The project I launched with my partner last December has been consuming all my free time recently. It seems like my deal contests idea has picked up and we now have a few regulars who come to share deals every day. I work late nights adding functionality to the site and it seems to pay off nicely. No, not in monetary way. We have been in red since we launched and I don’t expect any profit for another year at least. Yeah, starting up is tough. ;-)
The experience however is greatly gratifying. On an average week day we get around 50-60 deal submissions and just about as many comments from our members. Unlike ProBargainHunter, Buxr is built around a generic open-source web platform and I enjoy the luxury of being able to add all the possible tweaks to make things convenient for bargain hunting and shopping, something I couldn’t have done with this blog. Wordpress is a great platform, but it is more like a Swiss Army knife. You can do many things with it but you will never be good at anything in particular.
So we have plenty of deals and comments at Buxr. What we don’t have enough of is opinions. Yes, opinions on shopping deals. The deals, even the best ones, don’t usually get more than 10-12 votes and this is not nearly enough to create a balanced out picture of how hot the promotion or a coupon really is. One - two members can easily sway the votes towards a certain niche/category. What is more important, members with friends can have much more influence on votes than those without (but this will probably always be an issue).
Either way, I think more participants would balance things out a bit and this is why starting next month we are launching one more contest. We will be rewarding members for inviting friends. Top 3 by the number of referrals will get cash prizes at the end of the month. We’ve got to find more people who could contribute to deal voting, and I don’t see how else we can do it effectively and without spending enormous amounts on marketing.
If you love bargain hunting and have friends who might enjoy it too, come and join us at Buxr.com for the next month contest. By the way, here is a photo and a guest blog post from our last month’s winner!
