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There comes a time in the evolution of any idea — or business — where rapid introspection is preferable to any long, drawn-out goal-setting or visioning development process. Over the course of 24 hours in early November, I had one of these periods of punctuated strategy equilibrium where I quickly went from a state of panic on how to enhance Spend Matters’ business model and revenues, to a state of confidence about what would be required to take this thing to the next commercial level. Given the spirit of openness and community that I think a transparent model such as Spend Matters can foster, I thought I’d share, in a series of three columns, a number of things that came out of this strategy-development process, leading off with what led up to this moment of introspection (and where Spend Matters is today). After this, I’ll share what took place during the planning session itself and our view of perceived needs in the market. And last, I’ll share the specific new offerings and updated business plan that emerged which will, we hope, help us double or more in size and revenue next year while never losing focus on what got us to this point: engaging — and hopefully informative — opinions and content. Let’s dig into this first area today .
Spend Matters has come a tremendously long way in the past twelve months. At the beginning of the 4th quarter in 2008, we had decent traffic, some recurring revenue from a handful of sponsors — usually four at one time — and a loyal readership base (although I will say that some of the most loyal readers always took pleasure in harassing me when they thought the quality of the content was falling). Perhaps most importantly, at that point Spend Matters really only had one voice: me. Until that I point, I had made my musings and opinions the centerpiece of Spend Matters. Earlier this year, I decided to add other voices to the mix, shaking things up a bit while continuing to contribute at my usual level. The result of adding more relevant voices to the mix was not only more relevant content, but fresh perspectives as well. This, combined with some introspection and subsequent changes around the type of content I wanted to write, helped drive Spend Matters to a new level of readership…
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