LifeDev

I just publicly launched PopDeal today, a tech deals aggregator. In layman’s terms, it collects all of the latest technology deals from around the web onto one page. I had previously launched PopDeal in another form before, but it turns out that it had a fatal flaw.

It was crap.

Yep, I built a crappy website the first time around. Sure, the concept was interesting, but there were some key elements that I overlooked when building the website. I tried to start a site that had users submit deals that were voted on, and the best deals hit the homepage like Digg. I had almost no visitors after the initial launch, and the concept never took off.

Many new sites fail every day becuase they made many of the same mistakes I did. This article hopes to give some pointers to anyone hoping to build a kickin’ website the first time around.

1. Be vicious about deadlines and goals. I can’t stress this enough. If you’re going to build something, stay disciplined and focused on setting deadlines. If you don’t, you’ll spend too much time building features that won’t ever get used, and you’ll stray from your core concept. You’ll have a Frankenstein for a website before you know it.
2. Only launch the bare minimum. Start with a simple solution and build upon it later, keeping focused on the purpose of the website. There is a difference between what might be cool and what is beneficial. PopDeal is built around a really simple concept, but when I first launched it I tried to dress it up into something it wasn’t with voting features and other doodads that only took away from the focus. Only launch with what’s beneficial. Let your userbase decide what’s important after that.
3. User generated content is much more work than it looks. Yeah, I drank the Kool-aid and thought that I would take the Field of Dreams motto: “If you build it, they will come”. Nope. Did not happen. It’s a hard concept to master, and many people go into building a site based on user generated content unrealistically (including yours truly). Not only do you have to recruit users with incentive, you have to moderate them and keep them happy. Don’t think you’ll automatically have people willing to contribute to your site right from the start. Odds are it will take much longer, if it happens at all.
4. Know your audience. This one was crucial to the success failure of the first PopDeal. I thought that people who liked finding technology deals would also like to take the time to post them and vote on them. Wrong! Most people who look for deals are people who want to put for the least amount of resources into finding the deal. They weren’t going to take the time to post it. They were in search mode, not share mode. Now PopDeal is strictly powered by other deal sites. The searchers have less barriers to finding the right deal.
5. Keep a site updates blog. Surprisingly, keeping a blog on the progress of the site updates is a great way to keep you motivated. If you have readers holding you accountable and expecting changes to the site, you have more motivation to make your users happy. Plus, by growing your blog’s readership, you’ll give incentive for users to keep coming back to your site.
   Unfortunately, I didn’t start a blog until I had already re-launched PopDeal, but already I can see the benefits.

So there you have it. Check out PopDeal to see if I’ve really put my money where my mouth is, and to see if you think it’s a better concept. Hopefully I’ve given some helpful pointers and a good list of things not to do when developing a website.

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