I need your help with something.
See, I’m facing a business decision: specifically, whether to continue to invest my cash into new engineering projects for Slope or basically go into “maintenance” mode in which the only engineering is to make sure things are running smoothly and tweak any bugs that get uncovered.
Now, I’ve been involved in computer-related businesses since the early 1980s, so I know a few things. One thing I know here is that I could invest $0 for the next decade in Slope, and I would probably retain the same number of existing subscribers that I have right now as if I put a million dollars into it. In other words, people are here already because they want to be here, and as much as they might appreciate new bells and whistles, it basically becomes an act of charitable giving on my part, since it isn’t going to garner me anyone new.
In past years, there have been times when I’ve had new features coming out at a ridiculous pace (like one per day, or even faster) and, yeah, people thought it was cool, but it didn’t do a thing for subscriptions. Empirically speaking, subscriptions fly higher when the market is volatile, they burn away when the market is calm. (And this is, of course, a one-two punch for me, since my trading does great in volatile periods, and my trading sucks when things are calm and/or bullish; so basically things are double-good or double-bad at any one moment).
OK, OK, so what’s the question, Tim? It’s simple: tell me what new product or service you would you like to see which ALSO has a high likelihood of bringing in NEW subscribers. See, I don’t mind making new stuff that you would like to see, but only if it also means the prospect for people to subscribe who otherwise would not have done so.
I’m kind of “done” with incremental improvements at this point. In other words, I could spend a bunch of cash and have:
- Twenty new SlopeRules;
- Dozens of new indicators;
- A dozen new drawing tools
And it would result in one single new person.
So tell me what you think the world would like to see from this site. This way, I can decide if I should just Leave Well Enough Alone and just keep Slope as an incredibly profitable, but painfully static, website or, alternately, create an exciting to-do list with projects to make this place even cooler than it already is.
I truly thank you for your thoughts, and please email me if you’ve got any gems.
