Welcome to Puckjunkie.com!
As many of our past visitors will know, Puckjunkie
has been around for about 5 years in one form or another. Over that time we
have grown and evolved: first from a website providing fantasy hockey
analysis for free, to one that provided articles (free) and
merchandise (for sale) to a site that tried to provide analysis (free),
merchandise (for sale) and statistical forecasts and predictions (for sale).
Along with the evolution of the website, has gone the evolution of our
business model: from advertising based (failure), to spin-off
branded merchandise (mediocre), to sale of intellectual property (pretty
good so far). And also along the way, we have learned about our strengths
and weaknesses as a company, as business men (yup, we're all male - well,
mostly) and as individuals.
What have been our key lessons so far? Well first
off, we'll only do so much for free (i.e. for fun, the love of the game, the
challenge, etc.). Yah, we might write up a mean analysis of a trade, or come
up with a unique methodology for ranking players, but in the end we had to
nag ourselves, and each other, to make regular changes to the website, and
to put some fantasy hockey related stuff together at the last minute to
fulfill our obligations to our readers. And along the way, something went
missing - the fun. Doing this stuff became work - and poor paying work at
that! And that wasn't what any of us were looking for when we started this
venture in the first place. Secondly, none of us are happy with doing a
half-assed job. It made us feel shabby - and we have nothing if we don't
have our pride!
So where does that leave us now? Well to start, we
think we have finally found a business model that works - at least for the
time being. We are going to continue to compile and sell cutting edge
fantasy hockey forecasts and predictions - our cheatsheets. We will continue
to offer that product at an affordable price, regularly updated and
continually enhanced. This season we hope to be able to offer the
cheatsheets with more information than ever, with more selection and choice
for our customers. We are hoping to take further advantage of technology to
make every cheatsheet fully customisable for every customer. We are also
planning to provide our regular series of specialised pre-season articles
including the Top 30 Prospects, Top Sleeper Picks, Highest Risk Picks and
our Eastern and Western Conference Previews. There may be others included in
that mix too.
Then there is what we won't be doing. We are going
to move away from trying to publish regular articles on hockey related
events on the website. Rather than setting an expectation that we cannot
meet, we've decided instead to concentrate on what we do that is unique -
not to mention, has some return on investment. This means we will not be
doing any ongoing analysis of trades after the first few weeks of the
season, nor of other hockey-related news. Rumours and injury analysis may
continue to be published on an ad hoc basis, but like all our other
articles, will be distributed to our cheatsheet customers via email or
secured access (we're still in the process of determining which). The
Puckjunkie website will become a portal for the sales of our product, with
very limited editorial content. The Puckjunkie archives will remain, for
those who wish to surf through our past work (and because we really can't
stand to think of all that typing gone to waste!). Oh yah, we're gonna take
down the photos too.
From a paying customer point of view we're hoping
that this change will be a plus: more time for us to spend on perfecting the
cheatsheet, less time spent honing the free product. We recognise that it
won't please everyone though (we get a lot of emails complaining when we
don't keep the free stuff updated - generally from non-paying customers...).
We apologise in advance to anyone who feels left out in the cold by our
changes. We hope you will stick with us and give our new model a chance,
because we think you'll be pleased by the results. And from our end, we
think it will put the fun back in our "work" too.
If you have any comments on the new Puckjunkie.com,
please
drop us a note. Suggestions are always welcome.
So with all that said, we're going to get back at
it. The 2003/04 season is just around the corner, and if the upheaval of the
summer has been any indication, we're in for a doozey of a year! The first
cheatsheets should be ready by early September - but that's only if we stop
lollygagging around here and put our noses to the grindstone. So leave us
alone already - we're "working"! |
