Steve, Congratulations on the increased traffic.
I hope I'm not putting you on the spot, but I have a couple of questions regarding mtbnj. There are no right or worng answers; I'm just curious about the motivations behind the scenes.
* What are the long term goals of mtbnj.com? Is it a labor of love? Or do you have aspirations of becoming a profitable business at some point? Both?
* Who currently pays the operating expenses for the site? Bandwidth fees, Web hosting fees, Race team salaries (just kidding), etc. And why?
* Is there a formal structure to the management of the site? Officers? Meetings?
There's been a lot of positive change around here lately with new Admins and moderators so it just got me thinking. My intent is not to just kick the bees nest but to understand all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.
hey jeff- thanks for noticing! i guess that means we're actually doing something positive for the community. i can't speak entirely for steve (well, i can but...
😀) but...
1. our goals still aren't 100% laid out for the long term. in the short term, what i can tell you is that we are trying to establish ourselves as THE destination for cycling related info in the "rock" garden state. we have some ideas, we have some goals, but a lot of the real long term stuff is still TBD. one of the main things we are trying to do in the "short" term is give our LBS folks in the state a way to be competitive with the giant mail order superstores. by doing this, we think everyone wins: you get the stuff you want at a competitive price, the shops get more of your hard earned dollars and we all help keep the lights on in the shops that we need to fix our bikes. we have a unique situation in this state where we are very close to NYC, CT and PA and i'm fairly sure that we pull a fair amount of mtbers out of those surrounding areas. we have an obligation to provide them with the best possible information. oh, did i mention that we want to ride a lot more and be able to provide the folks that come here with free stuff? yeah, free stuff is always good. just ask norm, he's full of free advice!
😀
1a. it a labor of love? yes. do we have aspirations of becoming a profitable business at somepoint? um, well, we don't particularaly want to LOSE money, but at this point i don't see this being profitable anytime in the near future. as anyone that goes into business for themselves knows, it's not always about making money (it sure helps...) but more about doing something you love. that's about where steve and i are on this.
2. who pays? steve and i do and ultimately some of our sponsors/advertisers will offset the costs a bit. as i mentioned, we have a lot of ideas that we're going to try to implement to make this place a much more useful site in terms of actual searchable knowledge and still try to keep the "local brew pub" atmosphere. why do we pay? well, i suppose it's because we haven't asked you to pay yet. btw, would you like to?
😀 seriously though, we have a unique property that i think, we think, is very marketable considering the demographic profile of the state and surrounding areas.
3. there is no formal structure. i am the head muckity muck in charge of nothing, steve is the admin, norm is a super mod and walter is the third party. oh, and brett is a personal assistant to the CFO of AO. so, no.
the real limiting factor in all of this is time, a lot of which neither steve nor i have. hopefully as the next few months roll around and we get into the "off season" we'll be able to start really running with things. the picnic is the first big event and we hope to at the very least have the stickers and t-shirts ready to go. maybe hats, maybe a few other things. we'll have to see. hopefully that answers some of it jeff. feel free to fire away.
i think congratulations are in order to shaggz and jake on the success of the site under their 'wings'(is it just me or does it stink in here?😀 ), and thanks to jason, for starting and building this wonderful place.
thanks sean. that smell is sausage burning.
😀
