mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
Mark Smith ([staff profile] mark) wrote in [site community profile] dw_biz2009-08-17 11:35 am
Entry tags:

semi-regular business Q&A session

It's been a while since the last one, so [staff profile] denise suggested that we do another Dreamwidth-the-Business Q&A session.

But first, some data. One of the things that we promised when we started this site - and still do! - is that we will be open with the details of how the business is run, how it's doing, where your money is going, etc. Given that, here's the breakdown of our first few months of operations (discounting May):

June: $7,500 income
July: $5,000 income
August (thus far): $2,500 income

This is pretty much what we expected. More people buying accounts towards the beginning of the site, tapering off as we come up towards the various renewal periods. We're comfortable with these numbers and trends so far.

Our current monthly expenses come to about $6,000. This breaks down roughly 50/50 into "server costs" ($3k/month) and "people costs" ($3k/month). We are presently paying a few people as contractors to do time-sensitive and business-critical work for us. (Systems administrators, ToS enforcement, and some development time.)

We are not, currently, paying any salary to Denise or myself. (Which is one thing we really hope to fix...but stay tuned for today's news post.)

Summary:

Dreamwidth is running slightly in the red, but has enough money in the bank to keep the site running for several years at the current run rate. We have a few things in the pipeline which we hope will allow for us to increase the attractiveness of the site to paying customers (features) as well as give us more sources of revenue (credits, virtual gifts, etc).

There will be more data about our next-6-months plan in the upcoming news post. But for now, if you have any particular questions about the business, things you want clarified, or anything, please comment. Denise and I will be happy to answer!
chris: (crash smash)

When do people most frequently pay for Paid Accounts?

[personal profile] chris 2009-10-13 08:29 am (UTC)(link)
Partly with reference to this suggestion, but partly as standalone questions:

1) Do you see spikes in Paid Account sign-ups (or, I suppose, resubscriptions) relatively soon after each new post to [site community profile] dw_news?

2) Does it make a difference in generating Paid Account sign-ups whether you appeal for people to sign up for Paid Accounts in [site community profile] dw_news posts or not?

3) Do you see most activity at the same time of the month that you first permitted people to start paying for their accounts, on the grounds that a large chunk of your Paid Accounts started paying at the very start and so will expire at the same time of the month in whichever month they expire?
denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)

Re: When do people most frequently pay for Paid Accounts?

[staff profile] denise 2009-10-18 10:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Just wanted to let you know that we're not ignoring this question -- we just haven't yet put together the tools necessary to do analysis this closely!