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Over the last few weeks I’ve continued the research project of developing Downwind.com.au into a service and community for the aviation industry. Recently I felt that it was time that I took stock of the results and worked out whether I had the makings of a great business or just a fun hobby.
 A few things that should be noted first. I forgot how much fun it was to develop a domain! Seeing users come and enjoy what you’ve written and put together is fantastic. You can end up spending incredible amounts of time just wanting to make everyone happy.....and this is the great danger with development. Never forget that it’s a business and that means that you need to follow a plan and watch how much time and money you put into it.
For example, I recently had a user complain that he was not climbing the “social rankings” even though he’d contributed a lot to the site. I think that he coveted the number one user position....yes....the people are also in the aviation industry. I tried to make him happy but in the end I just said to myself, “He’s not my market and will create trouble later on. Good –bye!” It’s sometimes a tough call to do this sort of thing but ultimately it’s a business so move on!
So how much actual hard cold cash have I spent on developing Downwind? Including all software for the directories, communities and plug-ins to give it a little pizzazz I’ve spent about $400 plus $700 on promoting the site. This isn’t very much and I’m now have the site to the point where it doesn’t take much of my time for actual content each week.
An important innovation has been the development of the Aviation directory. This will eventually contain a listing for every Australian aviation company and a way for them to upgrade their listing (for a fee). I was a bit concerned about how much I should charge so I went down to the local airport and spoke to a business owner to ask him what he thought. His response was immediate, “I’m in!”
That was a little too eager so I tweaked the pricing a little more and I’m not good to go. A complete platinum level package will set a business back $AUD1740 per year. My next task is to contact a number of aviation companies and encourage them to upgrade their listings. Once I’ve developed the script then it’s over to a staff member that I’ve already interviewed for the job.
I’ll keep you posted on how I go with selling advertising for the directory as it’s only one of the many revenue streams that can be generated from Downwind. Each one of them can build on the next.
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