Hi Friends!
As 2019 draws to a close, I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you that have participated in this community this year. There are a few members in particular that I’d like to thank—@guystein, @loklav for their work moderating. @IanReese for his several incredibly detailed answers. I especially appreciate his willingness to share knowledge.
This year felt like a move in the right direction. To-date we have more than 100 members and get about 50,000 pageviews a month. This summer I joined the Amazon Affiliate program to monetize the site. It makes enough to cover hosing costs and I’m now able to start investing back into the community. With that said, here are a few things that are top of mind for next year:
More product comparisons
Virtually all of the #reviews to-date have been about products I’ve researched and purchased. I’d like to branch out a bit and purchase several products within a category to review. Now that the site is making money, I can invest more into this type of content.
I’ve started a discussion about this and have budgeted up to $800 to spend on Nespresso Machines. Own a Nesspresso? If you have any favorites or questions about the machines please comment on that topic. I’m scoping out test criteria and what machines to compare early next year.
Paid reviews
There are a few people I’ve prodded about reviewing products. However, 99 percent of the reviews on this site are still from me. I’d like to get others involved, but am unsure about the best way to do that. You can look at my Away, Airmega or ROIDMI review and see the bar I have for this type of content. A ton of sites publish generic reviews without ever seeing the product. I won’t allow that.
I am unsure about rates or timelines for paid reviews. It’s going to be a bit of an experiment. If you’re interested in doing one of these reviews. You can either comment here or DM me. I’d love to chat about it.
Onboarding improvements
The onboarding process and welcome email are pretty generic right now. I’d like to tweak it a bit more to help people engage—and learn how to engage in the community. This mostly comes down to better copy. Perhaps, there will be a few flow tweaks.
Vision
This is something I’ll continue to work on. I’d like Product Dork to be the place where people come when trying to figure out the right product for them. I’d like it to be like Consumer Reports or The Wirecutter, but I want it to be more engaging. I want to hear from you all!
Anyways, thanks for listening and participating!
Best,
Sam