, what did you do different this round?

When we went out for the first round in 2008, we had a different game, one which didn't have such a clear business model. It was also a time of great uncertainty in the market -

we actually pitched to Pentech the day that Lehmen Brothers went bust!

But they saw the potential in our team and knew that we would find a way to make the business model work.

Revenue, a proven distribution strategy and real product-market fit.

When we went out the second time, we had a game which was making revenue, a proven distribution strategy and real product-market fit - the FanDuel players were hugely engaged in the product. If you can tick those three boxes, doors start to open more easily!

Any learnings which you can tell other entrepreneurs to learn from?

Most of the things that you do won't work. It will feel like you're running one marathon after another but never getting there. The biggest challenge is just to keep going, to keep having faith and to keep believing in your team and your product.

Having said that, if you truly believe that your business model or product is fundamentally flawed, do not be afraid to pivot and completely change your strategy or your product - just do it as quickly and as cleanly as possible.

Which things do you know now, that you did not know when you started?

The list is absolutely endless. I came into this business after a career in management consulting (and a career break to have a family) where you very rarely get to see something through to completion.

With a start-up, you have to wear many hats - whether it's setting up a PPC campaign, establishing an affiliate program or purchasing advertising, you have to do it all from scratch (with no experience!) - and see it through.

European companies in US: any general learnings?

It is possible but it's difficult - and eventually you do need to have a presence in your market. Hubdub has five founders all from the UK, but now over half of our team is American and based over there.

Because we weren't in the target market, it meant that we have spent a lot of time doing customer development - really understanding our customers and what they need - much more so than I would say is typical in a start-up.

Often it is too easy for start-up founders to have a cool idea that they would use themselves and they think that if they would use it, then everyone else is bound to use it.

Biggest dream?

My biggest dream is that daily fantasy sports becomes the de-facto standard way of playing fantasy sports for those 30 million players.